Kick (The Jenkins Cycle Book 1) (17 page)

When I got back to the house,
she
was there.

Chapter 20

I spotted her from a block away with my freakishly healthy eyesight. She stood by the front door, one foot in the rock garden peeking through one of the side glass panes. Her hands cupped the space between her head and the glass to block out the glare. Intrigued, I slowed to a crawl and crept forward to the corner for a better look. She had on fruffly yellow skirt-shorts and an airy short sleeve blouse. Her hair hung medium length, blond like California sunshine, and her skin gleamed smooth and radiant. She looked a little like a real life Malibu Barbie peeking in to see if Ken were home. Trying not to rev the car too much, I started forward.

When she heard me pull up, she turned to look. Just her head and shoulders, twisting toward me, as if unashamed to be peeking into someone’s house. I stepped out of the $200,000 Ferrari and waved, feeling self-conscious. I hoped she’d say something first.

“Hun Bun, I’m back!” she shouted, then ran over and flung herself into my arms. I would have said “oof,” but she delivered a kiss so sensual that I swear I lost the feeling in my feet. I felt like a man, drowning for years but still alive and starving for oxygen. Warm, sweet, and terrifically naughty oxygen.

When she finally detached I realized I’d broken one of my rules: don’t take liberties with someone’s wife or girlfriend. But that didn’t matter because I kissed her again, deeply, and it meant everything just to kiss her, being loved or something like it.

I hadn’t gotten a good look at her up close, but when she finally pulled away (I couldn’t), my first impression paled in comparison. She was a knockout. She was so pretty it hurt to look at her. From a distance I’d called her Barbie pretty, but that notion evaporated up close. She was slender without being skinny. Tall for a girl, about five-nine. She had a smile that was more attitude than geometry, and her boobs were nice too. And I was going to remember all this forever with even more clarity than the original experience. How great was that?

Laughing suddenly, she said, “Wow, I guess I stayed away too
long—but after the wedding I’ll never leave again.”

***

Catastrophe.

The house, the car, Nathan’s body with its superhuman strength and animal magnetism, and all that glorious money. Everything had been going great, but now it felt like someone had poured orange juice in my Captain Crunch and stolen the prize.

What could I do? I couldn’t just yell a bunch and chase her off because I still didn’t know what this guy had done. I’d been half hoping the Great Whomever had set me up in a sort of vacation body—a specially sanctioned destination to come and relax after years of doing his vengeful, often-violent bidding. Granted, that had never happened before. It was another fantasy of mine, right up there with waking in the body of a suicide survivor and getting to stay. In the unprecedented event that Nathan was innocent, then running off his blushing bride-to-be would be one of the worst things a guy could do to another guy, and doubly so for her. I mean, she had a chance to marry Apollo himself, with his Ferrari chariot and mansion on Mt. Olympus. With all that money, she wouldn’t need to work again for the rest of her life. Their kids would grow up rich, attend the finest schools, wear the coolest sneakers and have amazing Christmases with ten speeds and dirt bikes—even go-carts. Who wouldn’t want a childhood like that? Until I could prove his guilt, I had to tread lightly and not screw it up.

And if I could prove he was guilty of hurting kids, I’d drop his sorry ass in a black pit with no end to it.

***

First impressions are tricky, especially when the other person thinks they know you. If I got Nathan’s mannerisms too wrong, I’d find myself defending every little change in his behavior. Eventually, when she realized I had no intention of quitting “the act,” she’d become repulsed by my suddenly obnoxious behavior. From that point on, her alert level would remain so high I could never bring the mood back to normal.

She stood looking at me, breathing heavy from the kiss and waiting for me to say something. Rather than pretend to be someone I wasn’t, I did exactly the opposite. They weren’t married yet, so I took a gamble their lives hadn’t gotten too predictable for a little clowning around.

“Excuse me Miss, do I know you?” I said, with mocking formality.

“Oh you’re in trouble now, Mister,” she said, kissing me again. It was like Cupid firing twin machine guns, these kisses. “Now do you know me?”

“Well Miss,” I said, “do you have a name?”

Her eyes sparkled. Stepping back, she gave me a formal bow at the waist, then said in a bloody bad, bloody fake English accent, “You may call me Lady Erika. And you are?”

Dropping into a bloody low curtsey, I replied, “Nathan Cantrell the Third, Duke of Ellington, Partridge of the Pear tree, at your service m’lady.” My own English accent sounded vaguely reminiscent of the Lucky Charms leprechaun. Bloodily so.

Erika laughed.

“Wow, did you rehearse that or something? I thought you hated ‘Nathan.’”

Nat? Nate?

“I’m trying to be less sensitive about it these days. You know, more open-minded.”

If I hadn’t been staring at her like a letch I would have missed it, but I could have sworn her expression took on a sudden hardness, though her smile never wavered.

“Nothing wrong with that,” she said, but I knew I’d said something wrong. Really, I was just counting down the time until I did something I couldn’t recover from.

Erika stepped away and headed for the Ferrari—and not her silver Passat, I noticed.

“Where did you want to eat?” she said. “I haven’t had anything since I left Chicago and I’m eating for two now.”

Two? Oh…

“Yeah, I could eat something,” I said, as if I felt like eating anything after that bombshell. “How about the Sweetwater Tavern?”

“Ugh, I suppose you want steak… I wish you’d listen to me and go vegan. You’ll thank me when you’re a hundred and five and everyone around you is dead from heart disease or colon cancer.”

“Don’t forget diabetes,” I said.

When Erika got in, my senses became overwhelmed by the intoxicating smell of hot chick—a kind of raspberry hairspray and bubblegum freshness. I found it incredibly distracting, and that’s why I turned right out of the neighborhood instead of left, where I needed to go. Meanwhile, Erika started caressing my arm. Then she sent her hand wandering. Nothing X-rated, mind you, but still suggestive and soft enough to send my pulse caterwauling in my ears. Also, much to my embarrassment, someone decided to send up the periscope to see what all the fuss was about.

“Hey, I feel like some music,” I blurted, fumbling blindly with the radio and pushing about seven buttons before hitting the right one.

Immediately, Lynyrd Skynyrd blasted us from everywhere at once. “Sweet Home Alabama” never sounded sweeter than it did coming from Nate’s hideously expensive sound system.

Viper quick, her hand darted to the volume. I heard her finish, “… too loud!” as she squelched it.

This irritated me more than it should have.

“Sorry,” I said, not meaning it, and edged the volume up a little more.

I found a place to turn around and then headed back the other way.

Having a kid on the way limited my normal range of choices. I had to be extra careful this time. I shook my head, unsure what to do and growing distracted by all the internal cursing going on.

“Jesus, are you even listening to me?” Erika said.

“Oh, uh—yeah. I’m sorry… uh… just, you know, thinking about the wedding.”

“Why, what were you thinking?” she said, miffed tone vanishing without a trace. Watching my brother-in-law before my sister’s wedding had taught me one of the ancient secrets of female pacification. Women perk up like flowers in the sun if they think you’re interested in wedding preparations.

“Well you know… I can’t wait for the big day.”

I reached over and took her hand in mine, and for a moment I admired the delicate softness of it.

Squeezing my hand, Erika laughed and said, “Just one more week and I’m yours forever. Wow, your hands are sweaty.”

A week?

The internal cursing had increased in volume, causing my internal neighbors to start pounding the wall. I forced a laugh and squeezed back. I couldn’t marry her. Even if it weren’t morally wrong—which it was—I couldn’t pull off the Nate Act in front of all his friends and family. Man, what a letdown. For the remainder of my stay I’d be a prisoner in Erika’s company. Nice as it was, it isn’t what I’m about and it could end only in disaster. If she expected me to be amorous, I’d have to refuse. If not that, I’d forget to ask her something she’d expect me to follow up on, and that would hurt her feelings. Then she’d pull that silent treatment thing, causing me to follow her around going “What did I do?” or “Is it something I said?” She’d never tell me, I’d get angry with her and then she’d feed off that and start banging furniture around and lock me out of the bedroom.

Well screw that—right there’s what we film students refer to as a “showstopper.” I’d be damned if I slept on the couch after experiencing the luxury of that lead-lined quilt in that wonderful bed.

I wondered if I should have killed Mike Nichols. Could this be my punishment for having too soft a heart? If so, which Whomever was I working for anyway, and did he happen to have beatnik facial hair and a pointy pitchfork?

After mulling it over, I rejected the punishment idea. I’d been at this a long time and had never been punished for any of it, good or bad. Still, nothing I did wasn’t guided in some way. I’d been steered to this moment, directly and absolutely. I just didn’t know why yet.

Over time, I may have become inured to my many flaws but I’ve never been proud of them. I felt bad for this lady. Nothing good could come from associating with me, but it wasn’t like I could lean over and tell her that. I didn’t know how, what or when, but I knew something bad would happen just as surely as I knew the atomic weight of polonium. Nate would almost certainly get shot, stabbed, strangled or arrested in three weeks’ time, and then she’d be devastated. This wasn’t my fault, it was the Great Whomever’s fault. And all the fuzz with the washboard abs and millions of dollars and kids’ charities was simply more of the same perverse punishment I’d endured for years.

I glanced at Erika—eyes closed, doing her best to pretend she wasn’t listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd. She had a great profile. Erika transcended the ranks of the merely beautiful: she was holy.

Ah well. When life gives you lemons… or in her case, melons.

Lunch was tasty. For me, anyway. I ordered the Drunken Ribeye steak, and no surprise—every bit as good as I remembered it. I almost ordered one of their ales, brewed on premises, but I knew I didn’t have it in me to appreciate it. Instead, I got a soda. Lovely Erika ordered salad dressing with some salad on it and water. She even acted happy about it.

The place was packed for lunch, which leant it a comfortable buzz and sense of commotion. Easily enough to drown out the inevitable sense of oddness when I didn’t ask about her divorced mom, her sick brother or her friend’s latest fight with her shmuck boyfriend—or whatever. Life stuff. Stuff I knew nothing about.

Erika smiled prettily, the only way she knew how.

“So have you thought up any names yet? Boy and girl names?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “What if it’s a tomboy?”

She laughed. No tinkling like waterfall laughs with this one. No, she snorted. Just a couple of little snorts, back-to-back. Like a piggy. It made her look a little more normal to me—and it came as a bit of a letdown.

I laughed, playing along.

“Sorry, stupid joke.”

“No, I’m happy you’re joking,” Erika said. “I mean… you’ve been all weird since you popped the question. And here I am, about to finally move in with you after only three months, and trying to act normal while you’re all quiet all the time and
have
to marry me and… and …” Her face tightened, fighting back tears. “I’m sorry, it’s silly.”

Then she dropped her head into her hands and started crying.

Chapter 21

I couldn’t take time to ponder what she’d said because normal human interaction doesn’t have a pause button. I glanced around, but if people were watching they weren’t obvious about it. This was the point where a real man would reach across, grab his lady’s hand and say, “There there.” Seizing the moment, I reached across. But just before I got to “there there”—

“—So how
is
everything? Is it all absolutely
delicious
?” our perpetually wide-eyed and ecstatic-to-be-there young waitress said, and didn’t mind in the slightest that we were having a private conversation.

“Yeah,” I said.

If it’s possible, she got even wider-eyed and more ecstatic.

“Greaaaat! So by now you’re probably thinking about our Mile High Chocolate Challenge, hmm?”

“Not really… Erika?” I said, and then looked at the waitress again. “No, we’re fine—way too challenging.” When she didn’t reply, I added, “Thanks.”

“Aw, that’s too bad,” she said, affecting a weird, frowny face. “I’ll be right back with the check—no rush. And I’ll get you some refills in a jif-jif.”

The intrusion gave cover for Erika to compose herself.

I looked at her closely—she didn’t look as red and blotchy anymore.

She had looked red and blotchy, right?

“You didn’t get the chocolate cake,” she said, almost like an accusation.

I shrugged.

“I’m not really hungry.”

“Are you sick?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “My steak was bigger than I thought—filled me right up.”

Erika gave a half-pint version of her snorty laugh.

“Well, that’s a first.”

And then I realized—she’d seen Nate’s fridge. Turning away chocolate cake fell outside Nate’s normal range of behavior. Not a critical mistake, but one of a thousand little paper cuts that were going to bring me down. If she asked about my mother, I was toast. If she asked me to give her a drive to work—wherever that was—I was toast.