What A Girl Wants (2 page)

But when Hayley pulled his head toward hers and started kissing him for all she was worth, he seemed to figure the scenario out pretty quickly.

His hands switched directions and went up instead of down, sliding under her shirt and skidding along her slippery, sweaty abdomen. But he didn't stop there. He was sliding his hands up her body, now, and—

Something thumped on the ground in the cube next door. “Damn. Here, can you take his arm a sec?” said one of the paramedics.

The delirious expression on Grant's face flickered a bit. It looked like his professionalism and common sense might be recovering from the assault. Like he might pull out of the gig. Not acceptable.

Hayley's hand went south on the detective so quickly that he flinched at first. But in that moment his brain obviously stopped communicating with the rest of his body, and she had him exactly where she wanted him. Which happened to be standing between her knees as she sat on the edge of the desk, grinding his business
against the palm of her hand while he unhooked her bra and went for prime real estate.

Hayley had broken off the kiss a while back when things started to get interesting, because there wasn't a whole lot of oxygen in the workloft to begin with. But Grant was committed now, and he went back for more tongue, and, man, the guy was a pro.

Unless a guy was doing something really strange, Hayley couldn't really say that she noticed one guy's kissing technique being that much different from another guy's. But this was different, although her light-headedness might have had something to do with it.

Or maybe it was just because he was such a brilliant multitasker. Now he was full-throttle kissing her, had the one hand working pretty skillfully upstairs, and just skated the other one up under her skirt. Since Hayley was wearing a thong, she nearly jumped out of her skin when he grabbed a handful of bare ass.

Time to up the ante. She unzipped his fly and pulled him out. He seemed to like that, so she moved her hand on him, which he also liked, and he went to repay the favor, sliding his hand over her sweaty, sticky thigh and—

“Maggots. Uh-huh. This guy's been dead a little while. We've got maggots.”

Grant's eyes opened. The foggy look cleared and he stepped backward, distancing himself from Hayley in one motion.

He looked stunned. He and Hayley locked eyes, panting. He put his business back in his pants and zipped up. He stared at Hayley. She stood up and stared back at him while she tried to snap her bra together with shaking hands behind her back.

He frowned, swallowed, turned her around without a word,
and rehooked her bra, then turned her around again to face him, straightened her shirt, and smoothed down her skirt.

Hayley just stood there like a rag doll, attempting to clear her throat, making more of a gargling sound.

He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “There's a deceased person approximately four feet from here.” He took a business card out from his wallet, set it down on the counter, and walked out.

A
fter returning home early on Friday afternoon of the Unusual Incident and its accompanying Inappropriate Response, Hayley changed into an oversize T-shirt and crawled into bed. She stayed there for approximately thirty consecutive hours, rising only to pee and eat canned soup.

On Sunday morning, even knowing she had to get up and meet her friends for Girlie Brunch, she was still lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling.

When her alarm finally beeped, Hayley flung out an arm without even looking and slapped the off button with her palm. Resistance was futile. Not to mention she desperately needed a cup of coffee. She stood up, shuffled over to the closet, and squinted into the dim storage space. Then, to avoid unnecessary decision making, she simply picked Friday's clothes off the floor and put them on. She added a black baseball cap to bypass the hair issue, and finally got herself out the door.

Girlie Brunch started as a huge postcollege gathering of UC and Stanford alumnae and their friends. They'd promised to use
the brunch as a vehicle to stay in touch. After a year of gradual attrition (read: those who found serious boyfriends stopped showing up), only Hayley and three others still attended. Now best friends, Hayley, Diane Gradenger, Audra Banks, and Suz Herrick never skipped a Sunday if it could be avoided.

Gerttie's Diner was walking distance from Hayley's tiny Bernal Heights apartment. It was the kind of breakfast place that didn't really deserve the classic interpretation of “diner,” since the food bordered on gourmet and it served lattes. But the place still looked the part: red vinyl seat cushions, Formica tabletops, the works.

Hayley grabbed the usual window table and ordered breakfast; an oversize latte called “the Gigante” for herself, regular-size lattes for Diane and Audra, and the pancake special for Suz.

Minutes later, Diane arrived in her uniform of ripped jeans and an ancient UC Berkeley sweatshirt with a nasty blue ink stain on one cuff. Her wet, mousy-brown shoulder-length hair was soaking into her sweatshirt, but she didn't seem to notice. There were a lot of things Diane tended not to notice.

Scribbling furiously with a stylus into her Palm handheld, she never even looked at Hayley as she sat down. “I may end up failing my Human Sexuality elective if I don't get some sort of paper going here.”

Hayley didn't take it personally. After all, Diane was known more for her extensive vocabulary and analytical mind than for her people skills. “I still don't get why an MBA student takes a class like Human Sexuality.”

“It's supposed to be easy credits. As it stands, I'd rather do another excruciating round in the Stock Market Challenge than write this paper. All I have is a random accumulation of ideas that don't fit together into a coherent thesis whatsoever.” She put down the
handheld and pulled off her sweatshirt, used it to absorb the water at the ends of her hair, then tied it around her waist. “You know, it's too bad I'm not still seeing Bud. He would have been convenient subject matter.”

“I don't think he would have hung around for that. He broke up with you because you kept overanalyzing his bedroom technique. If I recall, you likened him to a shar-pei.”

“I never said that.”

“You told him that his technique was cute and he obviously was trying to be cuddly, but after a certain point you just wanted him to get off you so you could get back to work.”

“Oh, I did say that.” Diane shrugged. “He
was
sort of like a lapdog. With an equally useless flapping tongue. He would have made a good subject for the paper, though.” She finally glanced up at this point and did a double-take that must have seriously tweaked her neck. “Are you okay?”

Hayley obviously looked as glazed as she felt. “Well, actually it's like this. I found my copy editor dead at work on Friday, then lost control of myself somehow and followed it up with a sexual interlude in my cube with the investigating detective.” It was odd the way it came out of her mouth so matter-of-factly. Made the whole thing seem even more disturbing than she'd originally thought. “I really think it speaks to larger issues. It's serious.”

“What's serious?” Audra strolled up to the table decked out in full khaki and black Banana Republic regalia—her version of the weekend sloth look—and pulled a gorgeous silk scarf from her Kate Spade tote bag. She used it to wipe off her chair before sitting down.

“Hayley's got boy trouble.”

Huh?
“Wait, what?”

Audra patted Hayley's hand and drawled, “Lucky you! What a delicious mess. I wish
I
had boy trouble.”

Hayley managed a weak smile. “No, you don't. You hate messes of any kind. Sometimes I think you hate men.”

“I don't hate men. I love men. I just have a habit of loving the wrong ones. And nobody's even made the first cut in a while. I'm almost willing to go B-list, at this point. Almost.”

Right
. Audra rarely went less than A-list on anything. Of course with a six-figure salary from the city's most prestigious boutique venture capital firm, she could afford not to. But to her credit, Hayley had to admit that it was nothing less than sheer loyalty that kept Audra coming back week after week to a diner she referred to in exaggerated tones as “the palace of squalor.”

“I'd be scared to be your boyfriend,” Diane mumbled. “All that pressure.”

“It's called standards, ladies. Being effectively high-maintenance is an art. Don't forget that. Anyway, Di, with your record, you're not one to talk. Hay, what kind of boy trouble are you in?”

“It's not boy trouble. It's bigger than that.” She sighed. “Suz is going to want to hear all this, so I'm only giving you the digest. On Friday I found a corpse and fondled a police detective.”

Audra gaped at Hayley, her expression equal parts disgust and admiration. Then she pulled back dramatically and flashed Hayley a sly look. “This is one of your exaggerated stories, isn't it? Naughty girl, I almost believed you this time.”

Before Hayley could protest, Suz ran into the café, looked around wildly, and flew toward the table.

She sported a fitted pink and white V-neck baseball jersey with a shiny decal spelling out
Angel
across the chest and double-dyed
denim jeans and Nikes. Her wavy red hair stuck out of a high ponytail.

“Sorry, couldn't find parking. Had to wedge the cruiser into an electric-car spot. Wasn't pretty. Christ, it's hot out there. What'd I miss?” Suz pulled a napkin out of the canister on the table and stuck it down her shirt.

Poor, poor Suz. Hayley looked jealously at her friend's rather spectacular endowments. All that cleavage—it must be like a wading pool in her bra. “Hey, Suz. We ordered your usual.”

Audra cut to the chase. “Hayley's got quite the tale of murder and sexual intrigue.”

“Experienced that myself last night. A thousand guys in a dark bar grabbing my ass and me wanting to kill them all.” Suz jammed her fork into the pile of pancakes in front of her, ignoring Audra's wince when the fruit garnish skidded off her plate. Well, that was Suz, all right; she did just about everything with maximum . . . robustness.

Diane looked up. “I thought you were enjoying that gig as the Johnny Beer girl.”

“Gig's fine,” Suz said. “Just a little tired of the same guys week after week.” Suz's original goals for putting her mass communications degree to good use had nothing to do with being able to flirt simultaneously with large groups of men in bars. However, over the past several years, she had turned the oft-disparaged occupation of “bar promotions girl” into an art form. In fact, she did so well on tips and commissions that she regularly forgot she was supposed to be looking for a “real” job.

Suz shoveled another bite into her mouth and chewed. “You know how it is. Guys are like glow sticks. Put the stick in your
hand. Shake it just right. Light goes on. Everybody has fun. Then it's used up. Time to find new fun. Know what I mean?”

“Shar-peis and glow sticks.” Hayley turned to Audra. “I can see why you're hesitant to stoop to the B-list. In any case, I think you should know that it wasn't a story. It's true what I said. I found the senior copy editor, Fred Leary, dead on Friday, and when the investigating detective came to question me, we ended up. . .you know . . . we ended up getting a little, uh, a little . . . ‘personal' in my cube. We didn't actually do it, of course. But we got . . . how should I say this? We got ‘close-ish.' ”

Silence.

“ ‘Close-ish'? You and this policeman got ‘close-ish' at your office . . . What exactly does that . . .” Diane paused and cocked her head. “Wait a minute. Doesn't Fred Leary sit right next to you?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, he does. Did.”

Audra leaned forward. “And you . . .” She wiggled her fingers suggestively. “Right next door? Good Lord. That's disgusting.”

“Yeah, that is kind of disgusting.” Actually, Suz looked impressed.

“This could be useful,” Diane said. “By all means, keep going.”

“It's just that the whole thing is really horrifying when you think about it. A man died. People walked around the cube in which his corpse lay for, like, a day, having one-sided conversations without realizing he was never going to answer.”

She couldn't look at her friends. The whole thing was too terrible. “All of a sudden, Fred seemed . . . less important. Since he was already dead. I just kind of zeroed in on the detective.” She cringed at the words and rubbed her eyes. “The key word being ‘seemed.' At the time. I don't know why I did it.”

Diane nodded sagely. “A spontaneous adrenaline burst of sexuality triggered by acute emotional upheaval.” She turned and made a notation.

“So anyway, one moment I'm answering questions about Fred's decomposing body, and the next minute I'm grinding up against this very well built . . . big . . . beautiful detective man. And the thing is—”

“A
Big Dick!
Get it?” Suz blurted out. She then compounded the joke by asking about the length of his police baton, and after a few giggles muffled out of respect, the three girls just couldn't hold it in.

Hayley waited for the laughter to die down. “Seriously, though, the significance—”

“Did you exchange numbers?”

“Well, Audra, he left me his card, but I'm pretty sure it was for investigative purposes only. Ya know?”

Diane rapped her knuckles on the table. “Hey, does Big Dick have an actual name?”

“It's Grant Hutchinson, actually. A perfectly respectable name. So you can all stop calling him Big Dick right about now.”

“No need to get testy. We're here to help. But we're curious about this business of ‘close-ish.' Does that mean there was tongue?” This from Suz, of course.

“What?”

“Was there—”

“Oh, for cripes' sake!” But the girls were looking at her, waiting.

“Fine. He had his hands under my skirt on my thighs and ass; I had one hand inside his shirt and the other on his . . . big dick,” Hayley explained, ticking the hand placements off like a shopping list. “Full-frontal grinding. It lasted for, like, a minute, tops.”

“So was it in or was it out?” Suz asked.

Hayley put her hands on her hips. “You're totally missing the point. This isn't about sex. This is about a serious life crisis that I don't even fully understand yet.”

Audra smiled sympathetically, but a telltale twitch at the corners of her mouth suggested something else. Suz was busy choking on her pancakes, so she couldn't toss out one of her zingers, and Diane just kept nodding and making notes in the damned Palm.

“What?” Hayley looked from one friend to the other. “What?”

The three girls looked at each other and seemed to realize that maybe this wasn't one of Hayley's exaggerations. Audra patted Hayley's hand again. “Okay. We hear you. But if we're going to understand exactly what we're dealing with here, you're going to have to give us a little more to go by.”

Suz finally swallowed the clump of pancake, her eyes glittering with anticipation. “In other words, start from the beginning and don't leave anything out.”

In spite of the depressing subtext of the story, Hayley was enjoying the attention. So she told them everything, every gory detail.

When she finished, Suz, Audra, and Diane just stared bug-eyed at Hayley with their chins resting on their hands. Absolutely riveted. Finally, Suz asked, “What did he say after that?”

Hayley stared morosely into her empty latte mug. “Nothing. It was just, ‘There's a deceased person approximately four feet from here.' And then, like I said, he left.”

“How rude,” Audra sputtered.

“I don't think I follow his meaning,” Diane said, scratching her nose thoughtfully with the stylus. “Why didn't he just say ‘dead'? Why ‘deceased'?”

“He didn't even
thank
you?” Suz asked.