But he was obsessed, plain and simple. And sanity wasn’t necessarily a player today.
Racking his brain, he discarded the possibility of calling Arthur. As if he’d know anyway where Cassie was. As if he wanted to bring Arthur into his obsession and have him leer at him for the next twenty years. Who the hell else did he know who knew Cassie? It wasn’t as though they’d socialized a lot when he’d been in town. Unless talking to people from Cassie’s bed counted.
Liv. She’d called. He’d even met her. What the hell was her last name? High-priced lawyer wouldn’t work. Tennis player wouldn’t fly. Go through the fucking alphabet. A. B. C. D. Dunn, no Duncan, as in the dancer who’d died with the scarf around her neck. He saw the film. Lavinia Duncan. The name flashed into his brain bordered in gold. Yessss!
411 was very helpful, that recorded voice nice and efficient.
His fingers literally raced over his cell phone keys.
One ring, pick up, pick up, two rings, damn, three rings. What did he expect? It was the Fourth. Four rings and then a small click. It was rolling over. Thank you, thank you, thank you, he silently crowed, victory, success, good fortune within his grasp.
Until the rational part of his brain reminded him that Liv might not know where Cassie was, and if she did, Cassie could very well be with someone.
His victory parade came to a sudden halt.
“Hello?”
He’d had that chill moment to come down, and when he spoke, his voice was calm. “Liv? This is Bobby Serre. Do you know where Cassie is today?”
“Where are you? Are you here or somewhere else?”
“I’m in town. I apologize for calling. I realize it’s the Fourth.” He could hear a party going on in the background.
“Not a problem. I think I know where she is,” Liv said, deliberately speaking in her expressionless attorney voice, not knowing why Bobby Serre was here and whether he would be good news or bad news for Cassie. On the other hand, there was no way she was going to let him get away without giving Cassie a chance. “I’ll give you directions.”
“Thanks,” Bobby said when she’d finished with the lengthy explanation. “I’ve been en route for twenty hours. I really appreciate your help.”
“Say hi from me,” Liv said, feeling better now. Any man who traveled twenty hours on the Fourth weekend must be serious about something. And even if it was just about sex, what the hell, there was no sense knocking pleasure.
FORTY-THREE
HE GOT LOST TWICE, LIV’S DIRECTIONS leaving something to be desired. But he stopped at two gas stations for help and finally found his way to the Lagoon. The parking lot was nearly empty at five o’clock on the Fourth. Most people were where they wanted to be or thinking about supper.
He parked the SUV and seriously thought about leaving the windows open to air it out before visualizing a stripped interior and coming to his senses.
When he reached the theater, he had no idea which movie Cassie was in, although Liv had said Cassie was planning on seeing them all. So he bought five tickets, gave them to the usher, who thought to himself, two weirdos in one day, and backed up a step because Bobby Serre was a very large weirdo.
And the usher’s assessment held strong as he watched Bobby walk into the first movie, only to emerge ten minutes later and walk down the corridor to the second movie. Another ten minutes and he was back out in the hall. The usher was wondering if he should call 911 and report a killer on the prowl. It reminded him of that film where the ex-wife is hiding from her stalker ex-husband in a movie theater.
As Bobby entered the third movie, the usher began debating the options and or responsibilities required of a minimum-wage job.
Bobby stood in the dark, letting his eyes become accustomed to the gloom, the flickering image on the screen drawing his gaze. A man and woman were standing beside a piano in a bar that had a vaguely Moroccan décor. Their dialogue was familiar, the woman speaking with a taut restlessness, the man only distantly polite, while the piano player kept looking from one to the other. Christ, had someone done a modern version of Casablanca in India?—a Hindu goddess suddenly coming into his line of vision on the far right of the bar.
Not that unrequited love wasn’t a universal theme, he supposed, sort of like—he wasn’t about to label what he was feeling as love . . . but something in that general zip code.
Then he caught his breath or maybe he stopped breathing. It was a toss-up. Exhale, inhale, keep it going, he told himself, and checked out the back row again.
There she was, crying her eyes out, a Kleenex to her nose.
But she looked great. Greater than great—because she was alone.
Okay. Relax. Relax. So you’ve been traveling for twenty hours. If she tells you to go to hell you can always go back to—fuck if he knew where.
And that was the problem with feeling the way he was feeling.
No matter where he went, he couldn’t get away from the damnable craving.
The Indian movie wasn’t a big winner. With the exception of an elderly couple closer to the front and a couple punkers with spiked hair and chains on the far aisle, Cassie pretty much had the theater to herself.
Okay, gear up. Christ, he hadn’t been this nervous since his first date—which had turned out to be a disaster. Don’t go there, his voice of reason suggested. Stay on plan.
That would have been really great, if he had one.
Apologize. That always works.
And knowing if he’d had any better ideas they would have come to him during his tedious, much-too-long journey, he decided to go with it.
* * *
OHMYGOD, SOME MAN is coming to sit by me. Don’t look. Pretend you’re engrossed in the movie. The theater’s practically empty. Why does he have to sit here?
Cassie moved her arm from the arm rest on her left as he approached and leaned to her right, feeling uncomfortable, her pulse racing, thinking this is what came of sitting alone in a movie theater on the Fourth of July when normal people were with their friends or families.
“I want to apologize.”
She practically fainted. She didn’t, but her arms flew out in some bizarre counterreaction to her fight-or-flight anxiety and her tub of popcorn, or what remained of her popcorn, tumbled from her lap and fell on his feet.
His. Him. He was here!
Bobby ignored the slimy popcorn covering his sandaled feet and said, “Do you mind if I sit down?”
“I thought you were some pervert—I mean . . . Thank God you’re not. What are you doing here? How did you find me? Where did you come from? You look thinner.” The light from the movie screen illuminated his lean form, his high cheekbones starkly defined in chiaroscuro. Maybe he’d been desperately ill and couldn’t get in touch with her while he was unconscious in some remote village hospital in France.
He sat down next to her, figuring that long list of questions was a conditional yes at least. “Need a Kleenex?” he said, offering her a pack he’d bought at one of the numerous airports he’d passed through.
Oh, God, she was all tear-streaked and puffy-eyed, and she was still holding the crushed popcorn napkins under her nose, frozen in shock as she was. Sliding her hand beside her leg, she discarded the wet, soggy mess of popcorn napkins as discreetly as possible, dropping them on the floor behind her feet. Then she said, “Thanks,” like she was perfectly madeup and self-assured and took his packet of Kleenex from him. “I forgot my Kleenex,” she added, mentally bashing herself over the head a second later for sounding so freaking uncool. “I mean—that is—”
“You look great.”
Was he saying that out of pity, like you tell a young child their drawing of Mommy is wonderful when she has a stick body and the wrong color hair and only two fingers on each stick hand?
“I missed you.”
Hallelujah! It was a real great, not a pity great. And he’d missed her. How unbelievably fabulous was that?
“I thought of you, too,” she said mildly, playing a role
right out of some Jane Austen novel where the decorous heroine never actually says what she’s feeling to the hero and then the story can go on for another two hundred pages because of all the misunderstandings.
“I’m glad.”
Jesus, had he read Jane Austen, too? She wasn’t getting a lot of information here.
“I’m glad you’re glad,” she replied probably because her brain wasn’t really functioning after nothing but junk food for the past four hours and had literally ground to a halt. She really wanted to say, Why the hell are you here? “Why are you here?” she blurted out, instantly mortified that her sluggish brain apparently had found a spurt of energy.
“Could we go somewhere?”
“For what?” So that was it. He must be in town on some layover between flights and thought he’d have a quick lay. Typical.
“Whatever you want.”
She’d heard that phrase before, always in a sexual context, and she really wasn’t in the mood to indulge him in his quickie after missing him desperately—and not in the quickie context—for weeks. “I’m watching the movie right now.”
Her voice had taken on an edge. What the hell had he said wrong? “Do you mind if I watch it with you?” He was walking on eggshells here, he could tell.
“Suit yourself.”
Jesus, he hated that tone. And where in the past he would have walked away from female affront in a second flat, he bit the bullet. “It looks like a remake of Casablanca. I always liked that movie.”
“It’s not a remake. It’s a new interpretation.”
Okeydokey. Maybe he’d be better off keeping his mouth shut. At least she hadn’t told him to take a hike. He sat quietly and watched the movie, the dubbing slightly off the mark so the sound came a fraction of a second after the actors’ mouths formed the words. That made him zone out real fast, which gave him a better opportunity to surreptitiously watch Cassie out of the corner of his eye.
God, why was she so klutzy? Why hadn’t she said something smart and clever and just the tiniest bit cutting instead of the stupid remark she had made that in no way made him understand that she wasn’t going to be his Fly-Over Land wham, bam, thank you ma’am fuck? On the other hand, he did look noticeably thinner, so maybe she was maligning him unfairly when he’d really boarded a plane the instant the doctors gave him leave to take out his IVs. Should she offer some sympathetic comment that would allow him to open up and tell her the whole sad story of his near-terminal illness? “Why are you so thin?” she witlessly said, sounding tactless and maladroit instead of poised and concerned in such a way that would indicate not only compassion but a willingness to listen to his sad tale.
He was clearly taken aback, she could see, and in an effort to smooth over her gaucherie, she blundered on, “I mean you look as though you might have been sick or—”
“I was busy and forgot about eating, I suppose,” he said carefully, as though he were weighing each word should it be loaded with C-4.
She just hated those male answers that never elaborated in any way and made you more inquisitive than you already were. Busy with what? “Busy with what?” she asked bluntly, figuring she had nothing to lose at this point in regard to her image. And if she wasn’t going to sleep with him anyway, how could it hurt? Hey, wait a minute, her inner voice protested. Don’t make any hasty decisions.
“I went up in the mountains in Montana with my cousin last month. You have to pack all your food up there, and I guess I stayed a little longer than I planned.”
“What was your cousin’s name?” Was she subtle or what? Male or female would be instantly evident.
“Charlie.”
Shit. Some women were called Charlie as a nickname. Should she pursue this or pretend indifference. What the hell. “Is Charlie a man or a woman?”
He smiled, feeling for the first time since he saw her that he might have a chance. “A man. You’re jealous.”
“Am not.”
“Well, I’m jealous of you. I’ve been imagining you out with all kinds of men, and it’s been driving me crazy.”
“It has?” she cooed precisely like women she’d always found disgusting. “I mean, you have? Thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me. To be perfectly honest, I would have preferred not feeling that way.”
Was that a rude remark or true and open candor that was the bedrock of any deep and fulfilling relationship? “To be perfectly honest,” she replied, “I’ve spent a moment or two thinking of you with other women as well.” Add ten thousand and double it, but it never paid to look anxious in these early phases of a profound and lasting relationship.
“I haven’t been dating much. At all, actually.”
Was it possible for a choir of angels to appear in a film made in India? Did they have angels per se, or only gods and goddesses? Was it gods and goddesses she heard breaking into song? Was she simply giddy with too much sugar? Or had he really said, he had not been dating at all!!! “I see,” she said in a cool voice that sounded strange in her ears, like she might have been interrogating a mass murderer and he’d finally given up the location of the first grave, which meant she couldn’t react or he’d stop talking.
“Yeah. You’ve had a real impact on my life.”
Ohmygod. She had an impact on his movie-star life? How could that be? She lived in Minneapolis. But her sugar-saturated brain wouldn’t be restrained and she said, kind of dreamily, “I’ve missed you a lot, really a lot,” when any of The Rules books would rap you over the knuckles for being so gauche as to tell a man you’ve only slept with a few times—okay, maybe more than a few times—that you really missed him.
“I thought I might stay in town for a while, if that’s okay with you?”
“I’d love it,” she said almost shyly.
“Do you want to watch the whole movie?”
Whoa. Maybe there was a small fraction of The Rules girl in her after all, because she didn’t want to immediately jump into bed with him the very first moment he asked. “I would,” she said, ultra politely so he wouldn’t take it the wrong way and leave. It was a gamble, and she was already forming some excuse that would allow her to gracefully change her mind when he said, “Okay. Do you want some more popcorn?”
Only if you want me to barf on you, she thought. “No, thank you,” she said sweetly, feeling all fluttery inside that he was willing to do whatever she wanted. Feeling like she was in high school again and out on a date.
“I’m going to get some. I’ll be right back.”
She had a moment of panic thinking he could walk away and never return, but she squelched that pre–I am woman sensation. Although she did add for safe measure, “Would you bring me a small Cherry Coke?”
It was terrible, really, that manipulation and subterfuge were so much a part of these dating/sleeping together rituals. But it was all about saving face. And it beat having to run after him and scream, “Don’t go!” should he fail to return in an acceptable amount of time.
When he came back, his feet were wiped off, although he didn’t mention it and he handed Cassie her Coke and sat down and began eating his butter popcorn. It tasted good, better than anything had tasted for a long time, and he wondered if the butter and popcorn were some special kind or if his taste buds had begun working again now that he maybe had his life back. But even maybe was better than what he’d had the past month or so, and he was grateful.
The movie was terrible, but he tried to look interested.
The movie was terrible, but she refused to say, “Let’s go home and get naked.” It was a matter of principle.
But when he put his arm around her shoulders, she almost sighed with pleasure.
He could tell. He felt as though he was on safer ground, like he wasn’t scaling Everest without a Sherpa guide.
Is this what the Cinderella story was all about? she thought. About this feeling and not the fancy dress and glass slipper and getting revenge on nasty stepsisters? This warm, sweet, melty feeling of happine
ss and well-being. Oh, oh, oh and that, too. With his hand on her shoulder, his fingertips had brushed the upper curve of her breast, kindling an instant, avaricious, lustful need that wasn’t sweet and melty at all, that seemed heedless to Rules decorum, that was hotter than hot.
She gently arched her back, shut her eyes, and began believing in miracles.
As her breasts rose, his fingers sank into her soft flesh, and her eagerness triggered a flood of feeling—part sexual, part sweet nostalgia, another part end-of-the-rainbow emotion too new to fully understand. But he was very happy to be here. There was no question.
She half turned her head, and he kissed her gently, gently, grateful and content and sexually primed like he was whenever she was near. But he wasn’t going there until someone asked. Until it was crystal clear.
He kissed her and she kissed him back, the darkness a benevolent shield against reality, against all the unasked questions and unpalatable answers. And turning in his seat, he pulled her closer, wanting more of her.
The tub of popcorn on his lap tumbled to the floor.
Abruptly curtailing their kiss.
“We’re making a helluva mess here,” Bobby murmured, kicking the popcorn aside.
“Ick,” Cassie said with a grimace. “My feet.”
“Want me to wash them?” He held up his hand at her startled look. “Sorry. I wasn’t going to make any moves.”
She smiled. “I know. Me, too.”
“This is very strange.”
“How strange?”
Women always wanted to know everything, even when you didn’t know yourself. “I’m-walking-on-eggshells strange.”
“This movie sucks. What do you think?”
Was this a quiz? “It’s interesting, I guess.”
She gave him an assessing look. “You’re on your best behavior.”
“Oh, yeah. Big time.”
“Because?”
“I don’t want to piss you off.”
“Ah.”
“Don’t say ‘ah’ like that. I’m not here for sex, okay?”