The Kiss Test (8 page)

“Hot?” I taunted.

“A redhead.”

I raised my brows.

“It’ll work. Your dates won’t find me threatening. I swear. I’ll stay out late if you have a date. It’s only for a week. Please.” I frowned. “I’m begging you, and you know I hate to beg. But my only choices are begging you for your couch or begging Kevin to let me stay another week, and I’m not giving that jerk the upper hand.”

Chris glanced at his watch. “Okay, fine. Come back tomorrow afternoon.”

I practically leaped at him, pecking him on the cheek. “I’ll behave, I promise.”

“Yeah, well, call first. Julie’s a live one, and I have the day off, so we may not get out of bed until late.”

From the other room, the doorbell sounded, and we both jumped—Chris in anticipation and me with guilt. No need to screw up his first date by having her find a woman in his apartment right off the bat.

“Crap. I’ll sneak out while you distract her.”

“Geez.” Chris frowned, heading for the door. “I’m a grown man. If I want ten women in my apartment at the same time, I can.” He threw the front door open, grinning broadly at the lithe blonde on the other side. “Hey, Julie.”

She moved forward, head ducked coquettishly and planted a big one on Chris’s mouth. I could only guess from his reaction that Julie hadn’t had much problem passing the Kiss Test. When the kiss threatened to supersede dinner, I cleared my throat, since they blocked the door, making escape impossible. They broke apart and Julie gasped at the sight of me.

“Oh, uh, Julie,” Chris stuttered, wiping the back of his hand across his lips which were now a lovely shade of pink. “This is Margo. She was just leaving.”

I pasted a smile on my face and squeezed past Julie, backing toward the stairs. “Nice to meet you. Have a good dinner, you two. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“Wait, Chris. Why is there a woman in your apartment?” Julie asked, in that vaguely breathless kind of voice that indicated a vast expanse of free air between her ears.

“I’m not a woman,” I assured her, reaching behind me for the railing. “I’m just—”

“My sister,” Chris interjected quickly.

“Yeah. Sister.” I nodded. “Bye-bye, brother dear.”

Julie turned to glare at him. “But, you said you didn’t have any brothers or sisters, Chris.”

Smooth move, genius,
I thought, and turned quickly toward the stairs. Unfortunately, in the half hour since I arrived, someone had placed a bucket on the steps and my foot landed directly in it. I reached out to get my balance but felt only open space. My arms flailed about me and I heard shouts—Julie’s and Chris’s.

And then nothing.

Slowly, the whirling stopped and I ventured to open my eyes again. To my right, I heard a rustling sound. This time I turned my throbbing head little by little in that direction, discovering I appeared to be in a hospital room, the grip on my arm a blood pressure cuff.
What the heck?

Someone sat in a chair by the window, hidden behind a newspaper. I recognized the sneakers.

“Chris?” My voice came out like a squeak, so I cleared my throat and repeated, “Chris?”

The newspaper lowered. “It’s about damn time you woke up.”

“What’s going on?” I moved my head again and, when the spinning started, clamped my eyes closed and breathed through the dizziness. “How did I get here?”

“Let’s just say you picked a hell of a way to get me to break my date with Julie.”

Julie. Tall, willow thin. Airheady.

Chris’s apartment. Spaghetti.

Backing into the stairwell. Julie’s suspicion that we weren’t siblings. Rushing to leave.

The bucket on the landing.

“I fell down the stairs.”

“And ruined my date with the one woman I’ve been trying to get in bed for six months.”

I groaned and opened my eyes again. “I’m sorry. Really.”

He shrugged. “It probably wouldn’t have worked anyway. If she got that freaked out you were at my apartment, she’s probably a little too
Fatal Attraction.
”

“I’m still sorry. What time is it?” The sun shone outside, which didn’t quite coincide with my memory of it being evening when I was at Chris’s apartment.

“Noon. Saturday.”

“Saturday!” I tried to sit up too quickly, and flung my arms out as the room twisted violently around me. I gasped and gulped back a wave of nausea, flopping back onto the bed.

Chris was out of his chair and holding my hand when I finally stopped feeling like I was going to lose…what? I couldn’t remember my last meal. Suddenly I was starving.

“What happened to the spaghetti?” I finally managed.

Chris laughed. “Probably a charred mess in the bottom of the pan.”

“Bummer.” I sighed heavily before slipping back to sleep.

Chris and I arrived at his place to find the living room stacked with boxes, three deep and four high.

“What’s all this?” I waved in the direction of the cardboard mountain as I made a beeline for the couch, where I collapsed.

“Your stuff.” Chris headed for the kitchen. “I gave Kat and Adair your key and asked them to clean out Kevin’s apartment. I figured you weren’t in any shape to do it.”

“Oh.” I stared across the room and tried to imagine all my things—my prized possessions, clothes and personal items—filling those boxes. My life diminished to nothing but baggage.

Chris set a glass of water down on the coffee table. That was when I noticed my Elvis bobblehead.

“I’m going to go change,” Chris said. “I’ve been in the same clothes since yesterday.”

I nodded absently and glared at Elvis. After Chris left, I reached out a hand and gave Elvis a whack, knocking him over. He lay forlornly staring back at me.

“Some good-luck charm,” I scolded. “What happened to all the good stuff that used to happen to me? The great job? The decent boyfriend? A place to live? The award?” Well, I supposed the award wasn’t gone. That was the only thing I had going for me at this point in time. An award for a job I didn’t even have anymore.

I groaned.

“You okay?” Chris came back into the room, tucking a clean T-shirt into fresh jeans, his feet bare. “I could get you something. Food? A pain pill? Something to drink?”

“Stop babying me,” I snapped, then jammed my eyes closed as the room took a whirl.

“I’m not entirely incapable.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

“I’m not,” I protested. “I’ll be fine. I’m going on vacation, so I have to be fine.”

“I wouldn’t count on that.”

“I would.” No way was I canceling my vacation. My Elvis bobblehead may have betrayed me, but the real Elvis wouldn’t. I needed to escape my life for a while. All the mess, the things that couldn’t be swept under the rug and forgotten.

I turned to glare at him and found him examining his manicure. “I’m. Going.”

“You’re falling on your face, honey. You can’t get behind the wheel of a car.”

“I’m fine when I’m sitting down.” I turned back to the boxes that held my wardrobe, slamming my hand against the wall when the room began a slow pirouette. I’d gotten pretty good at that over the last week…and had the bruises on my wrists and knuckles to prove it. A wall was amazingly easy to miss when it refused to hold still.

“Well, then, I suppose that’ll totally work, as long as you never need the john and sleep in the driver’s seat.”

I rolled my eyes, shoving aside the limp and lifeless body of my Elvis blow-up doll, still in his white fringed suit, looking like plastic roadkill in plus-sized clothes. The packing wasn’t going very well, mostly because the idea of squatting to actually pack neatly was rather nauseating. I’d save that for later.

“I give up,” I whined, when the dizziness didn’t stop this time. I closed my eyes and blindly made my way across the living room to the couch, collapsing onto the piece of furniture I’d come to know intimately in the past five days. I hadn’t left it longer than it took to go to the bathroom or take a quick shower while leaning against the wall to keep from kissing the drain.

“You can’t give up,” Adair reassured me.

“You just got through telling me I couldn’t go.”

“No, I said you couldn’t drive. You
have
to go see Elvis. You have to go worship at Graceland with all the other fanatics. That’s the only way you’ll get better.”

I opened one eye—I’d discovered one eye was safer than two—and stared at my friend. “Worship at Graceland? This wasn’t meant to be a religious pilgrimage.”

“Whatever, sweetie. Religious, sexual, it’s all the same.”

“It wasn’t meant to be sexual either, Adair. Gross! You’re aware Elvis is dead, right?” I closed my eye again and laid my head back. “I just need to get away. But if I can’t drive, I can’t go.”

“You need a surrogate.”

“Excuse me?” I ventured another look at Adair. He’d undergone a radical change since starting his campaign for love. He wore all black today. Black suit, black shirt, black silk tie and black Ray-Bans, alarmingly similar to the glasses worn by the Wide-Strider, atop his head. He looked like he’d had a wardrobe transplant.

“A surrogate driver.”

“A surrogate driver?”

“Yeah. Then you’d enjoy the trip, but not have to do any of the work.”

“You volunteering?” I smiled, picturing Adair behind the wheel of the SUV I’d rented for my cross-country venture.

He rolled his eyes. “Hardly. I
ride
in vehicles, not drive them. That’s the main reason for living in New York City. No need to take your life into your own hands. You pay someone else to do the dirty work while you lounge in luxury.”

I don’t know which cabs he took to work, but I’d yet to see one that could be termed “luxurious.”

“Well, I’m out of luck, then, aren’t I? Kat doesn’t have a license.” I sighed. “I’m going to leave for this trip in two days if it kills me. There has to be some miracle of modern medicine to cure vertigo.” Frustrated, I jabbed my foot into the coffee table and watched Elvis gyrate for a minute before it stirred up too much dizziness, and I had to sink back into blackness again.

“Maybe I should get on the internet tonight and find out.”

Without my vacation, not only was I out the money I paid for deposits, but I could probably kiss my career goodbye. I’d miss my award photos and interview. Worst of all, if I didn’t go on vacation, I had to ask Chris to let me stay longer. That would probably be the death of me. Don’t get me wrong. He’d been a prince this week. He cooked for me and helped me to the bathroom when I couldn’t do anything but crawl along the floor, using walls for support. He’d taken me to my follow-up appointment this morning, before dropping me off and heading to work. He’d done everything right…and he was driving me crazy.

Chris wouldn’t let me do anything for myself. He hovered (probably fearing litigation if I fell and cracked my skull open on his coffee table), and I heard him on the phone a few times, turning down dates. He ignored it when I told him I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself. And, I
was
capable. Give me a couple of knee-pads, and maybe a crash helmet, and I’d have been just fine.

But, no. He treated me like a child. He even called my mother, reassuring her I was in good hands, promising her he’d take care of me, and then spending the rest of the week making good on that promise. It was totally aggravating.

“What’s this?” Adair leaned over and picked up the small ivory card from the coffee table, flipping it over to examine the coordinating ivory doves flocking around the edges.

“Invitation to my mother’s wedding.” I took a breath, slowly picking my head up to see if the dizziness had passed. “She obviously didn’t believe me when I said I couldn’t come.”

“Won’t you be in L.A. anyway on your trip?” Adair hinted. He’d become so sentimental since watching that Oprah episode on lost love or lost opportunities or whatever. Kat was ready to strangle him if he didn’t stop trying to sign her up for Match.com so she wouldn’t be alone forever. Even she had taken every opportunity this week, while visiting me (or was it Chris?), to bug me about this wedding, knowing I couldn’t just get up and walk away. Now Adair took over.

“Oh,” I said, not bothering to disguise the sarcasm, “you mean the vacation you’ve informed me I won’t be able to take?”

Adair huffed. “Don’t get snappy. I’m just suggesting that you might regret it—”

“The only thing I’ll regret is not getting to see Graceland. And missing my interview. I most certainly don’t regret missing Wedding Number Eleven.”

“Not now, but—”

“Not
ever,
” I said firmly. “Trust me. There’ll be another one in a few years.”

The front door opened before Adair could further argue with me, and Chris came in. Adair sat up straighter—like he had a snowball’s chance in hell. I bit back a reminder that he’d just remodeled his entire apartment for the guy in the park.

“Hey,” Chris greeted us.

“Hey, yourself,” I groused, suddenly crabby. Between the realization that my trip probably wouldn’t happen and Adair’s lectures about going to my mother’s wedding, I wasn’t in the mood to be nice. Oh, and Chris had picked up Angelo’s on the way home, which was what I’d wanted for lunch today but couldn’t even get to the phone to order because I was an invalid. It all just really ticked me off.

“Has she been good, Adair?” Chris tossed the take-out bags in the kitchen and returned to the living room, loosening the tie he’d worn to work despite the fact that he sold sporting goods. He’d probably had a business appointment today.

When Adair didn’t answer right away, I glanced at him to see his eyes glued to Chris as the tie came off and got tossed on the table. There may even have been a bit of drool pooling at the corner of his mouth. Sheesh.

“Fine,” Adair finally stammered, when Chris looked at him curiously. “She was fine. A little moody, but it’s probably that time or something. Katya gets just like that every month.” He stood quickly and moved around the table before I could smack him. “One of those things I really am glad us
men
don’t go through, you know? Makes us
so
much easier to live with.”

I could see where this was going, though Chris remained oblivious. He was well aware of his attractiveness to women (how could he not be when they dropped at his feet on a daily basis?), but it wouldn’t occur to him that gay men would find him equally attractive. I, however, was totally aware, and unwilling to watch the fall. “So, Adair, have you met the guy in Central Park yet?”

He flushed and stammered a bit before turning from Chris and back to me, looking vaguely stunned. “What? Uh, no, not yet. I’m running every day until the opportunity presents itself though. Now that the apartment is almost done…”

“Running?” I asked, unable to resist baiting him. What can I say? I’d been bored this week. “Won’t you sweat? What if he doesn’t like sweat?”

“Well, I’ll…I’ll…I guess I could just stand near where he crosses and start running when I see him. Maybe bump into him or something.”

I grinned, having successfully diverted his attention from Chris. “Good plan. Let me know how it goes.”

Chris watched this conversation with vague curiosity. “I’ll explain later,” I mouthed behind Adair’s back.

Adair’s phone beeped and he glanced quickly at the screen. “Katya,” he said. “Wants to know what I’m bringing home for dinner.” He sniffed toward the kitchen then grinned at Chris. “Maybe Angelo’s. It’s one of my
favorites.
”

I rolled my eyes.

Chris grinned, still oblivious. “Mine, too.”

Adair departed and Chris dished up the meal that, despite my sulkiness, smelled heavenly. Vertigo did nothing to diminish my appetite, though it had, on a couple of occasions, diminished the volume of food in my stomach shortly after eating it.

“What was that all about?” Chris called from the counter behind me.

“Adair’s in lust,” I said, eyeing the suitcase across the room and wondering how long it would actually take me to pack, and whether my time was better spent packing or lying on the couch praying for miraculous healing.

“With who?”

“Some bizarre guy we see in the park when we run.” I frowned as I suddenly envisioned the atrophying of my muscles from lack of exercise. All the more reason to rise and walk—or run, as the case may be. But, as usual, the room spun the moment I tried to move. Maybe a little more rest would be good. I closed my eyes again.

Chris came into the living room, bringing with him a smell that brought my eyes open. He handed me a plate heaped with cheesy lasagna and herbed garlic bread. My mouth watered in response. “Is that what brought on Adair’s wardrobe overhaul?”

I nodded, my mouth already full of the best Italian food in the city.

Chris plopped down beside me and turned on the news. We ate silently for several minutes, benignly observing the daily New York news—which included a cat who gave birth to a litter of kittens on the tracks under the F train and a man who was crushed to death when the shelves housing his yo-yo collection collapsed—until we were both full and sated.

“Thanks.” I set my plate on the coffee table. “I needed that. Probably like a hole in the head, since I can’t go run off the two thousand calories I just ate.”

Chris laughed and carried the plates to the kitchen. I heard him scraping and rinsing them, before he returned to join me. “You realize you’re on KP for about a month, once you can stand.”

I glanced up at him, startled. “I’m not planning on being here that long, am I?”

He shrugged. “Got any other plans?”

My eyes shifted to the suitcase on the floor, knowing I would have a fight on my hands.

Chris followed my gaze. “What’s that?”

“My suitcase.”

“Going somewhere?” His face told me he knew exactly where I thought I was going, and he wasn’t happy about it.

I stood up to prove I was fine and that I
was
going on this trip, no matter what he said. To my surprise, the room stayed still. Ha! Maybe Angelo’s lasagna contained some miraculous healing power. Magic oregano maybe?

“I’m leaving in two days.” I moved confidently over to the boxes to continue my packing.

“No, you’re not. You can’t drive.”

“I’m fine,” I argued. “Look.” To prove my point, I grabbed a handful of underwear and threw them into the suitcase. Half of them landed on the floor next to the suitcase. Apparently equilibrium affected aim, too.

Chris stared at them for a moment then cocked a grin. “So that’s what your underwear looks like.”

I squatted down quickly to pick them up. “Stop looking.” I swayed a bit, but my balance held. Maybe it would be okay after all.

“You can’t drive, Margo. You’ll kill someone.”

“Yes, I can. And, no, I won’t.” I reached for more clothes. “How hard can it be to sit in the car all day? It’s not like I’ll be walking all that much at first. By the time I get to Graceland, I’m sure it’ll be gone.”

“You can’t drive. You can barely stand.”

I opened my mouth to contradict him again, and Chris lunged for me. “Boo!”

I jumped and the walls billowed like sails in the wind. The next thing I knew, I was on my ass on the floor, gripping my head in both hands, willing the lasagna to stay in my stomach.

“What the hell was that for?” I asked, once I could open my eyes again.

Chris towered over me, hands on hips. “Trying to scare some sense in you. Though I’m beginning to think that’s impossible. You’re the most hard-headed woman I know.”

He walked away and I stuck my tongue out at his back.

“I saw that.”

I groaned and decided, while I was on the floor anyway, I should probably take the opportunity to fold the clothes overflowing my suitcase. I was going on this trip. No one could stop me.

“Did you get the invitation to your mother’s wedding today?”

I nodded then realized he couldn’t see me from the kitchen. “Yeah. Adair brought my mail over from the other apartment.”