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Marianne was there when I got there, sitting on a stool at the bar. I’d asked Ally to join us, but she had a shift at Brother’s. I’d braved the pissed-off brute and asked Eddie if he wanted to come, but he was going to be bogged down in paperwork.
“I wish I could wear a dress like that,” Marianne told me when I slid on the booth next to her.
Marianne used to be a size four. Her hair changed color with her mood, so much so that I didn’t remember what it was when it started out. Now it was brunette. She had big gray eyes. She was always pretty and regardless of the weight, she still was a looker. She’d been popular, being so dainty and cute. Boys flocked to her. Her divorce had taken its toll. It was ugly, she still wasn’t over it and she was eating through the pain.
I had no response for her and ordered a spiced rum and diet and excused myself and called Lee again to tell him I was at The Hornet. Marianne didn’t question this. She’d been an innocent bystander in one of my shootouts, and anyway, Lee was hot.
“Well?” Marianne asked when I flipped my phone shut.
I sighed.
“Lee doesn’t take the bows from bras or panties, at least not anymore,” I said.
Marianne’s eyes lit up. “Is he good?”
The way she asked it wasn’t gossipy or voyeuristic. It was a friend asking a friend about her sex life, which in my circle of friends was a natural thing. We weren’t exactlySex in the City,but we shared. It also meant our conversation wasn’t going to be e-mailed to half of the greater Denver Metropolitan Area by midnight.
So I answered her, “He’s good.”
“How good?” she asked.
My eyes slid to her. “Realgood.”
Her face spread in a smile and I returned it.
“I’m so happy for you,” she whispered.
I was beginning to be happy for me, too.
My drink came and I ordered a buffalo chicken salad with extra bleu cheese dressing. Marianne announced she was going on a diet and she ordered one too, without the bleu cheese dressing.
We ate at the bar. The plates were whisked away, I was on my third rum and diet and Marianne had gone to the bathroom when my hair was brushed to the side, a hand gliding across my bare shoulders. I looked around, then up, and saw Lee standing over me.
He’d showered and changed and he looked good. He was wearing jeans that were worn in but still newish, brown cowboy boots and forest-green collared shirt.
I smiled at him.
He frowned at me.
“Where’re the rest of your clothes?”
I looked down at my dress then back up at him.
“Thesearemy clothes,” I said. “You don’t like it?”
“Yeah, I like it. If you’re wearin’ it in my kitchen while cookin’ steaks. I don’t like it when you’re wearin’ it sittin’ on a barstool and thirty guys are imagining your legs wrapped around their backs.”
Jeez.
“Lee, you’re gonna have to get over this jealous-possessiveness thing.”
“Indy, you’re gonna have to get used to the fact that I’m the jealous-possessive type.”
Great.
I decided to change the subject. I wasn’t going to change how I dressed and he wasn’t going to start to like it. We were at a stalemate.
“Have you had dinner?”
