Sandra Hill - [Jinx] (26 page)

“As a NASCAR driver?”

“Well, yeah, but also from Brenda.”

Caslow let out a short hoot of laughter. “What? Is she still telling the small-dick jokes?”

“Only the truth, sweetheart,” Brenda said with an exaggerated smile on her face.

“I, on the other hand, am amply endowed,” John said, just to needle the guy.

Caslow’s eyes about bugged out. “For chrissake, how old are you?”

“Old enough!”

“You have some nerve questioning the age of my date when jailbait is your norm,” Brenda spat.

“Dammit, Brenda! Cut it out. I came here to see you, not to fight.” He inhaled and exhaled several times to calm himself down. “Do you want a drink?”

“Yeah, we’ll both have gin and tonics, light on the gin for my honey here,” John said.

Caslow looked as if he’d like to make roadkill of him with a race car. “Are you sure you’re legal?” he muttered as he went off to the bar.

“Well, that was fun,” John said to Brenda once her ex was gone.

“I’m so nervous I’m shaking.”

“You two have it bad.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s obvious that he still loves you. His eyes devour you. And you, come on, admit it. He still rings your bell.”

“Rings my . . . my . . . ,” she stuttered.

“Let’s dance,” he said. “Time for step two of ‘Annoy the Hell out of Lance.’” It was Right Said Fred’s “I’m too Sexy.” Very appropriate song, in John’s opinion.

Dancing came naturally to Cajun men—well, at least the LeDeux men. And John, with all modesty, knew he was the best. Not in a flamboyant way, but slow and sexy; that was the trick.

By the time that song ended and the DJ turned on “Jump,” he and Brenda had their moves down pat. She was shimmying. He was coming up behind her, both their knees bent, hips undulating, doing a Cajun version of dirty dancing. People started to stop and watch them, even Caslow, who stood on the edge of the crowd, staring at them with dismay.

The next song was a slow one, that hokey “How Am I Supposed to Live without You?” by Michael Bolton. By then he took pity on Caslow, who’d ditched the drinks and stood frozen like a lovesick puppy. With a jerk of his head, he motioned Caslow to make his move.

Brenda didn’t have a chance to protest when Caslow came up and took her in his arms and began to dance. At first, she was stiff as a board, throwing eye-daggers at John and mouthing “traitor,” but then she relaxed. John felt a sort of satisfaction watching her link her arms around her ex’s neck and laying her face in the crook of his neck, with Caslow tugging her even closer. Both of their eyes were closed. He figured he must have inherited a bit of Tante Lulu’s matchmaking genes.

Walking off the dance floor, he picked up one of the three gin and tonics Caslow had gotten for them. As he sipped, he surveyed the room.
Oh, yeah. Twelve noon, straight ahead. Blonde with bedroom eyes scoping me out.

With a grin, John put his drink down and sauntered over. In his best Southern drawl, he said, “Hey, darlin’.”

One party crasher, two party crasher, three party crasher . . .

“I can’t believe I’m going to crash a high school reunion. This has got to be a new low in my pitiful life.”

Veronica was speaking to Adam and Caleb, who flanked her as they walked into a hotel ballroom where Brenda’s class get-together was being held. It was nine o’clock, and the event had to be half over.

“Nothing pitiful about it,” Adam asserted. “We’re here to offer moral support to Brenda.”

“Yeah. She was probably too embarrassed to ask for our help,” Caleb observed. “That’s why she invited that young pup LeDeux as her date.”

Veronica gazed with amusement at the two men, who were looking very spiffy. Adam wore a dark suit with a red and yellow striped tie, and Caleb was in a navy blazer and khakis with a dark tie sporting a bunch of tiny images of the Navy SEAL budweiser. Hey, she didn’t look too shabby herself, even though she had been given only a half hour to get dressed when Adam and Caleb showed up unexpectedly at her Boston apartment late this afternoon. She wore a short black, silk, sleeveless sheath dress. She recalled having worn it once when vacationing in the South of France, when Jake . . . well, never mind. Anyhow, she’d dressed hurriedly and pulled her hair off her face with pearl and diamond clips to match her pearl earrings; her only other adornment was her rhinestone-studded black high heels. It had taken them four hours to get here, even speeding in Adam’s brand-new Lexus.

“Uh-oh! Looks like we’re too late,” Adam said.

They all turned to the crowd in the middle of the ballroom.

Brenda was dancing with what must be her ex-husband, a blond god in an expensive brown suit. So much for her making him eat his heart out with jealousy. John was dancing, too, with a blonde bombshell . . . what else? And they all appeared half crocked.

“Nah, not too late. Looks like we arrived just in time,” Caleb said. “But first, I think we all need a drink after Famosa’s driving.”

“What? You think I drive too fast?” Adam asked, actually surprised by Caleb’s comment.

“No, Sherlock. You don’t drive too fast; you fly too fast. For chrissake, you were doing ninety half the time.”

“Yeah, but I was doing forty in traffic the rest of the time. So, it all equaled out.”

Veronica rolled her eyes.

Once they had drinks in hand—her, white wine; Adam, scotch on the rocks; and Caleb, a beer—they watched the dancers. When the song ended and Brenda and John spotted them, the four joined them at a large, round table.

“Hi, I’m Lance Caslow, Brenda’s ex-husband,” the blond god said, offering handshakes to them all. A personable fellow, despite all the things said about him by Brenda, whose face was pink with embarrassment at having been caught with her ex.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Veronica, Adam, and Caleb said in unison.

“Needle dick, right?” Lance said with a laugh, shaking his head at Brenda.

“Well, it is,” Brenda said.

“Not,” he said.

“Don’t be thinking that I’m getting back together with Mr. I’m too Full of Myself,” Brenda told everyone at the table.

Lance waggled his eyebrows.

“We’re not.” She spoke directly to Lance. “I was just being nice so you wouldn’t be embarrassed in public if I tossed you in the punch bowl.”

Lance laughed. “You could try. And as long as you’re being nice, how about you and me . . . ?” He said something so explicit then that everyone’s jaws dropped.

Brenda’s eyes narrowed with fury.

Lance continued to laugh, which infuriated Brenda more. She took a long swallow of her drink, and said, “Did I ever tell you guys about the first time Lance and I made love? If you think his driving is faster than the speed of sound, boy, you should have—”

“Well, this is pleasant,” John interrupted. “Guys, I’d like you to meet Sonia Reeder, who probably thinks we’re all nuts. Sonia, this is Brenda, Lance, Ronnie, Caleb, and Adam. Brenda and Lance, you must know Sonia from high school.” John and Sonia, who wore a red, skin-tight latex short-sleeved dress and chandelier rhinestone earrings, smiled at them all, sat down on the two empty chairs and picked up drinks they must have left there.

“Sonia Reeder?” Brenda’s brow was furrowed. “Is that your maiden name?”

“Nope,” Sonia said, grinning.

Now Lance’s brow was furrowed. “You look familiar.”

“Oh,” Lance and Brenda said at the same time. “Steve Reeder.”

John choked on his drink, and Caleb had to clap him on the back. Everyone was laughing, including Sonia. Before he had a chance to check himself, John blurted out, “I put my tongue in a man’s mouth. Eeew!”

“You weren’t saying ‘eew’ at the time, sweetie,” Sonia said sweetly.

“You just met her—him—and you were French kissing?” Veronica shook her head with incredulity.

“Hey, I’m a fast mover,” John said.

“I can attest to that.” Sonia batted her false eyelashes at John.

John groaned.

“I told you he was a dumb Southern boy,” Adam told Caleb. “Did you hear about the cracker whose dog couldn’t learn tricks?”

John just grinned, not at all offended.

“You have to be smarter than the dog to teach it stuff,” Adam finished.

“Not bad,” John said. “But do you know how a Yankee man is different than a hot fudge sundae? No? Well, a hot fudge sundae always satisfies a woman.”

“I like hot fudge sundaes,” Sonia said, licking her lips and staring at John like he was a sweet treat.

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I’m not gay,” John told Sonia.

“Good, because I’m not a man—anymore,” Sonia replied, a teasing twinkle in his—her—eyes.

“Help!” John appealed to the rest of them.

After that, the party went downhill, or uphill, depending on who was talking. Alcohol played a big part. Since the dinner was over and it was a cash bar, no one cared about the party crashers. Or that there was one more late party crasher.

Jake.

The things a guy will do for love . . . !

This had to be the most half-baked, half-assed thing he’d ever done in all his life, but Frank had insisted that he drive up to Perth Amboy for Brenda Caslow’s high school reunion if he ever wanted to get Ronnie back.

He should have gone to Ronnie’s apartment when she called last night and Trish had answered the phone. Didn’t Ronnie trust him at all? Hah! The answer to that question was obvious. Trish had only been there to gather up the last of her belongings. The new owners would be coming next week.

He knew Ronnie was home last night when he’d star-sixty-nined her and called and called and called. He’d been about to go to her place this afternoon when Frank stopped by and told him he better get his ass in gear if he wanted to catch Ronnie before it was too late. “Do the words
Famosa
and
Peachey
ring any bells, boy?”

That’s how he’d ended up here, at a freakin’ high school reunion.

It was ridiculous, really. He didn’t go to his own reunions. And he couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn a suit . . . probably his grandmother’s funeral three years ago. Furthermore, it was almost eleven o’clock when he got to the Franklin Hotel. Everyone had probably already left.

Well, they hadn’t left, he realized with a sigh as he entered the ballroom where a DJ was still spinning old nineties tunes, in this case, Kriss Kross’s “Jump.” LeDeux was out on the dance floor cutting a mean rug with some blonde in a red tart dress. Even Famosa was making a fool of himself, fast dancing like an arms-flopping idiot with Brenda and, yep, Lance Caslow. The trio were a regular Lords and Lady of the Dance. They all looked a little bit drunk.

Then he saw the backs of Peachey and Ronnie, sitting at a table, watching the dancing. Damn, he’d thought Peachey was out of the picture. They were sitting real close together, and Ronnie was wearing that backless black dress that had pretty much resulted in the Insanity Marriage in Monaco. Well, he wasn’t insane now, but he sure was pissed. So this was why Frank wanted him to come. The SEAL-Amish Rambo was horning in on his woman—before he had a chance to make her his woman again.

“Ronnie,” he said, coming up and placing a hand on her bare shoulder.

She and Peachey both jumped with surprise.

“Go away,” Peachey said.

“Get lost,” he said back.

“Asshole!”

“Prick!”

“You are such a loser. Why don’t you go play cards or something?”

“Why don’t you go blow up a terrorist or something?”

“Both of you, stop it! You’re behaving like children.” Ronnie stood and turned toward Jake, putting her hands on her hips—with consternation, he supposed.

He could deal with consternation. Now, disgust, that was another matter.

“Where’s your latest girlfriend?”

“You’re my latest girlfriend.”

“You think?”

“Yeah, I think. You look great. Dance with me.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Don’t you even want an explanation?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m giving it, anyway. The movers are coming next week, and Trish came to pick up the last of her stuff. That’s all.”

“You are a prime candidate for Liars Anonymous,” Peach interjected.

“Butt out, butthead.”

“I don’t think so.”