Days Like This (15 page)

“We survived that, too.  A Flock
of Seagulls.  I mean, what was that hair all about?  And don’t forget rap.”

“I’m trying to forget rap, but I
keep being reminded about it.  Up close and personal.”

She slipped a hand beneath his
collar and rubbed the back of his neck.  He sighed and said,  “We’re dinosaurs,
aren’t we?”

“Yes, but take comfort in knowing
you’re my favorite dinosaur.  Don’t let this get to you.  It’s bad for your
health.  Sitting here brooding, while your daughter’s probably frolicking on
the beach and doesn’t even remember the two of you had words.”  With her free
hand, she began kneading his shoulder.  “Look at you.  Your muscles are all tied
up in knots.  What you need is a good massage.”

He made a slight adjustment to
her fit on his lap, left a hand resting lightly on her thigh.  “That’s not the
only thing I need.”

“You have sex on your mind
again
,
MacKenzie?”

“When do I ever not have sex on
my mind?”

“Point taken.  You know, I had no
idea when I married you that you’d turn out to be such a hot-blooded stud.”

This time, he let out a full
belly laugh.  “I have to keep you around, if only for the entertainment value. 
And don’t be coy with me.  You knew what you were getting yourself into.  You
shacked up with me for three months before we said our vows.  That should’ve
been sufficient time for you to get the picture.”

“I suppose that is a valid
point.  Although you make it sound really tacky.”

“Damn right, it’s valid.  And,
tacky or not, you like it as much as I do.  So…”  He ran a fingertip down her
bare arm.  “The kid won’t be back for hours.  Are you listening, Fiore? 
HOURS.  We’re all alone.  While the cat’s away, I think the mice should do a
little howling.”

“That’s one whopper of a mixed
metaphor, MacKenzie.”

“I have a whopper I’d be glad to
share with—”

“This conversation,” she said archly,
“is rapidly deteriorating into twelve-year-old-boy territory.”

“Sorry.  I forgot you’re still in
lady mode until you take your clothes off.  Let me rephrase that.  Come upstairs
with me to the Love Shack, and I’ll show you a good time.  A very, very good
time.”

“Why, in the name of all that’s
holy, have you built your life around snippets of song lyrics?”

“I have no idea.  Maybe to annoy
you?”

“Then you’ve certainly
accomplished your mission.  What about the pizza?  It’s already getting cold.”

He leaned forward and kissed the
corner of her mouth.  “That, my sweet, is why God invented microwaves.”

“Well,” she said.  “We can’t
argue with that logic, can we?  Give me five minutes to take the dog out, and I’ll
meet you upstairs.”

While Luke sat under a
neighboring beach umbrella, doing his best to impress some little blond chickie
in a yellow string bikini, Paige and Mikey left their stuff on the blanket and
walked the hard-packed sand at the water’s edge.  “I’m sorry,” she said. 
“Sorry that he put you through the Spanish Inquisition.  He’s a total jerk.”

Hands tucked in the pockets of
his tropical-print shorts, Mikey walked with a loose, measured stride.  “Don’t
be so hard on him.  He’s just doing his job as a dad.”

“I’ve managed to survive for
fifteen years without one of those, and I don’t need one now, poking his nose
into my business, where it doesn’t belong.”

“Maybe, but you know he’d argue
that that’s exactly where it does belong.  In your business.  And if you think
that’s bad, try having a dad who teaches at the high school.  And watches your
every move.”

The breeze blew a strand of hair
into her face, and she brushed it away.  A few yards ahead of them, a gull
strutted into the surf, wings spread wide, skinny little legs braced against
the rushing water.  “Yeah, I guess you win that one.  It’s just…we had a wicked
fight before you got there.  He didn’t approve of the way I was dressed.  He
made me go back to my room and change.”

“Don’t worry about it.  You look
great.  Some of these girls here—”  He raised his head and glanced around. 
“—look like they’re advertising it for free.  Like the kind of girl you don’t
bother to call the next day.”

Heat flooded her cheeks.  “I
don’t think they’re advertising.  It’s just fashion.  It’s what girls wear.”

“Well, it looks trashy to me.  I
mean—sure, I’m a guy.  I’m not blind.  But just because they look good on the
outside doesn’t mean there’s anything good on the inside.”

“Wow.  An independent thinker.  I
suspect most guys don’t see it that way.  For instance, Luke.  He doesn’t seem
to be having any problem with it.”

The corner of his mouth
twitched.  “In case you hadn’t noticed,” he said, “Luke and I are not cut from
the same cloth.”

“No kidding.”

“But we’re friends.  Don’t ask me
how that happened, because we don’t have a thing in common.  Not one thing. 
But I like the guy.  He’s solid.  Somebody I’d want on my side in a fight.”

“I guess you’re lucky, then,
since you’re stuck with each other.  I had a friend in Boston who absolutely
hated her stepbrother.  The guy was a total douche.  But she was stuck with him
anyway.”  Paige folded her arms across her chest.  “So your dad teaches high
school?”

“Yep.  English.  Pretty much
every kid who’s gone through Jackson High in the last ten years has had the
privilege of taking English with Mr. Lindstrom.”

“Did you have to take it with
him?”

“I did.  We pretended like we
didn’t know each other, even though everybody knew we did. It was brutally
painful.”

“But you get along, right?  Out
of school?”

“Sure.  My dad’s an okay guy. 
Tough, but fair.  I think yours probably is, too.  If you give him a chance.”

“Why does everybody keep flogging
that same horse?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe you should start
paying attention to what they’re saying, before the damn thing dies.”

Another breeze caught her hair,
and she was glad she’d worn the hooded sweatshirt.  Here at the Maine coast, it
was chilly for late August.  Most of the girls in their tiny bikinis had goose
bumps in places she didn’t want to think about.  “So,” she said, “college in
another year?”

“If Dad has anything to say about
it, yes.  He thinks I don’t stand much of a chance of success in today’s world
without a college education.”

“You don’t agree with that?”

“I’m still undecided.  He’d like
to see me go to Farmington.  That’s where he went, and it’s a good school.  I
wouldn’t have to live on campus if I didn’t want to.  I could commute.  That’s
what he did.”

“You could still live at home. 
That would be good.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”  He kicked at
a stone, slick and smooth, packed hard into the wet sand.  “I kind of like the
idea of being on my own.  It’s not bad, living here with my family.  But
sometimes I get the urge to pack everything I own in a suitcase, hop in my
truck, and head for the West Coast.  See some of the country along the way. 
Figure out what I want to do with my life.  That’s hard to do in a little backwater
town like Jackson Falls.  How am I supposed to know what I want to do, where I
want to be, if I’ve never done anything or been anywhere?”

“You don’t strike me as a
wanderer.  I’d imagine you as more of a homebody.”

He leaned down to pick up a long
strand of seaweed.  “Things,” he said, “aren’t always what they seem.”

“No,” she said.  “They aren’t.”

“So, Luke tells me you’re a
singer.”

“Not really.  It’s just something
I fool around with.”

“Not what Luke says.  He says
you’re good.  Are you planning to do something with it?”

She hunched her shoulders and
tucked her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt.  “I don’t know.  I’m not
sure I want to live that kind of life.  Putting yourself out there, knowing
you’ll face rejection, that you might never make it, no matter how much effort,
no matter how much heart and soul, you put into it.  But—”  She shrugged. 
“Music is what makes me feel good.  You know?  Sometimes I think I could really
do something with this.  And then I think of my old man, and it’s like having a
bucket of cold water dumped over my head.”

“Why?  He’s had a really successful
career.  He could probably help you.  Give you a leg up on the competition.”

“That’s the thing,” she said.  “I
don’t want his help.  I want to prove I can make it on my own.  Because if he
helped me, and I was successful, I’d spend the rest of my life wondering if
that success was because I was good, or because my old man was an aging rock
star who called in a few favors.”

“You might not want to let him
hear you talking about him that way.”

They exchanged glances, and then
she let out a snort of laughter.  He smiled, and his whole face changed.  “Come
on,” he said.  “Let’s go see if we can drag Luke away from Lolita and find some
onion rings or something.”

He’d closed the bedroom blinds so
that only soft light filtered through.  At one open window, a whirring fan exchanged
stale air for fresh.  In the dim light, he was fiddling with the stereo.  She
stood there for a moment, drinking him in, head to foot.  Something tightened
in her throat.  What was it about those damn bare feet of his that got to her
every time? 

He turned, studied her face.  And
smiled.  “Dance with me,” he said.

She crossed the room and stepped
into his arms. He felt warm and solid, lean and lanky and wonderful.  She lay
her head against his chest and said, “Flash?  There’s no music playing.”

“Well then, babydoll, we’ll just
have to fake it.”

Beneath her cheek, his heart beat
steady and strong.  “But we don’t need to fake it.  You see, whenever you take
me in your arms, I automatically hear music playing.”

“Wow, that’s good, Fiore. 
Really, really good.  Slick.”

She tilted her head and looked up
at him.  “You think?  I sort of thought it was.”

“You should try setting it to
music.” Still holding her, he leaned back and reached out a hand to flip a
switch on the stereo, and Smokey Robinson’s sweet falsetto filled the room. 
Ooh,
Baby, Baby. 

“Ah.  That’s so much better.”

“Of course it’s better, woman. 
The man is a god.”

She tightened her arms around him
as they swayed to the music.  “No matter what terrible things people might say
about you,” she told him with exaggerated sweetness, “nobody will ever be able
to accuse you of having bad taste in music.”

“I think there’s a backhanded
compliment in there somewhere.”  Without warning, he dipped her so low she
nearly touched the floor.  She let out a little shriek and clutched a fistful
of his shirt.  She was giggling when he smoothly pulled her back upright.  “You
might want to pipe down,” he said, “or we’ll have Leroy up here, sniffing
around to make sure there isn’t an intruder in the house.”

“Leroy’s tucked away all safe in
his crate, so there’s no danger of that.”

“What a relief.  He’d definitely put
a damper on my plans for the afternoon.”

Smokey stopped warbling, and
Aretha took over, saying a little prayer.  He spun her away from him and then
back into his arms.  “You know,” she said, “this whole overprotective
shtick
is pretty normal.  It’s a guy thing.  You should have seen the fit my brother pitched
when we told him we were getting married.”

 “I figured something like that
went down.  You and Travis went into a huddle in the kitchen and stayed there
for quite some time.  Of course, you have to cut him some slack.  We came at
him out of left field.  He didn’t even know we were together until we showed up
at his door, with you wearing a rock the size of Texas on your left-hand ring
finger.”

“It’s a family tradition.  Trav
always disapproves of my choices when it comes to men.  It took him years to
forgive me for marrying Danny.  How dare I marry yet another rocker?  So while
you were in the living room making polite chit-chat with Leslie, Travis dragged
me off to the kitchen and proceeded to express serious doubts about your
suitability as husband material.  He simply didn’t believe you had it in you to
settle down and go the long haul with just one woman.  He made a point of
reminding me about your dismal track record, including, but not limited to, all
those years you spent as a manwhore.”

“That is not a real word.  You
just made it up.”

“
Au contraire
, my friend. 
And if the shoe fits, does it really matter?”

“Moving right along, I imagine
you set him straight.”

“Oh, I set him straight, all
right.  I told him that: A) You were thirty-five years old and you’d finally
pulled your head out of your ass and grown up, and I wasn’t even remotely
concerned about you going astray.”

“Nice, Fiore.  Very complimentary
picture you painted of me.  I can’t wait to hear B.”

“Ah, yes.  B.  I furthermore told
him you’d known me long enough and well enough to understand that if I ever did
catch you dipping it someplace where it didn’t belong, I’d amputate first and
ask questions second.”

“You’ve turned really
bloodthirsty in your old age.  Is this supposed to serve as some kind of
warning to me?”

“Stay in line, MacKenzie, and you’ll
have nothing to worry about.”

“I’m shaking in my shoes.”

“You’re not wearing shoes.”

“Smart-ass.”  He dipped her
again, and again she let out a startled yelp.  “You just don’t learn, do you?”
he said cheerfully.  “I swear, if this keeps up, we’ll have the cops knocking
on the door, telling us to keep it down because the neighbors are complaining
about the noise.”

“We don’t have any neighbors. 
And payback is going to be such fun.”

“Bring it, baby.  I have broad
shoulders.  So?”