Page 53 of Melt With You

Rowan hesitated for a moment, and then he started to laugh, too. ‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Try me.’

He inhaled the fragrant smoke, held it for a moment, then exhaled. Clearly, he’d done this before. He seemed as anxious to tell her as she was to hear. She felt, for the first time since her adventure had started, that she was with someone who fully understood her. She liked the gang at The Beauty Box, but she had been on edge constantly, worried something that she’d say might give her away. Like her comment about The Rolling Stones staying together. Or The Police splitting up. Or Bono becoming an ambassador for peace. With Rowan, she didn’t have to bite her tongue.

He was thoughtful for a moment, and she didn’t rush him. She waited to see what he would say.

‘I was a kid. You know, a freshman, I think. And Mr Hughes invited me in when it came time to pay for the newspaper subscription. Generally, she was the one who paid me, but this one time, it was him. And he asked me to wait for him in the den. You know, while he got his checkbook.’

Dori nodded, exhaling and handing over the joint. She watched as Rowan inhaled deeply, shutting his eyes for a moment, as if remembering every second of his story.

‘Their den was done in that high-80s fashion, you know? Gray leather sofas, rose-pink carpeting. They had two framed Nagels on either side of the fireplace. I think she considered herself something of an interior decorator.’

‘No, she didn’t.’ Dori was shaking her head. ‘She did people’s colors.’

‘Their what?’

‘Colors. You know, like Color Me Beautiful.’

‘It might be the pot,’ he said, giving her a bemused smile, ‘but you’re speaking Greek to me.’

Dori sighed. Here was something she could explain to him, the way he had explained the Prime Directive to her. ‘She told people what season they Were. My mom took me to her one time as a birthday present. With my dark hair and pale skin, she said I was a Winter and my mom was a Summer, and when we left, my mom was crushed. She’d wanted to be a Winter, she said. I’d tried to change color swatches with her, but she wouldn’t do it.’

‘Can’t believe your mom would go in for that shit. She always seemed so level-headed. I mean, except for smoking pot, which I’d never have guessed.’

‘She’s like that. Half the time, she makes a lot of sense, the rest of the time, she’s spouting Linda Goodman’s Love Signs.’

Rowan rolled his eyes. ‘Anyway, Mr Hughes is taking his time getting his checkbook, and I sit down on the sofa and see this photo album is open on the glass coffee table.’

‘Kidney-shaped, right?’

He grinned. ‘Right. And so I just look, out of curiosity, you know. And the pictures are all of Mrs Hughes. And she’s naked in every single one of them. My eyes, are bugging out of my head by the time her husband comes back in, and I can tell right then that he wanted me to see the pictures. He’s not upset. He’s not even embarrassed. He stands right next to me and points to one of Mrs Hughes with her legs spread wide, all sexy on an American flag, and he says, “Look at that. Yum, yum, right?”’

‘Oh, God, and that’s how she got her name?’

‘Well, when I told the guys –’

‘You told the guys?’ Dori was incredulous.

‘Of course. Come on, I was a kid. I needed a bit of moral support after all I’d been through.’

Dori kicked him. ‘You were bragging that this hot older woman wanted to sleep with you.’

‘The problem wasn’t that she wanted to fuck me. It was that her husband wanted to watch while she fucked me.’

‘So did he?’

‘I thought we weren’t going to talk about the past.’

‘We’re in the past, Rowan. Did he watch?’

Rowan climbed onto the sofa with her. He put his hands on either side of her face and looked down into her eyes.

‘What answer do you want to hear?’

‘The true one.’

He kissed her, softly, then moved down her body, pausing at all of the best spots to linger. The dip of her neck, the flat basin of her belly. ‘What turns you on more? Thinking that he was watching, or thinking that we fucked behind his back?’

---