Think Before You Speak (20 page)

“Now that’s whatcha call service,” I said
before taking a long and satisfying gulp. “Nothing calms the nerves
better.”

Rochelle offered a motherly head tilt. “What
could possibly have your nerves in a bunch on a day off?”

“Um…traffic?”

“Try again.”

“The heat?”

“Close.”

“Men?”

“Bingo,” Rochelle said with a smile. “I’ve
been dying to hear how your date went with…what do you call
him…Radioman?”

“That’s it,” I said, raising the mug in
salute to the made-up moniker. “It was great…mostly.”

Until he ran off and left my girlie bits in a
bind. Wait a minute, it couldn’t have been all that sweat, could
it? I mean, I’d put on plenty of deodorant and body spray
beforehand. Too much perhaps?

“Stilted conversation?”

“Not exactly. Smooth conversation, but what
else would you expect from a guy who gets paid to talk all
day?”

“True,” Rochelle acknowledged. “So it was the
awkward goodnight kiss then.”

“Great kisser. Everything was going perfect
until…”

“Awkward good morning?”

I shook my head and buried myself in my beer
in shame. No, I don’t cry in my beer, folks. That’d mess up the
taste.

Rochelle stopped wiping the counter in mid
swipe. “Don’t tell me he was bad in bed.”

“Never even got there,” I admitted.

Now I had the barkeep’s full and undivided
attention. She lowered her voice to where she could barely be heard
over the piped-in music. “Did he ask to do something kinky?”

“Did you hear me?” I asked raising my voice.
“We never got to the bedroom.”

Snickers from the table behind indicated my
tone had overshot my intentions. I’d always possessed a voice that
carried – everyone told me so. When I was young, the sperm donor
had even claimed he could hear me all the way down in Houston and
Mexico during business trips. In the ensuing adult years, alcohol
tended to amplify my vocal inflections.

Oh, hell. Maybe that’s what chased Radioman
off too early.

Rochelle leaned forward like she’d bought a
ticket and taken a front row seat to the stage performance of my
mental musings. She patted my hand and handed over another frosty
one. “Tell Momma ‘Chelle what happened then.”

I sighed. “It’s what didn’t happen. He said
he wanted to be a
gentleman
, whatever the hell that
means.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“He wouldn’t even cross the threshold into my
apartment.”

“Seriously?”

“As a heart attack.”

“What a letdown.”

“Among other things,” I murmured. “Be honest
with me, Rochelle. Are my thighs too fat? Butt too big? Boobs not
big enough?”

“You’re asking me?” Rochelle quipped as she
gawked and squawked. “I’m a thirty-
something
divorcée with
two kids. If that’s not enough to send a man running home in
terror, I’ve got stretch marks to rival a roadmap, a butt that
screams
mom-jeans
no matter what brand I wear, and boobs
already well into a permanent southerly migration. At this rate,
you might as well put me out to pasture or send me off to the glue
factory.” She knocked back a shot of Jack to rival my expertise.
“Trust me. I’d kill to have just your thighs.”

And Janine wondered why I wasn’t interested
in having kids. I almost wished she’d had a seat beside me for
Rochelle’s diatribe against the physical damage of motherhood – not
to mention the mental. Then again, she’d probably come back at me
with something like
that’s what keeps plastic surgeons at the
top of the medical field food chain
.

A tilt back finished off my second beer.
“Then what’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing, hon.”

“You’ve said it before. Grady’s been treating
me differently.” Yeah, that was because of other things, but the
train was out of the yard and heading down the
Vicki’s Feeling
Sorry for Herself
tracks. “I was at Zeke’s place for more than
a month, and he never so much as tried to touch me. The only person
who has given me the eyeball since the start of summer is a
middle-aged detective with a glandular condition. And now Baby is
entertaining the troops better than me.”

“Maybe Radioman should’ve asked
her
out?”

I offered up my best narrow-eyed glare. Then
belched. Rochelle laughed, grabbed a shot glass then poured in
three fingers before sliding it toward me.

“Listen,” she stated, “have you ever tried
not
rushing a relationship into the physical realm?”

“I don’t follow,” I admitted.

“You know, taking things slow. Avoiding the
bedroom until the relationship passes the viability stage.”

I shrugged before tossing back the shot.
“Guess I’m just a one trick pony.”

“Isn’t that streetwalker slang for a
john?”

“I thought that was another word for a
toilet?”

“Trick?”

“No, john.”

Rochelle swiped the empty glass off the bar
without replacing it. “Look, this could be a really good thing. It
says Radioman’s interested in more than just your body. It means
he’s interested in
you
.”

“Hey, whether it’s first, second, or third
down, the defensive end is still gonna rush the quarterback,” I
returned.

Rochelle just shook her head like a good
mother. “Take it from a girl who’s been around the block more than
once, Vicki. Enjoy your time with this one. Pace yourself. He just
might be a keeper.”

“Then what do we do in the meantime?” I
asked.

My mind drifted to last night. Lips on mine.
Tongues doing the tonsil tango. Desire to drag him to my mattress
and see what else he could do with that tongue. Hmm.

“Enjoy the conversation and the kissing.”

Okay, so Rochelle didn’t have a front row
seat to my mental musings. Apparently she’d scalped her tickets and
gone elsewhere for the night’s entertainment ventures.

“So what’s a guy got to do to get in on this
convo about kissing?”

Speak of the devil – almost. I spun the stool
around to catch Radioman’s lawyer friend sliding onto the seat next
door in a tailored black suit minus the requisite tie. Great. Just
what I needed.

“What’ll you have?” Rochelle asked.

I interceded. “He’ll take a scotch on the
rocks.”

Seth sent a thumb my way. “What she
said.”

While Rochelle poured his drink, Seth gave me
the full-blown, head-to-toe, once over. With some people, such
action got my catnip all riled up like Slinky when the litterbox
needed refreshed. However, with the conversation Rochelle and I
just had, it was the stroke my ego needed. Dignity was restored –
sort of.

“This is a nice view,” he said with a smile.
“Never seen you on this side of the bar.”

“My night off,” I returned.

“And yet here you are.”

I offered up a toast with the vodka Rochelle
had set before me – then realized with my first sip it was water.
She tossed a smirk over her shoulder before scurrying off to wait
on another patron.

“It’s my home away from home.”

“Kinda like me and my office some days,” Seth
said with a sigh and glanced around the room.

Nerves fluttered in my stomach. “Are the guys
meeting you here tonight?”

“Doug was supposed to, but it looks like he
got tied up late at the office too.”

Good. No awkward moment with Radioman on the
horizon. In my present, less-than-confident state, I really didn’t
want to run into him until I had a chance to buck up. ‘Course that
got me thinking about bucking broncos, which then had me thinking
about stallions, which sent my brain into a flurry about a certain
lonely set of sheets.

A part of me heard what Rochelle had said.
But then the other part felt like a ravenous bear who’d recently
awakened from hibernation ready to binge. Five weeks of sexually
frustrated female on Zeke’s couch, followed by a week of sexually
insatiable female with Nick, had my pledge to lay off the getting
laid going the way of football in March. A part of me missed it,
but the pull toward August’s preseason opener was almost too much
to resist.

Especially when even thinking about
Radioman’s deep and sultry voice had me purring like a kitten. I
was such a predictable and lost cause at this point anyway – but no
need to spill the beans to his lawyer friend. I steered the
conversation to a safer topic.

“So speaking of Doug,” I ventured. “I asked
Radiom…I mean Bruce, about him last night on our date.”

Seth offered up a funny quirk of his mouth.
“That’s a strange conversation for you two to have on a first
date.”

I shrugged. “I was curious about how the
three of you met.”

“Did he tell you about our fraternity
rivalry?”

“Yeah. If I remember correctly, it had
something to do with alcohol consumption then too.”

Seth coughed away the sip he’d taken and
laughed. “From frat rivals to friends. Pretty interesting,
huh?”

“Interesting,” I mused as Grady popped out of
his office and eyed me from across the bar.

Instead of the typical mustache tilt this
time he offered up a hard set of his jaw and a firm line of lips,
as if he knew the conversational track I’d taken. The topic of
Banker Boy. The one he’d told me to leave alone. With all of the
cameras canvassing the area, I wouldn’t put it past him to have
planted a few microphone bugs like a scene from a spy movie. The
realization sent a zing along my spine – and this time it wasn’t in
the direction of my nether regions.

If there really were hidden microphones, that
meant Grady had listened in on all of my interactions. All of my
conversations at the bar. Even the ones Rochelle and I had
concerning his fine – oh, hell no.

Rochelle chose that moment to return and
address Seth. “So Vicki here tells me you’re a lawyer.”

“Is that a positive or a negative in your
book?” he asked with a wink.

“Aw, sugar,” Rochelle said with a smile and a
placating pat to his cheek. “I don’t do the cougar thing, but
thanks for the consideration.”

A wicked little smile oozed across Seth’s
lips. “Too bad.”

I continued stewing about the extent of
Grady’s clandestine activities as he made rounds across the way.
The possibility he’d listened in on conversations all these years
threatened to stir up a hornets nest in my brain. I wished Rochelle
really had filled the glass with vodka instead of water. Might burn
the boss’s eyes a little when I threw it in his face – if he had
the courage to head this way.

“Besides, I’m raising two kids on a
bartender’s salary,” Rochelle continued.

Her favorite defense mechanism – throw two
kids into the conversation and most guys ran toward the hills
faster than a sprinter in the hundred-yard dash.

But Seth stayed put – and put on his lawyer
face. “Divorced?”

Rochelle’s eyes widened. “Well, yeah.”

“Was child support ordered as part of your
decree?”

Rochelle rolled her eyes and snorted like a
prized bull. “Just because a paper says he’s supposed to pay
doesn’t make it magically appear in my bank account.”

“Aren’t they garnishing his wages?”

“That’d be easier if I knew where he’d
disappeared to.”

Seth tossed back the remainder of scotch and
dropped forty bucks on the bar as he stood. Then he handed a card
to Rochelle. “I might be able to help with that. Call my office
tomorrow.”

She stared at the card. “Thanks, but I can’t
afford an attorney right now.”

“Pro bono.”

“For child support?”

Seth shrugged. “Sure. I can choose up to a
certain number of pro bono cases I take on each year.”

“I…I…,” Rochelle stuttered.

I leaned into Seth’s shoulder and got a whiff
of the same musky cologne Radioman had worn on our date. The
thoughts of what
should’ve
happened last night, if I’d had
my way, flooded my naughty mind – until Grady popped into my
peripheral vision and brought with it thoughts of lying, cheating
men.

“She’ll call you in the morning,” I told
Seth.

He nodded and checked his phone. “Well, since
you lovely ladies shot me down, I guess I’ll have to mosey on
elsewhere to find some entertainment for the evening.”

Elsewhere called to me too when I checked the
time on my phone a little later. A meeting with a dangerous gang
leader promised to be less than entertaining though. Try more like
panty piddling.

***

Piddling in panties – check. ‘Cept it wasn’t
for the reason I’d originally imagined.

A clipped response to one of my earlier texts
told me Janine was once again in full-fledged freak-out mode as she
readied preparations for the semester’s start – which in my book
said she needed a break. Plus, with my heart threatening to pound
right out of my chest, I could use some back-up to tame the
cowardly lion courage coursing through my veins.

Whatever qualms I’d had about dragging Janine
along as Watson to my Holmes whisked away. The neighborhood we
drove through was elegant, with homes much larger than the average
and beautiful, old-fashioned streetlamps dotting every corner like
the gas ones at the turn of the twentieth century. I tapped my GPS
a couple of times to make sure it hadn’t taken a trip to la-la
land. I felt as if I’d taken a trip alright – into storybook
fantasyland.

I pulled to a stop beneath a streetlamp to
double-check I’d correctly input the address into GPS. Then a quick
check of what I’d written down when setting the appointment. At
this rate, I had to have written it down wrong. Blame it on a case
of overwrought nerves when I’d made the call earlier.

“Why are we stopping?” Janine whispered.

“This can’t be right,” I said, squinting at
the paper in the ambient dash lights and comparing it to the GPS
readout.

The details written were the same as the
electronic input. I put the car into drive and continued up the
hill.