Just Surrender.... Kathleen O'Reilly

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СКАЧАТЬ with Anita to drive the cab, and yes, Barnaby could always twist her arm—not hard because of her must-be-recessive sucker-gene—but still…

      At least his hair was mussed, she thought as he settled his briefcase neatly next to him on the seat. The rain had darkened his rampant locks black with one woebegone strand hanging damply into his eyes. Impatiently he pushed at it, restoring it to its normal spot.

      It was a pity because he was so much more appealing when he was mussed. But hey, not everyone could identify and exploit their intrinsic advantages like Edie could. Not that she would say a word. Trench coats never took criticism well, so she pulled onto the Belt Parkway, aka Pothole Crater of America, and eased into the slow-moving traffic. “Where to, mister?”

      “The Belvedere Hotel,” he answered, which startled her only because the Belvedere was more than a little naughty, completely not a Windsor knot type place—unless the ties were the kinky silk and satin kind. Edie scrutinized her passenger with new, more appreciative eyes. Kink?

      “Seriously?”

      “Just drive,” he instructed, his voice crisply impersonal, accustomed to being obeyed. Edie, never a lapdog, tapped her fingers on the wheel.

      “Meeting somebody at the hotel?” she asked.

      Cooly he met her eyes in the mirror, then glanced at the ID tag on the visor. “You don’t look like Barnaby.”

      “The marvel of medical science. Two years of hormones, a few surgeries and voilà, Barbara.”

      “Not likely,” he muttered, choosing to spoil her fun with his nay-saying truth. When she glanced in the mirror again, that lock of hair had stubbornly fallen back into his eyes. Edie smiled. Sometimes there was a God, and sometimes She had a sense of humor.

      “Barnaby’s my ex,” she admitted.

      “Your ex lets you drive his cab? That has to be illegal.”

      Edie shrugged. To her the law was another constricting set of mandates, much like the Windsor knot. “His Uncle Marty is some hoo-haw at the taxi and limousine commission. I don’t think they’re actually related—it’s an implied relationship, informal and forged through extensive bribes. Barnaby gets away with more than most.”

      “What’s your real job?”

      “Real job?” Edie scoffed. “What is that, exactly? Some greed-inspired drudgery that people consider socially acceptable. Eight hours of vomitus detail, mind-eroding minutia and arguments over possibly purloined office supplies. No thank you. However, in the interest of full disclosure and because I don’t want to get Uncle Marty in trouble, I don’t drive the cab very often. Mainly when Barnaby sets up a date with Sasha, which usually falls on Thursdays when he’s supposed to have class—not that he’ll be at school, because he dropped out last semester.”

      “Why all the secrecy?” he asked, and immediately Edie knew that he had never had an overbearing, interfering family. Not that she had one, either. But she’d always longed for one—something big with lots of loud brothers and sisters, like the ones on sitcoms.

      As she cruised through the toll booths, she decided to let him in on the ins and outs of the American Family Dynamic. “They keep the relationship in the closet because Barnaby’s family doesn’t approve. She’s from Oklahoma, and his parents are really uptight about the whole situation because they have this weird anti-Oklahoma thing, so sometimes he calls me up, and I drive the cab. Usually on a Thursday, which I like because it’s a good night for a people person like myself.”

      With a sharp veer to the left, she shot in front of a cabbie who hadn’t learned the ropes, and then swore as the traffic ground to a full stop. Tonight the Belt was packed with cars, red brake lights glowing eerily through the rain. Somewhere up ahead, there was the unfulfilled promise of road construction.

      Given the pouring rain, it followed that there would be no crews on the job. Which left only the department of transportation-mandated lane closures. There was a screwy logic to New York, you just had to embrace it. Mr. Trench Coat wasn’t the embraceable type.

      Seeing an opening two lanes over, she sped up before slamming on the brakes, and then tried not to smile when Mr. Trench Coat hit his head.

      Edie believed there was a certain responsibility in playing the part of a New York cabbie. There were expected rude behaviors and bad-driving norms. Frankly, it was all fiction—well, not all—but Edie chose to give people their money’s worth.

      “You don’t care that your ex is seeing someone new?” he asked, completely calm.

      “We didn’t click,” she explained as she creatively maneuvered the traffic, but not once did he blink, swear or wipe sweat from his brow. Damn it.

      After jamming down on the horn at one excruciatingly slow Jersey driver, she grinned and then cursed the entire garden state to various transportation woes including rate hikes, speeding ticket quotas and exploding water mains, with liquid glowing green.

      A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that her passenger was ignoring her driving, which disappointed her and made her wonder if she was losing her touch. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed.

      “I tried to make it work,” Edie continued, dodging to hit every road crater that she could. “The sex was pretty good, but Barnaby never knew what to talk about, no imagination. Not a romantic bone in his—frankly, a little on the skinny-side—body. I have to tell ya, it got boring fast. Never a good sign in a relationship. Besides, a woman can tell. Within five minutes I know if a guy is the one.”

      “Five minutes? That long?” She heard the disbelief in his voice, but she had been confronted by doubters before, and Edie loved to argue. There were universal truths in the world, especially when it came to romance, and the more men that were educated in said truths, the better for womenkind everywhere.

      “Oh, sure, pretend you don’t do the same thing. Science has proven that people know pretty much instantly. I prefer not to waste my time. Life’s too short to ignore what’s in front of your nose. Or what’s not.” Much of what she said was complete nonsense, but the last part was true.

      “And what are these signs that a person is supposed to be looking for to recognize the one?”

      He was mocking her, making fun of what he thought was foolish, silly and possibly naive. She hated that her shoulders immediately tensed, but she had been branded the fool before—by people whose opinion mattered—and it didn’t bother her. Much.

      “You can think whatever you want, but as for me, I’m looking for lightning. Thunder. AC/DC playing in my head. The world has to tilt and shift—and I have to forget how to breathe.”

      “That’s not love, that’s stress cardiomyopathy.”

      She knew that man-tone, that Sahara-dry voice, dismissing anything that couldn’t be proven through the scientific method. As if love could be proven or disproven. It simply was. “Wiseass, aren’t you?”

      Obviously accustomed to the insult, he chose to ignore it. “How often have you experienced these symptoms?”

      “Never.”

      “You’re setting yourself up for failure,” he pronounced, a blow to Hallmark, romance and the entire speed-dating industry.

      “Life СКАЧАТЬ