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“I never heard of you.”
“Did you see the new Reese Witherspoon film?”
“Yeah.”
“I was in the one right before that.”
“Sure you were.” She gave a long sigh and rested her head against the back of the seat. “You have an incredible car. Expensive clothes. My life gets suckier and suckier. I’ve fallen in with a drug dealer.”
“I’m not a drug dealer!” he retorted hotly.
“You’re not a movie star.”
“Don’t rub it in. The truth is, I’m a semifamous male model with ambitions of being a movie star.”
“You’re gay.” She made it a statement, not a question, which would have upset a lot of jocks, but he had a big gay fan base, and he didn’t believe in disrespecting the people who supported him.
“Yeah, but I’m totally in the closet.”
Being gay might have some advantages, he decided. Not the reality of it—he couldn’t even think about that—but hanging out with interesting women without worrying about leading them on. Over the past fifteen years, he’d expended too much energy convincing some very nice females they weren’t going to be the mother of his children, but gay men never had that problem. They could relax and just be pals. He glanced over at her. “Word gets out about my sexual preference, it’ll ruin my career, so I’d appreciate you keeping the information to yourself.”
She lifted one damp eyebrow. “Like it’s some big secret. I knew you were gay five seconds after I met you.”
She had to be putting him on.
She started working away at her bottom lip with her teeth. “Do you mind if I tag along with you for a while today?”
“You’re leaving your car behind?”
“It’s not worth repairing. Ben can have it towed. With the missing beaver head and all, it’s a good bet I won’t get paid, so he owes me.”
Dean thought about it. Sally had called it right. The Beav was a ballbuster, his least favorite kind of female. But she was also entertaining. “We’ll try it for a couple of hours,” he said, “but I’m not promising more than that.”
They pulled up in front of a corrugated metal building painted an unfortunate shade of turquoise. It was Sunday afternoon, and the gravel parking lot at Ben’s Big Beaver Lumberyard held only two vehicles, a rusted-out blue Camaro and a late-model pickup. A CLOSED sign swung from a pair of suction cups on the door, which was still wedged open to catch the breeze. Ever the gentleman, he got out to help her. “Watch your tail there.”
She gave him a withering glare, managed a slightly more graceful exit, and shuffled to the lumberyard door. As she opened it, he glimpsed a barrel-chested man stacking a display. She disappeared inside.
He’d just finished surveying the unimpressive scenery—a collection of Dumpsters and some power lines—when she stomped back out, a bundle of clothes in her arms. “Ben’s wife cut her hand, and he had to take her to the emergency room. That’s why she didn’t pick me up. Unfortunately, I can’t get out of this thing by myself.” She shot a disgruntled look toward the guy in the store. “And I refuse to let a professional sex deviant unzip me.”
Dean smiled. Who knew there were so many advantages to an alternative lifestyle? “I’ll be glad to help.”
He followed her around the side of the building where a peeling metal door held the faded silhouette of a beaver wearing a hair bow. The bathroom was a one-seater, not exactly clean, but marginally acceptable, with white, cinder block walls, and a fly-specked mirror bolted above the sink. As she looked around for a clean place to set her bundle of clothes, he lowered the toilet seat lid and—out of respect for his gay brethren—covered it with a couple of paper towels.
She put her clothes down and turned her back to him. “There’s a zipper.”
In unventilated quarters the beaver suit stank more than a gym locker, but as a veteran of more two-a-day practices than he could count, he’d smelled worse. A lot worse. Some of her damp, baby-fine dark hair had escaped from that sad excuse for a ponytail, and he pushed it away from the nape of her neck, which was milk white except for the faintest trace of a pale blue vein. He poked around in the mangy fur until he found the zipper. He was damn good at undressing women, but he’d barely lowered the tab an inch before it caught in the fur. He worked it free, but after another few inches, it caught again.
It went on that way, stop and start, the parting fur revealing an ever expanding wedge of milky skin, and the longer it took to unzip her, the less gay he felt. He tried to distract himself with conversation. “So what gave me away? How did you know I wasn’t straight?”
“Are you sure you won’t be offended?” she asked with phony solicitude.
“The truth shall set me free.”
“Well, you’re totally buff, but those are designer muscles. You didn’t get a chest like that roofing houses.”
“Lots of men go to the gym.” He resisted the urge to blow on her damp skin.
“Yes, but what straight guy doesn’t have a chin scar someplace, or a nose bump? Your profile is more chiseled than Mount Rushmore.”
