“You don’t mind if I drive?”she asked when he shut his door.
“Why?Are you terrible at it?”
“Of course not.”She checked her mirrors before pulling onto the street.“I thought it might be something that you wanted to control.”
“I appreciate that.But, no.My father’s accident was a random-odds thing.A tire cut by debris, combined with speed and the angle of impact.”He could discuss that part of it dispassionately.He’d read the report, saw the logic, could recite the facts.It was the emotional loss that he’d never sorted through.
She stopped for a traffic signal, and he looked at her.Since it was after hours, she’d taken off her jacket, leaving her arms bare.
“What?”she asked, glancing over at him.
“I’m thinking about later.”
“What part?”
He swept his gaze over her, his intention clear, and her breath caught.
“Oh.That,” she said.
Thatwas real—and good—between them.
He suggested they stop at the local hardware store for boxes then he asked a customer service representative for help finding the black electrical tape.
“Electrical tape?”Lara asked as they headed toward the appropriate aisle.
“For your nipples,” he reminded her.
She gasped.“You can’t be serious.”
“You never know.”
The whole time they checked out, she looked from him, to the tape, then back.
While they drove to her house, he asked if she had a favorite local Chinese restaurant.
She handed over her phone and told him the name.“It’s under my favorites tab.”
“What do you want?”
“Mongolian beef.Spicy.And crab wontons.And eggrolls.”
“You hungry?”
She shrugged.“I missed lunch.”
He called in the order and asked for it to be delivered around six-thirty.After he hung up, he said to her, “Why am I not surprised you ordered the spiciest thing on the menu?”
“How do you know that?”
“The man on the phone said so.”
Suzy-Q greeted them when they got out of the car.
First, she put her giant paws on his shoulders and gave him a sloppy upstroke kiss.Then she did the same to Lara.
Mrs.Fuhrman came running out of her house, wearing pink rollers in her blueish-purple hair and waving a leash.
“I’ve no idea what’s gotten into her,” the woman said.“She never misbehaves.”
