My Gigolo (19 page)

“You’d have told me if you had anything I needed to worry about.”

A grin curved his mouth, and he wrapped his arms around her. She trusted him. She had defended him to her friends, she’d given him the most notable blowjob of his life, and she trusted him.

Maybe he wasn’t wasting his time after all.

The phone rang, and she put aside her book with a slight frown. She couldn’t imagine that her boss would be calling, and the only other person who used her land line was—

Sighing, she climbed out of the porch swing, hurried inside, and picked up the handset.

“Phil, why don’t you ever call my cell?”

A snort. “I don’t want to be responsible for even one more repetition of that stupid song.”

“You simply have no taste.” But she knew he hadn’t called to discuss her choice of ringtone. “What’s on your mind?”

“I think you know.”

“What say you spell it out for me?”

Her long-time friend sighed. “Gabe, do you know what you’re doing?”

Glad her phone was cordless, she wandered over to the couch and perched on the arm. “I thought so until last night.”

“That’s not a good place to be. I mean, what’s really going on?”

“You talked to him, Phil. Surely he laid it out for you. There’s nothing going on.”

A long pause. “Is he still there?”

“He’s outside mowing the lawn.” Despite the serious nature of the call, she found herself grinning smugly. “The Old Biddy Patrol is out in full force. It’s a riot.”

“I can imagine.” A tinge of amusement colored his voice for a moment. “And yes, I did talk to him, but I want to hear your side of it.”

She crossed an arm under her breasts. “There are no sides. He shows up for a weekend every now and then, and we have sex. He doesn’t even call otherwise, except to ask if I’m free on a given weekend. How is there another side to that?”

“Put that way, I guess it’s easy not to see it like I do.”

Frowning, she shifted. “And how do you see it?”

He huffed a grunt. “I’m not sure now. I just…where are you planning to go with this? Is there any possible good outcome here?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Gabe, you can’t run around with him and introduce him to your friends without it becoming a ‘thing’. When does sex stop being sex and start becoming a relationship? What happens when—”

She cut him off. “There is no relationship here. He doesn’t call and leave me cutesy messages. I don’t call him for advice on my underwear. We haven’t met each others’ families. In fact, I’m not even sure he has one. I don’t know any of his friends, and he just now met you two. How could this be misconstrued as a relationship?”

“Damn it, I just said that how you put it, I can see where you’re coming from. I’m trying to get
you
to see where
I’m
coming from.”

“And where is that?”

His voice softened. “I’ve been your friend practically since you moved here, but I’m talking to you as a big brother now. Just think what happens if you start liking him. If you start loving him. And say you forget who he is and introduce him to, say, your boss, and your boss’s wife does what Karen did last night?”

She winced, her eyes squeezing shut.

“Would you pull out the big words like you did on Bitchzilla? Would you give up everything to be with him knowing that, at any time, you might bump into someone else who’s paid to have sex with him?”

She felt sick. The pleasant, quiet morning vanished like a fart in the wind, and she wanted to climb back into bed and pretend that none of this had happened.

“What do you suggest I do?” Even her voice sounded wrong—tight and croaking.

“Get out before it’s too late.”

Swallowing hard, she whispered, “What if it’s already too late?”

“Don’t tell me—”

“No. Not yet.” She shook her head, eyes still tightly shut. “But I like him. He makes me happy.”

“Are you happy right now?”

“I was before you called.”

He coughed a laugh, pitiful though it sounded. “Look, I can’t tell you how to live your life. I won’t stop talking to you because you’re dating a male prostitute—”

“I’m not dating him—”

“—but I will tell you this: this is not an isolated incident. Unless you keep him locked up in your house, you
will
run into evidence of who he wa—who he is, and you
will
have to sit across the table from someone he’s screwed and pretend not to hate it.”

Forcing a chuckle that felt about as natural as a mouse birthing a whale, she tossed her hair and looked out the window at Jack’s shirtless, passing figure. Dirty and sweat-streaked, he still looked like he’d stepped out of a magazine. She smiled softly.

“Speaking of Bitchzilla, did Doug really break up with her?”

“See, you’re changing the subject here, but I’m gonna let you do it because I think you hear what I’m saying.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get on with it.”

He snorted. “Well, I’d call it more of a trial separation. She must be damn good in bed, is all I can say, because he swears she just had a little too much to drink and didn’t know what she was saying.”

“Did she have anything to drink?”

“An amaretto sours. One.”

She gagged. “God, why is he dating her again?”

“He’s not, currently, but he’s already talked to her today to listen to her explanations and apologies, so I predict that it’s only a matter of time.”

“I guess I can’t really point fingers there. After all, I refuse to give up my gigolo.”

He choked, and she found her first real laugh of the conversation.

“Damn. There is something so wrong with you.”

“Get off the phone, already, O Sayer of Doom.”

“Will you at least think about it?”

Her laughter passed at his serious tone. “I will.”

“That’s all I can ask. Oh, and if it makes a difference…”

She raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“He seems like a nice enough guy. You know, for a man-whore.”

Snorting, though she felt like the world had tilted the other direction, she hung up on him.

She didn’t jump on him at the door, which he half-expected. Nor did she seem to hear him come in.

“Gabe?”

“In here.”

Compared to the brilliant afternoon sunlight outside, the house’s gloom made it difficult to see more than her vague outline in the kitchen. Why were the lights off?

“What are you doing?’

“Baking.”

He waited for more, but she seemed disinclined to elaborate. The smile he’d worn through the door faded, and he rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. They didn’t want to adjust after two hours of squinting in the sun, and something told him that seeing her would probably help him determine her mood.

Or maybe not. He’d never heard her voice with such a profound lack of inflection.

“Do you want some company?”

“Okay.”

Using the T-shirt in his hand to wipe off some of the sweat on his face and down his back, he walked across the living and dining rooms, stopping on the dining side of the breakfast bar. She didn’t look up from her cookie dough or the stars and flowers she’d already cut. Sugar cookies, then.

“Is something wrong?”

A shrug.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

A noncommittal noise in her throat.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No.”

One less thing. He leaned on the bar and frowned at her hands, wondering what was so interesting about them that she refused to look up from them.

“Can I help?”

A noncommittal noise
and
a shrug. This was going nowhere.

“Gabe? Do you want me to leave you alone while you bake?”

She didn’t answer, so he reached out, tucked a finger under her chin and lifted. Her eyes had darkened almost to black and seemed huge in her pale face. He felt himself pale as well.

“Oh, God. Did you get bad news? Is Mike okay?”

“She’s fine.”

“But you did get bad news?”

She shook her head—not in the negative, but to dislodge her chin. “I’m fine.”

Worried, he stood fully. She didn’t look fine. She looked like a holocaust survivor. But she obviously had nothing to say and, short of interrogating her more fully, he had no way of finding out what had happened to bring his laughing, crookedly grinning Gabe down to this monosyllabic shadow of herself.

As far as he knew, she’d been fine when he went out to mow. He’d even seen her sitting in the porch swing reading, though he lost track of her when she came inside. Had someone called? That bitch Karen from last night, maybe? His eyes narrowed.

“Did someone give you a hard time about last night?”

Her jaw clenched as she stared down at her cookies. “You should grab a shower before supper. These won’t take more than an hour, and I can thaw out some steaks for the grill, if you like.”

He stared at her for a long moment before doing as she suggested. It was disturbing to see her so…leached. It just about broke his heart.

The shower left him feeling cleaner, but no less worried. She said he hadn’t done anything, but would she tell him if he had? Maybe she no longer wanted anything to do with him after his being outed last night. Maybe last night’s little oral present had been more of a goodbye present.

Nearly scowling, he dug through his duffle bag for a clean pair of underwear. Maybe he should just leave and save her the trouble of having to come up with a way to ask nicely. His scowl softened. He couldn’t do that. He didn’t like the idea of leaving her alone with so much on her mind.

But what…?

He descended the staircase into the homey smell of baking sugar. She stood behind her breakfast bar cutting and scooping sugar cookies, flour smudging one cheek, her hair pulled up into a clumsy, short ponytail, and he knew he couldn’t leave her. Maybe he should, like her friend Phil said, but he couldn’t.

“Need an extra hand?”

She shrugged, arranging raw cookies on the sheet.

“Maybe some music?” He’d noticed that lack earlier, but he hadn’t really thought about it until now. “I can hook up your iPod for you.” And maybe swing her into another impromptu kitchen dance to bring her out of her funk.

“No, thank you.”

There went that.

“Do you mind if I watch?”

She shook her head and turned to slide the full cookie sheet into the oven. Taking a deep breath, he walked around the breakfast bar and up behind her. When she stood, he touched her arm. She turned around, and he gathered her close in his arms, half afraid she’d pull away.

Neither stiff nor yielding, she leaned her cheek against his chest. Her hands settled on his lower back, not quite hugging back. He felt her eyelashes brush his bare chest each time she blinked.

Silence except for the hush of gas and the slow tick of the oven.

He leaned his cheek on her hair, smelling sugar and warmth and vanilla. “Gabe, is there anything I can do for you?”

She shook her head, her eyelashes and a loose curl tickling his chest.

“Okay.” Releasing her, he bent and placed a light kiss on her forehead. “If you need me, I’ll be watching zombie movies in the other room.”

She nodded, not looking up into his eyes but not really avoiding them, either. An idea struck him, and he didn’t hesitate to follow his instincts.

“Actually, I forgot my T-shirt outside. Will you be all right if I go out and look for it?”

“Sure.”

He turned and ran upstairs for his jeans and the sweaty T-shirt he’d tossed aside, then headed outside. He paused only once—to grab his cell phone off the end table.

For once, Mike had the house to herself. Darren had taken the girls to the movies, to the park and then out for ice cream, giving her several hours to relax and pamper herself. She’d taken a leisurely bubble bath, painted her finger-and toenails, and now lounged on the back deck in her bathing suit, soaking up the late afternoon rays.

Her cell phone rang. Of course.

“Hello?”

“Mike, I know you said you wouldn’t help me, but I think I might need an intervention.”

“Jack?” She blinked, taking off her sunglasses and sitting up. “Are you thinking of going back to gigolo-ing? Can I use that as an infinitive?”

“No, no, it’s not for me. It’s Gabe.”

Frowning, she swung her legs over the side of the lounger, ready to jump up and grab her keys and purse if needed. “What about her? Is she all right?”

He made a frustrated noise. “Physically, she’s fine. But she’s…quiet. I’m really worried.”

“Quiet?”

“And pale. And her eyes…”

Uh-oh. She knew that look. “Tell me what happened. Did you two get into a fight?”

“No.” He sounded hesitant. “But, in the interest of full disclosure, she kinda stood up for me to her friends last night. I guilted her into letting me meet Doug and Phil, and Doug’s girlfriend recognized me and…well…there was a scene.”

“Gabe’s no wuss. Something like that probably shouldn’t bother her, though it couldn’t have been comfortable for either of you.”

He cleared his throat. “I know. And she was fine last night and this morning. Then, I came in from mowing and she was just…someone else. It’s like she’s functioning, but there’s no one home.”

She shook her head. “You’re not telling me something, Jack. She only pulls in like that when something is seriously wrong or when she has a really hard decision to make.”

“I think maybe one of her friends called her while I was out.”

“And?”

“And I don’t know. That’s why I’m calling you. What should I do?”

Huffing a frustrated grunt, she crossed her legs on the lounger, sitting Indian-style. “I don’t know what to tell you if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“You said she only does this when blah-blah-blah. You recognize the symptoms?”

“Well, yeah. It’s like she disconnects. She’s done it since she was a kid.”

He paused a long moment and, when he finally spoke, his words were hesitant and slow. “Let’s say one of her friends called her and told her my little secret—that I’d quit escorting for her.”

“Would one of her friends know that?”

“Well…I kinda told Phil.”

She groaned. “From what I know about him, he’d go to the end of the Earth to protect Gabe. That probably wasn’t your smartest move.”