Strange Bedpersons

“I know.” Tess frowned. “What I don’t know is why Park isn’t giving it to you.”

Nick let his head fall back against the wall again. “Because Park can’t. His father still runs the firm, and Park would walk naked in traffic before he’d confront him or, God forbid, disagree with him. But Park swears his father will retire if we get the Welch account, and then Park can make me partner.”

Tess was confused. “Why doesn’t his father want to make you partner? You’re brilliant. And you practically run that firm now. This doesn’t make sense. You deserve partner.”

“His father cares about background,” Nick said stiffly. “Mine is blue-collar. Not the kind of person to be a partner in a Patterson law firm.”

Tess looked dumbfounded. “You’re kidding. He can’t be that archaic.”

“Sure he can,” Nick said. “It’s his law firm. He can be anything he wants.”

Tess slumped back in her chair and considered Nick and what she owed him. The first time they’d met, he’d knocked her on her butt playing touch football, and then sat on her to make her give up the ball, doing terrible Bogart impressions until she’d surrendered because she was weak from laughing. When she broke up with the guy she’d been dating a month later, she’d called Nick trying not to cry, and he’d brought her chocolate ice cream and Terms of Endearment on video, and then kept her company while she sobbed through the movie. And he’d never said anything about the mascara she’d left all over his shirt. And today he’d known she was upset about something and brought her pot stickers.

On the other hand, he worshiped money and success, and he’d humiliated her by rejecting her in a parking lot.

They were almost even. But not quite. Because no matter how sure she was that she was finished with him as a romantic possibility—and she was pretty sure, she told herself—he was a friend. If friends needed you, you came through. That was the rule.

Tess felt the prison doors begin to close on her. “Oh, damn,” she muttered.

Nick leaned forward and gave her his best smile, the one that made him look boyish and vulnerable. “I have no right to ask you this, but will you do it? For me? Even though you don’t owe me anything?”

Tess bit her lip. He looked so sweet sitting there. And sexy. Of course, she knew that he knew he looked boyish and vulnerable and sweet and sexy because that was the effect he was going for, but deep, deep, deep down inside, he really was a sweet man. He just had a lousy peer group.

And if she did it, she’d get to be with him again.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Tess said.

Nick slumped in relief. “Thank God.” He grinned up at her. “I don’t suppose you could get Park a date, too? Somebody respectable?”

“You’re kidding.”

“Somebody at the Foundation?” Nick said. “Somebody who reads?”

“I’ll ask around,” Tess said. “I will have to mention that he’s worthless, of course.”

“Great.” Nick stood up to go. “Listen, if there’s anything I can do for you, just name it. I owe you big for this.”

“Good. Introduce me to somebody on the board of the Decker Academy.”

Nick gaped at her. “Why?”

“I lost my job,” Tess said, and Nick sat down again.

“I knew something was wrong. I’m sorry, Tess. What happened?”

“Funding cuts,” Tess said. His sympathy was so unexpectedly comforting that she lost her emotional balance for a moment, but then she took a deep breath and grinned at him. “But it’s all right. I met this really nice man at the last censorship protest.”

Nick scowled at her. “Do not talk to strange men, dummy.”

“And we talked for a long time, and he was darling,” Tess said, ignoring his scowl. “And he said if I ever needed a job, to call him, because I was obviously a great teacher.”

“And this has what to do with the Decker Academy?” Nick said, still scowling.

“He’s in charge of it,” Tess said. “His name is Alan—”

“Sigler,” Nick finished. “He must be sixty. What are you doing flirting with older men?”

“But I told him I don’t have a teaching certificate. And he said that was bad because the board would have to vote to make an exception in my case, and they weren’t very open to change, so I thought if you knew any of them…”

“I do,” Nick said thoughtfully. “In fact, a couple of them may be at this Welch thing this weekend. He’s big on upper-class education for some reason.” He frowned at her. “Dress conservatively. These people are not cutting edge.” He thought for another moment, and Tess watched him contemplate her problem, turning it over in his mind, examining it from every angle as if it was something important to his career, instead of hers, and she felt comforted again. “I’ll do what I can,” he said finally. “I just don’t understand why you want to work at Decker. All those rich kids?”

“The pay is good,” Tess said. “And the school day ends at one o’clock so they can work on special projects or something.”

Nick snorted. “Country Club 101.”

“I don’t care. I could be back at the Foundation by one-thirty. A lot of my kids don’t come in for help until then.”

Nick frowned at her. “Two jobs? What are you trying to do—kill yourself?”

Tess stuck her chin out. “I can’t leave the Foundation. They need me. The kids need me. I know you don’t understand, but they need me.”

Nick was silent for a moment. “All right,” he said finally. “Let me see what I can do.” He stood up and then looked down at her, the worry clear in his eyes. “But you have to promise me that you won’t work yourself into the ground if you get this job.”

Tess bit her lip. “See, this is what makes me crazy about you. Say something materialistic so I can get my guard up again.”

“Your sweats are awful,” Nick said. “But your face looks like a million dollars.” He bent to kiss her, and Tess felt the little shock of lust he always sparked in her as his mouth covered hers and his tongue tickled her lips. He tasted of pot stickers and beer and Nick, and she smiled against his cheek when he moved his head to bite her earlobe.

“Charmer,” she whispered against his ear, and he grinned and kissed her again, and she felt the warmth from his lips seep into her bones.

When he was gone, she stared into space for a while, wondering what she was getting herself into. Nick was a darling, she reminded herself, but he was also dedicated to one person and one person only—Nick. He liked her a lot, but he’d cheerfully dump her in a minute if it meant making partner in that damn firm.

So don’t go fantasizing about him, she told herself sternly. She’d just use him to meet the Decker people and get him to pull any strings he had to get her the job. She wasn’t going to start thinking about his arms again. That always led to scattered thinking, and she still had to decide what to do about Gina, how to protect the other tenants, how to save the Foundation, how to get the job at Decker…

Tess curled up in the chair and put her head on her knees and thought about how good it would feel to be in Nick’s arms again. When her thoughts drifted from security in his arms to making love in his arms, she groaned and reached for the phone and dialed Gina’s number.

No sense in suffering alone.

“You’re gonna do it?” Gina asked when Tess told her about Nick’s proposal.

“Of course I’m going to do it.” Tess cradled the phone to her ear as she slumped back in her chair. “He needs me. He can be a materialistic jerk and a womanizer, but deep inside he’s a nice guy and he needs me.” She shifted in the chair, searching for a better justification for seeing him again. “He probably doesn’t really want to do this. It’s that louse Park.”

Gina sounded doubtful. “I don’t think it’s all this Park’s fault. Nick’s a big boy. He could say no.”

“Nick can’t say no to Park. He’s been baby-sitting Park since college and it’s gotten to be a habit.” Tess’s frown turned into a grin as she thought about it. “You wouldn’t believe how they met.” She sat up in her chair as she warmed to her story. “Nick told me he was tutoring in college as part of a work-study program, and Park showed up, on the verge of getting kicked out of school because of this really important English lit paper he’d flunked. On Moby Dick.”

“That’s the whale, right? I saw the movie.”

“Right,” Tess said. “Only when Park showed Nick the paper, the prof had written across the top of it, ‘Unfortunately, Mr. Patterson, Ahab dies in the end.”’