It's Complicated (47 page)

As Darla opened them, she burst out laughing. “This is one of Mama’s favorite authors,” she said, scrunching up her face.

They were in jammies, hanging out, watching
Downton Abbey
, which Josie had introduced Darla to. Both had become Edwardian fans in an instant, scandalized by the wealthy family’s aristocratic pursuits. Josie was flopping around the apartment in sweatpants four sizes too large, rolled up at the cuffs around her ankles, and a tank top. She didn’t remember where she’d gotten the sweatpants, they had just become the comfort pants that she wore when she wanted to plow through a pint of ice cream or just feel blah all day. So far, today, success.

“Your mom sent you fifty romance novels that you’ll probably never read?”

Darla pursed her lips and thought about that for a minute. “Hold on,” she said, walking over to the small table at the entrance of the apartment and grabbing her flip phone. She auto dialed, and then from a distance Josie could hear her Aunt Cathy’s raspy voice. Listening only to Darla’s side of the conversation, Josie was fascinated.

“Hey, Mama…Yeah, I’m good…Yep, still visiting my friends when I’m not working…Yep, yep, Trevor’s still playin’…and Joe, too…I’m not gonna talk about that. Not gonna talk about that either.” The shine in Darla’s eyes faded with each comment. “Nope, not that either.” She frowned. “How’s Uncle Mike? I can change the subject if I want to. Yeah, speaking of changing subjects, Mama, what is this shit you’re sending me?”

Josie heard Aunt Cathy shout, “
SHIT?
That ain’t shit!”

Darla held the phone away from her ear about a foot and just shook her head. When the yelling stopped, she replaced the phone on her ear. “Okay, Mama, why do I have fifty romance novels from your favorite author?”

A squeal of delight came through the phone, and again, Darla stretched her arm out to avoid being deafened. The sounds made Josie’s cat sprint from the room and hide under her bed.

“I won! I won!”Josie could hear Aunt Cathy crowing.

“You won what?” Darla barked towards the phone.

“I won the fifty romance novel contest!” The elated voice came tinnily through the speaker.

Josie froze, her eyes locking with Darla’s. They simultaneously put their hands on their hips, cocked their heads, and said quietly, “Contest?”

“Contest, Mama?”Darla repeated, holding the phone close again.

Josie couldn’t hear the answer anymore, but Darla’s face ran through about nineteen different emotions in two minutes of just listening to her mother. Her brow furrowed, then one eyebrow cocked up, then her eyes got wide, then she did a facepalm to the forehead, then she began pacing the length of the living room, her foot brushing against an old, braided rug that Josie had gotten for free when a previous upstairs neighbor had moving out.

Finally, Darla said, “You’re using our address?” and Josie got it. She just shook her head and padded her way into the kitchen, Dame Maggie Smith on pause for quite a while, she imagined, before she and Darla would get back to the Abbey. As she made herself a cup of decaf, she waited, hearing intermittent bits of the conversation.

“No, he’s not naked all the time. Yes, things are working out with Josie. My job? It’s going good. I don’t know, she’s got this doctor she might be…”

Josie slammed the green fertilizer company mug on the counter, and poured herself a vicious cup of decaf, sprinkling a little cinnamon in for the hell of it and then adding a heavy dose of milk. She heard the snap of a phone shutting, and then the slam of it against a table.

“You won’t believe this one!” Darla shouted.

“Let me guess—she’s using this address and your name for sweeping.”

The look of genuine shock on Darla’s face, as if she couldn’t put together a paint-by-numbers scenario that all added up to one color, made Josie laugh.

“That’s exactly what she’s been doing. How did you guess?”

“It’s the most logical explanation for why we’re getting all this crap.”

“Don’t tell me that a foam toilet paperweight from a pharmaceutical company is crap now, Josephine. It is perfectly good winnings, with a manufacturer’s retail value of $13, which Mama will use to calculate out her hourly rate of $3.22 for all her hard work.” Darla had taken on the supercilious tone of Cathy at her best, and it made Josie shrug and smile.

“You know, I don’t care if she does this if it makes her happy,” Josie said.

Darla sighed with relief, her shoulders dropping. She folded herself into a chair, her breasts reminding Josie of Laura’s swell. They seemed to have gotten, in triplicate, everything that Josie had not received from the Endowment Fairy, and she wondered what it would be like to be that lush. Had Alex found her wanting? Was her boyish figure not quite what he needed? Why was she even torturing herself like this? She was the one who had stopped even trying. Then again, he was the one who accused her of violating the most basic of professional trusts.

“I think we can expect a steady supply of this stuff. I’m glad you say that you don’t mind ’cuz Mama seemed so happy to be able to now have two addresses where she could sweep from, and she said that if we get anything good that she can use to please send it back to her, otherwise it’s ours to keep, and it’s her way of thinking about us in the big city.”

Josie held up the green mug with gusto. “To Cathy,” she said. Darla scrambled to get a glass of water and the two toasted to Darla’s mom and Josie’s stalwart aunt.

“What kinds of contests does she enter, Darla?”

“Cash, trips, kitchen makeovers, new houses, gift cards to restaurants, jewelry, books, magazine subscriptions, although she stopped doing that when we got about two hundred of ’em. That kind of stuff.”

“So, you could win any of those things?”

“I could win a year’s supply of LSAT tutoring, for all I know,” Darla said. “It’s never anything good, it’s always this crazy stuff that companies are giving away ’cuz they’re tryin’ to boost morale or—spread the word about their product. At one point Mama found a glitch in the software for one of these websites, and we won three hundred stuffed hot dogs.”

“Three hundred
what
?”

“Stuffed hot dog plush toys, yeah,” Darla said. “Mama took a bunch of ’em and shoved ’em in a pillowcase and said it was a pillow. The rest she gave to some humane society shelter for the dogs. It’s what she does and it makes her happy.”

“At least now we know where all this is coming from.” Josie wandered back and started fishing through the box of books. “
Her Highlander’s Heinie
?” She looked at Darla. “Seriously?”

Darla shrugged. “I’ve heard worse.” They laughed.

“I guess it can’t be any worse than
Downton Abbey
, right?” Josie said. “Shouldn’t we get back to find out what James will do next and with which nobleman?”

Darla threw her arms around Josie suddenly. The hug caught her off guard, but she liked it. No one had touched her in days. “Thank you, Josie.”

“Thank
you
,” she said, pulling back. “You’re helping me make some sense of this crazy business we’re both working in.”

“Once we get this figured out, let’s move on to your crazy love life.”

“My love life isn’t crazy, it’s nonexistent.”

“Why aren’t you with him?” Darla said, her face suddenly serious. Those big green eyes went all innocent and sad, reminding Josie of how Darla had looked that day. How she had questioned Mrs. Humboldt about being dragged home to pack a bag, how her face had been so cherubic, and sweet, and needy.

“Because he thinks I did something unethical, and was a jerk before I had the chance to explain.”

“Ooooooh. Ouch.”

“Yeah, ouch.” Tears filled Josie’s eyes as the reality of what she said really sank in.

“You really love him, don’t you?” Darla said softly. The empathy in her tone made Josie’s tears spill over her lower lids and pour down her cheeks.

“I don’t know what I feel for him.”

“I do. It’s called love. You never cry over guys.”

“I cried over Davey Rockland.”

“That’s because he drove over your foot when he was learning how to drive his go-kart.”

They laughed, Josie wiping the tears away. “Alex did the equivalent with my heart. His grandfather is one of the Alzheimer’s patients in the trial I work on. Worked on.” She faltered. Tendering her resignation hadn’t been easy. Gian had taken it gracefully.

“And?”

“And I tried to tell him I thought his grandfather might not be receiving the drug that was helping other patients, and to get a second opinion, and he freaked on me. Went on about professional ethics and putting the research trial in jeopardy.”

“Is he that kind of guy?”

“What kind?”

“The freak-out kind?”

The question stumped her. “No, actually. He’s not.”

“So maybe there’s more going on with him than you know about.”

“He made fun of me for not being a doctor.”

“Ouch.” Darla drank her tea. “But is that enough to give up?”

“It appears to be for him. He hasn’t contacted me at all. It’s been weeks.”

A long sigh from Darla made the tears spring back. It was the sound of resignation, of defeat, and it echoed inside Josie’s heart.

“If it’s over, you need to move on.”

“I know.”

“If not…then you need to try one more time.”

“I don’t think my heart can handle being crushed again.”

“You handled being run over twice by Davey.” Darla’s chest shook with giggles.

“That was my foot. My heart isn’t quite as resilient.”

“And Alex isn’t Davey.”

“Dear God, no. What an ass he was. How any grown woman would consider dating him...” Josie shivered. Darla’s face went a strange shade of green.

Both yawned simultaneously.

Josie said, “I’m taking a nap.” Sleep would give her a break from her never-ending questioning.

Her only break.

She straddled a cello, her fingers wrapped around the bow, her arm playing expertly as her nude body bent into the instrument, legs wrapped around the edges of the veneered wood, her skin melding into the stringed wonder as if she were making love to it. Hair wild and untamed, her breasts pressed into the back of the cello, she felt the music well up from her fingers, her elbow, her arm, her mind as if emanating from her core. Wet and ready for something greater than herself, her nipples slid with a friction of climax against the grain of the wood, body heated by a thick wall of muscle behind her, peppered with a sprinkling of ticklish hair. Thick thighs cupped her hips and ass, a hard, throbbing erection urgent against her cleft, his heart beat the metronome by which she timed her skillful playing.

Hands stroked her waist, sliding up her ribcage, fingers pinching her nipples as she struggled to maintain composure, her body working from muscle memory to play the song, her core clenching and flushing in aroused agony as his hot breath tickled her shoulder, his mouth ravaged her earlobe, his cock nudged her ass.

Play she did, in fury and unabashed glory, his hands settling in the valley of her heat, wetness slicking fingers that began to stroke her in time to the macrobeat, sweet love coming through each caress until the final crescendo ended the song, the cello flung across the room by rippling forearms that splintered it as it slammed into the wall, her body next, his enormity filling her, piercing her,
impaling
her with a sliding immediacy, hands filled with her flesh as her legs gripped his hips, mouths finding each other, the hot pink nub of her clit now thrusting against his pelvis as he hammered his own beat into her.

Alex alex alex
she hummed in three-four time, his cock the bow that played her strings, his hips the wood grain veneer, his neck the instrument's neck, his mouth her score. He was the conductor, the composer, the creator and her god...

And then she woke up, pelvis thrusting up into empty air, her pussy walls twitching against flesh that wasn't there, palms aching for a hot man who was only in her dream, the sinister mistress of memory spinning with her slumber to conjure a man she had no right to touch now.

Tortured and gasping, her limbs arched and then curved inward, Josie panted into the twilight, throat tight and fingers wet with her scent. Whatever she said in broad daylight did not matter; her body betrayed her, seeking what she really needed.

Alex.

The tears came then, slamming into her as hard as her unsought orgasm, choking and loud, as much a release as her dreamed climax, yet not so sweet.