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“He is.” I sighed. “I have the chance to build a good life with someone. A life I could live as myself.”
“That’s fantastic. What’s stopping you?”
“This insane roller coaster of a life I live?” I suggested.
“Not good enough.”
“For the first couple of months we knew each other, I lied to him about who I was.”
“You’re in the domestic version of witness protection. You get a pass. Not good enough.”
“He lied to me about who he was. And he was a bounty hunter hired by my ex to find me.”
There was a heavy pause on the other end of the line. “OK . . . that would be an obstacle.”
“Why do I hear glasses clinking?” I asked.
“I’m making myself a drink. You do the same, and we’ll talk this out.”
I cracked open a tiny bottle of vodka from the minibar and tossed the contents down my throat in one shot.
I hissed loudly, making her snicker on the other end of the line. “You didn’t mix that with anything, did you?”
“No,” I whispered hoarsely.
The whole sordid tale poured forth from my mouth in one long run-on sentence. How I met Caleb in the parking lot and helped him through a gunshot wound. (I left out the spontaneous healing.) How we’d bounced around the state fighting crime, sort of. How I’d slowly, almost against my will, fallen in love with him. And finally, how having above-average Internet-surfing skills led to Schuna’s e-mail and the Tasering of a lifetime. I don’t think I used so much as a comma.
“Well . . . damn,” she marveled, stretching the word into two syllables.
“Tell me about it.”
“OK, bottom line. If you were never to see this guy again, I mean, no calls. No Facebook stalking—”
“I am the last person on earth without a Facebook page.”
She continued as if she hadn’t heard me. “No lying in bed half-drunk on merlot, listening to Adele and smelling one of the T-shirts you stole from him. You would never see the barest hint of his existence on this earth. How would you feel?”
I felt like throwing up. Despite the whole brain-melting-anger issue, the thought of never seeing Caleb again was terrifying.
“Having trouble breathing?”
“Yeah,” I wheezed.
“Honey, my husband annoys and amazes me on a daily basis. He may piss me off, but the thought of never seeing him again chokes me up like you wouldn’t believe. In the words of the immortal Cher, I love him awful.”
“I wish I didn’t know what you were talking about,” I groaned. “Both the emotional level and the Cher reference. Who quotes Moonstruck?”
“Appreciate the classics, whippersnapper.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I sighed.
“So do you know what you’re going to do?”
“No.”
“Good,” she exclaimed. “Decisions made in haste usually suck. Take your sweet-ass time making your choice, so you know you’ve made the right one.”
14
