before she texted you, so it’s nothing to do with her and everything to do with my emotional immaturity.”
“Blunt,” he said, leaning in for a chaste kiss on her cheek. “But charming.”
“Finally a title for my jazz ensemble,” she said, and that was the last she saw of him. Or so she truly thought at the time.
Ten
“Get up! I’m dying.”
Ava spat toothpaste into the sink, wiped her mouth, opened the door, recoiled. “Jesus.”
“Back atcha.” Dennis pushed past her and sat on the bed before his knees buckled. “I’m not gonna make it to lunch. Just so you know. I’ve updated my will and I’m leaving you nothing.”
Despite the chaos of his appearance, Ava was relieved to see him. She’d been staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, eyeing the hickeys Tom had planted on her throat and shaking her head. She looked like she’d been attacked by a friendly, toothless Burmese python. And remembering his pliant mouth and skilled hands (slipping that card into her pocket had been a neat trick—guy probably paid for college by picking pockets), how the two of them had taken turns playing the aggressor, how her heart was pounding so hard she was sure everyone within a mile of the parking lot could hear it, how she came this close to hauling his ass up the stairs and finding out if he tasted as good as he looked … ummmm. Nice guy, great bod, smart, wonderful kisser, demonstrably responsible if the niece was any indicator. So naturally she kicked him from her life as soon as she could. Why did she pull this shit? Was it simply a matter of—
“Get up! I’m dying.”
So, yeah, she’d been glad for the interruption. She’d pulled a high-necked sweater on to hide the worst of the hickeys and went to Dennis. However …
“You,” she said, staring at this pale, red-eyed, odiferous version of Dennis, “are barely cute right now.”
“I’m barely alive right now.”
“You’ve never looked worse. Well, maybe the morning after junior prom.” Memorable if for no other reason than it was the first and last time Dennis had spent the night drinking chocolate milk with tequila chasers.
He flopped back onto the bed. “What happened last night?”
“You drank about a gallon of dark black something or other, then had a couple of shots.”
“That’s it? Because I either had some pretty fucked-up dreams last night or I was abroad actually doing the fucked-up things.”
“Uh-huh. Don’t read into this, but have you thought that you might have a problem with alcohol?”
“You’re only saying that because I’m drunk just about every time you see me.”
“I know some people you could talk to.” Carefully, carefully. She was on tricky ground, and given her own problems with substance abuse, it was possible Dennis would assume she was projecting. “I could put you in touch with some people. If you wanted.”
“I know some people I could talk to, too. Don’t sweat on my behalf. I’m not a full-fledged alkie. I’m a binge drinker.”
“You know it’s possible to be both, right?”
“Change of subject, please.”
Got it. Case closed … for now. “Fine. After the tar and the shots, I brought you back here.”
“And then?”
“And then nothing. You conked out after I left.”
“Abandoned me, you mean.” He let out a piteous moan, then peeked to see if she was moved. “Anything else?”
“You had the common courtesy to not barf in my rental car, for which I thank you. Well, you did, but it all hit the basin.”
“I could have died! What basin?”
She restrained herself from rolling her eyes. “Don’t worry. A total stranger helped me get you to drink a glass of water—”
“I hate water.”
“How can you hate water? It doesn’t taste like anything—never mind, I’m not having the H2O argument with you again. Then we turned you on your side so you wouldn’t choke and die and left you snoozing.” She’d forgotten that Dennis was a creature of drama even before his twin sister had been murdered. “Now what were you babbling about on the phone?”
“Something happened at the funeral home. My ma’s freaking out and wants both of us over there ASAP.”
“What? Both? She’s not the boss of me.” Right? Right. “And what’s ‘something’?”
“I. Don’t. Know. I basically said yes so she’d stop screeching. We’ve gotta go; my life’s now measured in minutes.”
Ava drove and fumed while Dennis hung his head out the window and gulped fresh air, periodically ducking back inside to drink from one of two bottles of water she’d brought for him.