I closed the door and turned to look at him.
“I’ll admit it now,” he said. “This is a bribe. I want to know all about your interactions with Mase Colt Manning. Every last, delicious detail. Indulge me, please. That man stars in several of my fantasies.”
A laugh bubbled up out of me. Jimmy winked and sank down on the sofa.
“Spill it, woman,” he urged.
I walked over to join him. “I’m afraid you’re looking for juicy info that I don’t have. Mase has been a nice guy. Nothing to feed your fantasies, I’m afraid.”
Jimmy cocked an eyebrow. “Really? Not one little kiss?”
“Uh, no.” I sputtered, surprised he would even ask me that.
He dug into the ice cream. “That makes no sense. The man is straight. I’d know if he wasn’t. And any straight single man would be on you like white on rice.” He paused and let out a sigh. “Damn. That’s it. He isn’t single. Didn’t think about that. Well, crap. I was so hoping you were about to get some action with a piece of Grade A meat.”
I cringed and laughed at the same time, but in my stomach, I didn’t feel like laughing. I felt a little sick. Or deflated. The idea of Mase having a girlfriend didn’t sit well with me. It wasn’t like I thought I had a chance or that I even wanted a chance. But he made me feel safe and normal.
“I figured you hadn’t dated because you were picky and no one was up to snuff. Mase is up to everyone’s snuff, so I thought you’d scored a winner. Sucks to know that ain’t the case. Pickings around here are slim. The hotties are getting ticked off the list rapidly.” Jimmy took a big bite of ice cream like he was the one who was depressed over this situation.
I had lost my appetite.
“I was so sure, too. He jumped up before Harlow could even get it out of her mouth to go find you and drive you home. The boy didn’t even tell everyone good-bye. He just made sure to tell me that he wanted me driving you to your clients. He didn’t seem to like you walking. Then he bolted.” Jimmy waved his spoon. “Would have bet my left nut he was hot after your ass. And I really fucking like my nuts right where they are.”
On that note, I decided to take a bite of ice cream.
“There you go. Eat the creamy goodness, and let’s talk about maybe you and me double-dating. My man has a cousin who is fine. He lives about an hour away, but he is pretty damn close to Grade A.” I started to open my mouth to stop him, but he held up his hand and made a tutting sound at me. “Not so fast. Let me finish my hard sell here. He’s a good guy. I know him, and I would be there with you. I wouldn’t let anything happen that you weren’t perfectly OK with. He’s refined. I think you’d like him. He’s doing his clinicals right now, and he hardly has time for a life outside of the hospital. When he does go out, meeting women is still hard for him. He likes to keep his work separate from his personal life. So he needs a date.”
A doctor? There was no way I could date a man who was that smart. I couldn’t even read the dinner menu. My hands would sweat, and my vision would blur from panic. No, I couldn’t. But Jimmy looked so hopeful. I hated this. I hated not being able to say yes. Not being able to meet new people and trust that if they found out, they wouldn’t judge me or ridicule me.
“You need to do this, and I would be right there beside you. I don’t want to know anything you don’t want to share with me, but I know something in your past is bad shit. I can see it in the way you live. I’ve been close enough and watched you enough. Every damn straight man in this apartment building has tried to get your attention. You flee like the bats of hell are on your heels. So you aren’t hiding it from me. I see you. And I think whatever is in your past that’s screwing up the present needs to be laid to rest. I’m your friend, Reese. Let’s do this together.”
This was too much. Two people in one day wanting to help me. And both of them men. A species I thought I’d never trust.
“OK,” I said, realizing I had to figure this out somehow. Mase had made me brave today. He might not know his words had been a salve to my wounded soul, but they had been. “But I need to know where we’re going to eat before we go.” I wasn’t going to explain why. I couldn’t do that right now. Not yet.
Jimmy beamed at me and nodded. “I can do that. Hell, you can even pick the place. Just so you’ll go.”
I could look up the restaurant’s website and print a copy of the menu. Then I could figure out something on it to order. If I was in the privacy of my apartment and alone, I could focus. Maybe.
Mase
One phone call to Kiro, and I had an appointment the next day with a psychologist with a PhD in learning disabilities only an hour and a half from Rosemary Beach. The man stood up to shake my hand from behind his wide, cluttered desk after pushing his glasses back up his nose from where they had slipped. He did n’t seem very thrilled about our meeting. An annoyed furrow sat between his white eyebrows, giving him a pinched look.
“You must know people in high places, Mr. Manning. I, as you can imagine, am a busy man, and my courses are coming to the end of the semester.”
As I had guessed, he wasn’t happy about this. Knowing Kiro, he’d called the president of the university where this guy taught and had him order Dr. Henry Hornbrecker to meet with me today. “I’m sorry that I’ve come during a bad time for you. I leave town tomorrow, and there’s some business I need handled before I go back to Texas.”
The man’s time was obviously important, so I wasn’t going to waste it. I pulled the piece of paper Reese had left crumpled up on the floorboard of Harlow’s Mercedes when she scrambled out in a panic. Every time I looked at it, I remembered her struggle, and it made something inside me ache.
I handed him the paper. “I had asked the person who wrote this to write down Three-three-three Berkley Road. If that person is an adult around the age of twenty-two and struggled to write this much, what do you think that means? Why would she write that? And why would it be so difficult and send her into a panic?”
The doctor frowned down at the paper. “Twenty-two, you say?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“Are you asking me for you or for her? Surely a twenty-two-year-old who suffers this severely has already been diagnosed in school or as a child and knows what her problem is.”
He knew what the problem was. My heart sped up. “No, she doesn’t know. She couldn’t finish high school. She can’t pass tests. She’s been told she’s . . . stupid. But she’s not. Not at all.”