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Theo walked into the room, still naked, still so sizzling hot. He was holding out a white plate, on which was a yellow omelet with two red pepper slices crisscrossed on top. “Hungry?” he said.
I nodded. But I wasn’t exactly looking at the omelet. I took the plate. My thoughts crisscrossed too, calling out different directions. Call Sam back and make nice. Call Jane and find out where she was last night. Save the omelet for later and take Theo back to bed.
I opted for the last one.
6
Minutes after Theo said goodbye—a goodbye that involved a fair amount of groping—Jane called.
“I’m sorry Zac phoned you,” she said.
“Don’t be. Are you all right?”
“Can you meet me for coffee in an hour? I want to prep you on some Trial TV stuff, and I want to talk to you about something else.”
“Sure.” I had to meet Mayburn an hour after that, but I could fit it in.
Jane gave me the address of a coffee shop near her house in River North.
Before I got in the shower, I called my old assistant, Q, short for Quentin.
“How was girls’ night?” he said, answering.
“I slept with someone.”
Q and I used to be the busiest lawyer-assistant duo at the law firm of Baltimore & Brown, and we never had time for the usual Hi, Hello, How are you this morning? kind of stuff. Even though we had both been out of work for six months now—me because the firm had all but ousted me, and Q because he never really wanted to be a legal assistant anyway—we still continued to eschew common pleasantries when we talked and got right to the point.
“Thank, God. Who was it? Sam?”
“No.”
“Grady.”
“No.”
“Someone new?”
“Yes.”
“How many dates have you had with this person?”
I paused. “None.”
“A one-night stand?” His voice rose a few decibels.
“Yep.”
“Your first one-night stand?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll be right over.”
Although Q had been in a relationship with a man named Max for most of the years I’d known him, at the end of our tenure at Baltimore & Brown, he’d gotten involved in an illicit affair. I call it illicit because not only was Q living with Max at the time, but he’d fallen for someone who wasn’t even out of the closet. But now he was official with the new boyfriend and living up the street from me at North and Dearborn.
True to his word, Q was banging on my door in less than ten minutes, which gave me just enough time to shower and toss on a dress that had been itching to get out of the closet since last fall.
Q sat on my bed, the overhead lights gleaming on his bald, black head, while I dashed around my bedroom putting on makeup and jewelry. When we worked at the law firm, Q’s uniform was crisp khakis and a stylish blazer. Now that he wasn’t working, he’d kept the blazer, but switched to jeans.
“Cute,” I said, pointing to the jacket, which was black.
“It’s too tight.” He tugged at the sleeves. “Everything is too tight. I thought being in love would give me the motivation to lose ten pounds, but it’s been the opposite.” Q worked out religiously and attempted every diet he heard about, but so far the flawless gay-man physique evaded him.
“You look great.” This was true. Happiness, even if it hadn’t translated into weight loss, made Q’s gray eyes sparkle and his skin gleam.
“Thanks. Is this new?” He fingered my waffle-cotton duvet cover.
“It’s old, actually.” I had been using a beautiful ivory spread that Sam and I had registered for and gotten as an early wedding gift. But once everything with Sam blew up, I tucked it in the closet for the time being.
“Is this where the magic happened?” Q patted the bed.
“Here and in the kitchen.”
“Tell me.”
“His name is Theo.”
“Nice. What’s he do?”
“Owns a Web design software company.”
“Like a real company? Or is he one of those guys who says he has a company, but it’s really him in his pajamas in his studio apartment?”
“From what I hear, it’s a real company, with some big profits.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Jane.”
“How is she?”
I almost said, In deep shit with her husband. But I held my tongue, since I’d been on a stop-swearing campaign for a while now. The other reason I didn’t say it was because I didn’t believe in telling one friend another’s business. “She’s great. She’s the new anchor at Trial TV, that start-up legal network that launches Monday.”
“It’s perfect for her.”
“I know. And she’s taking me with her.”
“What?”
“She asked me to be a legal analyst, kind of a reporter. What do you think? Ridiculous?”
He sat back and crossed his arms. “I think it’s brilliant. You’re TV pretty. You’ve got that great red hair and that crazy big smile. And you could talk your way out of a Turkish prison.”
“But I’m a lawyer, not a journalist.”
Q held up a palm in protest. “Are you kidding? Hardly anyone is a journalist anymore. Trust me, the business news stations are always on at our house, and they’ve got these sweet little children broadcasting from the trading floors. Don’t tell me any of those kidlets are journalists. Besides, you’re a lawyer, which means you know how to talk and to think on your feet. That’s what they want.”
“I guess.” Now that I was away from the drinks Jane was buying and the enthusiasm she projected, I was a little unsure. “God knows I need the money. Unlike you.”
Q smiled. “Yes, I am a kept man, and I love it.”
“So everything is sunshine and roses with you two?”
“I have to wear sunscreen all the time, and there are no thorns.”
“Wow. It sounds different than it was with Max.”
“It is different.”
“But you were in love with Max.”
“I was. At one point. In the only way I knew how to be at that time. And then somewhere it turned into me loving Max like a family member. I still love him, even though he won’t return my phone calls. But what I have now is that I’m intensely, absolutely in love, Iz. It’s like … It’s like …”
He trailed off, and I glanced over at him. He was staring into the distance, at the back wall of my bedroom, but it was as if he was watching a sunset fall over the Aegean Sea; he looked that ecstatically happy.
I felt a shiver of envy run through me. Because that’s how I used to look when I thought about Sam.
“Anyway,” Q said, coming out of his dreamy fog, “enough shoptalk, enough about me. Tell me about this Theo guy. How old? With a name like Theodore and his own company, I’d say forties, but since it’s software, I’m going with thirty-six.”
I purposely didn’t meet Q’s eyes in the mirror as I fastened my silver hoop earrings. “Bit younger than that.”
“Thirty?”
“Little younger.”
“Twenty-five?” Q said, surprised.
“Not exactly.”
“Twenty-three?” His voice was incredulous now.
“Um … Twenty-one?”
He whistled and clapped. “Damn, girl. That’s illegal in some states.”
I turned and leaned against my dresser, facing Q now. “You would not believe how sexy this kid is.”
“Oh, this is going to be trouble.”
“No, it’s not. It’s not going to be anything. It was just a … a thing.”
Q laughed, his gray eyes glinting. “Believe me, I think it’s about time you unleashed your inner slut. I applaud you for it. But this thing is going to be a train wreck.”
“No, it’s not. I might not even see him again.”
He laughed harder, throwing his head back. “Who are you kidding? You’re hooked.”
“No, I’m not.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “And why would it be a train wreck?”
“The young ones always are.”
“But he’s older than his years. He’s been working since he was in high school. He went to college for a year. Stanford, I think. He has his own company.”
“Train wreck. In the best way. Believe me, I think you need this kid. He’s going to get you all hot and bothered and loosen you up. It’s exactly what you require after all this seriousness with Sam.”
We grinned at each other, and I had to admit, I kind of agreed with him. And despite the wisecracks, it was nice to have Q back the way we used to be.
“And I want to thank you,” Q continued. “I have been so bored lately, and now I’ve got a front-row seat for this show.”
“Why have you been bored?”
He sighed. “You know how it is. I was miserable when I was working, but …”
“Excuse me?” I put my hands on my hips. “You were miserable when you were working with me?”
“No, no. You know I loved working with you. I just didn’t love the work I was doing. I wasn’t meant to be a legal secretary.”
“But you’ve been taking acting classes again since we left the firm.”
“I quit. I’m too old for it now.”
“You’re in your early thirties!”
“And you should see everyone in these acting classes—they’re in their early twenties. Like your boyfriend.”
“Shut up.”
“I am so going to love this show.”
I moved away from the dresser. “There’s no show, and there’s no train wreck.”
Q swung his feet over the side of the bed and stood. “Yes, there is, and, honey, I’m going to be here until the last curtain call and the last crash.”
7
I looked at Jane across the table. “Jane, I’m … Well, I’m kind of shocked.”
She blew on her half-full mug of coffee, clearly annoyed, then pushed it away.
