Opening Act Read online

  Then he carefully stepped back through the shards—never once flinching or jerking—and carried her back to the couch. He laid her onto it, and when she was safely delivered there, he tried to get up—

  —but Loni wouldn’t let go of him.

  She pulled him onto her and slipped her hands beneath the fluffy robe. It was all the encouragement he needed to reciprocate and he gently lowered himself down next to her. The sensation was immediate and arousing. His body was so hard—like he was sculpted from marble. All the men she’d been with, up till now, had been soft and doughy…pillow men. Thinkers. Shay was a doer. Action, activity, had armored him in muscle.

  She realized, with a twinge of guilt, that Zee could walk through the door at any moment. Zee didn’t have any real claim to Shay. She didn’t even really know him. Still, Loni felt as though she was betraying her roommate at least a little. But then he kissed her, and she tasted the espresso, tasted the beer—it was dizzying. His self-confidence, his eagerness…she felt herself challenged to meet it with her own. He pulled the rugby shirt over her head in one big whoosh. She felt the sudden ping of the cool air against her skin and was gratified by the way his hands roved over her—and the grunts of approval he emitted in appreciation of her taut, firm flesh.

  He began working on the fly of her jeans. Not wanting to fall behind, she gathered up the robe around his waist and cupped her hands around his buttocks—they, too, were like sculpted marble—and guided him into her; not that it took much guiding. He was a man who knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going. The suddenly hooded look that came over him couldn’t hide the intense, fiery concentration beneath it—at least until he buried his face between her breasts.

  What was happening? It had been only an hour ago that she’d made up her mind to give herself to someone else. Now here she was, falling into intimacy with someone entirely different—someone she’d only just met. She’d lived her entire life in thrall to the power of words, and the courtship dance she and Shay had engaged in that afternoon had been almost entirely verbal, so it was a shock to her now that the sheer energy of Shay’s come-on—and her response—had completely pulverized her capacity for language. She couldn’t form a coherent thought—not with Shay thrusting with so much rhythmic fury that the couch actually moved beneath them, jumping backward at half-inch intervals. She thought at one point he might run them right through the wall—despite the fact that she never felt out of control. She felt, rather, that she was riding a wild and untamed beast that was entirely under her command. Never mind the apparent violence of their lovemaking—or that the way they were crying out might be mistaken by passersby for victims of an attack—the thrashing passion that drove them was entirely mutual.

  It wasn’t till Shay had sent her skyrocketing through the roof of the building and out into the rain like a Roman candle that she realized, in a flash of clarity—possibly aided by a flash of lightning—what she was doing with him. She was testing her resolve. She was looking for something to stand up against Byron, to see whether his offer was worth it.

  And now she had her answer. He was on the floor below her, where he’d fallen after finishing, all tangled up in pink and looking vacantly, but happily, at her face.

  She sat up. It was all so clear now. So unambiguous, so apparent.

  And look…the rain had stopped, too.

  Everything was calm.

  Everything was right.

  It was while Shay was showering that Byron called. Like he’d sensed something had changed.

  “Just wondering where your head is,” he said. “No pressure.”

  She sat down and sighed. “Thanks. Actually, let’s meet. Today.” Might as well get this over with. Before her courage ebbed or she talked herself out of it. She was clever enough to do that, clever enough to fool herself into betraying her own interests. She’d done it before.

  “Oh,” he said with a little peep of surprise. “Today, huh? Uh…my schedule’s a bit tight. Unless you’re available right now.”

  She looked at the door to the bathroom. She could hear Shay gargling an Overlords tune in the running water.

  “Now’s good,” she said. The sooner the better. She was already feeling a worm of self-doubt.

  “I’ve only got half an hour. Coffee?”

  “Coffee’s fine,” she said. “The Mambo on Eleventh?” It was close to campus. Might as well make it convenient for him since it wouldn’t be anything else.

  “Great. See you in ten.”

  When Shay came out of the bathroom, shrouded by steam and back in the fluffy robe, she was already strapping on her backpack. “Listen, I’ve got to go out,” she said. “Sorry.”

  He looked a little surprised but nodded in understanding. “I’ll get out of your hair,” he said, and he looked around the apartment. “My clothes…?”

  “Damn it! Still in the dryer,” she said, grabbing her keys. “It’s just down the stairs to the left. Can’t miss it.” She hesitated a little, then went over and pulled him into a kiss. “Sorry. Really.”

  “No worries,” he assured her, grinning. “See you later?”

  She smiled back but couldn’t bear to say anything. It didn’t seem right—not till she’d closed the book on Byron first.

  She gave his neck a squeeze, then headed out the door.

  CHAPTER 9

  Shay took a moment to reflect on what a bad idea it was to ever turn your back on a woman. Odds were, next time you faced her, she’d be in an entirely different mood. Hell, sometimes it happened without you turning your back on her. He didn’t know what had suddenly unnerved Loni and made her go all rigid and distant. Whatever it was, he had to figure it didn’t have anything to do with him. Those barriers had been pretty much broken down. And a sweet job he’d done of it, too.

  He felt a little silly, standing around a strange apartment in a disheveled pink bathrobe, so he padded out to the hallway to go and fetch his clothes from the laundry room. The minute the door clicked behind him, he realized, I have no key to this place. He turned around and tried the knob. The door wouldn’t open.

  Shit.

  He sighed. He was still too blissed out from the way things had gone with Loni to be annoyed by his stupidity. He just resigned himself to it and continued to the staircase, then lightly skipped down the steps to the basement. He crossed the cold concrete floor to the dryer and pulled his clothes out. They radiated warmth, further easing any small irritation he might’ve felt. He was dopey and happy, and his warm clothes made him dopier and happier.

  The trouble was, he had nowhere to put them on.

  It would have to be there, then.

  He looked around. The basement extended some twenty feet in both directions, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around. He shrugged, doffing the pink robe, which he folded up and placed atop the dryer.

  Then, standing naked by the machines, he sorted through his clothes, in search of his underwear. He had to pull each item apart separately before he discovered they’d gotten caught in one of the legs of his jeans. He’d just reached in and grabbed them when someone behind him said, “A-hem.”

  He turned, and there at the bottom of the stairs was an older woman who looked like she might’ve been the mother of Batman’s enemy Two-Face. Beneath her iron-gray hair, one side of her visage was leathery and snarled, the other smooth and fair. Shay had no idea how that had happened, but the effect was definitely eye-opening.

  “I thought I heard someone come down to the laundry room,” she said, “so I decided to see whether my rules are being followed.” She nodded briefly at the wall beyond the machines. Shay glanced that way and saw an eleven-by-seventeen sheet taped to the wall that read LAUNDRY ROOM REGULATIONS FOR RESIDENTS OF 1477 LONDALE. “I suppose,” she continued, “I will have to add a new one. No displays of genitalia.”

  Shay quietly extracted his boxer-briefs from his jeans and covered his crotch with them. “Sorry,” he said.

  “This is not a rule I would’ve th
ought I had to specify,” the woman went on, her nostrils flaring. “I suppose while I’m at it I might as well add a few others, purely as a preventative measure. Like no starting fires in the sink. Also, no cannibalism.”

  “I just got locked out,” he said, flashing her a winning smile. “Of my friend’s place.”

  “Didn’t you knock?”

  “My friend had left already.”

  The woman kept staring at him. Shay said, “If you turn your head, I can be dressed in a few seconds.”

  She took a breath, as though such a request was a great burden to her, but did as he asked. Though as he slipped on his briefs and then his pants, he could see from the corner of his eye that she was watching him from the corner of hers.

  When he’d slipped on his T-shirt and socks, he took up the pink robe and extended it to the woman. “I wonder if you’d do me a favor,” he said, and he shot her another smile. He was hitting her with all the wattage he had at his command, and he knew from experience that it was considerable. “Could you return this to my friend for me, with my thanks? I’m very sorry to put you out and to have taken you by surprise this way.” He grinned shyly and let his hair fall into his face. “You certainly caught me at a…well, vulnerable moment.”

  The merest hint of a smile curled one end of her lips. “Oh,” she said, as if reluctant to give way to him, “you look like you can take care of yourself.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “I’m a big boy.”

  She muttered, “No argument here,” and Shay knew she was putty in his hands.

  “My friend is Loni,” he said as he put the robe in her arms.

  She looked at him blankly.

  “Loni in…uh…” He realized he didn’t know her apartment number. Or her last name. “Second floor,” he said. It was all he had.

  She continued to regard him as though he weren’t speaking at all, like she was still waiting for him to begin.

  “Zee Gleason’s roommate,” he said, in a burst of inspiration.

  “Oh,” she said, smiling. “Zee. Of course I’ll return it for you. As long as you promise not to go giving old ladies heart attacks anymore.”

  He took a quick look around the basement. “I don’t see any old ladies here.”

  She giggled—this rusted old battle-ax actually giggled. Shay thought, Damn, I’m good.

  After a bit more shameless flirting, he headed back upstairs. Fortunately, Loni had asked him to leave his shoes outside the door, as they’d gotten caked with mud, so he grabbed them from the floor. He gave the knob one more try, just in case he’d made a mistake the first time. When the door still wouldn’t budge, he headed back down the stairs.

  On the stoop outside he put his shoes back on, then went whistling away into what was turning out to be a beautifully sunny day. He was feeling a little hungry and realized it was way past lunchtime. There was a Vietnamese joint ahead that looked kind of promising.

  And then something terrible occurred to him.

  He clapped his hands over his pockets.

  Empty.

  “Fucking hell,” he said.

  Zee came home in an irritable mood. She’d had two interviews with the optometrist now, and she still had no indication of whether she could hope to get the job. She’d been glad to get called in a second time, but at the end of her nearly two hours there, the doctor and the office manager were still acting as though they were waiting for her to do something to convince them to make her an offer. She had no idea what they wanted. She doubted even they knew.

  And then she’d had to suffer through an excruciating lunch with her friend Chynna, who’d brought her four-month-old baby along and spent the whole meal tending to it, bragging about how wonderful motherhood was and how much money her chiropodist husband was making. Yeah, but not enough to pick up the tab, Zee noticed. They’d ended up going dutch even though Chynna had picked the restaurant and it was not a cheap one.

  She dropped her purse into a chair and looked through the mail, which she’d picked up on her way in. Bills, bills, fucking bills. They never stopped coming. She’d better get a new job soon. Some of these were second and even third notices. She didn’t want the electricity cut off.

  She tried not to be frustrated with Loni over her inability to pay much toward rent. As roommates go, she wasn’t a bad one. She bought her own food, made no mess, and used barely any of the utilities Zee paid for. In fact, when Loni left in a few weeks for California—which Zee was sure she’d do, she had no realistic alternative—Zee’s monthly expenditures would barely change. Loni left almost no footprint on the place she lived. It was actually kind of eerie when she thought about it.

  But even if that weren’t the case, even if Loni were costing her an arm and a leg…well, given the sabotage Zee had pulled on her this morning—cutting her off at the ankles with Shay Dayton—she felt she owed her a little slack. Not that she regretted doing it. It was so like Loni, who had everything—an education, a career waiting for her, even a guy who’d mapped out that career and guided her through it and who was plainly crazy for her—to drift through these last few weeks like it was all nothing much and she might not even want it after all. Like there weren’t people who’d kill to have what she had. (Not that Zee was one of them. Probably. Not usually, anyway.) And then, to just blithely walk through a party for twenty minutes and leave Shay Dayton panting after her, Shay Dayton, who she also didn’t want. Shay Dayton, whom Zee would’ve sold her soul for, and maybe even already had…

  She shook her head. Never mind. Nasty incident, all over now. She’d had her petty revenge, and they could put it behind them and pretend it never happened. She tossed the bills onto her desk and looked up.

  The apartment had a vacant resonance to it. She could always tell when Loni wasn’t here. Even when she was just napping or reading, she gave off a very slight but detectable vibe. Zee wondered whether she’d miss Loni when she was gone. They had a lot of history together, and even though they’d gone down different paths, you couldn’t ever replace that…

  There was a rap on the door. Zee turned and opened it and found the landlady there, holding a big pink robe. What the hell?

  “Oh, there you are, Zee,” she said. “I thought I saw you come back. I was in the side yard, with the verbena.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Milliken. What’s up?”

  She handed her the robe with a sly smile. “Just returning this to you.”

  Zee balked at taking it from her and was about to explain it wasn’t hers when she recognized it as Loni’s. It was that one she made fun of her for owning—calling it Loni’s “PeptoBismol robe.” What on earth was Mrs. Milliken doing with it?

  As if having heard her thoughts, the landlady said, “It’s from the young man. He got locked out, you know, apparently wearing nothing but this.” She broke into a smirk, the first Zee had ever seen from her. It was not a comforting sight. “Caught him stark naked in the basement,” she said. “Polite boy, under the circumstances. I’ll give him that. And very pretty, though I don’t much care for tattoos.”

  Zee felt a little dizzy at the onrush of all this information. She managed to cobble together a possible scenario. Loni must have had a man over. A tattooed man. A man whom she’d gotten naked with. And whom she’d left wearing her pink robe, for whatever kinky reason. And then he’d—what—got locked out? Hidden naked in the basement? What the hell?

  “Thanks,” Zee said. “I’m…uhhh…thanks.” She shrugged. “I’ll see Loni gets it.”

  Mrs. Milliken just smiled and nodded, and left without another word.

  Zee crossed the apartment to Loni’s room and dropped the robe onto her bed. She walked back down the hall, a little unsettled at the idea that Loni had taken advantage of her absence to bring some guy in here and cavort with him for however long. She couldn’t say why it bothered her. If you’d asked her a week ago, she’d have said it was exactly the kind of thing Loni needed to do more of.

  Then she saw the phone and the wallet, ly
ing right there on the kitchen table.

  And somehow she knew.

  Even before she examined them, she knew.

  She knew why it bothered her that Loni had had a guy over.

  Because she knew who the guy was.

  She opened the wallet and found the driver’s license tucked away there.

  And sure enough.

  SHAY M DAYTON

  Everything around her went strangely, frighteningly still. Like the whole earth had just paused in its rotation.

  Loni, who had everything handed to her, even things she didn’t want—had just gotten what Zee wanted without even trying. She hadn’t even been derailed by Zee going behind her back and working against her. It really was true, wasn’t it? Everything just…fell into Loni’s lap. A degree. A job. Two men. One of them Shay Dayton.

  She felt a kind of uncontrollable fury whip up inside her, like a funnel cloud. She didn’t know what to do with it. But if she didn’t do something, it would blow the top of her head right off. Fortunately, this explosive charge was diffused by Shay Dayton’s phone, which now started to vibrate.

  She picked it up. The screen said, PERNITA, and there was a photo of a beautiful brunette with high cheekbones and too much makeup.

  Zee did something without thinking, without wanting to think.

  She tapped TALK.

  “Hello?” she said, and her voice was barely a whisper.

  “Baby?” said a voice at the other end. “I’m outside your building again. Can you let me up? I think I left one of my shopping bags there. The one from Ornello’s? At least I’m hoping it’s there. If not, I left it at the store.”

  Zee couldn’t speak. It was a woman calling Shay Dayton “baby.”

  “Hello?” the woman said. “You there? Say something, sugar! I didn’t exhaust you that much this morning, did I?” She laughed lasciviously.

  Zee had to sit down. Apparently, Shay had romped with this girl in the morning and then with Loni just a few hours later. She knew he was an animal, but for God’s sake. Suddenly it seemed that Shay Dayton was putting out for every woman in town—except her.