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“They took that as sexual chemistry. But he swears it was mediocre. Ryan’s not apt to discuss his sexual conquests with other women, but I think I can read him pretty well, and it wasn’t all that.”
“Interesting,” I said.
Ryan was good in bed, there was no doubt about that. He subscribed to the satisfy the woman first philosophy, and in my world of sex work, that was never an issue. I didn’t want to hang around with a client long enough for that to happen, so with Ryan, I’d had to be careful not to read more into it than he’d meant. Evidently, he did that for all the girls.
I studied Lisa, listening to her talk, watching her. She was beautiful, like a female version of Ryan, with blond hair that, although mostly covered with a blanket, reflected the moonlight. I imagined them in bed together, and it was a little breathtaking. Two beautiful people, brother and sister.
“You and Ryan belong together,” I said. The words just popped out of my mouth.
“That is never going to happen,” Lisa replied sadly. “My kids would get taken away from me.”
“Why?” I asked, appalled. “Incest, for lack of a better word, is a class E felony in New York, but I doubt it would go anywhere because there’s no malicious intent, or harm done, and I’m guessing neither of you have a previous conviction.”
“How do you know this?” Pam asked.
“I have a master’s degree in criminal justice.”
“Now you’ve got my interest,” Lisa said. “My son’s father, Dan Chua, is a lawyer, and he said it could get ugly if someone wanted to cause trouble for me.”
“It could if you both had previous felony convictions, but something tells me a court of law wouldn’t find harm or intent to harm. You and Ryan should be together. Instead of Ryan going around bedding women to whom he won’t make a commitment, trying to prove something to himself, he should just man up and marry you.”
That flustered Lisa, and later, Pam said she’d never seen her daughter get so emotional over a conversation about Ryan: “I’ve seen Lisa in the worst times; her first husband died, then her second, Dan, got another woman pregnant about a week after Lisa had her son, and she never even shed a tear in front of me. So yeah, you hit a nerve.”
While we sat on the beach, Lisa made a point of asking me questions about my life. Pam brought up Hocus’s palmistry prediction, and that conversation ended up monopolizing the rest of the night. We drank a bottle of wine and laughed so loud, Lisa’s ex, Dan, who lived across the street, called her and told her to keep the noise down or he was going to come over.
“Oh, crap, Dan’s probably going to show up.”
“Let’s leave,” Pam said.
“No, don’t leave me alone with him,” Lisa begged.
When I saw Dan, I realized why she didn’t want to be alone with him.
Dan Chua, attorney at law, checked all my boxes. He was tall and fit, I mean gym rat fit, with long curly hair and tatts—the antithesis of Ryan Maddox, who looked like he modeled for Armani, but just as hot.
When he came out on the sand behind Lisa’s house, wearing an old army jacket and tight jeans, I felt like I needed to either stand up out of respect or salute the guy. In my drunken state, I might have laughed in his face.
“Dan, this is Randy’s daughter, Laura,” Pam said.
He stuck his hand out, and I didn’t hesitate to take it, maybe holding on to it a little longer than necessary. Pulling up a chair into our circle, he took a glass from Lisa and poured out the rest of the second bottle of wine.
“What was so funny? You guys woke up the neighborhood.”
“We did not,” Lisa said, laughing. “Hocus read Laura’s palm, and that led to irreverent comments that you don’t need to hear.”
“Aw, you’re no fun. So, what did Hocus have to say about Laura? Pam, you’ll tell me, right?”
“Laura, sorry. I’m a pushover for Dan.”
I burst out laughing while she explained what Hocus had said to me about men.
“Maybe you’ve just been with the wrong men,” he said, staring at me intently.
I just smiled, letting him have the last word.
Finally, after midnight, we said goodnight and left Dan and Lisa alone while we hiked back to Pam’s house.
“Wow, Dan’s really something,” I said. “I won’t forget him anytime soon.”
