Page 3 of Come in with the Rain
I wave a hand, trying to be casual about it, but I can’t meet her eyes anymore. “I’m perfectly content with my life.”
Her thick, red-painted lips pull into a line. “Perfectly content is a perfectly sad way to spend your life just because someone pays your bills and fucks you good.”
An image flashes across my mind: Mickey panting above me, staring at the headboard while he hits me so deep that I’m keening, thinking about some email he has to write or some program he needs to get back to. And as soon as it’s over, he’s gone. Back to work and back to ignoring me until bedtime.
“Yeah, and flirting with any random man who steps into my home just because he accidentally saw me naked is a perfectly sad way to completely fuck up my life.”
Abby looks shocked, like I kicked her under the little round café table. “I’m not talking about the contractor anymore. I’m talking about what you want.” She settles back into her chair, putting her red Riverside Coffee apron on display, her little white nametag that readsManager Abby Tateclipped to it.
“I love Mickey,” I say, feeling defensive even though Abby and I are always careful to skirt around potential arguments. “He just doesn’t live in the same universe as us.”
“Yeah, that much is obvious. I should get back to work.” She glances at the clock on her cell phone, and I know I’ve made her mad. Or at least frustrated her in some way. Stella Hart: walking disappointment.
CHAPTER4
ADAM
Mickey Kline owns a two-story, five-bedroom condo made of marble and glass, right on the Patapsco River. I don’t know exact numbers, but from experience, I can only assume that a place like this in Baltimore has to be worth close to six million. If Mickey Kline was just the CEO of a company he built himself, perhaps he wouldn’t be the most famous CEO on the East Coast, but Mickey Kline started his multi-billion dollar robotics company in an abandoned warehouse in Cherry Hill when he was fifteen, and he continues to be the leading mind in robotics in the Northern Hemisphere. Add in that the guy also has a famous six-pack, and he sort of blows all us other guys out of the water.
And I’m standing in his very large, very expensively furnished living room, covered in caulk and thin-set, when his beautiful girlfriend returns. I see her in the bank of screens on the wall first, stopping just outside the front door and taking a deep breath before coming inside. As soon as the door closes behind her, she spots me standing at the end of the hallway, and for a second she looks shocked, her mouth popping open on a gasp so slight that I don’t hear it so much as see it. There must be close to two hundred feet of hardwood floor between us, but our eyes meet, and unlike before, she doesn’t look away, doesn’t blush or stammer. She doesn’t waver.
Adrenaline starts to pulse through me. Should I apologize to her? Should I look away so she doesn’t think I’m some sort of creep who’s going to stalk her? I should look away. Now, maybe? Now?Now?
“What’s your name?” She has such a quiet voice, like she knows she doesn’t need to speak too loudly for people to listen, and a hint of a Northern accent, though I can’t put my finger on an exact area.
“Adam Lake, ma’am.”
At that, she snorts and walks across the living room toward where I’m still standing frozen. When she’s only a few feet from me, she stops. “I don’t think anyone has ever called me ma’am before. Maybe the tellers at the bank.”
From somewhere behind me, Shawn says, “Adam is very old-fashioned.” I had no idea he was back there. Did he see her come in? Did he see her notice me? Did he see the way she stopped in her tracks?
“Right.” She laughs this little breath of a laugh. It’s a sound that has my eyes lowering to her mouth, like a heat-seeking missile.Not for you, my rational mind whispers.
I’m immediately plagued with thoughts of this morning: Mickey Kline answering the door in nothing but jeans and his sweat, that banging of the headboard, the sound of her screams, the expanse of her long beautiful legs and the roundness of her ass.
“And you are?” Stella steps around me to address Shawn.
“Shawn Meyers.”
“It’s nice to meet you both,” she says. I wonder if Shawn can see it, the way her eyes convey this bizarre secret that we have between the two of us. Even if I wanted to apologize now, I’ve missed my opportunity. I can’t do it with Shawn standing right next to me. I don’t want anyone to know what I saw, don’t want to give anyone the chance to turn it into something it wasn’t.
She steps politely around us and disappears down the hallway toward her bedroom. I watch her go, the sway of her hair and her dress and those hips that I know the shape of under those clothes.Not for you.
“Adam, man, what are you doing?” Shawn asks, his voice pitched low.
“Nothing.” I turn without looking at him, stomping past him and into the bathroom.
“Like hell you’re not doing anything,” he grumbles, following me.
“I was just talking to her.” I stay focused on what I’m doing, caulking the new sink I just put in.
“Sure,” Shawn says from somewhere behind me. “But making googly eyes at your client’s girlfriend is the fastest way to get your ass sacked.”
“Would you fucking lay off?” I growl at him, finally looking up. He’s standing beside me, his own caulk gun in his hand, and for a moment, I see a flash of him in Marine colors, an M27 IRA in his hand, baking in the sun. But that’s not right. Shawn wasn’t there. He wasn’t a Marine. I shake the thought away and go back to the sink.
“Just looking out for you, man,” Shawn says, and this time, his voice has gone soft.
“Yeah, I know,” I say down into the sink.
