Part 18 (2/2)
”They're all over. Left, go left.” I peeked at the rearview.
”They don't know this car,” he said.
”Thank G.o.d. Listen.” I shook my head as if trying to loosen something. I closed my eyes and visualized a city block. ”My building is connected to the one next door. It shares parking s.p.a.ces with the Whole Foods.”
”You're telling me to go to Whole Foods?”
”Yes.”
”Are you nuts? Do you want to be in the paper again?” he asked.
”Trust me.”
We made eye contact, and his lips pressed together in a smile. ”It's not ever going to be boring with you, is it?”
”Not peaceful either.”
”Let's go.” He went into the underground lot at Whole Foods.
”Park in the back, by the car detailers.”
Way in the back, four guys washed and detailed cars, like little scrubbing gremlins, while shoppers spent their pretty pennies at Whole Foods. Michael pulled up next to a soaped-up Jaguar.
I got out, grabbing the blue bag with my new camera. ”Hey, George,” I said to the short guy with a grey widow's peak, ”can we use your door?”
”You wash car?”
I snapped Michael's keys out of his hand and gave them to George. ”Yeah. But the outside only.”
He looked Michael up and down suspiciously. ”You're Michael Greydon. Loved you in Sunday Kill Machine.”
”It's not him,” I said.
”I get that all the time,” Michael interjected.
I took Michael's hand and pulled him through the heavy white door. The windowless closet stank of soap and chemicals. Bottles of fluid were stacked from floor to ceiling. I opened another door, leading to a stairwell. I ran up it, Michael behind me, to another door with an emergency exit sign.
”Wait!” Michael said.
I slapped it open. ”What?”
He laughed a little. ”Never mind. You have this under control. I can see that.” He took the camera bag from me. ”Let me be a gentleman.”
”Just this once.”
A decrepit elevator door sat at the end of a short concrete hallway. The doors opened right away. I punched my floor, and when the doors closed, I knew I was going to kiss him. But I didn't realize what kind of kiss I would get. It wasn't a sweet brush of the lips but a groping, hungry meeting of bodies. He pressed his hips against me, and when I felt his hardness on my thigh, my body lit on fire from spine to navel.
”I hope you don't have any plans,” he whispered as he put his hand up my s.h.i.+rt. ”Because once that door opens, you're mine.”
His hand went up my back, slipping under my bra. I shuddered and tried to speak, but my lungs had nothing in them. Certainly not the word no. I would be his as soon as I could. He ran his hand over my pants and pressed at my crotch.
”Oh, G.o.d.”
”I want you,” he said into my ear. ”And when we get back into that apartment, I'm taking you.”
I pushed against him in answer, jerking my hips against the flat of his fingers. Yes, yes, and yes. Everything, yes. Months of longing, years of forgetting, and a few days of reawakening were culminating now. He buried his face in my neck, and I reached down to feel his rock-hard d.i.c.k. His breath got heavy against me, and I thought of him again, over me, lost in pleasure.
Yes, yes, and yes.
The doors sprang open. The distance to my loft was forever with this painful ache between my legs. My floor. My hallway. The open window at the end of it, right by my door. And the huge guy, backlit by the window, recognizable even in silhouette.
It all crumbled.
”Laine?” he said.
Michael turned and got between me and the big guy in the Black Flag T-s.h.i.+rt. I knew him. He looked exactly the same as he had when I knew him between the ages of fifteen and eighteen. Navy bandana too low over his brow. Scraggly hair tied in knots. Maybe his hairline had moved back a bit, and maybe he had a touch of early grey in the beard he tied with rubber bands. He still had a carabiner of keys and rabbits' feet attached to his belt loop.
I'd had an idea, seconds before, that Michael and I could figure out how to be together, but no. I was who I was, and nothing could change that.
”Foo Foo,” I said, ”how are you?”
He craned his neck to see around Michael, smiling. ”I'm good. Still got Gracie.”
”Your Harley?”
”It's vintage now. She's so sweet.” He shook his head is if pleasantly surprised by something. ”You look-”
”What do you want?” I said.
”You should really lock your door.” He indicated it with an apologetic nod. He was a two-hundred-fifty-pound cupcake who had no problem pulverizing smaller men over a deal gone bad.
”I'm surprised you're not on my couch,” I said, arms crossed. Why was I even engaging him?
”Seemed rude, you know.”
”You need to go,” Michael said.
Foo Foo looked at Michael, then at me, then back to Michael. ”I remember you from Toledo Spring Break. Heh.”
Michael's character had gotten the c.r.a.p beaten out of him in that story, and no one in that hallway was under the delusion that Foo was talking about any other aspect of that stupid movie.
”No,” I said, pus.h.i.+ng past Michael. He held my arm so I didn't get any closer to Foo Foo. He was really getting on my nerves. ”He just looks like him. I'm sorry, Foo.”
”You were just in the paper with him, sweet angel.”
”I was on my way somewhere. Was there something you needed?”
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