Page 90 of Just Come Over
“Hi,” he said, with no smile at all, like he’d forgotten to do it, or like his barely-there veneer of civilization was gone. “Ready to go?”
“Yes,” she said. “One second.” She bent down and gave Isaiah a kiss, then offered Casey a lengthier cuddle.
Casey said, “You smell very fancy, and you look very fancy, too. And you’re wearing high heels, so that means it’s a hot date.”
“It is,” Rhys said. He was jumping straight in there, then. “Men generally think it’s a hot date when the woman’s looking very beautiful, like Auntie Zora is tonight.”
“A hot date is with kissing,” Isaiah said. “Like you kissed Uncle Rhys before, Mum, in the bathroom at his house.”
A moment of frozen silence, and Adele said, on a flustered little laugh, “You look lovely, Zora. What a gorgeous dress,” while her eyes went from Zora to Rhys and back again.
Zora quailed for a moment, then thought,That’s the point.She was tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. She wanted it todrop.“Did you meet Rhys?” she asked.
“Yes,” Adele said. “He introduced himself, though I would have recognized him, of course. You do look like your brother, don’t you?” she asked Rhys.
“Not as good-looking,” he said, and Zora could see the moment when Adele realized,Whoops. That’s an awkward comparison for Zora,and also when she thought but didn’t say,Oh, no. I think you’re even better looking. Tougher. Harder.
Not what you wanted when you were twenty, maybe. Intimidating. Overwhelming. What you oh-hell-yeah wanted when you were thirty, though. She said, “We’ll be home by midnight.”
“It’s a very busy day tomorrow,” Isaiah said. “You have to get up really early to do two weddings, plus it was a busy day today. You always say you need to go to sleep early on Fridays.”
“That’s right,” she said. “Except that tonight, I have someplace special to go. Lucky I have you and Casey to get up early with me and help.”
“Dinnertime doesn’t take five hours,” Isaiah said. “And dinner isn’t until midnight. Dinnertime takes about a half an hour.”
“Uncle Rhys and I need time to talk, too,” Zora said. “That’s why you go out. It’s not just about eating dinner. It’s a chance to spend time together.”
“You could spend time here,” Isaiah said. “Then we could have dinner all together.”
“Except that I want to take your mum out somewhere nice,” Rhys said, “and let her dress up and be pretty. I want to spend some money on her. That’s one way you show a woman you care about her.”
Well, that was blunt. Maybe the floor could open up now. Rhys took the pale-pink sweater from her hand and helped her on with it. “Time to go,” he told her. Still no smile. He dropped to his haunches, put an arm around Casey, kissed the top of her head, and said, “Good night, monkey. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Did you feed the bunnies?” she asked.
“Yeh. I did. Didn’t give them treats, though. You can do that tomorrow.” He ruffled Isaiah’s hair, did the one-armed cuddle that was the maximum Isaiah permitted from anybody but his mum, and said, “Kicking practice tomorrow morning, eh.”
“OK,” Isaiah said, “but I’m concentrating on my robot now, please.”
Rhys said, “Good point.”
He stood up, and Zora said, “Well—good night,” and headed out feeling like she had a scarlet letter on her chest.
At least Adele hadn’t mentioned the necklace.
Rhys had got a driver again, which was good, because he could have a glass of wine with Zora, and bad, because he couldn’t kiss her, or tell her how smoking hot she looked.
The dress was black with a print of pink roses that made it look like lace. It was form-fitting enough to show you the party she had going on under there, it had those spaghetti straps and dipped into a vee in front and a deeper one in back, and it hit a few fortunate centimeters above her knees. Her heels were high and whisper-thin, they were black suede, and they were killing him.
He wondered if she was, just possibly, wearing a black lace thong. Then he wondered how she’d look wearing only that, those heels, and that necklace down her back, and got a rush so hard, it nearly hurt.
He couldn’t kiss her, but he could pick up her hand, and he did. He set it on his thigh, stroked his thumb over her knuckles and down to her wrist, then did it again, and she turned toward him.
He was already half-drunk on the smell of her. Three beers didn’t make an impression, but Zora in the dark—she did him in. She tucked one high-heeled foot under her seat and stretched out the other leg so her foot was nearly brushing his, and hedidn’tput his hand on her thigh, under her dress.
He said, “I like your scent.”
“It’s Black Opium. Black coffee, white orchids, and vanilla.” She leaned a tiny bit closer and mouthed something. It may have been,You bought it,but he was distracted. Mainly, he was looking at her mouth.
