Page 24 of Sparks
Bryant clicked his tongue. “Poor thing. It must be hard when women want you only for your body.”
Holly laughed. “You’re a rarity, Silas. Your wife is one lucky woman.”
He shrugged and gave an adorably shy smile.
“Aww,” the other four of us sang.
“Wait,” Bryant said, a glimmer in his eyes. “Does Jacquie send you nekky pics?”
“Of course, but they’re not unsolicited.” Silas winked, somehow managing not to look like a creeper when he did it.
Bryant twined his manicured fingers under his chin. “Can you wink at me again?”
“I’ll probably never do that again, actually.”
I giggled.
When Silas left to change for his flight home in an hour, Bryant sat back with his ankle on his knee.
“He’s way too hot to be completely straight.”
“He’s completely straight, just a touch metro,” Cheryl said matter-of-factly. “I get no bisexual vibes from him.”
“Damn it, Cher, shut your aura-sensing little mouth and let a guy dream.”
I smiled at this ongoing battle and looked at Holly. “Are you done for the day?”
“Yeah, we were just waiting to ride back with you.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
We said our good-byes and did our speed-walk through the airport with our roller bags. The way people craned their necks to watch the three of us made me feel like we were celebs. I could only imagine what kind of glamorous lifestyle they saw when they looked at us. Ha!
At the transportation doors we buttoned our peacoats and wrapped scarves around our necks, then headed out to the shuttle. It was blessedly heated but smelled like fuel and rust, like most everything at the airport. The shuttle took us to the parking lot which had been plowed but there was slush and piles of snow everywhere. Six inches of snow blanketed the space between my car and the ones next to mine.
“Shit,” I muttered, and Holly whimpered.
“Let’s do it,” Cheryl said. The three of us took big steps into the snow in our work pumps and squealed at the cold, then jumped into my car laughing, shaking off our feet.
“We should probably be more prepared next time,” Holly said, yanking the seatbelt twice before it moved for her. I wondered if I could fit boots in my small roller.
I cranked my old Honda to life and blew on my hands, rubbing them together before taking the steering wheel. Out on the roads, the taxis were as plentiful and reckless as ever. I’d learned to be an aggressive driver in my short time in Jersey. Timidity would get you killed on these roads. Holly and Cheryl held their oh-shit handles and didn’t bat an eye as the other cars and I took turns getting too close and narrowly cutting one another off.
“Tell us about this engaged officer,” Holly said.
My stomach jumped at the thought of Shawn. They let me babble as I gave them the full, somewhat abbreviated story. Next thing I knew I was parallel parking, like a champ I might add, and I had literally talked about him the entire ride home. Whoops.
“If it were me,” said Holly, “I’d go after him if I felt like we had a real connection. But I understand why you don’t want to.”
“Believe me,” I said. “I want to, but if I break them up I feel like our relationship would be tainted. It would have to be his decision. I’m never going to contact him. He knows my full name and where I work so if he wants to find me someday, I’m sure he can.”
Cheryl made a thoughtful sounding hum, and we turned to look at her pondering in the back seat. She was one of those people whose opinion I respected, so I awaited her response nervously.
“If he’s a man of honor, which it sounds like he is, he most likely won’t ever leave her. She would have to leave him.”
I wilted and had to look away from her serious eyes.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Cheryl said. “Men like that will sometimes cheat when things are really bad in their relationship, but it’s their way to force the woman they’re with to decide for them, rather than outright leaving.”
