Something About You (Just Me & You) (12 page)

She watched him walk out of the grill completely unaware of
the curious gazes of Capitol staffers. Gage really didn’t give a damn where he
fit in. Or if he even did. Outside a few walks of life where people skills
didn’t matter — brain surgeon, research scientist and rock star — there
was a word for that: incorrigible.

It wasn’t as if she and Gage Fitzgerald had to become best
buds because they shared the same roof. She’d have to adapt to a new lifestyle.
Her routine habits would have to be kept under wraps. She’d take her monthly
Lifetime Television for Women marathons to Molly’s. But like Nola always
preached, “You don’t always get what you want.” With Gage’s rent rolling in,
she could keep her house. Rebuild her nest egg.

Maybe even take a vacation in summer.

She felt the weight of the world lift from her shoulders as
she posted the mortgage payment in the Annex mailroom and walked back to her
office with a lightness in her step. She had to admit that it felt good to know
that her home was safe from lease, sale, foreclosure and greedy half-brothers.
The chorus of an old Stones tune ran through her head. She hadn’t gotten
exactly what she had wanted.

She’d gotten what she needed instead.

“You sure you want to make the move, bro?” Sebastian asked
as he slid the last moving box into the back of the ancient Volvo wagon.

“Hell no.” Gage wiped the sweat from his brow with his
sleeve. Despite the brisk weather, both men had worked up a sweat. “But it beats
being cooped up in four-hundred square feet of brown shag at the Shabby Arms.”

He thought of the crumbling apartment complex — the
last in a string of many — shown to him by the young leasing agent who
looked as though he should be cramming for midterms rather than driving house
hunters around in his Toyota beater. The rental property’s best feature was
that it overlooked two withering palm trees and a kidney-shaped pool filled
with algae-colored water rather than the interstate.

The leasing agent had also showed Gage far nicer, newer
apartment homes outside of the city limits, and they’d all fit neatly into his
price range. But the far-flung exburbs had been a quarter of a tank of gas, one
county and two toll fees away. The worst of the lot was Shady Oak Hills, which
the young agent had pimped a little bit too enthusiastically. Gage had stepped
out of the beater, taken one look at the rows of chaste, identical
ivory-colored dwellings, their lawns occupied by Chablis-sipping couples having
shouted conversations with their neighbors, and he had felt light-headed with
boredom.

He’d take his chances with Sabrina instead.

Sebastian gave him a look of concern. “You could always move
in with us,” he said. “I’m sure Molly wouldn’t mind. We could clear out the guest
room. Put some stuff in storage.”

“No thanks, man,” Gage told him, genuinely appreciative of
the offer. “You just got married. You and the bride need your own space.
Besides, not sure how much R & R I’d get with all of that coil spring
action going on in the next room.”

Gage couldn’t be sure, but he was fairly sure Sebastian
blushed. Sebastian and Molly made falling in love look too damned easy. Gage
would have bet the farm, the livestock and the well that his friend would have
one of those terminally happy marriages generally reserved for characters in
mawkishly romantic movies. The newly wedded Coles actually made marriage look
like it was something worth looking forward to.

“There are only a few boxes in the house. I’ll swing back
for them after we make this run,” Gage said. He studied the back of the wagon,
where twenty years of personal belongings had been reduced to ten moving boxes
and a ragtag set of Samsonite luggage. The few pieces of furniture he couldn’t
part ways with were stowed in the U-Haul trailer hitched to the GTO.

Time to live light.

“Looks like this does it, then.” Sebastian slammed the hatch
door.

“Beer?” Gage asked him.

Sebastian gave a solemn nod. “Cold alcoholic beverages are
definitely in order.”

“I saved the last two just for the occasion. I’ll get ’em.
Take a load off, bro,” Gage told him.

Sebastian sat down on the porch and stretched out the kinks
in his bad leg. Whenever it began to ache, his barely detectable limp became
noticeable. Gage knew that his friend wouldn’t have said a word if he hadn’t
put on the stops. Sebastian was just that much of a trooper.

The two men met during their freshman year at university.
When Gage’s R.A. told him that he’d be rooming with a whiz kid who’d been
courted by every Ivy League school as well as Oxford, his first instinct was to
request a transfer. The last thing Gage wanted was to bunk with a grind that
dislodged his nose only from a book to complain about the smell of old pizza
boxes he’d kicked under the bed. Gage went to his room to find a lanky,
lemur-eyed sixteen-year-old pinning Black Flag posters to their dorm room wall
and rocking out to the Beatles’ White Album. His new titanium prosthesis
gleamed under crisp khaki shorts that looked like something a mother would pack
for summer camp.

Noticing that Gage’s eyes were trained on the prosthesis,
Sebastian Cole didn’t even bother to first introduce himself formally. Instead,
he told Gage that he’d recently lost his leg after he had purloined and wrecked
his cousin’s Harley-Davidson. Did Gage have a problem with that?

He sure as hell didn’t.

At that very moment, he knew that the geeky kid was a total
badass.

Sebastian was indeed a genius, but he never rubbed it in.
Gage always wondered why his friend hadn’t chosen to go to Harvard or Yale or
another university with serious alma mater clout. Then Gage met Shuck and Cybil
Cole and immediately and tacitly understood that enrolling in a university
located in the Midwest had been Sebastian’s second act of teenage rebellion.

The first being the Harley.

Gage stepped back outside just in time to see Ronnie stroll
across her driveway on the way to her mailbox, her gleaming blond hair
streaming behind her. He sat down on the porch next to Sebastian and handed him
one of the beers. Spotting the two men, her mouth curled into a coy smile. Then
she waved. Gage acknowledged the salutation by raising his bottle. Sebastian
studied the exchange, transfixed.

“So, ah…” He looked from Gage to the Ronnie then back again.
“You been there, done that?” Sebastian tipped his head in the blonde’s
direction.

“Nope.” Gage twisted the cap off his beer and neatly tossed
it into an outdoor trash receptacle. “New rules. Women like her are strictly
off-limits.”

“
You
made rules?” Sebastian looked sufficiently
impressed. The badass kid may have successfully defended a complex
dissertation,
References to Opiate Addiction in Early Twentieth-Century
Literature
, but the annals of Sebastian’s brief and uncomplicated love life
could be summarized in a book the size of a grade-school primer. Sometimes Gage
still felt like he was talking to a younger brother.

Then again, the kid did get the jump on him when it came to
marriage. Maybe Sebastian knew something that he didn’t.

“Yeah, I did,” Gage told him. “No decadent sex-capades with
next-door neighbors, coworkers or women looking for someone to pay the bills.”

“Really.” Sebastian tilted his head and gave Gage a curious
look.

“Absolutely.” Gage took a swig of beer. “I’m through
reaching for low-hanging fruit.”

Well, almost. He still had that coffee date with the spa
girl, Tara Reese, but once that was over, the rules would officially be in
place.

“Huh. Well, I suppose moving in with Sabrina isn’t such a
bad idea, then.” Sebastian’s mouth briefly stretched into an impish grin. “‘Why
came I hither but to that intent? Think you a little din can daunt mine ears’?”

“Please. Stop with the quotes,” Gage begged him. “Look,
moving into Sabrina’s place isn’t the ideal solution. But right now nothing is,
given my financial situation. I’m sure we can tolerate each other without
coming to fisticuffs.”

“Don’t be too sure about that,” Sebastian advised him.
“Sabrina can be a little exacting. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

How was it possible not to? Sabrina’s insistence on going
through a “compatibility determination process,” as she called it, revealed her
to be even more buttoned-up than Gage had initially thought, especially when
she whipped out that absurd checklist. He had expected to show up at the house
on moving day to find printed rules taped to the door of his bedroom.

She hadn’t left him written instructions. But the state of
his new abode spoke volumes about its occupant. The flawlessly decorated, clean
common area exuded the strained hospitality of a showcase home and conspicuously
lacked photographs of friends, pets, and family members, and other
dust-collecting knickknacks and personal mementos women tended to collect. The
only thing to suggest that a human being inhabited the place was the mountain
of mail on the coffee table.

Gage knew that the only reason Sabrina had agreed to their
living arrangement was because she’d tried all other avenues, and they were all
closed. She needed a warm, breathing body to pony up his share of the rent, and
she needed it quite badly. Even before the smell of her perfume hit him full
blast, he had caught the whiff of her desperation when she sashayed into the
Capitol cafeteria wearing that frou-frou outfit she likely plucked from far
back in her wardrobe.

“Look, bro. I know I razz you about Sabrina.” Sebastian
tossed his empty bottle into the dumpster. “But because I feel like Molly and I
got you into this situation, do you mind if I give you a little heads up?”

“I dunno. Will it involve metaphors?” Gage chucked his
bottle into the bin too.

“Molly and Sabrina are like sisters, you know,” Sebastian
told him, looking pensive. “They
talk
. About everything.”

“They’re women,” Gage pointed out. “They’re supposed to do
that.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Sebastian shifted uncomfortably.
“Sabrina probably knows more about our sex life than I do.” He gave a helpless
shrug. “So Molly and Sabrina yap it up, and then Molly comes and talks to me.
My beloved wife gets some strange ideas at times. She seems to thinks that you
and Sabrina are star-crossed.”

“Why?”

“Because Sabrina and Jackson — that’s her ex — were
completely wrong for each other, and you’re the exact opposite of him.”

Jackson
. So the most uninspiring man known to
womankind had a name. And it was a blue-blooded prep star of a name, too. It
brought to mind starched polo shirts, tasseled loafers and a lifetime
membership with the university alumni organization.

“Did Molly use the actual word ‘star-crossed’?” Gage was
amused.

Sebastian responded with a nod. “Molly operates under the
assumption that absolute opposites attract absolutely.”

Gage laughed. “I don’t suppose Maid March has been apprised
of her inevitable fate.”

“Molly hatches her plots in private, so it’s highly
unlikely,” Sebastian said. He rubbed his jaw contemplatively. “Speaking strictly
as an objective third party, Sabrina is a curiously compelling creature. And
like it or not, you
are
still Gage. What I’m trying to say is … those
new rules you made for yourself? Don’t forget about them, if you’re serious
about living your life in peace.”

Gage could abide by the rules, but there was little chance
of peace. Especially since Sabrina March had made it clear to him that she
found everything about his profession offensive.
Star-crossed.
More like
ill-fated; much like the earth-shatteringly expensive port they’d imbibed at
Green Pastures, Sabrina was a woman he could take in small doses. Potent ones,
he added, remembering the way she kissed.

“I suppose we should get moving,” Gage said, putting the
memory aside. Just as he stood up, his cell phone rang. He retrieved it from
his pocket and frowned at the familiar Des Moines area code that registered
across the display.

“You probably need to take that,” Sebastian said, reading
his friend’s expression.

“Yeah. You mind?”

Gage got up and walked around to the side of the house,
where he could conduct his conversation in private. It had been almost two
years, but he still felt a heavy feeling in his stomach whenever he got the
calls.

In his particular case, no news was always good news.

The last thing Sabrina wanted to do on Friday afternoon was
go home.

It was Gage’s moving-in day. The mere thought of watching
him lug all his man stuff into her townhouse was too depressing to contemplate.
So she first harassed Moira and Carlton into helping her rearrange the office
equipment in the War Room. Then after they fled, she pestered Theo to go over
the talking points to the sustainable-living bill she had painstakingly
drafted, the abstract of which she’d seen him crumple in his briefcase earlier
that week.

“Shoo! Out! Vanish!” He brushed her away, racing to the
coatrack to get his jacket. “You’ve racked up three days of comp time, and
session hasn’t even started. You know I love you, Sabrina, but you’re making me
crazy.”

On the drive home, the thought of Nola’s
chocolate-peanut-butter bars popped into Sabrina’s mind, making her mouth
water. They were the perfect comfort food. She circled the block around Ella’s
Edibles while she fought her craving.

Moody
. Her brain was flooded with hormones, which
didn’t make things easier. She finally gave in and pulled into the café’s
parking lot. Nola opened the door wearing a bright, floral-print dress with a
flouncy skirt. Sabrina noticed that she’d put on her “date night” lipstick,
which was a deep shade of red.

“Sabrina, what are you doing here?” her mother asked,
ushering her in. “You never come by on a Friday night.”

“I just wanted to see you, Mom,” Sabrina said.

“That’s lovely, but I’m afraid I can’t dawdle too long,
dear,” Nola warned as she adjusted a silk poppy that poked out of her bun. “Rex
and I are learning the merengue tonight.”

“
You’re
taking dance classes?” Sabrina asked.

“I am indeed, and I’m enjoying them thoroughly, so please
try not to look so stunned,” her mother told her. “It makes me feel old. I
trust you got things worked out with the house. Did Les give you the money to
refinance?”

“Not exactly,” Sabrina muttered, eyeing the display case,
where a lone dessert bar remained, its dark chocolate topping glistening.
“Let’s just say that my financial crisis has been averted.”

At least it had been for the time being, but Nola didn’t
need to know that there was at least one devil in the details, Sabrina decided.
The very thought of living under the same roof with Gage Fitzgerald
indefinitely made her realize that she had to come up with a longer-term
plan.  

“I knew you’d put that noodle of yours to good use.” Then
with a slightly imperious look, Nola added, “Just remember that you get your
industriousness from my side of the family, dear.”

Her mother had finished boxing up the dessert bar just as a
black, late-model Ferrari purred up to the curb outside. A
distinguished-looking gentleman sat behind the wheel.

“Is that Rex?” Sabrina asked.

“You’ll notice that still has a full head of hair,” Nola
said proudly, tossing a fringed shawl around her shoulders. “When you get to be
my age, that’s a big selling point.”

By the time Sabrina got home, it was past eight. Gage’s GTO
was nowhere in sight, but the garage door was open, revealing stacks of moving
boxes. Inside the living room, an impressive array of tequila bottles festooned
with tiny sombreros and flower leis lined the ledge above the fireplace.
Sabrina noticed he’d retrieved the day’s mail and placed it on the coffee
table, where it joined six more days’ worth of envelopes and fliers.

She came to a halt in front of the spare bedroom. One of the
most imposing four-poster beds she’d ever seen filled the room, leaving a scant
amount of space for a bureau, on which sat a modest-sized television. She’d
expected a futon or a bare mattress set. The four-poster and its headboard, a
wooden relief of twining leaves and branches, had a rustic, gentle-giant
quality. Linens, pillows and a comforter in military-issue white made the bed
look like a temple to solace and sleep.

Sabrina glanced up and down the hall before making a beeline
to the bathroom. Toiletries were telling of one’s personality. When it came to
personal care, Gage was obviously an austere minimalist. A bottle of inexpensive
shampoo and a cake of castile soap were in the shower. A comb, stick of
deodorant, safety razor, and tin of shaving cream were on the vanity area,
along with an open Dopp kit brimming with small man things: nail clippers, a
pot of Tiger Balm, a roll of Tums, and a double strip of Trojan Magnums. Her
cheeks burned pink as she exited the bathroom hastily. Of course he’d have
condoms. He was a grown man, and grown men had sex, didn’t they?

Smart, responsible sex. So good for Gage.

But … Trojan Magnums?
Really?
She suddenly
recalled one rather distinct impression from their night of drunken groping at
Green Pastures.

“You, my friend, have stories to tell,” she told the bed,
impressed.

She couldn’t walk around in her pajamas now that a man lived
in the house. She foraged around for an old pair of yoga togs and a faded
sweatshirt. Gage blew through the doorway as she was sitting on the couch
sipping herbal tea and opening the week’s mail with a slim letter opener. He
carried a bulky moving carton with the same ease that most people held a pizza
box.

“Waiting for the caffeine to kick in, or are you in for the
night?” he asked, glancing at the large pile of envelopes on the coffee table.

“I’ve designated Friday as mail-opening night,” she
explained.

“Good for you. I say live it up. It’s not like you have
anyplace to be tomorrow.” He gave the pile of mail a second look. “You let it
collect for a week?”

“It’s mail, not mold.” She plucked a thick card from the
ivory envelope and gave it a cursory glance:
The Hon. Rep. Theo Ward and
Mrs. Jillian Ward invite you to their seventh annual holiday gala …

“It’s junk,” Gage said candidly, putting the box down. He
snagged some of the envelopes and thumbed through them. “What do we have here?
Offers for credit cards, car insurance, and a Netflix membership addressed to
‘Current Resident.’ Oh, here’s something actually useful: A coupon pack. Except
that barring condiments and the ice chips in the freezer, there’s nothing
remotely edible in this house.”

“Just tell me what you need, and I’ll put it on the list.”

“Here’s an even better idea: you and I can meet at the
neighborhood market tomorrow night and go shopping together. That way, we can
split the cost of the stuff we need for the house even-steven.” Gage squinted
at her carefully. “Do you really have a list?”

She gave him a wintery look. He had been oblivious to the
sarcasm that graced her tone. “Of course not. When would I possibly have the
time for that?”

“Oh, I dunno. Now?” Gage observed her as she went through a
second stack of mail and put it back on the coffee table. “D’you really need
cable bills that are two months old?” he asked, reaching down for the two
envelopes on top of the pile.

“Give me those.” Sabrina snatched them away before they were
in his grasp. She didn’t want him to know that she’d let the bills slide into
arrears because the cost of repairing the air conditioner in early October,
when the temperature was still a sweltering hundred degrees, had taken
precedence. “Sometimes my utility bill e-notifications go to spam, and I want
to make sure that everything gets paid. Hard copy is like a tickler file.”  

“Fine. But I could free up some time for you every weekend
by making a detour by the trash bin whenever I get the mail. Or we could try
something really outré and fill out a form that opts us out of junk mail. You
know …
go green
,” he mouthed.

“Fine,” she said crankily. “Opt us out. Whatever.”

“I still get paper bills, by the way,” he informed her.
“Just like I write paper checks. I have no disdain for trees; I just prefer old
technology. I don’t have a home computer to e-anything.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he said. “I spend most of my day sitting behind
big machines. Once I leave the station, I want to be away from the hum, so you
can stop looking at me like I just stumbled off the Appalachian Trail.”

“But how do you make new social contacts?” Sabrina was
surprised. Laptops and social networking profiles were as necessary as cell
phones with texting features. Didn’t everyone have them?

Gage smiled and shook his head. “Listen to you. ‘Social
contacts.’ They’re called ‘friends,’ and I make new ones all the time.”

“Where? How?”

“I see live music on and around Sixth Street. I go out for
drinks with the guys from the station. Your garden variety real world stuff,”
he finished blithely. “So if you’ll be so kind as to put my mail somewhere I
can find it.”

“I’ll put it on the mantle next to — what are those
anyway?” She eyed the tequila bottles malevolently.

“Souvenirs from weddings past. Always a groomsman, never a
groom,” he said with faux wistfulness. “Speaking of which, we’re invited to
Molly and Sebastian’s house for Thanksgiving. They asked me to pass the word.”

“Will Cybil and Shuck be there?”

“With bells on, I’d think.”

“Then I would rather be pelted by meteors.” Sabrina placed
the gala invitation aside. “Besides, I always spend Thanksgiving with Nola.
She’s my mother.”

“Your mother?” Gage looked slightly startled.

“Yes. The partials get me for Christmas.”

“What, pray tell, are ‘partials’?”

“My step-family. Well, and my father.”

“Your father,” he echoed contemplatively.

“Yes, Gage. I was conceived by human beings,” she said
tediously. “Did you think I was grown in a test tube?”

“God, no.” He looked mildly affronted. “I would have guessed
a super-secret cloning farm that churns out dutiful public servants genetically
engineered to have impeccable taste in shoes.”

At her pointed look of offense, his mouth widened into a
grin. He picked up the box again. Sabrina was gobsmacked. Did she really come
across as so perversely fastidious?

“Hey — hey,
you!
Fitzgerald!” she barked. But
he’d already swanned into the guest room — no,
his
bedroom now —
and kicked the door closed.

She fell back into the couch and made herself take deep,
even breaths. She looked at the remote wistfully. If she were alone, she’d
catch a documentary on TV just like she did in her pre-Jackson days. But given
the length of her mortgage, the next time she engaged in solitary indulgences
might be when she was drawing pension. 

She could hear Gage in the bedroom opening and shutting
drawers and bathroom cabinets. He’d eventually come out again, and he’d bring
his linebacker physique, windy auburn locks and sexy clean, male scent along
with him. There would be more conversations about petty household issues like
shopping lists.

Sabrina blew her bangs out of her eyes with a sigh.

She wished she didn’t know how he kissed. She
really
wished she didn’t know what was in his Dopp kit. Suddenly, the thought of
another human being moving around on the other side of the wall — specifically
a human named Gage Fitzgerald — made her feel distinctly uneasy.

How was a woman supposed to function?

The answer was, she couldn’t.

She grabbed her fleece jacket and car keys and beat a hasty
retreat to her one refuge.

**

“I’m really pushing the envelope this time,” Molly said
somberly as she brandished a pair of heavy cutting shears.

“I can see that.” Sabrina contemplated the phalanx of ratty
handbags lined up on the dining room table in front of them.

“A leather quilt. What am I thinking?”

“Dunno, Molls. How would you launder it?”

“Oh, I have no idea.” Molly blinked. “But you didn’t come
over for craft talk. It’s Friday night, Brini. Not that I care. Sebastian’s
still grading papers at his office, and I can always use the company. But
Friday
?
You?”

“I’m single,” Sabrina reminded her. “I don’t know what I’m
supposed to do on weekends.”

Sensing the gravity of the situation, Molly waved her into
the kitchen. “Come,” she said. “We need something with Campbell’s Cream Of.”

Sabrina felt better sitting at the kitchen table surrounded
by leftover comfort food. Tonight it was King Ranch casserole jazzed up with
portabella mushrooms and smoked Gouda and chocolate-raspberry pots de crème.

“I have a theory about why you married Jackson. I think it’s
a good one.” Molly dipped her spoon into her dessert.

“What is it?” Sabrina asked.

“Because you’re like Nola,” Molly said.

“Yikes, Molly. I’m trying not to be offended here.”

“Mmm. Let me explain,” Molly said around a mouthful of
chocolate. “Think back to your various boyfriends, and you’ll see a pattern.
Before Jackson, there was — who was the fellow who was into saltwater
kayaking on the weekends?”

Sabrina searched her memory. “Paul? Or maybe James.” There
had been two weekend kayakers.

“And the guy before him was—” Molly snapped her fingers and
turned her eyes to the ceiling.

“Jonathan, I think. It’s easier to go in chronological
order,” Sabrina suggested.

“Probably, but names and dates don’t matter.” Molly waved
her hand dismissively. “The men you dated were the same. They all had
respectable professions of the bleached, starched white-collar variety. They
were all highly educated. Their student loans were paid off. They looked good
on paper. But without exception, they all shared similar characteristics and
operated under certain general assumptions.”

“I’m sure I’m going to regret asking this, but could you be
more specific?” Sabrina asked.

Molly’s hand paused midway to the bowl of chocolate custard.
She looked at Sabrina curiously.

“You really haven’t figured it out yet, have you? All of the
men you’ve gotten involved with were real throwbacks, and I’m talking right
back to the age of nuclear testing and ‘Father Knows Best.’ They didn’t just
ask
you to give up your career, get married and stay home with the kids; they
demanded
it. That’s your worst nightmare, Brini. Now, who do these men remind you of?”