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That was the way I’d always preferred it. And I stared at the parking lot past my windshield and had the sudden, profound realization that, like the rest of my life, it was completely fucking awful. Twisted and lonely, painful and a little sick. I wanted to reach backward in my life and erase it, erase everything, scrub every bit of it out with bleach.
My phone rang again, and this time my chest went tight, my throat constricted. It was Max Reilly.
My voice came out breathless when I answered, though I hadn’t intended it to. “Hey there,” I said.
His voice was its usual cranky growl. “Gwen?”
“Yes, Max?”
He paused for a second, probably taken aback by how excited I sounded, and then he said, “Okay. I’m going for a beer later tonight. If you want to come.”
My mouth dropped open. I forgot about my problems for a minute and remembered that he was completely fucking adorable. “Are you asking me on a date?” I asked sweetly.
“It’s not a date,” he said.
“Right. Because you don’t want a blow job.”
“Jesus. I—” He paused, and I let him hang. “Fuck. I’m going to be there, whether you want to come or not. That’s what I’m saying. It’s the place I usually go.”
Now I was intrigued. I wanted to know every little thing about Max Reilly’s life, starting with what bar he usually went to. “All right,” I said. “Maybe I’ll come.” I twisted a lock of hair over my finger. “What should I wear?”
“Clothes, Gwen. For God’s sake, wear clothes. Lots of them. There are guys there.”
“Guys? Lawdy. What will I do?”
“You’ll have a beer with me,” he said, as if this were a serious question. And then he added, “If you want.”
I just stared out the windshield of my parked car, thinking about how he managed to make me swoon with absolutely no intention to.
“Gwen?” He sounded worried, like he thought he’d pissed me off.
“Tell me where this bar is,” I said, and when he answered I said, “I’ve never been to that neighborhood. I’ve never even heard of it.”
“That’s because it’s a shit neighborhood,” he replied. “So, yeah, wear clothes.”
“A beer with Max Reilly, who doesn’t want a date, in a shit neighborhood,” I said. “What girl could say no?”
He paused. “Shit,” he said. “I suck at this, don’t I?”
I checked the time. “I’ll be there at seven,” I said, and hung up.
That would show him.
He didn’t have to know I was smiling.
Chapter 8
Max
I wasn’t lying—Edison’s Bar was in a shit neighborhood, of which South San Francisco had plenty. Even though it had a view of the bay, it was on a crummy street lined with smoke shops and laundromats, overlooking a desolate concrete pier and the choppy, frigid water beyond. No tourist had ever come within a mile of this place.
Gwen wasn’t there when I got there, but I was early. It was best if I got there first; I had no idea what the patrons of Edison’s would do if they saw a woman like Gwen walk in alone. Probably quietly suffocate over their pints while trying to get up the nerve to talk to her, but you never knew.
I had on jeans, a black sweater to keep out the chill in the evening air, and black boots. I liked San Francisco’s climate a lot better than LA’s, because it was so much colder. When I had jeans and boots on, you couldn’t spot my leg unless it was a bad day and I was limping. No way was I going back to a place where people wore shorts and sandals all the time. Some guys with legs
like mine had no problem wearing shorts, but I wasn’t one of them. I’d always looked like the coldest guy in the city.
I nodded at the bartender, Jason Edison—the son of the owner—and found a seat in a corner booth. There were a handful of guys here tonight, some of them sitting at the bar and watching the Giants game, some of them just sitting, drinking, staring at nothing. They nodded at me, I nodded at them—we were all regulars. One old guy read a paper newspaper through his half glasses, slowly turning the pages with a hand that was covered in old scars.
