One Breathless Night

“You know what?” she said. “You’re right.” She followed him to a small unoccupied table, where they sat across from each other. There were still people on the dance floor, despite having no band. She liked the piped-in music better than what she’d heard at the Bond thing. This was more her speed. Old-fashioned dance music. Like in the subway.

“What am I right about this time?” he asked.

“Oh.” She’d forgotten why she’d been thinking. “No, no, you’re right. It would have been the easiest thing for them to make sure we couldn’t see them. But they were standing in the hallway right outside of the BU suite. As if they were so lost in each other that, that...” After taking a couple of big gulps, she put her drink down. “I would never.”

“No,” he said. “You wouldn’t.” He sipped his Scotch, watched the dancers for a moment and then looked at her again. “Although, you do have a point. It’s possible that they just lost their heads for a few minutes. That they’d had too much to drink, and things got out of hand.”

“Is that normal for Faith?” Jenna said. “Does she just lose her head for a few minutes and kiss other men?”

“Not that I’ve ever seen.”

She sighed. “Payton doesn’t, either. Except he did, and from the way he looked at her, he didn’t think of me at all. There was no other exit from that hotel suite. The first thing I saw was you, staring down the hallway. It was crowded, but it didn’t take more than a couple of seconds for me to catch on.” She winced at the memory. Her stomach did that twisted thing that made her feel like crawling in a hole and never coming out again. “I’m sorry. I’m trying to let it go, but... I had a trickster father and I don’t want anything like that in my life.”

“Trickster?”

“He’s chock-full of mischief, my dad. He’s always been a salesman, the kind that requires a lot of travel, but his real love was inventing things that were supposed to make gazillions of dollars. They never did. He knew how to charm the ladies, though. Lots of them. Including my mother. The only thing he couldn’t do was take care of his responsibilities. My mom ended up having to work two jobs, sometimes three. She was exhausted all the time. I learned how to take care of myself. Which isn’t a bad thing in itself. But...” She shrugged.

“Ah. That kind of trickster.”

“I know, I’m a walking cliché, choosing Payton, who’s the exact opposite of my father. But I don’t care. I hated that my dad was gone so much. And that the only time I felt as if we were a family was when he came home. But that wasn’t very often. The only time I felt really...”

She inhaled deeply, then decided to just tell the unvarnished truth. It wasn’t as if she’d ever run in to Rick again. “The only time I felt really loved was when he was home. When we were all together.”

“What about your mother?”

“She was a good mom, in her own way. She did the best she could. If she minded that he was away a lot, I never heard her complain. When he was home he was the center of her universe. I love my mom. I really do. But she just let him keep his head in the clouds, when he had a family to support.”

Rick sipped on his drink, and Jenna felt foolish for that last outburst. She watched the couples on the dance floor, all around their age and older. It was nice, and she was able to calm down a bit.

“Do they live in Boston?” he asked, and her gaze went back to him. His blue eyes made her forget the question for a minute.

“Not anymore. They moved to Santa Fe four years ago. No, five. He still spends half his time on the road and she keeps accepting his crumbs. I know I shouldn’t say any of this.”

“Why not? I’m the ideal audience. The quintessential perfect stranger. In a blink I’ll be gone.”

“True.”

“So, what’s it like now, with them?”

She shrugged. Drank some more of her very strong White Russian. “It’s okay. We’re not close.” Tears welled again. She blinked them back and then wiped away the one that had escaped. “Would you feel up to telling me about you and Faith?”

He did the staring thing again. She’d love to know what he saw, but she wouldn’t ask. Finally, he nodded. “You know how we met? She was a freelance writer who specialized in the earth’s atmosphere and climate change. I’d been in my job for a couple of years. After she interviewed me, we became friends. We went to the same gym, and we were both into mountain climbing, bikes, running. Sex was great, and we didn’t get on each other’s nerves. So she moved in with me.

“She knew I’d be working a lot, that I’m a storm chaser, and that all my friends were also into atmospheric studies. She went wherever the headlines took her so she was gone a lot herself. Every time we connected we were good together. There weren’t any issues. We never actually talked about our relationship.”

“What changed?”

“Hmm?”

“Something big must have changed for you to want to get married.”

“You’d think. But I just figured we’d been together long enough and—” He shrugged. “Kids. The idea of having them. I want that. Not yet, though.”

“So, you were putting down a deposit?”

He inhaled, and she wanted to take the words back.

“I’m so sorry,” Jenna said. “Ignore that, please. I probably shouldn’t have asked about her. Clearly, I’m no good for anything right now. Which is terrible, because you’ve been wonderful.”

“Don’t worry about it. You’re dead-on. That’s exactly what I was doing. But now I want to put some thought into what comes next. Faith and I get along. Always have. And yeah, I’ll admit, with our chaotic lives, our relationship has been convenient.”

He sighed and stared at the dancers. A song Jenna liked started, and for a few moments, neither she nor Rick said anything. His expression changed, though, from pensive to something darker.

“This wasn’t the first time I tried to propose to Faith,” he said. “Clearly I didn’t try very hard. Hot-air balloons aren’t great for proposals. But then, I thought New Year’s Eve was a good idea.” He shrugged. Took a drink.

Jenna’s throat tightened as she stared at the small diamond ring on her left hand. She and Payton were nothing like Rick and Faith. Well, they were convenient, she supposed. He didn’t live in California or work the night shift. But they had talked about their relationship. Each step had been carefully thought out. She’d been the one to decide that they wouldn’t live together until they were married, but Payton had supported her fully. She loved him. He’d been exactly the kind of man she’d always wanted.

Though right now she had no idea what she wanted.

“That first kiss,” Rick said, his smile so nice, she let go of the breath she’d been holding. “I mean us. That was unexpected.”

“It was,” she agreed. “Completely. To be honest, you literally took my breath away.”

He was back to looking pensive. It was a damn good look on him. She imagined half the women in the room were undressing him in their thoughts.

But she worried she’d said the wrong thing. “Do you suppose payback somehow makes kissing more thrilling?”

“Thrilling, huh?” He didn’t actually puff up like a sage grouse in heat, but his faint smile did look awfully smug. “Probably. Yeah. You think if I kissed you right now, it would be payback again?”

She finished her White Russian, feeling that buzz she’d been chasing. “Yeah. I think payback’s going to be a big part of everything for a while.”

“I’ve got no problem with that.”

Jenna laughed, grateful she’d already swallowed. “You know what? I don’t, either.”

“Then we better get some food.”

“I’m sorry, what? You’re hungry? Now?”

“Not especially,” he said. “But you just polished off a lot of booze. Have you had anything else to eat besides chocolate?”

How did he know about that? Had he been watching her earlier? God, she hoped not. She picked up her drink, remembering too late that she’d finished it. “You’re probably right about eating,” she said, gently putting the empty glass down. “Because I’m a little drunk.”

He helped her up and they went to scope out their second buffet of the night. It was a very good buffet, especially when they zeroed in on the amazingly fresh crab and lobster. Just as Jenna was heading around the table to the oysters, an inebriated man in a beautiful suit stopped right in front of her, although he was looking over her shoulder.

“Rick? Is that you?”

“Hey, Paul. How you doing?”