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I wanted to stay there until she was done with her
phone and rail into her. I wanted to let her know that it
was hard to believe that she wasn t a bitch by nature. I
wanted to tell her to forget about it& forget the
partnership and the plane.
But I said none of those things. I couldn t place what
it was, but there was something about her demeanor that
made me think that she was& I don t know& hurting,
maybe. It was hard to put a word to it.
So instead of staying to prolong the argument, I
remembered the few glimmers of the nice woman I had
seen at dinner the other night. That charming, radiant
woman had apparently not come into work today,
sending in her evil, grumpy twin instead.
I left the store reluctantly. I didn t look back, even
though I knew she was watching me. I didn't want her to
know that her cold reception fazed me.
I hopped back on my bike and pedaled back up
Moose Hill where I thought I might flip on the TV again
to see what harebrained stories were being concocted
about Devlin Stone and his present whereabouts.
11 Mac
It had been two days since Jack had come by The
Pine Way, ruining my day by visiting first thing in the
morning. As promised, he had written up a contract. I ll
give him credit for one thing he knows when he s not
wanted. He didn t bring the contract by the store in
person; he d opted on e-mail it to me instead.
I read over it and read over it and read over it again.
And here I was, two days later, re-reading it. I didn t
understand why I kept looking at it. I knew I was going
to sign the damn thing. It made sense. It was a no-brainer.
But, if I was being honest with myself, I was being a bit
spoiled. I kept trying to tell myself that I wanted to do
this for my father, but my father would have been very
disappointed in the way I was acting.
I held my pen over the signature line but just couldn t
sign my name. Not yet.
I went to the fridge and grabbed a beer. Red wine was
usually my drink of choice but when I wanted to get
drunk, I went for beer. And tonight, I wanted to get
drunk. I had wanted to get drunk ever since Mr. Tanner
had told me that he had sold the plane to someone else.
Maybe, I thought, it will be easier to sign Jack s contract
if I m three sheets to the wind.
The phrase three sheets to the wind had never made
sense to me. It had been one of my father s goofy little
sayings. He d used it a lot whenever someone was drunk
(often, when he was drunk later on in my life).
With a sigh, I shoved thoughts of dad out of my head.
That, coupled with Jack s contract and everything to do
with the plane, did not make for a good night. Especially
when there was a case of beer in my fridge, promising
me that it could easily help me forget about all of that
for a while.
I took my beer to the computer and opened up my
novel-in-progress. There were times, when sitting
behind the keyboard, that my brain just didn t want to
write. Sometimes it seemed to pretend that it couldn t
even remember what the book was about. But tonight
was not one of those nights.
I found it easier to connect with my characters and
their motivations. I got into what I guess was a zone of
sorts. Best of all, I was getting closer to a pivotal scene
that might involve some sex. I had already decided, from
writing the first sentence, that all sex would be mostly
left off of the page and left to the reader s imagination.
But as I wrote the book and got closer to that scene, it
was almost like foreplay in a way. I found that I wanted
to see what my main male character looked like naked. I
wanted to find out what sort of a man he was like in the
bedroom.
I stopped writing long enough to ponder these
questions. I was ashamed to find that I was getting
slightly turned on. The fact that I was on my third beer
didn t help at all.
I envisioned my male protagonist as I had described
him and then, out of absolutely nowhere¸ I saw Jack in
his place. It made me wince, made me want to step away
from the computer. The jerk wasn t even here and he
was somehow managing to ruin some of the best writing
I had done in the last few months.
Maybe it was the beer, but I didn t have any problems
admitting to myself why I was thinking of Jack. Sure,
there was a very strained and anger-laden relationship
between us. But he was also the first man I had gone out [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]