Off the Rails (6 page)

After cleaning, she spent about an hour trying on outfits to figure out which ones made her look right. She wanted to look casual but not unemployed, sexy but not trying too hard. In the end, she decided on a black V-neck tee. Once that decision was made, she flat ironed her hair, put on just the tiniest bit of eye makeup, then got herself away from the mirror before she could start trying to decide if after only five years she looked
old
.

At four-forty-four she settled behind her laptop and waited. The clock at the bottom of her screen switched over to four-forty-five and the Skype chime sounded. A few clicks later and she was staring at Drew Campbell. Not exactly how she remembered him. He was better.

All the good stuff was there—the quirky, almost-smiling mouth, the long lashes over gorgeous, intelligent eyes and the square jaw. Blond hair cut into some kind of sensible but unattended style. But now there was some awesome man stuff going on too, mostly in the form of bristles of a well-trimmed beard. Or was it stubble? There was too much shadow for her to tell if it was an actual beard or just several days’ growth, and she had to concentrate on not staring long enough to sort that out. Surely, he’d notice if she was staring at his mouth?

“Hi, Madison,” he said matter-of-factly, as though all those years hadn’t passed. “Thanks for agreeing to be on the committee.”

Had
she agreed to be on the committee? She wanted to bristle and tell him she didn’t recall agreeing to be on the committee, but with him right there, staring at her through the screen, all she could do was nod and try not to look like a giddy idiot talking to her unrequited high school crush.

“What do you think we should do for the nametags?”

Hearing his husky voice and watching his mouth move, despite her efforts not to look at his lips, led to more dumb staring on her part. She moved her gaze outward. The faded green T-shirt that tugged on his shoulders revealed the thick muscles of his biceps. If she continued staring at his body, her mind was going to go blank. She yanked her gaze from him and stole a quick look around behind him. He was sitting in a kitchen. The countertops were bare, not a single dish in sight. There was nothing to tell her whether he lived alone or not. When her gaze came back to his face, she saw that he was waiting for her to say something.

But all she did was blink and keep gazing at him.

“So, um,” he said, filling in her awkward silence, “to get started, how about I send you half of the list of people who said they were coming, with their contact info, and you can get in touch with them and see what name they want on their tags. Sound okay?” He lifted his eyebrows and waited a few seconds then continued. “I was also thinking people might want to send an icon or picture to go along with their name. But that might get expensive in printing.” He held up his phone and waved it, giving Madison an opportunity to admire the long fingers of his very capable-looking hands. “Made a couple calls yesterday to see if any local printers want to give us a deal, since it’s a local event with all local people. They could print their name and website info on the back of the tags. A win-win, right?”

All that was definitely more than she had ever heard him say at once, and more coherent too. If only she could stop thinking about what he’d look like without that faded green T-shirt and concentrate on the matter at hand.

“Sound good to you?” he asked. “I’ll do half. You do half. Okay?”

Finally, she found her voice but all that came out was, “Sure. Yeah. Right. A win-win.”

“Want me to email you your part of the list?”

“Sure.” She nodded and tried to curve her mouth into a cute smile, but the motion felt more like a nervous tic.

“Want to give me your email?”

“Oh, right.” She typed it into the Skype chat and hit send. “Just sent it.”

“Great, got it. I’ll send you the list now. Hold on a sec.” When his gaze lowered as he looked around his screen, she took the opportunity to check out his shoulders and forearms. Yum.

He looked up again. “Sent it. Let me know how it goes. Okay?”

“Sure.” She tried another cute smile, but it again it felt like more of a twitch. “Yeah. Right.”

“Awesome. See ya.” Then he was gone.

Seriously? That was it? She’d spent the whole day stressing out and preparing for seven minutes of conversation?

Urgh.

But wait.
Half
the list for her,
half
the list for him. Obviously, the two of them were the whole committee. A good sign, right? And that scruffy beard. His sturdy shoulders. His lips. It was a pretty awesome seven minutes. Mmm. Yes, it was.

Giving in to girly giddiness, Madison scooped up her phone to offer Tia an update about her snug little committee of two.

* * * *

A bit later, Tia strolled into Madison’s room and flopped onto her bed. “I see you’re still going through with this date thing even though you are Drew are practically a couple.”

Madison frowned over her shoulder. “Don’t make me sorry I told you about my committee work.”

“Fine.” Tia scoffed lightly then, with an uncharacteristically gentle, encouraging smile, and added, “I don’t get why you’re going out this other guy when it’s Drew you want.”

Madison wasn’t certain why either, but the wheels were already in motion so she might as well follow through. It wasn’t as though she had anything else to do with her night and hey—an impressive guy would be, well, impressive.

“Where is the successful, potential-reunion-date doctor taking you?” she asked, making herself comfy on the mound of pillows Madison always kept on her bed.

Madison, having considered where he was taking her, had ruled out the black V-neck she’d worn for Drew and was now flipping through her closet in search of clothing that would make her feel hot but not look desperate, answered Tia’s question as she considered an Anthropologie knee-length floral silk skirt. “To dinner.”

Tia’s loud sigh nearly rattled the windowpanes of Madison’s bedroom. “Don’t be an ass. You know what I mean. You going to IHOP or The
Montgomery Inn or Skyline
Chilli or what?”

“The yacht club,” she replied, wiggling into the floral skirt.

“Oh, please.” Tia groaned, rolling over and staring into Madison’s closet. “You don’t mean it.”

“Oh, yes. Marcus and I will be dining at the yacht club.”

“What, are you guys taping for
The Most Predictable, Boring Dates Ever
?” Tia rolled across Madison’s bed as she laughed at her own joke. “Will there be anyone else under forty there?”

“You’re not as funny as you think.” Madison slipped into her beige suede boots. “I liked his ad and I think he’ll be fun.”

“Race car drivers are fun. He’s a
doctor
.”

“What do you know?” Madison stepped across the line into territory she knew was out of bounds. “When was the last time you went out on a date?”

Tia flopped onto her back and turned her head toward the window. “Okay, go out with the good doctor. I’m sure he’ll have a whole slew of bedside manner jokes to tell you.”

“I’ll try to remember them for you.” Considering Tia’s off-kilter mood, she asked, “Did Harvey call?”

“Harvey who? We don’t talk about him.”

Madison slipped out, going to the bathroom for makeup. “Did you call him back?” she yelled from down the hall.

Tia yelled back, “I deleted the phone number.”

Thinking of Harvey’s five giant boxes of Important Man Junk, like worn-out Xbox games—‘shut up, it’s fun’—natty University of Kentucky sweatshirts, back issues of
Maxim
—‘it’s not my fault they put
her
on the cover’—and plastic beer mugs that had been sitting in the middle of Tia’s apartment for so long that they had enough dust to draw faces in, Madison said, “You’re going to have to talk to him sometime. That stuff he left behind isn’t even worth selling on Craigslist.”

“I know,” Tia mumbled. “I guess that’s what he’s calling about.”

Seeing the telltale frown lines settling onto her friend’s forehead, she said, “Tell you what—if the doctor is dull, I’ll call you and tell you everything so you can laugh at me. Okay?”

A half-smile chased away some of the tension on Tia’s face. “Get ready to hear ‘I told you so’.” She rolled to her feet, pointing into the closet. “Wear the blue sweater and have a good time.”

About thirty seconds later, the front door of Madison’s apartment closed softly.

There was a good chance that Tia was right, that the good doctor might be a tad lackluster, but he
was
a plastic surgeon. Shouldn’t that mean he’d be better than, say, a pediatrician?

A plastic surgeon…

Madison leaned into the mirror, staring at her imperfect face. Imaginary blue suture lines dotted across her nose and cheekbones. Like a tiny road map to perfection, they worked their way up to her eyes, which maybe, needed to be more open. And evenly matched. More
perfect
.

Her gaze darted down to her breasts.

Was she going out with a man who made a living of playing with women’s breasts? A man who had some kind of rating system of good, better, best?

Clearly, Madison hadn’t thought things all the way through.

But there was bound to be an upside. This guy had to drive a good car—he was all about image. Right? And wasn’t
image
what she needed to show up all those high school assholes? Yes. Of course. She grabbed the flat iron and gave herself a touch-up.

Forty minutes later, Madison paced around her living room, wondering how late was too late. So far the doctor was twenty minutes past pick up time. Not a good sign.

Twenty-one minutes.

She flipped through an old copy of
Variety
.

Twenty-two minutes.

Drew hadn’t been late. He hadn’t been early. He’d called exactly when he said he would. Very considerate.

Madison pulled out her phone. No missed calls.

Then, as if by magic, it buzzed.

“I’m turning into your lot now. Want to meet me out front?”

No thanks
was what she should have said, but what she did say was, “Sure. I’ll be wearing a brown jacket, a floral skirt and suede boots.”

“Sounds perfect. Just what the doctor ordered.” He laughed and Madison’s blood stirred at the warm, deep sound, even while the stupidity of his joke threatened to force her to face reality. Reality being the fact that he might be everything Tia tried to tell her he would be. But Tia was always either too careful, like when she wouldn’t date somebody because she didn’t know every last detail about him, or not careful enough—as in the case of ‘yes, Harvey I’d love for you to move in with me and run all my bills up and then break my heart by moving out to live with the cake decorator from Busken’.

No wonder Tia was a bit snippy lately.

Doctors were probably twenty-three minutes late all the time. At least. And didn’t they all make stupid jokes to relax their patients?

But she wasn’t a patient.

She looked at her 34B breasts.

Yet?

Outside, the doctor’s casket gold Cadillac crept along the edges of the lot, gliding slowly past the cute apartment fronts. When he rolled by, Madison waved subtly, but he didn’t notice. So she raised one arm overhead. But he still didn’t realize he’d left his date twenty feet behind. At the end of the lot, the doctor turned away from Madison’s apartment.

Madison resisted the urge to shout as she trotted across the parking lot. She barely managed to cut him off before he turned the wrong way—again. The car jerked to a stop, and he rolled down his window to poke his handsome head out far enough to say, “Hey there. Madison?”

Face-to-face with such masculine perfection, all she could manage was, “Um, yeah.”

“I’m Marcus. Bet you guessed that.” He smiled, flashing teeth so white and perfect they would’ve looked out of place on a lesser mortal’s face. “You look great,” he purred. “Hop in.”

Don’t mind if I do.

Madison slid onto the fat leather seat and pulled the car door shut. He grinned over at her, apologized about being so late, and went on to say something about making a stop to drop something off, but because everything about him was so damn flawless, Madison was only listening enough to know when to nod and smile back.

The guy wasn’t handsome. He was fucking beautiful. Chiseled jaw, lips full enough to be sexy, gently arched brows, beautiful blue eyes and thick, glossy, chestnut brown hair.

“…so that’ll be okay with you?” he asked.

“Sure.” Was she agreeing to dinner, again? Or going to a strip club to try out for amateur night? As long as he was on the menu, she didn’t care. “That’ll be great.”

“Thanks, you’re a sport.”

With whatever was up in the air settled, he turned his attention to the road, and Madison sagged deeper into the plush seat that was promising to swallow her whole. The people on the sidewalks of Montgomery were hunched over, fighting the unusually cold evening. But inside the poshmobile, Madison sighed with relief because she’d hit the jackpot on the first pull.

“Could you reach back and grab the gift? It should be right there on the seat.”

A little something for her?

Madison twisted until she spotted an eight inch-square package tied with an oversize yellow ribbon. Flattened Berts and Ernies smiled back at her. Doctor Marcus has a sense of humor? She peered at him. Or was there a tiny schoolgirl outfit in there?

“She’s going to love it.”

Oh.

She
. At least Madison wasn’t going to have to make peace with herself in the morning for wearing a costume that would have at-home lingerie partygoers giggling.

Minutes later, the good doctor turned onto a tree-lined side street and coasted to a stop in front of a Georgian brick house. Madison turned to Marcus. He wasn’t looking at her—he was staring at the flat Berts and Ernies and smiling. He looked silly. But handsome. And successful enough for both of them.

“Come on.” He marched up to the door, but instead of knocking, pushed it open, motioned for Madison to follow, then slipped inside, calling quietly, “Carol?”

Madison followed him through a tiled hallway to a cozy kitchen. A tiny woman wearing a lemon yellow tracksuit tiptoed in from the opposite direction and zipped right over to throw her arms around Marcus and give him a big kiss on the cheek.