Page 40 of Airhead

Still, laughing with Katie as she went through some of the outrageous things that happened to Skye O’Malley, he didn’t have a single, solitary regret. How could he, when she looked so happy while spoiling the last few chapters of the book, then apologizing for it while being unable to stop herself from doing it again?

There really wasn’t another woman in the world like Katie Madigan. Who could blame him for already being half in love with her?

The jolt of shock that went through him at that moment was covered by the arrival of Susie glaring at both of them for yacking it up.

“Table six wants refills, so hop to it,” she said as she shot Katie a pointed look, then plucked the order from her hand. “Two hockey pucks with frog legs, a Jack Benny murdered, and a T-bone on the hoof.” She stuck the ticket on the silver wheel by the takeout window. “I’ll take care of the houseboat when they’re done with all that.”

“Got it,” he said, watching Katie put the new drinks down in front of the folks at table six and then seeing them immediately switch them around so the right sodas went to the right people.

Susie blew a bubble with her pink Hubba Bubba and let it pop without getting any of it stuck to her nose.

“You gonna marry that girl?” she asked.

Frank slapped the two hamburgers and the steak onto the grill and tried to squash the mental images of coming home after a shift to Katie, of lying in bed and reading a book to her, of watching her with their kids, of growing old with her. But it was no use. And for once, his brain was working faster than his mouth, because how in the hell could he even begin to talk about all of that?

“I’m still trying to get her to say yes to a real date,” he grumbled, instead of spilling the truth.

Suzie cut a you’re-so-full-of-shit glare at him. “There is no try.”

“Thanks, Yoda,” he shot back.

The waitress shrugged and smacked her gum. “I’m more Darth Vader, but it’s still a great line—and the right one in your case.”

The bell over the diner’s door jingled as it flew open. A couple rushed in and headed straight for them.

“Oh. My. God. Susie. There was a wreck on the Crosstown Express, so the train was packed with tourists like it was New Year’s Eve, and I’m telling you, it was a total zoo,” the woman said, the words coming out in a rush. “I’m so sorry we’re just getting here now.” She looked around at everyone else, zeroing in on Katie, who was scooping ice cream for a milkshake. “Who in the hell are you?”

“The other you,” Katie said.

The woman huffed and turned to Susie. “That makes absolutely no sense, but do you need me or not? Because if Carlo and I did all of that to get here from uptown, and you didn’t even need us, I’m going to chew Brandi a new one.”

For a second, no one said anything. Then Susie threw back her head and laughed hard enough to shake some of the spiral curls loose from the twelve layers of AquaNet holding them in place.

Fifteen minutes and a lot of explaining later, they walked out of the diner with a handful of Vito’s gift certificates and a promise from Susie to be a reference if they ever wanted to get into the diner business. They spent most of the walk back to the museum in companionable silence while finishing the huge chocolate shakes Susie had given them on the house. With someone else, maybe it would have been awkward, but with Katie, it just felt right.

“You were really something in there,” Katie said as they entered the museum parking garage and headed for her Pinto, the lone car left. “You knew everything.”

“I know, it’s a shocker that I’m not a total airhead about everything,” he said in full self-deprecating mode like he usually went into whenever someone brought up anything about his brains—or lack of them.

He’d done it often enough that it came naturally. Usually, people laughed at him instead of with him. But there was nothing usual about Katie. He should have expected that. Instead of giggling knowingly, she stopped next to her car and planted her hands on her hips in a gesture that he was starting to know meant she was calling him on his shit.

“I don’t think you’re an airhead,” she said, her voice firm.

Hot embarrassment about his own failings rushed through him like a grease fire in a bacon factory. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at the cracked concrete. “I graduated in the bottom third of our high school class, never went to college, and I run into burning buildings voluntarily.”

“None of which has anything to do with how smart you are,” she said, cupping his face and turning it so he had no choice but to look at her. “I see it all of the time. The brightest kids in my class aren’t always the ones who get the best grades. There are lots of reasons for that. Things are going on at home. A lack of interest in the subject. The need to go about things their own way. A million other things. And even if you were an airhead, which you aren’t, it wouldn’t change what a good person you are.”

Frank’s grandma had always said that he’d been born with the gift of gab. Bad day? He had the right joke to cheer a person up. Awkward moment? He’d smooth it out with a subject change. Nothing left him speechless—until now. All because Katie had seen in him the one thing no one else ever had.

Oblivious to how she’d just flattened him, Katie rooted around in her giant bag and pulled out a pair of keys. Her face fell. “Oh shit.”

Frank looked around, half expecting to see the debt collectors after Paul. “What?”

Katie didn’t answer. Mumbling “fuck me” under her breath, she turned around, cupped her hands around her eyes, and she pressed her face to the car’s window. “My keys are in there. They must have fallen out when everything spilled out of my bag.”

“What keys are those?” he asked, gesturing to the ones in her hands.

She turned around and started going through her purse again. “The ones for Connie’s car so she doesn’t do something stupid like drive by The Creep’s house when no one’s with her to stop her from going inside.”