Time's Up (13 page)

At five o'clock I found myself with a couple of hours to kill. Plenty of time to go to Joe's, hit the jump rope, speed bag, and spend a good long time getting ready in the empty women's locker room. On the way to my car, I scrolled through my incoming call list, found Lee's number, and pressed Call.

“Lee Sharpe.” He had a nice voice.

“Hi, it's Maisie.”

“How you doing?” he said casually, but I could hear the question of
are you cancelling last-minute?
in his voice.

“I was wondering if you could pick me up at Joe's Gym tonight?”
You never know. There was the miniscule chance Hank might turn up and it would serve him right.

“A little too early for me to meet the family?”

“Not at all. Feel free to drive over and introduce yourself. I'll be at Joe's. Self-preservation.”

Lee laughed. Warm and charming. “You bet. See you at eight.”

In the locker room, I started to worry that going out with Lee was a mistake. A big one.

A lonely little piranha of hope nibble-gnawed at my brain. Hank wasn't the kind of guy that would stand me up. And not call. Not for a week. Not without a reason . . .

I blew out a breath and put on some lip gloss.

My mother had taught me every man was a lesson unto himself.
“Use the ones you're not interested in as practice for the ones you are.”
A little cold-blooded, maybe, but July McGrane's dating advice was a highly coveted commodity.

Karmic
quid pro quo
for a player like Lee Sharpe.

I'd chosen my clothes accordingly. Black high-heeled, strappy Stuart Weitzman sandals, slim black pants, and a fluttery sheer-sleeved, high-necked black blouse. Completely covered up in form-fitting but not tight clothes. The antithetical outfit for a guy used to scantily clad women throwing themselves at his feet.

 

A raven-haired waitress in a low-cut top served us two Ketel One martinis on the rocks with olives, lingering in front of Lee. I watched her leave. He didn't.

“It's your game,” I said. “You go first.”

“Brad Thor,
Predator,
Lynyrd Skynyrd, Captain Crunch, and Under Armour,” Lee said.

“Hmmm,” I said, scrambling. “Dick Francis,
Kill Bill Volume 1
, Cake, Cocoa Puffs, and Nike.”

“Acceptable.” He smiled and tipped his hand back and forth. “Nike's a little iffy, but I'll let it slide.” He took a drink of his martini. “Worst date ever?”

“Can't say. Ours isn't over yet.”

“Oh, you're a funny one, you are.” He drummed his fingers on the table, bongo-style. His barely contained energy, strangely endearing. “Okay,
again
, I'll go first. My worst. Eighth grade. Getting caught naked in my tenth-grade girlfriend's bedroom.”

“Ehhhgh. You were having sex in eighth grade?”

Lee cocked his head. “I didn't say I was having sex. I said I was naked.”

“Stop.” I laughed. “I don't want to know.”

“I do. I want to know about you. C'mon, tell me.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “My worst dates were just
too
.”

“Two?”

“Too boring, too skeevie, too geeky, too—
too
.”

Lee fell back in his chair and shook his head in disappointment. “That is the most feeble answer I've ever heard.”

“I didn't realize this was a competition.” I tapped my cheek with my finger. “Gosh, any guy who wasn't scared off by my Da, Serpico, was threatened and/or tortured by my brothers.”

Lee pursed his lips in mock agreement. “Yeah. That's right. Nothing to tell.”

I rocked my head from side to side, shaking loose a few of the hundreds of cringeworthy memories. “Okay. How about my brothers dumping a trash can full of water on my homecoming date? No, hang on—the time Rory showed up and dropped the guy's juvie rap sheet on the table at the restaurant in front of all my friends. Or maybe when Declan set up a fake IRS audit on a junior investment banker I really liked.” I picked up my drink and set it down again. “I got it.” My lips curled in a wicked grin. “Hands down, best-ever worst moment. Flynn tagging my date in the back of the head with a paintball gun, sniper-style at the make-out bluffs.”

“Okay, okay.” Lee laughed. “You win. Or they do.”

And so it went. He was fun to talk to, smart, with a cavalier edge of confidence that said “Of course you like me, because I like me.”

And I did, I realized, like Lee.

As I hadn't gone on a real date since I first laid eyes on Hank, the inevitable comparisons between them ran across my brain like the stock ticker tape on the Fox Business Network. Hank maintained a strong ten-length lead of pure chemical infatuation. But where Hank was unattainable, Lee was accessible. Scarily open, even.

“Thrill me with a little shoptalk,” he said.

I did, telling him all the stories I'd planned to tell Hank. Lee, laughing his warm laugh in all the right places. “—so Poppa Dozen grabs my arm and says
I take care
—”

An edge of a thought eddied in my brain.

“Maisie?”

“Sorry.” I crinkled my nose and shook my head. “He says, ‘I take care of business up close and personal–like.' What does that sound like to you?”

“A threat.” He rested his chin on his hand. “Or a hit.”

I tapped my nose and pointed at him.

“Charades, is it?” He tapped his nose and pointed back at me. “I take it the McGranes are a game-playing family.”

“Is there any other kind?”

“I wouldn't mind playing some.” Lee twirled a spoon between his fingers. “How about dessert?”

Hank may own the Laws of Combat, but my mother has the Rules of Engagement. Of course, in a year and a half, I never quite got close enough to use my mother's rules on Hank, but that didn't mean they didn't work.

Which was why after dessert I made Lee take me home instead of moving on to the Violet Hour.

Lee didn't put up much of a fight, too intrigued by where I wasn't taking the date.

Lee and I waited at the valet stand of Benny's Chop House for his Bullitt Mustang. Once Mom got a gander at Lee's Steve McQueen highland green, she'd melt like chocolate in the sun.

“You really want to go home?” Lee asked, as he handed the valet a twenty.

“Yes.”

I slid into the seat, Lee closed the door behind me, and rounded the Mustang in quick strides. The backseat was littered with jackets, sweats, ball caps, and black duffel bags jammed with gear. Not filthy but messy. And it made me feel more at ease somehow.

We stopped in front of my house. He revved the car as though he was going to pull up to the keypad and camera.

“Seriously, Lee. Stop. We'll have half of Homicide out here if you pull into the gate.”

“It's only eleven thirty. It's not like I kept you out all night.” Lee parked on the street, in front of the driveway. “In fact, I barely spent any time with you at all.”

He popped his seat belt and turned sideways in his seat to face me, forearm propped on the steering wheel. I undid my seat belt.

Lee crooked a finger at me. “C'mere.”

“Why?” I asked, and leaned the slightest bit forward.

He grinned. “I want to kiss you.”

I drew back, hand at my throat, and laid on the thickest Southern drawl I could muster. “Why, Mr. Sharpe! I accepted your invitation to dinner. But an improper advance? And to think, I
trusted
you.”

“Did you now?” Lee laughed. “That was silly.” He didn't move, waiting for me to, enjoying this. Because there's nothing a player likes more than a new game with new rules.

I held out my hand. He took it.

“Thank you for dinner,” I said.

“So that's it?” he asked and kissed the back of my hand, brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “You're just going to go in and go to bed?”

“Oh no,” I said, perfectly serious. “First, I'm going to kneel down beside my bed and say ten Hail Marys and five Our Fathers for impure thoughts.”

“Catholic school?” he said.

“St. Ignatius. And the uniform still fits.”

“You're an imp, Maisie.”

“And you're only now figuring that out?”

Lee got out of the car, came around, and opened my door.

“Thanks,” I said, as he closed it behind me. “But please, don't walk me to the door.”

He flashed his palms and backed away around the hood of the car. I giggled. He drummed his hands on the driver's-side roof. “I'll be thinking about you tonight.”

“In a plaid skirt and school tie, no doubt.”

Lee laughed and got in the car. I typed the code into the gate and it swung open. He sat in the car, waiting. I waved him on with mock flourish, feeling flirty and cute.

The taillights of the green Mustang faded into darkness, and I walked toward the house—the lightness of Lee carrying me up the driveway—and then, like hearing the losing number on a lotto ticket, the happy feeling was gone.

I stamped my heels in a little not-gonna-go-there dance and walked up the sidewalk.

“Gah!” I clattered backwards at the dark shape of a man leaning against one of the portico pillars, recognizing him before I even regained my balance.

He pushed off the pillar and stepped into the light. His close-cropped hair had gone slightly shaggy, and stubble covered the hard line of his jaw. He looked tired and untouchable and perfect.

“Sorry I'm late, Doll Face.” His deep voice vibrated in my chest, and the part of me that is unfamiliar with the word
pride
thrummed with pure delight.

I glanced at my watch. “Only a week and three hours.”

Raised on film noir, I'd dreamt of this moment. Fantasized about it the way most girls plan their wedding. A tough guy with a dark side walks through the door, and I am the jaded siren, as smooth and cool as window glass in winter.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Glad to see you,” I said a little too earnestly.

His grin flashed white in the darkness. “I'm glad to see you, too. How's the job?”

“It's been a series of diverse learning experiences. So far, someone dumped an old milk shake on my head, a guy peed on my cart, I found a dead body, and had a front-row seat to a low-budget
Godfather
-style retaliation.”

He laughed. “And you're certain law school is a terrible idea.”

“Where were you, Hank?” The words popped right out of my mouth.
From lame to pathetic in six-tenths of a second.

“Cali.”

“Oh?” I said archly. “And there're no phones in California?”

“Not clean ones. Not in Cali, Colombia.”

Oh.
“What were you doing there?”

The smile faded from his face. “Things other people won't.”

“Okay.” I nodded. “Okay. I don't need to know.” The words turned to ash in my mouth.

“That's the first lie you've ever told me.”

“Oh yeah?” A perverse spark of happiness danced in my brain that he'd noticed. “What happened?”

He gave his head a slight shake and put his hand on my shoulder.

Of course, you can't tell me.
“Is that why you're here? Looking for a little absolution?”

“Maybe.” Hank's hand slid up the back of my neck, sifting his fingers through my hair. “Does it matter?”

It felt so good, my vision blurred. “Real people don't live like characters in a Vince Flynn book.”

“I do.” He closed the distance between us and kissed me. Fierce and hot, his fingers tangled in my hair, my brain liquefying into melted honey. His hands slid down around my hips, his teeth closed on my ear.

Oooh.
I shuddered and the alarm in my head went off. “Hank—”

He nuzzled his scruffy chin against my collarbone and trailed a line of nipping kisses up my neck. He raised his head, the muscles around his gunmetal-gray eyes tight. “Come home with me.”

Every atom of my body screamed yes. But I just wasn't built that way. With a shaky breath, I stepped back. “I c-can't.”

A shadow flickered across his face. “How was your date?”

I shoulda, woulda seen that one coming.
“Uh . . . nice,” I said, with the slow concentration of a punch-drunk boxer. “Real . . . nice.”

“Good,” he said. “That's good for you.”

“Is it?”
Please please please tell me it's not.

Hank's mouth quirked up at the corner. “Yeah. It is.”