… but Dyma was still talking. “I loved the bologna sandwich, though. See, I knew that, and I was never even, you know, informed. No guy who eats as fast as Mark and likes chili from the can better than homemade could possibly be any good at sex. And I’m not even mentioning the other stuff you shared. Mark’s going to be reliving that sick burn all week long in the deputy’s locker room, or whatever it is, and Annabelle probably wants to burn her ears. Talk about TMI.”
“Hey,” Harlan said, “it’s better than her brother being the bologna sandwich.”
Jennifer said, “This is such an inappropriate conversation. Boundaries.” But, Harlan thought, she was trying not to laugh. As for Annabelle, she looked a little shocked, but she was laughing. “Also,” Jennifer said, “Harlan and I are just friends now.”
“Uh-huh,” Dyma said. “Yeah. That’s happening. It’s worked great so far, right? ”
“So we’ll see you guys in a while,” Harlan said, in what he hoped was a casual manner. “For dinner.”
“Nope,” Dyma said. “We’re doing our own thing.”
Jennifer said, “Exactly what does that mean?”
Dyma sighed. “That we’re going to be mainlining heroin and getting matching full-back tattoos. Excuse me? Twelve AP classes here? High-school graduate, pretty much? Nineteen in a couple months? Oh, and one more—how about NFL-star boyfriend who’s the hottest man who ever existed, meaning guaranteed inoculation against any guy in or around Wild Horse High?”
“You’re still living with me, though,” Jennifer said. “And Annabelle’s still living with Harlan. Better rein in that independence, sister.”
“Fine,” Dyma said. “Here’s our scandalous program. We go swimming and hang out in the sauna, and possibly flirt a little if there’s anybody in there under thirty, but I keep Annabelle from throwing herself at anyone, since she’s obviously so extra, and definitely not a conservative jock from North Dakota like somebody else I could mention. We eat dinner in the restaurant, daringly ordering anything we want and charging it to the room, because Harlan’s got a thing about paying, and unlike some people, we’re willing to go along with what a person obviously wants to do already. Then we walk to his theater and meet my friends for the nine o’clock show, putting money back in his pocket. Though not as much as we’re planning to spend on dinner, because this is where Owen took me before prom, and they have this chocolate volcano dessert with raspberry and fudge sauce that’s beyond amazing. And after that, we probably hang around at the beach with the friends for a while, since it might be my last Saturday night in Wild Horse, and we sit on picnic tables and talk about life and boringly ingest no controlled substances, and Annabelle and I retain our virginity, even though it’s an outdated and misogynistic concept, because we’re waiting for filet mignon, seeing as we’ve heard it’s an entirely different experience. And then we walk six blocks home and go to bed, prepared to get up in the morning and drive your car all the way to Portland. While you take a private jet. Does that meet with your approval?”
Jennifer said, “You remember that sweet blonde baby in my fifteen-year-old fantasies? The one who’d be laughing into my face as our hair was backlit and all that?”
“Yeah,” Dyma said.
“I want her.”
Dyma laughed, kissed her cheek, and said, “Yeah. Sorry. Too late. Maybe next time. Whoops. Maybe this time, huh? I bet Harlan makes sweet babies.”
The two of them took off, and Harlan stood there, feeling a little stunned. Possibly by that last thing most of all.
I bet Harlan makes sweet babies.
“Yeah,” Jennifer said, shoving a wayward curl back into her topknot, like you’d ever contain it, giving him a rueful glance out of her golden eyes. “So—you see.”
He was laughing, now, pulling her into his arms, kissing that soft, curvy mouth. “Yeah,” he said. “And I’d say you make some pretty fine babies yourself.”
She relaxed against him, and he thought for a second about how they were standing in a hotel lobby, and then didn’t, because he needed to kiss her again. He did it a little better, and she wound her arms around his neck and made some noise into his mouth, and he thought about that silver ring with the black bead. About whether you’d see the outline of it under her swimsuit, and if not, how about under a lace thong? You could definitely see it then.
He wanted to see it. He wanted it bad.
Also, what would happen if you bought her another one? Say, yellow gold, with a diamond embedded in the bead? If you took her out to dinner and looked at her dressed in something silky and not too long, and thought about taking her home and putting her on her back, pulling that dress up nice and slow, and finding that diamond?
He got a hard rush at the thought, and, yeah, he wanted that connecting room.
She pulled back and said, “Let’s go swimming. Since you came all this way to see me.” And smiled at him, slow and dirty and sweet.
Holy hell.
He said, “Twenty minutes.”
She said, “Aw. Isn’t that a little slow? Is there a reason you’re making me wait?”
He just about groaned. “I need to buy a swimsuit.”
“Didn’t they give you that one from the shoot? I want to see that one.”
He laughed. It came out a little strangled, because that was how he was feeling. “Nope. That one’s definitely not going to work today. If you look anything like what I’m imagining in a swimsuit … they’d kick us out.”
“Yeah?” she asked. “Having trouble controlling yourself?”
He did his best to smolder. It came surprisingly easily. “Twenty minutes. See you out there.”
He would’ve smacked her butt, pregnant or not, because that was what this moment called for. Unfortunately, they were still in the lobby.
Friends, Jennifer told herself while she was opening her suitcase in a room that had—surprise!—a fireplace, a soaking tub that she could use, a balcony, and an endless view over the lake and the mountains. Unfortunately, her body wasn’t cooperating. Her body wanted that filet mignon, and she wanted to eat it slow.
She couldn’t. She knew it. It would be crazy.
There were people at the pool when she got down there. Well, of course there were. It was a resort, it was May, and it was Saturday. No Harlan, though, not yet. She hesitated outside the gate and thought about going back upstairs for five minutes, by which time he might be here, then told herself, No. Remember? This is the new you.
A guy was doing laps in the far lane, and a woman was doing the same thing a couple lanes down, so she headed over there, past the teenage boys who were horsing around and shouting, tried to ignore the dozen or so people in lounge chairs arranged around the pool deck, took a deep breath, untied her robe, put it and her towel on a lounger of her own, and pretended to be casual.
Own it, Harlan had said. She tried. She didn’t instantly slide into the water and into oblivion, anyway. She kicked off her sandals and walked to the edge of the pool, and she didn’t hurry.
Which was when she heard one of the teenagers say, “Check it out.”