Rules Of Engagement

33

He bends over the bed and eases me down onto it, adjusting the pillow under my head. Then he pulls off my shoes and drops them on the floor, ignoring my feeble protests that I can do it. Finally, he shakes out the folded blanket I keep at the foot of my bed and settles it over me, tucking it under my feet.

Then he catches a glimpse of my face.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Really? Because that’s a whole lot of nothing.”

He’s repeating my words again. I wonder if he has whatever the audio equivalent of a photographic memory is. “It’s just that for such a big macho swaggery dude, you’re quite maternal.” He pulls a face. “Great. What every guy wants to hear, that he reminds you of a mother.”

“What’s wrong with being compared to a mother?”

“Nothing, if you don’t have a dick.”

Despite my weakness, fuzzy head, and overall feeling of ickyness, I smile. I’d make another smart crack about the size of his ego, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings.

I’m starting to get that he’s much more sensitive than he’d ever admit.

He disappears into my bathroom. I hear some rummaging around, then he returns with two aspirin and sets them on the nightstand next to the bed. “Water,” he says, then disappears again, this time to the kitchen. I hear the faucet turn on and off. He reappears with a full glass of water, which he sets next to the aspirin.

Then he stares down at me with his hands propped on his hips. “Take a nap. You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

“Promise?”

“Pinky swear.”

I’m oddly comforted by that. “Will you promise me something else?”

“Yeah, but only because you’re in a weakened condition. Don’t try this when you’re back up to 100% feisty mode, because I’ll say no.”

“Okay, but don’t get mad.”

He arches his brows. “Why would I get mad?”

“Um, it could be a tad insulting.”

His brows slowly lower over his eyes. He folds his arms over his chest and stares down at me. “Don’t try to intimidate me. I’m still going to say it.” “What a surprise,” he growls.

I blurt it out before the top of his head can explode. “I want you to call me the next time you have the urge to visit a bar.”

There’s a long, thundering silence. His gray eyes glitter like ice in the slanted light. He gives his jaw a workout for a while, then says through gritted teeth, “Why?”

Too sick to roll my eyes at him, I smile instead. It takes fewer muscles. “Because those places are feeding grounds for women like Bettina, and I can’t have you running off with some gold-digging wench before I can get you your happily-ever-after.”

He considers it for a moment. “Why did you think that would be insulting?”

“That was only the first part.”

He looks at the ceiling, muttering, “I shoulda guessed.”

“The second part is that I suspect the way you deal with your anger is to drown it, and I hate to think of you angry and alone shooting whiskey when you could be angry and with me doing something more productive. We could go bowling. Work off some of that rage. Stop staring at me like I just landed on your lawn in my spacecraft.”

He exhales slowly, shakes his head, and uncrosses his arms. Leaning down over me, he gently removes my glasses. He folds them and sets them on the nightstand next to the bed.

I close my eyes because the bed is swaying.

He murmurs, “I can’t picture you bowling, Pink.”

“I don’t. But I’d learn for you. Will you please draw the curtains?”

I hear him moving to the windows, then I hear the swish of the drapes across the rod. The red light beyond my lids dims to a more comfortable gray.

Then I feel the lightest touch at my temple, the barest brush of a fingertip across my skin.

“Sweet dreams,” whispers Mason, pushing a stray lock of hair off my forehead.

Then he’s gone, and I’m drifting into queasy slumber, recalling something troubling from our conversation before I fall asleep.

“Can we please agree that neither of us is each other’s type and there’s no flirting or attraction of any sort going on?”

He never answered my question.

16

DICK

W

hen Mason comes outta Maddie’s house and I see his expression, I feel the kind of fear I haven’t felt since the day I opened my front door twenty years ago to the sight of two grim-faced cops who wanted to have a word with me about my son.

His step is slow and heavy. His gaze is fixed on the ground. His normally proud, straight shoulders are slumped in defeat. The boy looks like he’s carryin’ the weight of the entire world on his back.

I’ve seen him enraged a thousand times. Seen him drunk and disorderly, too, and every good and bad emotion in between.

But I’ve never seen him look like he’s walkin’ outta his own funeral.

He opens the passenger door and gets inside. We sit in heavy silence for a minute, until he speaks, his voice tight.

“You’re the only person I can halfway trust, and I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me.

But if you say a single bad word about that girl from now on, I’ll never talk to you again.”

Knowin’ him like I do, I know he needs a minute to work through whatever’s got him tied up in such knots before he comes out with it. So I start the car without a word and head back to the house, keepin’ my mouth sewed up and my eyes on the road