Page 22 of The Art of Dying

I made a face and shook my head. “I’m not his girl.”

She smiled, forgetting all about Patricia and Mason. “Oh. You’re his girl. Even if you don’t know it yet.”

I couldn’t hold back my smile, feeling like a teenage girl with a crush. The last thing I wanted after Mason was to be anyone’s girl. I couldn’t have seen Kitsch coming, but from the moment at the bar, even before Cubby sucker punched him, I couldn’t stop stealing glances. He didn’t look like the other men from Quincy; there was both darkness and undeniable kindness in his eyes. He didn’t flinch when I was being a bitch, and most importantly, I felt safe with him.

“There’s one problem, though,” Alecia said.

“Oh, God. What?” I asked.

“If you marry him, you’ll be Karen Kitsch. Best case scenario, you’ll be Mack Kitsch. It sounds like package.”

I made a face. “That’s awful.”

“It really is.”

We both burst into laughter, nearly unable to finish setting up for the exam. It wasn’t even funny, but I was so infatuated with the new man in my life it was easy to laugh. I used to be that way, before Mason. I’d missed that girl.

I wiped the tears from my eyes, signaling to Alecia. “I’m going to go get the patient. Shake that barium, would you?”

“I’ll have to go get it out of the… package,” she said, choking once before bending over again, red faced, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“You’re so stupid,” I said, laughing with her. I had to compose myself once more before leaving the room, breathing deep before opening the door to the waiting room.

“Doris?” I called, seeing an elderly woman begin to stand. “Hi, there,” I said, clearing my throat. “Right this way…”

chapter seven.

Kitsch

“Nice job!” I yelled.

“What?” Mack pulled off her protective earmuffs.

“I said nice job, babe.”

“Thank you,” she said, holstering her weapon. I walked out to the target and brought it back, watching her beam over her precision. Mack’s ponytail was pulled through an army green ball cap. Wearing my favorite hoodie, khaki cargo pants, and yellow-tinted protective glasses, she looked like a little bad ass, and it was all I could do to keep my hands off her.

I lifted her cap just enough to kiss her forehead.

“My place or yours tonight?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter as long as you’re next to me.”

She smiled and hugged me tight, pressing her cheek into my chest. “I was thinking of having Lucas and Alecia over for Sunday supper.”

“Yeah? You ready to introduce me to your friends already?”

She playfully shoved me. “You already know them.”

Lucas was a string-bean freshman when I was a senior, and he had been on and off with Alecia since I could remember. He joined her Tae Bo class just to be near her and then he kicked it up a notch by joining a gym. Now he was nearly as big as me, a dead ringer for John Stephens from the Pats, and he could’ve been a running back in the NFL, too, had he not been so determined to stay in Quincy with Alecia. I’d never hung out with him just because we ran in different circles, but I’d talked to him at parties.

“Fine,” I teased, pretending to be annoyed. “I’ll meet your friends. I guess you’ll want to make an announcement in the paper, too?”

She wrinkled her nose.

“Because I will.”

Her smile returned. “There are people we don’t want to antagonize. You know why.”

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