“Is dead an option?”
“He has some enemies, starting with Coxy,” Lee answered.
“You wanna explain that to me?”
“Not now, it’s nearly pizza time and I need to go home and shower.”
“Do you want to shower here?” I tried to ignore the thrill the thought of a na**d Lee in my shower gave me and pretend it didn’t affect me.
“I want to shower with you, are you comin’ with me?”
Okay, I couldn’t pretend he didn’t affect me, he seriously affected me.
I looked back at the house and saw faces swiftly disappear from the windows. “I don’t think I should, I have company.”
He grabbed me and kissed me, hard and quick and also disappointingly fast.
“Wear sexy panties tonight,” he said against my mouth.
“I don’t have any other options except commando.”
Lee’s arm tightened spasmodically.
“Christ.”
* * * * *
Lee met us at the Beau Jo’s.
Beau Jo’s offered huge, thick-crusted “mountain pies” that were the best pizza I’d ever had outside the times Dad and I visited Aunt Sunny in Chicago. Mountain pie crust was so thick, you saved the edges, smothered them with honey and ate them for dessert.
Our table seemed a mile long and it was mayhem. As if Andrea’s children weren’t enough to make us loud and obnoxious to all other customers, Duke and Dolores joined us as did Dad and Malcolm. Duke, Tex, Dad and Malcolm seemed to be in a contest to out-booming-macho-male talk each other.
Lee slid into the seat beside me, his hair still wet from the shower and curling around his neck and ears. He was wearing a pair of beat up, faded, army-green cargo pants and a light-blue, loose-fitting collared shirt, untucked, the right-amount of buttons left undone and the sleeves rolled partially up his forearms.
He looked hot.
For no apparent reason, before Lee fully settled into his seat, Andrea’s baby let out a high-pitched scream. I liked kids, of course, other people’s kids. In small doses. Very small doses.
Once Andrea had cooed it to semi-quietness, I turned to Lee.
“Do you want children?”
His eyes slid to me as he grabbed a menu.
He answered cautiously, “Yeah.”
“How many?”
He turned to me and his arm went around the back of my chair.
“Three.”
I thought about three children. They weren’t pleasant thoughts.
“And you?” Lee asked, gently tugging my hair.
“Hmm?”