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“I’m talking about people with penises. Like you.”
“You don’t think a man wants a woman who’s scraped herself from the bottom of a shit pile, clawed her way up to be a strong, independent woman—a fuckin’ lawyer, no less—and owns her own fuckin’ home and law firm? Not sure where you’re meetin’ these fuckin’ men.”
“I was married to one.”
His jaw shifted.
She sighed. “Let’s have sex.”
What?
His brain almost exploded when he answered, “No.”
“You don’t want to have sex? You’re wearing only your underwear and when I came out, it was hard to miss the steel pipe inside them. Plus, you have a condom sitting on the table. Did I read the room wrong?”
He grabbed her arm and tugged her over to the seat next to the lounge chair. “Sit.”
She pursed her lips, stared at him for a second, then sat with another drawn-out sigh.
“And no, you didn’t read anythin’ fuckin’ wrong. I wanna fuck you. That was the plan. Did you hear how I said that? I wanna fuck you tonight. Been lookin’ forward to it all goddamn day.”
“You have?”
“Don’t fuckin’ act surprised. You ain’t foolin’ anyone.”
She covered her mouth with her hand, probably hiding some semblance of a smile. He wanted to cover her mouth with his instead. But first, they needed to have a little discussion.
Why he should care about a woman he was boning being so closed off, he had no fucking clue. But it was bugging the shit out of him.
She seemed to loosen up more after taking a couple hits off his nightly joint, so he grabbed it off the table, balanced the aluminum foil ashtray on the lounge chair’s armrest, tucked the fatty between his lips and lit it.
He took two good puffs from it to make sure it was burning evenly, then offered it to her. For a second, he thought she would turn it down, but then her hand shot out and snagged it. Unlike the first night, she didn’t cough when she sucked the smoke deep within her lungs.
“You know,” she said as the smoke rolled from between those lips he wished were around a fatty of a different kind. “Edibles won’t screw up your lungs like smoke.”
“No shit. But right now, in Pennsylvania, you need a medical reason to buy that shit.”
She took another long drag and handed it back to him. “You don’t smoke it for a medical reason?”
“Got a low tolerance for assholes and bullshit, that’s my medical reason. So, don’t bullshit me,” he warned. “However, that excuse won’t get me a card.”
“Then I expect the same courtesy from you. My tolerance for assholes and bullshit is at a zero level.”
“Probably deal with a lot of them with what you do.”
She sat back and accepted the joint again. “Yes, I do. That’s why I don’t need it in my personal life.”
“And your sister drug it right back into your life,” he concluded.
“With a vengeance.”
“So, your ex was an asshole,” he also determined.
“Billy Warren might be the king of assholes, but Allen ended up with his very own crown.”
He wanted to lean his chin on interlaced fingers and encourage her with a “go on.” But instead he took another toke after she passed the joint back to him, then asked, “Had enough?”
“You have no idea.”
“The joint,” he clarified.
She waved a hand. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Tell me about him.” He pinched out the end, and put it and the ashtray aside on the table. He wanted a semi-clear head when she began to spill all her secrets.
Okay, maybe not all would be revealed tonight. He hoped she’d start with the ex first. He’d work on the rest, like her “shitty beginnings,” at another time.
He had to draw the info he was curious about from her carefully or she might just shut down and shut him out. And though they hadn’t spoken much in the last few days, she had gotten more comfortable with him in the time they spent together before they’d have sex and she’d disappear.
He really liked the fact she didn’t run her mouth for no good reason. Some women just liked to fill the silence or hear themselves speak. When she had something to say, she said it and then shut up.
Unless he disagreed with what she said, then she had a lot more to say.
“I met Allen during college. We both attended Villanova. You know why I went, but he wanted to teach at the college level in environmental science. Once he finished his masters, he got an offer from Mansfield University to teach while he worked on his PhD.”
Christ. Deacon barely graduated high school. Not because he was stupid but because he just didn’t give a shit about school.
Or college. Or working a nine-to-five desk job.
He probably would’ve ended up working some minimum wage job if Judge hadn’t decided to open his own bail bonds business a few years after working for one in Williamsport. His cousin learned the business inside and out, then, with the scratch Deacon’s father left them in a life insurance policy, they started Justice Bail Bonds.
