Outside The Lines:: Third Person Narration (14 page)

A question guaranteed to rattle her fucked-out brains. She shook her head to clear it, trying to stay focused. “No, I mean why
now
?
 
Why didn’t you suggest this ‘place’ of yours back…before we…. Why didn’t you suggest it a few minutes ago?”
 

He dropped his sleek phone into his pocket.
 
“Because it seemed like a waste of time.”
 

Oh.
 

He leaned forward to plant a kiss on her mouth.
 
“Also, my windows don’t have as many people milling around beneath them,” he murmured. “You seemed to like that part.”

She dropped her head.
 
“Oh, God,” she muttered to her feet.
 
She couldn’t have prepared a better invitation for guilt.
 
Johnny had practically engraved it.
 

And yet…no guilt.
 
No regret.

All she felt was her faintly-shuddering body and her weak knees and the shivery, wide-open feeling that came when she looked up and saw Johnny was holding out his hand to her.

“Want to come?” he asked.

As she stared at his overturned hand, to her surprise, her stomach, suddenly and very deliberately, growled.

They both looked down at it.
 
Her stomach never growled. With a start, she realized she was suddenly, ravenously hungry.
 

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been truly hungry. Or hungry at all, really. She was more ‘coffee’ than ‘hungry.’
 
But now, she was suddenly, spontaneously, dying of hunger.
 

She suspected there was a deeper metaphor here. She did not want to examine it. Not right now. Lurking beneath a metaphor might be guilt.
 

She really didn’t want to feel guilty right now. Or scared. Or worried or tense or alone. She liked feeling…hungry.

And not alone.
 

Johnny was standing a few feet away, his hand still hovering in the air between them.
 

“You coming?” he said again, his gaze level. He probably knew very well what was going through her mind.
 
Maybe not the hunger, but everything else. Or, well, maybe the hunger too. Her stomach growled again.

“I’m coming,” she said quietly, and laid her hand in his.
 

His hand was solid and hard.
 
He curled his fingers around hers.
 
She curled back.

“But…”
 

He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “A but.
 
There’s always a but.”
 

“Can we stop and get some food on the way?”
 

His head tracked back down. “Yeah, Jauntie,” he said slowly, smiling.
 
“We can absolutely get food.
 
I know a place.”

“Of course you know a place.” She found herself smiling back.
 
She wasn’t entirely sure what they were smiling about, but she couldn’t stop.
 
She didn’t
want
to stop, with Johnny’s green eyes on hers, the mouth that had done so much sensual damage to her body lazily smiling at her.

“Do you like Thai?” he asked.

“Tonight, I’ll like anything,” she said boldly.

“That’s really good information to have.” He tightened his fingers on hers.

She laughed. She felt really, really good. Not guilty.
 
Not even a little bit.

They finished packing up and strode to the banquet hall doors, loaded down with bags and coats and piles of paperwork. As they went, Johnny slid an ear bud back into his ear to check his messages. Guess he’d heard that ringing phone too.
   

He swung one of the banquet doors open and held it for her, his arm lifted high for her to pass under.
 

“A message,” he murmured.
 
“From the judge.”

She stepped through. Johnny came after, keeping a hold on the door so it shut quietly.
 
She stood blinking in the bright lights of the wide, carpeted landing outside of the banquet hall.
 
To the far right, a door led to a gym and pool, and opposite them stood the bank of elevators.
 

She squinted at the brightness, then slid her sunglasses out of her bag and onto her face; after the low light of the banquet hall, it was like walking out into a sunny day.

Johnny smiled faintly at the appearance of her sunglasses, still listening to his phone, then he gave a clipped nod, to himself, at whatever news he was hearing.
 

A female employee appeared out of the door to the gym and stopped short, clearly surprised at seeing people standing in front of the banquet doors as if they were about to head in.
 

Hopefully it didn’t look as if they were just heading
out
.

Juliette waved innocently.
 
“Hi.”

“Oh, the banquet hall is closed,” the staff member said a bit uncertainly, coming closer.
 
“The heat doesn’t work.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Juliette said, feigning disappointment. “We were really hoping to see it.”

The employee nodded in approval and came another step closer.
 
“It’s an incredible space.
 
It has a whole wall of windows that overlooks the slopes and the valley below. You can stand in front of the windows and look out over everything.”

“Really?” Juliette squeaked. “Over everything? That sounds amazing.”

“It is.
 
Are you here for New Years?
 
It’ll be open by then. There’s a big bash.”

Johnny touched his ear, ending the call.
 
The heavy wool of his coat brushed her arm as he turned and smiled at the employee.
 
“We’ll be there,” he told her.

The employee smiled back at him, a lot more happily than she’d smiled at Juliette. “I’ll be waiting,” she assured him.

Juliette scowled.
 

Johnny propelled her to the elevators and punched the button. A moment later the doors opened and they stepped inside, leaving the employee smiling as she opened the door to the pool at the other end of the hall.
 

Their reflections filled the elevator, over and over, handsome, tousled, dark-haired Johnny in a forest green pea coat, black boots, and messenger bag, and Juliette, hair a little wild-looking, wearing sunglasses, face filled with more color than it had been in a long time. And she wasn’t wearing underwear. It was torn in half and stuffed in Johnny’s pocket.

“Did she just hit on you?” she asked crankily.

“Yes.”
 
He jabbed the button for the lobby.

“While I was standing right there?”

“Yes. Listen, you’ll be glad to know: Billings said he’d send the paperwork by morning. Maybe tonight.”

She blew out a breath and nodded.
 
“Good.”

He stared at her. “Good?”

“Excellent?”
       

He shook his head slightly. “It better be excellent, Jauntie. We’re all riding your train here.”

That had a nice ring to it.
 
“It’s very excellent,” she assured him. And it was. Exceptionally excellent. Answers would come, maybe tonight. And then, all this, with the questions and the divorce and the messiness, would all be over, maybe tonight.
 

All this with Johnny, would all be over. Maybe tonight.

But not right now.
 

The elevator doors opened and Johnny reached for her hand again. She took it. Right now, her life was all about Johnny wanting to do wonderful, nasty things to her body.
 

And she was going to do them right back.

Chapter Eleven

JOHNNY’S PLACE was stunning.
 

About twenty minutes from the ski resort, it took nearly two hours to get there, because they stopped and ate what might have been the best Thai food Juliette had ever had, in a dimly lit, be-cushioned restaurant, just her and Johnny and the owner named Vahn, who greeted Johnny like a long lost friend and served them himself, keeping their tea cups filled.

They ate slowly, drank tea slowly, and talked about everything but work.
 
It was as if they’d made an unspoken agreement, to not return to work—or the world—until they were done with whatever they were doing here.
   

Whatever that was.
 
Whatever thing this was, here, this moment of sitting with Johnny and talking about skiing and arguing about things like whether there should be instant replay in baseball and if the universe was actually expanding then what was it expanding
into
?, and, importantly, which actor had played the best James Bond and whether the movies did justice to Fleming’s books in the first place.

“I knew you’d like Bond,” Juliette said a bit smugly as she nibbled at the remnants of their chicken cashew nut dish.

Johnny sat back, his arm bent over the back of his chair.
 
“Did you?”

She nodded.

“How so?”

“Well, first, there’s your name.”

“My name?”

She nodded, holding a cashew in front of her lips.
 
“How could you have a name like Danger and
not
like Bond?”
 
She smiled and popped the cashew into her mouth.
 
“Did you pick it?”

“Pick it?”

“Did you make it up, or is Danger your real name?

“You think I made up my name?”

“Well….” She rocked her hand back and forth in the air, to show she could go either way on the matter.
 

“Oh, it’s real,” he assured her in a voice low and full of innuendo, which made her smile.

“Secondly, there’s your watch.” She pointed.

He rolled his wrist over and peered at it.
 
“What about it?”

“Who has a projector watch?”

“Me.”

“Exactly. You and James Bond.”

He laughed. “My friend made it.”

She set down her fork and looked at him levelly. “You have a friend who makes projector watches. Who does that?”

He shrugged. “He’s an inventor.”
 
There was a thoughtful pause. “Among other things.”

“See, that pause right there, that makes your friend sound scary. You have scary friends.”
 

This earned another smile.
 
“Actually you’d like him, Jauntie.”

“Why’s that?”

“He’s an oddball. Straight-up. People don’t get him. He doesn’t pull his punches.”

She was distracted by his little smile, and only half listening. “Well, I sure don’t like to be punched,” she agreed vaguely.
   

Johnny grinned at her and her heart did an unfamiliar little flutter.
 
She didn’t know why, because he’d certainly smiled at her before.
 
He’d even laughed with her—heck, he’d sucked her off so good that even the memory of it, here, now, with a plateful of cold cashew chicken sitting in front of them, still made her get hot—but there was something about this simple, wholehearted, boyish grin of amusement, directed at her, that made her heart do an entire fluttery backflip.
 

Nope, never had that happen before, not even with Patrick O’Faolain.

“No, Jauntie,” Johnny said, still grinning at her.
 
“That means he hits hard.
 
No holding back.
 
Pow pow.” He mimed two fast punches.

“Right,” she murmured, still contemplating the fluttery heart-flip, and wondering whether she would like the watch-inventor after all.

“Like you,” Johnny added, pushing his plate away and getting to his feet as the restaurant owner came over to the table.
 

She stared as the owner Vahn delivered more tea and another round of smiles and nods, completely distracted—no, stunned— by the nonchalance of Johnny’s insight.