Tooth and Nail (2 page)

Under her green-eyed appraisal, I had the uneasy—and unusual—urge to squirm.

“Gemma,” she said.

I noticed she didn’t raise her voice on the last syllable in a question; rather, it was a statement, as confident as if she’d added,
of course
.

“Do I know you?” I asked. I’d recovered from her apparent materialization from thin air, but I was genuinely puzzled at her assumption of familiarity.

“Not yet,” she said, as if it had merely been a matter of time until we’d crossed paths.

I raised a brow, not quite unfriendly, but intending to relay my growing impatience.

If she caught my meaning, she didn’t bother to apologize. “I’m Frederica Diamond,” she said. “I would like to talk to you about a business opportunity, Gemma.”

“A business opportunity,” I repeated. O-
kay
. “I’m already employed.”

“Not at the moment, I understand.”

I thought. “You’re a headhunter?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“And you came to find me here? Kind of aggressive recruiting techniques you’ve got there.”

“
You
don’t approve?”

Well, at least she’d done her homework and knew the sort of person she was dealing with. Kudos for that. “Still,” I told her, “seems extreme to track me down here.”

“It’s quite an important opportunity. It was my job to find you. I’m very good at it.”

“Obviously,” I said, trying to process the creepiness of the whole situation. “But I’m currently on hiatus from full-time employment.”

“Yes. To avoid conflict with Mr. McCormack’s race for Congress,” Frederica said.

Okay, I supposed anyone at my office could have mentioned that to her. But my uneasiness was growing. I had about half a foot and forty pounds on this woman—not to mention I was dressed to fight—but not only did I feel completely non-intimidating, Frederica had the cool upper hand in this conversation.

And she’d never stopped smiling.

“It would really be worth your while,” she added, “to hear out my proposal.”

“This is creepy,” I said.

“It isn’t.”

“No?”

“No.” She looked deep into my eyes, down into me, and rattled my core. “We need you, Gemma.”

Her delicate emphasis on “you” startled me, almost as much as the door slamming open behind me. Two boxers, now in T-shirts and with perspiration drying along their hairlines, nodded casual goodbyes at me.

“See you tomorrow,” I said, forcing a smile. I wasn’t sure why I waited until they rounded the corner to turn back around, but I did. And she was gone.

In her place was a shimmer of wavy, liquid energy, and then I blinked it away.

CHAPTER 2

"H
ey! I have a dentist’s appointment tomorrow.” I jabbed a finger into the wall calendar, free with our Peking ravioli from Hun Lee’s up the street and depicting a circular parade of Chinese zodiac animals.

“Wow!” Avery exclaimed, matching my incredulous tone. “What a fun day!” He sat on the edge of the bed and took off his socks.

“Shut up,” I said. “I didn’t mean it like that. I made the appointment months ago for a cleaning and I forgot about it.” I nodded. “Cool.”

“Should I be worried you’re getting excited about the prospect of seeing your dentist?” Avery asked. He stood again, unbuttoned his dress shirt and removed it, draping it on the top corner of our bedroom door. “Most people dread going to the dentist. In fact, some just never even go because they’re too scared. But you sound like it’s the highlight of your week. Maybe I should go have a chat with this hunky dentist with the magnetic personality.”

I watched him slide his black leather belt out of his pants in one smooth motion. “A dentist with a magnetic personality would not fare well in a room full of sharp metal tools,” I said.

“Excellent point,” he allowed.

“Besides, Dr. Gold is probably about eight years past retirement age. Not my type.”

“Good thing. Because I have enough to worry about without my girl running off with the dentist.”

“’My girl,’ eh? Wouldn’t want your voters to hear you talking such blatant possessive objectification.”

“You don’t like it?”

“It’s pretty hot, actually.”

I walked over to Avery and wrapped my arms around his now-bare shoulders. I kissed him on the neck and lingered there, breathing in his skin, for—well, not as long as I would have liked. He had a meeting with his campaign manager and some other people in the morning and I knew he ought to turn in early, so I untangled myself.

“An hour in the dentist’s chair sounds pretty good compared to the day I have tomorrow,” he said, pulling on an old T-shirt. A really old T-shirt. Tour dates for Foreigner fell down the back. “I feel like I’m treading on my own last good nerve. I don’t know why I did this to myself.”

He crossed to the window and gazed out. I said nothing and let him contemplate. From our brick-front townhouse in the Court House section of Arlington, Virginia, we didn’t have a view of the Capitol dome, but its imposing silhouette was out there across the Potomac, representing everything Avery wanted to do.

Although we weren’t too far yet into our new domestic arrangement, I’d witnessed his bouts of self-flagellation just enough times to know when to intervene. So I let a couple of well-timed minutes pass, then spoke. “You and I both know why you’re doing this,” I said. “For truth, justice, the American way, and purple mountain majesties. Plus, you’re the best-looking House candidate out there right now, so it doesn’t take an experienced pollster assure you the female 18-35 demographic. Now you just have to reach a few more voters and you’re in. So spare me the crap.”

A smile played at the corner of his full, sexy bottom lip, and I saw it reflected back at me from the night mirror of a window. “Gemma, you always know the right thing to say. And then you choose to say something else entirely. I can’t figure out why.”

“Listen, I wasn’t in polling for nothing. I know my stuff.”

“Doubtless.”

“Besides, I already told you I’m happy to do a TV ad where I threaten to beat the hell out of anyone who doesn’t vote for you. The boys at Smiley’s will back me up.”

He pushed the window up a few inches to let in the April air, and drew the curtain before stripping down to his Washington Capitals boxer shorts. “Though I have full confidence that you and your ‘Fight Club’ buddies could get the job done, I think I might prefer to not run a political campaign in such a—well, Mafia-esque fashion.”

“Fear is a powerful motivator,” I said, sitting on the bed. “The offer stands when you change your mind.”

“You’re a scary broad.”

I picked up my cup of before-bed chai tea from the nightstand and took a careless gulp. It scalded its way down my throat. I never waited for it to cool. “Seriously,” I said with a slightly scratchier voice. “you don’t need my help. You have to win. You’re the good guy.”

“So was my dad,” Avery countered.

Avery’s father, Johnson McCormack, had been an outspoken, charismatic shoo-in for office—until an ugly campaign money scandal materialized and covered every newspaper’s front page from here to the border. Johnson was exonerated, but his career was a casualty that couldn’t be revived.

I knew Avery felt the eyes of the nation on him, on each thread of his suits and ties, and on every move he made. To the voting public, the younger McCormack had a dark and handsome appeal, a bright mind, a can-and-will-do attitude and, a small handful of cynical pundits insisted, was a train wreck waiting to happen. How, they asked, could district attorney Avery McCormack be so infallible in his campaign for the House of Representatives when his old man went down like a tower of empty beer cans?

They knew politics, so they thought they knew Avery. But I
knew
Avery. No skeleton had ever taken up residence in any of his closets, and no scandal had ever sniffed its way around any of his ethics. He was good, through and through. He was an idealist, a hard worker, and would be beyond reproach—if politics played honestly with him. And Avery didn’t trust that to happen.

“You’re not your dad,” I said now.

“I’m still the closest thing to it. If I make one wrong turn, no one will give me an inch of leeway.”

“Why worry about that when nothing will go wrong? You’re perfect. And I’m—well, I’m not, I guess, but I can be low-key.”

“Offering to punch people’s lights out as they leave the voting booths is your idea of low-key, eh?”

“That was a
joke
, sir. Maybe I do, on occasion, speak without thinking. Once in a while, I
might
have a
small
emotional outburst.”

Avery slipped into the bathroom and turned on the tap, but he’d left the door slightly ajar and I could hear his muffled laughter.

“What,” I yelled, “is so funny?”

“Nothing,” he called over his splashing.

“You lying politician. Or, I’m sorry, is that redundant?”

“Babe,” he said, returning with his face in a towel, “occasional outburst? Half the time it’s like ‘Gemma, Interrupted’ around here.”

I downed the rest of my chai and flopped back onto the pillows. “I don’t know why you continue to mock me when you’re fully aware I could crack your head open like a coconut.”

“That’s my girl. Solving conflicts with brute force.” He chuckled. “What I don’t understand is how someone so numbers-and-concrete-proof oriented in her career could ignore logic and reason in favor of her emotions the rest of the time.”

“I don’t do it on purpose,” I said. “I don’t know why I’m—I mean, I know I should be—“

Avery kneeled on the floor, and I sat back up, swinging my legs around to embrace his shoulders. “You’re exactly the way you should be. An unpredictable puzzle, and that’s the best part about you. I love you more than anything,” he said.

“I know,” I said, softening.

When he kissed me, I tasted minty-fresh toothpaste.

When we drew apart, I said, “The original point to this conversation was that I’m happy about my dentist’s appointment because it gives me something to actually
do
tomorrow.”

“I didn’t ask you to leave your job. Go back to work if you’re unhappy.”

“No,” I said. I shook my head with such emphasis, a strand of my hair lodged itself under my contact lens. I rubbed at it, then realized I’d forgotten to take them out. I hopped off the bed and jogged to the bathroom. “We made a decision and I’m sticking to it,” I said, filling each compartment of the little case with saline. “It’s only until you’re Congressman McCormack. I didn’t feel right doing polling work during your campaign.” I plucked out my left lens and plopped it into the case, then looked at myself in the mirror. Through only one lens, I resembled a blond, blurry Picasso painting.

“Your work doesn’t have anything to do with my campaign.”

“I don’t want even one idiot to insinuate a possible conflict. And,” I added, removing my other lens and sealing it up, “I need a break anyhow.”

Which was the purest white of all lies. I loved my job. But I didn’t feel bad about saying it, because I knew Avery was lying right back at me when he said he thought I should go back to work. It was true that he hadn’t
outright
asked me to leave my job, but his protests now were weak and obligatory. I knew full I was relieving him of one less worry.

I also white-lied by omission by not mentioning whatshername who appeared out of thin air today—maybe literally?—with her strange offer for some kind of job. I didn’t tell Avery about it mostly because I was suspicious that I went unconscious for a few seconds and dreamed her. I’d never gotten knocked around so hard that it had caused me to hallucinate. I was willing to buy that explanation. But the hallucination had a conversation with me, and that was what worried me. I didn’t want Avery to worry too.

But I needed to know: “What is a migraine like?” Avery got them sometimes and had complained about strange swirly aura of light crossing his vision.

“Well, for one, you get a headache like someone beat you over the head with a club quite similar to the kind Captain Caveman carries around,” Avery said.

“No. I don’t have a headache.”

“You’ve never had a migraine before,” he said. “Did you take a few to the head today?”

“A few,” I admitted. “I’m getting those swirly light things you said you have when you get a migraine. Not now, not since I got home, but before.”

“Maybe it’s a concussion.”

“No,” I said, dismissing it with one hand. “I’ve had a couple of those.” I blinked hard, keeping my eyelids closed until I could feel wetness under my lashes. “When you get those little lights, do they look watery and kind of … alive?”

I heard him pause. “Are we sure it’s not a concussion?”

“Positive. And I haven’t had it in a few hours.” I thought. “Not-Rocky said I was just seeing stars, and he’s probably right. It was right after a spar and as I was leaving the gym, the sky was kind of weird so maybe my eyes just did the same thing.”

“Maybe,” Avery said, “you want to wait a couple of days anyway before you get in the ring again.”

“No.”

“Okay, maybe I want it.”

I sighed. “Fine.”

“Gemma?” he asked. “Can we back up a little in this conversation? I need to tell you that I don’t want you to think for a moment that I don’t realize your sacrifices or that I don’t appreciate them.”

I stepped out of the bathroom and leaned against the door frame. “Yeah, well, I’m okay with it because now you’re my bitch.” I grinned.

“Let’s keep that between you and me for the time being.”

“I plan on it being you and me for a very long time.” I took in his smile, then ran both my hands through my short, straight hair, suddenly hot despite the cool spring breeze blowing through the gauzy, raw-edged curtain. “Go to sleep already, before I jump you.”

Avery stood and flicked off the bathroom light as I switched off the lamp. He slid into bed beside me, but instead of settling himself into the sheets, he leaned over me.

“What?” I asked, even though I knew very well what.

“Are those my choices? Sleep, or you jump me?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“I cast my vote for,” he said with a grin I couldn’t see but could hear, “jump me.”