"Who?"
"Johnny."
"OurJohnny?"
Kate refused to let the pronoun wound her. "Yes. Last night—"
"He slept with me, what? A few months ago, then wouldn't stop calling. He's on the rebound, Katie. He can't be in love with you."
Kate tried not to let the wordreboundfind purchase, but it did. "I knew you'd make it about you."
"But . . . he's your boss, for God's sake."
"I quit. I'm starting a job in advertising in two weeks."
"Oh, great. Now you're giving up your career for a guy."
"We both know I'm not good enough to make it at the networks. That's your dream, Tully. It always was." She could see that her friend wanted to argue the point; she saw, too, that any argument would be a lie. "I'm in love with him, Tully," she said finally. "I have been for years."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I was scared."
"Of what?"
Katie couldn't answer.
Tully stared at her. In those dark, expressive eyes, she saw everything: fear, worry, and jealousy. "This has disaster written all over it."
"I didn't trust Chad all those years ago, remember? But I put it aside because you needed me to."
"Speaking of love disasters."
"Can you be happy for me?"
Tully stared at her, and though she finally smiled, it wasn't the real thing and both of them knew it. "I'll try."
Rebound. The word, like the image it represented, kept springing into Kate's mind.
He slept with me, what? A few months ago. . .
. . . can't be in love with you . . .
As soon as Tully left the apartment, Kate called in sick to work and crawled into bed. She hadn't been there more than twenty minutes when a knock at the front door startled her out of her thoughts. "Damn it, Tully," she muttered, pulling on her pink velour robe and slipping into her bunny slippers. "Can't you ever remember your key?" She opened the door.
Johnny stood there. "You don't look sick."
"Liar. I look terrible."
He reached forward, untied the belt, and pushed the robe off her shoulders. It fell around her feet in a poufy pink puddle. "A flannel nightgown. How sexy." He closed the door behind them.
She tried not to think about her conversation with Tully—
rebound
can't love you
—but the words chased one another across her mind, tripping every now and then over his:. . . don't want to hurt you.
