Something About You (Just Me & You) (11 page)

Fay cleared her throat tremulously and reached for her Diet
Coke.

“This didn’t go too well,” Les said and rattled the ice in
his glass.

“What did I tell you, Dad?” Chet tossed down the rest of his
drink and slammed the glass on the table. “I told you this would be a waste of
time. You don’t want to sell me the house? Fine, Sabrina. I’ll just wait for
the short sale and buy the damned thing.”

“Dad, you fix this. Right now,” Sabrina said ominously.

“Cool your jets, Chet,” Les offered up the obligatory
chiding. “Sabrina’s given you her answer. She emotionally invested in this
property—”

“—that she can barely afford. What are her monthly expenses,
Dad? Seventy percent of her net? Eighty? Once that foundation goes, she’ll have
to sell an organ on the black market to have it leveled.”

“Good god, Chet. Leave it,” Les said. “It’s only a house.”

“The house in Shady Oak Hills we looked at is nice too,” Fay
told her fiancé quietly. Chet glared at her. Fay quickly looked at the window
panels.

“
She
will take everything under advisement.” Sabrina
stood up and hurled a couple of twenties at the table. “But right now,
she
must leave before
she
says something she’ll regret,” she tossed over her
shoulder before she walked away.

Leaving Chet to simmer and her father and Fay to flounder,
Sabrina sought refuge in Bella Notte’s courtyard next to a quintet of harlequin
statues. The low concrete wall that wrapped around the outdoor fireplace felt
cold under her bum. Meeting Les here had been a mistake. The restaurant stirred
up memories she associated with safety and predictability. That is, until
yellow-haired stepbrothers reminded her that the first twelve years of her life
had only been an illusion.

She was so engrossed in her own thoughts she didn’t notice
that the door to the restaurant had opened and closed until Les sat down beside
her. Away from the odor of garlic and simmering wine sauce, Sabrina’s nose
picked up the sweet, spicy smell of cloves that permeated his clothes. The
familiar Dad smell she remembered from when she was a little girl.

“Your mother thinks we don’t have a healthy relationship,”
he said after a heavy pause. “She says we talk but we don’t communicate.”

“We don’t,” Sabrina said. “But Mom shouldn’t try to mend
other people’s fences.”

“Speaking of your mother, she sounds really happy.” Les
scratched the side of his ear, looking vexed. “Did she accidentally discover
the joy of nitrous oxide while swapping out whipped cream canisters, or is she
seeing somebody new?”

“His name is Rex. Or Felix.” It was hard to keep up with
Nola’s love life. “Yes, she’s happy.”

After another pause, Les said, “My marriage to your mother
was always complicated, Sabrina. It got more complicated around the time we
divorced. Now that we’re not married, we can finally be friends. This morning,
your mother pointed out that I gave Chet far more advantages than you. I’m not
proud of that.”

Sabrina felt a twinge of discomfort. Nola talked about Les,
but Les didn’t talk about Nola. That had always been the unspoken rule.

“Why are we discussing this now?” Sabrina asked.

“Because we need to talk about it eventually. Because you
just broke up with Jackson and it seems like as good a time as any. And because
your mother’s right about a lot of things.” Les sounded penitent. “Livvy’s a
wonderful woman, but you know how she gets about money. I’ll free up some cash
on the sly and help you out with the house. Livvy and Chet could never find
out.”

The offer should have come as a relief. Instead, Sabrina’s
stomach felt like it was weighted with kettleballs. She shook her head. “Dad,
do us both a favor and don’t do
me
any favors. If there’s one thing I
learned from the whole Jackson debacle it’s that you don’t lie to someone you
love. Or even someone you don’t love. It’s inequitable.”

“Inequitable. I suppose that’s fancy legal talk for
‘unfair’,” Les laughed shortly. Then he sobered. “You’ve got a lot on the ball,
Sabrina, but I can’t understand why you never put first things first.”

Sabrina was baffled. “What do you mean? I’ve always
prioritized. I went to university. I graduated at the top of my class. I’m
Chief of Staff. Did I leave something important off my bucket list?”

“A husband and children.”

“Because that worked out so well for Mom,” she said breezily.

“We just covered that ground, Sabrina.” Les tried to sound
stern.

“Okay. God. What else, Dad?” She supposed they were deep
into the “communication” part of the father-daughter evening.

“If I had one wish for you, it would be that you fall head over
heels like I did when I met your stepmother,” he went on. “It doesn’t take you
long to know when you meet the right one.”

Pour a little unblended in Les, and suddenly he was
channeling Gage Fitzgerald.
Fitz.
Whoever the hell he was. Sabrina
kicked at the back of her heel angrily with the toe of her shoe. Her next words
flew from her lips unchecked.

“At least if I ever meet Mr. Wonderful, I’ll have the
distinct advantage of not already being married.”

“I was not setting myself up for that, Sabrina.”

“Maybe not. But you did.”

There was a pause and then Les said, “I should have never
allowed Chet to threaten a hostile takeover. I’m sorry. There are a lot of
things I would have done differently if I had the chance.”

Scotch always made Les a little maudlin, and Sabrina wasn’t
in the mood for maudlin. She stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder. “You
and Mom split up twenty-five years ago. That’s a quarter of a century.” She
shrugged. “No more mea culpas, Daddy. Just understand me. I’m happy with my life.
I’m happy that you and Mom are happy. Really, I am…” She frowned and caught her
lower lip between Les’ perfect porcelain caps.

“But what, honeybunch?”

“It’ll be a cold day in July when I let Chet kick me out of
my own sandbox. Sharing the same blood and last name won’t ever make us family.
Chet doesn’t want that. I don’t either. I shouldn’t have to explain why.”

“I suppose not,” her father agreed, sounding tired. “I
shouldn’t push it.” Like countries in the Middle East laying claim to the same
sacred turf, relations between her and the partials had always been tenuous at
best, fraught with bad blood since inception. Les was a well-intentioned but
ineffective mediator.

“Try to enjoy yourself when you come over for Christmas,
will you?” he asked.

“I will, Daddy.”

“You called me ‘Daddy’ twice, so I know you’re not pissed
off at me anymore.” He offered a wan smile. “Sabrina, if you ever change your
mind about the money—”

“Thanks, but I won’t,” she said earnestly, giving him a peck
on the cheek. “G’night.”

“What will you do about the house?” he called as she was
walking away.

“I’ll figure something out,” she called back over her
shoulder. “I always do.”

Sabrina came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the
restaurant’s parking lot. Something had been put there that hadn’t been there
before. She stared up at a billboard the size of a Times Square marquee and
immediately recognized the mug that hogged up most of the space. Gage smiled
down at her almost benevolently as he kicked back in his studio chair,
earphones hanging around his neck. He held a glazed cruller in one hand. The
other grasped a beer. Under the KCAP logo, yellow text screamed:

IT’S 6 AM.

WWFD?

“…the hell?” Sabrina muttered, car keys in hand. The
unutterable sangfroid the image projected galled her to no end. Ever since she
discovered his real identity, she had tried hard to reduce what she’d earmarked
a memorable romantic frolic in the moonlight to a brief footnote. Gage might be
able to kiss her senseless, but that didn’t make him any less of a boor. The
best she could have hoped for was for them to be cordial in the future when
they bumped into each other at Molly’s fondue and Twister parties.

But Sabrina had leveraged her last gasp of hope against Les’
flimsy assurances, and now she’d have to take Gage into consideration as a
serious contender, given her nonexistent pool of renter applicants. The thought
of interacting with him on a daily basis was too harrowing to contemplate. She
supposed they could just make small talk. Starting with the acronym on the
billboard. What was that anyway? Some new text-speak she hadn’t heard of?

It wasn’t until she pulled her car into the driveway of her
house that the forehead-smacking moment dawned on her:

What would Fitz do?

“Channeling Lord Byron?”

Carlton stared at the silk ruffles that exploded from the
bosom of Sabrina’s jacket and cascaded over her fingertips. She left
nonfunctional fashion for social events. Today was the rare exception. Along
with the cream-colored poet’s shirt, she’d picked out a dark brown wool jacket
with brocade trim and a skirt with a fetching feminine flair. Chocolate-colored
Mary Janes completed the outfit. When negotiating a deal, it was essential to
present an image desirable to the person being negotiated with.

Gage Fitzgerald seemed like the ruffles type. 

Sabrina quickly scoured the cluttered computer desktop for
housemate.quest.docx
,
aware that Carlton was eyeing her suspiciously. He moved in closer for a whiff
of her perfume. “White florals?”

“It’s
Un Lys
,” she said defensively.

“It’s so garden party. It’s so not you,” he said with
good-natured disapproval. “I would hate to think that my fearless leader has
succumbed to the whims of an oppressive patriarchy.”

“‘Succumb’ isn’t a word in my vocabulary, Carlton,” Sabrina
assured him. She printed out the document and swiped it from the printer tray
with a flourish.

The first floor of the Capitol Extension smelled of General
Tso’s. Just outside the Capitol Grill, a standing placard reminded her that it
was Pan-Asian Wednesday. The grill’s seating area, with its muted red
Formica-topped tabletops and clashing turquoise chairs, was only slightly
smarter than the cafeteria in her freshman dorm and had the same institutional
dine-on-the-fly atmosphere.

She spotted Gage sitting at a corner table stirring
something into a steaming cup. He wore jeans and the same shirt recycled from
last night, only he’d added a ball cap to the mix. Worn backward. He looked up
and let out a low whistle when he saw her coming his way.

“My, what a fetching ensemble,” he said, a lazy smile
curling his lips. “Frills, frills,
frills
. All this on my account?”

He whipped off his cap and ran a big hand through clean
auburn waves. Sabrina really wished he hadn’t done that, because for a scant
second, she remembered the texture of that hair and how it had curled around
her fingers. And the way it smelled like freshly cut herbs and castile soap. Then
another more intense recollection popped into her mind of the scent of the
tender spot under his earlobe, sweeter, warmer, muskier and intensely human.

Why did he have to be so incredibly …
male
?
Around the dawn of fire, speech and erect spines, she could well imagine that
men like him — the earliest of alpha Homo sapiens — had whipped
female cave dwellers into a state of mindless, illogical lust. Something about
him certainly inspired it in her, especially now when he looked like he’d just
rolled out of bed.

Or like he was about to roll back into it …  

Oh, yes. Men like Gage Fitzgerald had definitely been
responsible for the survival of the species.

The best way to proceed was to keep reminding herself that
this was Gage “Fitz” Fitzgerald, atrocity of the airwaves. She made herself
give him a stony look. “I don’t have much time, so let’s get on with it,
please.” She pulled out a seat and placed the printed questionnaire on the
table between them. So he was a cocoa drinker, she noticed. Heavy on the marshmallows.
A plate with a cruller on it sat next to the cup. Fancy that.

“You brought a checklist?” Gage looked amused.

“It’s to expedite the compatibility determination process.”
She retrieved a pen from her purse. “Level of education?”

“Bachelor’s degree. I got a scholarship into the master’s
program but ditched it after two years.”

“Really? Why?” Sabrina looked up, fascinated. She would have
pegged Gage Fitzgerald as a man who had always been one decimal point away from
scholastic probation.

“Molly told me you’ve written a thesis. You tell me,” came
the droll reply.

“Do you smoke?”

“Kicked the habit.”

“Pets?” she asked.

“Does the python count?” Gage waited for the stunned look to
spread across her face before his lips spread into a mischievous smile.

She gave him an irritated look and briskly checked off
“None.” Now she’d get to the heart of it. “Will you be having, ah, overnight
guests?”

“Mind your own business,” he said promptly and blew the
surface of the steaming cocoa. Sabrina clicked her pen and gave him a pointed
stare.

“Look, if I have anyone over, I’ll cap it at once a week and
promise to keep it down to a dull roar.” He winked. Sabrina felt her cheeks
flush.

“Do you use illegal drugs?” she asked.

He looked at her sharply, but his eyes sparkled. “C’mon.
What kind of question is that? I’m thirty-eight, not eighteen.”

“It’s important to ask these questions. Haven’t you ever had
the housemate from hell? It’s a rite of passage for anyone who remains single
in his or her twenties. Sort of like pregnancy scares and adult acne.”

A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “And I thought a
sense of humor was a big n-o in your line of work.”

She scrutinized him carefully. Men his age were usually
married, laying claim to a kingdom of two-thousand square feet of Berber and a
satellite dish. Then again, this was Gage “Fitz” Fitzgerald, shock jock. She
couldn’t envision him tucked away in the ’burbs with a wife and kids. Not now.
Not ever. Hippie co-ops and gypsy encampments came to mind.

A portly, balding man in a gray pinstripe suit walked by and
nodded at her cordially. Sabrina nodded back and smiled.

“Friend of yours?” Gage inquired, noticing the exchange.

“Not remotely.” She let her smile fade. “He and his ghastly
contingent vote ‘nay’ on every one of Theo’s bills out of sheer spite.”

She studied the piece of paper in front of her. Other than
her question about overnight guests, Gage had given sufficient answers to all
of the others. She hadn’t expected that. Maybe he was a deeply closeted
alcoholic. Or had a gambling addiction. Why else would a man his age need a
housemate if money weren’t an issue? One large, square hand landed in front of
her.

“Put away the paper,” he said, dragging it to his side of
the table. “Let’s talk, man to man. Or in this case, Chief of Staff to man.”

“Fine.” Sabrina forced herself to ignore the sleight to her
femininity. “We’ll take it open-ended, starting with this question: Why do you
need a cheaper place to live?”

“Same reason you probably need a housemate. Financial problems
cropped up, and I’m not wild about foisting myself on my friends and their
guest rooms. If I downsize just a little, I can free up more cash.”

An ex-wife? Sabrina wondered. Maybe he was embroiled in a
paternity suit …  

“I don’t have any kids to support,” he said as though
reading her mind. “But I do have people in my life that I care about. It’s
nothing shady. Let’s leave it at that.”

People
probably meant family, Sabrina reasoned.
Perhaps a mother whose pension had run out or a sibling who’d been fired from a
job. Suddenly, she realized that she knew nothing about Gage Fitzgerald.
Nothing at all.

“What about you?” he asked. “Trying to hang onto property in
Austin’s sweet spot?”

“It has nothing to do with that. I grew up in the Corners.
It’s the only home I’ve ever known.” A wistful note slid into Sabrina’s voice.
There was no way she could explain to Gage Fitzgerald what it meant to be a
Corners girl, born and bred. “I don’t expect you to understand, and I mean that
in the least condescending way possible.”

“I understand all right,” Gage told her. “I’ve moved around
a lot. Every time I landed in a new city, I hoped that would be the place I’d
settle into. I’m getting to an age where I want it to be the
last
place.”

“Yes. It’s like that exactly.” Sabrina felt her lips moving
of their own volition. She didn’t know if it was because the steady timbre of
his voice had an oddly hypnotic effect or because he was speaking her language.
Just when she was playing with the possibility that living with Gage Fitzgerald
might be bearable, he opened his mouth again and spoiled everything. 

“Of course, given what houses in Austin proper cost, ‘home’
may as well be a co-op in Manhattan with a Central Park view,” he said
nonchalantly, reaching for his donut.

Sabrina resigned herself to the options. She could agree to
rent the room to Gage and suffer his presence. Or she could live from paycheck
to paycheck and hope that rot wouldn’t settle into the foundation before Theo
gave her a raise.

She cleared her throat. “If we live together, I want to make
something clear. That, um, thing that happened between us at Green Pastures?”

“‘Thing’?” He looked at her as though daring her to
elaborate. “You mean when I kissed you? Or when I slid my hand down the side of
your—”

“—All of it,” Sabrina interrupted, blushing furiously. “I
didn’t tell Molly. I didn’t see any reason to. Did you, ah…”

“Did I tell Sebastian? No. I don’t kiss and tell, no matter
how many kisses that entails.” He wasn’t smiling, but his slow, deliberate wink
still rankled her.

“I don’t make it a habit to make out with strange men at
weddings. Just so you know.” Sabrina’s face flamed as she thought of his
fingers delicately tracing the curves of her breasts.

“Now that I can definitely believe,” Gage said as he lustily
took the last bite of cruller. “And you’re telling me this why—?”

She bristled. He knew why. Damn straight he did. “Let’s just
say I don’t want you getting the impression that I’m looking for a ‘friend with
benefits’,” she informed him stiffly. “I don’t need complications in my
personal life.”

He chuckled and wiped his fingers on a napkin. “That’s rich,
coming from you.”

“Why?”

“You want the truth?”

“Do I look like I need to be mollycoddled?” She returned his
shoot-straight look with one of her own.

“Because you, darlin’, are a walking, breathing, talking
complication. You’re climbing up the top rungs of the career ladder, but you
couldn’t have screwed your personal life up any better than if you’d been
handed blueprints.” There was no criticism in his voice, she noticed. Just what
had Molly and Sebastian told him?

“That doesn’t make me complicated; it makes me a human
being, just like everyone else,” she defended herself.

“It makes you a woman who doesn’t know what the hell she
wants out of life. Except for a house in Cadence Corners — and a political
pedigree.” Gage looked around at the men and women dressed in expensive
business attire.

What was he implying? That her most pressing mission in life
was to obtain a sterling reputation as a behind-the-scenes agenda pusher?

“I won’t add to your worries,” he went on blithely, placing
the empty cup on its plate, “and I don’t waste my time with reluctant women.
See, I’m a simple man. I need a home base to conduct the basics.”

Sabrina eyed him with skepticism. “Which are?”

“Sleep, shower, shave and another word that begins with an
‘s’ that I try not to mention in polite company. I also have something you
really need.”

“What?”

He produced a footprint-muddied envelope from the pocket of
his jacket with the address of her mortgage company printed on the front.
“This, which I serendipitously found blowing around in the parking garage.
And—” He then produced a tattered checkbook. “—this. Name your price.”

In a weak voice, she told him and watched as he proceeded to
write out a check for twice the amount. He took his time stuffing the check in
the envelope and licking the flap. Gage Fitzgerald had to be one of the last
human beings on the planet to write paper checks.

“My first and last month’s rent.” He flapped the envelope at
her seductively, eyes sparkling with mischief. Sabrina suddenly understood the
meaning of the old adages “over a barrel,” “up a creek without a paddle,” and
“shit out of luck.” She was stuck with Gage. Or no one at all.

She eyed the envelope wistfully. “Okay, Fitzgerald. Give
it.”

“Magic word?”

“Give it to me,
please
,” she repeated, feeling like a
trained parrot.

“Good girl,” he grinned and tipped the enveloped in her
direction.

She plucked it from his fingers, feeling slightly dirty.
She’d gotten by on her own her entire life. She didn’t need a man for financial
reasons. Not for his physical brawn or his willingness to take out the trash
and clean the air conditioning ducts. Even though having someone to do
household chores that involved ladders and heavy lifting didn’t sound too bad.

“Don’t worry, the check won’t bounce,” Gage assured her.

Sabrina gave him a copy of the house key and watched as he
slipped it on a double ring glutted with keys.

“Do you mind waiting until Friday before you move in?” she
asked. “I need to clear a few more things out of the guest room.” The truth was
that she craved a few more days as a single occupant.
Housemate.
Such an
innocuous word, yet so filled with frugal, cumbersome connotations, she
thought, imagining the smell of Jimmy Dean in the morning and Ragu at night.  

“Works for me,” Gage agreed, looking tired. “I’ve got a few
things to square away at my old place.” The opalescent blue circles under his
eyes made him look older. “Anything else I should know now that you’ve handed
over the spare key to your kingdom?”

“Yes,” Sabrina said. “I prefer the parking space on the left
side of the garage. The right side is all yours. There’s something wrong with
the water pressure. When the shower in one bathroom runs hot, the shower in the
other runs cold. I can’t explain why. Oh, and don’t mess up the kitchen.
Housekeeping is not included as part of the deal.”

“That won’t be a problem. Most of the time, I eat on the
fly. I don’t expect we’ll see each other much, because we practically work
reverse schedules. Speaking of which, this is my prime crash time. I’m starting
to fade.” He did look really peaked, she noticed. “
Hasta mañana
,
roomie.”