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“We’ve had some of our best times with bad ideas. Stop being such an old lady.”
She hated that—he’d known she would—and she came to her feet. “If you try to feel me up…”
His teeth flashed in a pirate’s grin, and he pulled her into his arms. “Mad Jack only feels ’em up if they’re under thirty. Although, since it’s dark…”
“Shut up and dance.”
He used to smell like sex and cigarettes. Now he smelled of oak, bergamot, and night. His body, too, felt different from the skinny boy’s build she remembered. He was still thin, but he’d picked up muscle. He’d also lost the gaunt look that had hollowed out his cheeks when he’d first arrived. Lucinda’s lyrics enfolded them. They drew closer until only a ribbon of air separated
their bodies. Soon even that was gone. She looped her arms around his neck. He placed his around her waist. She let herself rest against him. He had a hard-on, but it was simply there. Imposing, but not demanding anything from her.
She let herself drift with the music. She was deeply aroused, floating in a slippery sea. He brushed the hair from her neck and buried his lips in the hollow under her ear. She turned her head and let him kiss her. It was a deep, sweet kiss, far more arousing than their long-ago drunken ones. When they finally separated, the question in his eyes cut through her dreamy state. She shook her head.
“Why?” he whispered, stroking her hair.
“I don’t do one-night stands anymore.”
“I promise it’ll be more than one night.” He caressed her temple with his thumb. “You have to wonder what it would be like.”
More than he could imagine. “I wonder about a lot of things that aren’t good for me.”
“Are you sure? We’re not kids.”
She pushed away. “I don’t put out for good-looking rockers anymore.”
“April…”
Her cell rang from the back step. Thank you, God. She moved to answer it.
“You’re not really going to pick that up, are you?” he said.
“I have to.” As she crossed to the step, she pressed the back of her hand to her lips, but she didn’t know if she was wiping away their kiss or sealing it in. “Hello?”
“April, it’s Ed.”
“Ed. I’ve been waiting for you to call.” She moved quickly inside.
Half an hour elapsed before she got off the phone. She went back out to bring in her things and was surprised to see Jack still there, lying on the blanket, looking at the stars. He lay with one knee bent and an arm crooked behind his head. She was much too glad to see he’d stayed.
He spoke without looking at her. “Tell me about him.”
She heard the stiffness in his voice and remembered his old, jealous eruptions. If she hadn’t given up playing games, she’d have told him to go to hell, but she sat on the blanket and let her skirt fall in soft folds around her knees. “Them.”
“How many?”
“Right now? Three.”
She steeled herself as he rolled to face her. But he didn’t attack. “They’re not lovers then.”
It was a statement, not a question. “How do you know that?”
“Because I do.”
“I have men calling me at all hours.”
“Why is that?”
She saw only curiosity. Either he didn’t care whom she kept company with, or he’d begun to understand the woman she’d become. She lay back on the blanket. “I’m a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. I’ve been in AA for years. I’m sponsoring three men and one woman right now, all in L.A. It’s not easy to be there for them long-distance, but they didn’t want to change sponsors.”
