Take a Chance on Me (93 page)

Next, Emma held up a silver lamé jumpsuit with a rhinestone collar, then the green leprechaun ensemble.

Emma put everything back in the box and cast him a sly glance. "You know, Tobin, unless Hairy had more than one St. Patrick's Day costume, I think you've already seen this stuff. Am I right?"

Thomas cleared his throat. "Yes, I did. I thought it would be fun for you to find."

Emma shook her head and got back on all fours to shove the box into the closet. Thomas gritted his teeth.

"Huh." She stood up, hands on hips, and frowned. "Has Hairy demonstrated any kind of special skills?"

"Skills?" Like falling in love with my underwear?

"Yeah, like jumping through hoops or standing up on his hind legs or spinning or flipping or anything?

Things a circus dog would do?"

"Hairy? My Hairy is a circus dog?"

"I have no idea," Emma said, laughing. "But he sure does something that requires a festive wardrobe."

"Yeah. So did Slick. Remember the sailor suit I told you about? The one Hairy was wearing when I found him?"

Emma nodded, a cute little divot forming between her eyes.

"Well, I guess I failed to mention that Slick was wearing a matching outfit when he died. Little sailor cap and all."

Emma crossed her arms up under her breasts, stretched one leg out to the side and tapped her toe.

"Anything else you need to tell me?"

Several things, actually, he thought. "Nope," he said.

Emma pursed her lips and squinted at him, maintaining her impatient schoolmarm posture. She looked unbearably sweet, he thought.

"You better not be shitting me, Tobin." Her voice was decidedly unsweetened.

"I hear you." I'm a dead man when she finds out the check I gave her is my money.

He watched Emma march back to the entertainment center and peer at the CD player. She hit the ON

button, then pushed PLAY, and suddenly the whole apartment came alive with the throbbing disco beat of the Village People's "In the Navy."

If it weren't for the sight of Emma's laughing face, her lovely hips rocking back and forth, and her sweet voice singing "'Where can you find pleasure, search the world for treasure…?'" Thomas would've been certain that he'd died and taken the express elevator to his own personal hell.