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  “Stay,” he said, and she looked into his eyes and thought, Oh, yes.

  “No,” Liza said and pulled Min off the table so that she stumbled onto the grass.

  “She can make up her own mind,” Cal said.

  “Yeah?” Liza took a step closer to him. “Tell me you know her. Tell me you care about her. Tell me you’re going to love her until the end of time.”

  “Liza,” Min said, tugging on her arm.

  “I just met her three days ago,” Cal said.

  “Then what are you doing kissing her like that?” Liza turned her back on him. “Come on, Min.”

  “Thank you for lunch,” Min said as Liza tightened her grip. She reached back for her sandals on the table and caught the ribbons, and then Liza dragged her away through the trees.

  When they were gone, Cal turned to Tony and said, “I can’t decide whether to have you killed or do it myself.”

  “Not me, Liza,” Tony said. “And she did call Min’s name and poke you in the side a couple of times before she whacked you in the back of the head with her purse.” His eyes went to the table. “Hey, hot dogs.” He sat on the table and reached for a sandwich.

  “That woman is insane,” Cal said, rubbing the back of his head. The heat was subsiding now that Min was gone, but it wasn’t making him any happier. “That was assault.”

  “She’s insane?” Tony said, as he unwrapped a brat. “How about you?”

  “It wasn’t that big a deal.” Ten minutes more and we would have been naked. That would have been a big deal.

  “Tell that to Harry,” Tony said. “That was probably more than he needed to know about what Uncle Cal does with his free time.”

  “Harry?” Cal said and looked over to where Harry had been sitting. He was still there, only now there was a thin blonde with him. Bink. Cal closed his eyes and the memory of Min’s heat vanished. “Tell me Bink wasn’t watching us, too.”

  “Don’t know. She wasn’t there when we got here so she may just have caught the big finish. What the hell am I sitting on?” He pulled a red-flowered shoe out from under the blanket.

  “Min’s,” Cal said, getting a nice flashback to her toes. “Give it to Liza when you get the chance. Down her throat, if possible.”

  “Yeah, like I’ll remember,” Tony said and tossed it in the cooler.

  Cal dug it out again before the ice could get the flower wet and tried to get his mind off Min. “It turns out that Bonnie’s a good deal, so Roger’s okay.” He turned Min’s sandal around in his hand. It was a ridiculous thing with a little stacked heel that probably sank into the ground when she walked across the grass and that dopey flower that would get screwed up if she wore them in the rain, and that was a turn-on, too.

  “Roger’s not okay,” Tony said around a mouthful of brat. “He’s going to get married.”

  “It’s not death,” Cal said, trying to imagine why anybody as practical as Min would wear a shoe like that. But then, Min clearly had an impractical streak or she wouldn’t have frenched him on a picnic table. The rush he got from that blanked out sound for a moment. “What?” he said.

  “I said, yes, that’s why you’re running like a rabbit from Cynthie,” Tony said.

  “Well, marriage is not for me, but it’s probably for Roger,” Cal said, dropping the shoe on the table. “He’s never been big on excitement.”

  “True,” Tony said. “And if Bonnie is a nice woman, maybe I’ll live over their garage after all.”

  “More good news for me,” Cal said, and thought of Min again, full and hot under his hands— No. He didn’t need any more hostility in his life. If he wanted great sex, he could always go back to Cynthie, who at least was never bitchy. He tried to call up Cynthie’s memory to blot out Min’s, but she seemed gray and white next to Min’s lush, exasperating, heat-inducing, open-toed Technicolor.

  “What?” Tony said.

  “Are there any hot dogs left?” Cal said. “That you haven’t sat on?”

  Tony found one under a fold in the blanket and passed it over, and Cal unwrapped it and bit into it, determined to concentrate on a sense that wasn’t permeated with Min. Then he remembered her face when she’d tasted the brat, and imagined her face like that with her body moving under his, hot and lush, her lips wet—

  Oh, hell, he thought.

  “So what are you going to tell Harry?” Tony said.

  “About what?”

  “About you doing Min on a picnic table,” Tony said. “You guys looked pretty hot.”

  “I’m going to tell him I’ll explain it when he’s older,” Cal said, and thought, We were hot. And now we’re done. “Much older,” he said, and went back to the cooler for a beer.

  “Okay, why did we have to leave?” Bonnie said when they were in Liza’s convertible and Min was banished to the backseat.

  “Because Min was swapping tongues with a doughnut pusher.” Liza looked back over the seat at Min the sinner and shook her head.

  Bonnie turned so she could see over the seat, too. “You ate doughnuts?”

  “Yes,” Min said, still trying to fight her way back from dazed. “Big deal.”

  Bonnie nodded as Liza started the car. “Was he a good kisser?”

  “Yes,” Min said. “Pretty good. Very good. World class. Phenomenal. Woke me right up. Plus there were the doughnuts, which were amazing.” She thought about Cal again, all that heat and urgency, and as Liza started down the curving drive to the street, Min lay down on the back seat before she fell over from residual dizziness. It felt good to lie down but it was such a shame she was alone.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Liza said, over the seat.

  “Just for that minute or two,” Min said from the seat, watching the treetops move by overhead. “I kind of enjoyed it.” A lot.

  “You know,” Bonnie said to Liza, “he might be legit. He looked really happy with her. Roger even said so.”

  “Oh, well if Roger says so,” Liza said.

  “Don’t make fun of Roger,” Bonnie said, warning in her voice.

  “Okay,” Min said, sitting up again as her world steadied. “I’m fine now. Very practical.” She picked up her shoe to untangle the ribbons. “So how was Tony?”

  “Mildly amusing,” Liza said. “Stop changing the subject. What are you going to do about Cal?”

  “Not see him again,” Min said, looking for her second sandal. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. I left a shoe behind. We have to go back.”

  “No,” Liza said and kept driving.

  “They’re my favorite shoes,” Min said, trying to sound sincere.

  “All your shoes are your favorite shoes,” Liza said. “We’re not going back there.”

  “Are you okay, honey?” Bonnie said to Min.

  “I’m great,” Min said, nodding like a maniac. “Cal told me all about Roger. You have my blessing.”

  “Based on Calvin the Beast’s say-so,” Liza said.

  “I have ways of telling,” Min said. “I know how to handle him.”

  “Yeah, I saw you handling him,” Liza said. “You’re weak.”

  “Oh, come on,” Min said, guilt making her exasperated. “I heard the bet. I know what’s going on. I’m not seeing him again. Especially since you yelled at him and called him names.” She thought about Cal leaning close, how hard his chest had been against her hand, how hot his mouth had been on hers, how good his hand had felt on her breast. “I found out how he gets all those women, though,” she said brightly. “Turns out it’s not just the charm.”

  “Maybe you should see him again,” Bonnie said, sounding thoughtful. “I think sometimes you just have to believe.”

  That might be good, Min thought.

  “Bonnie,” Liza said. “Do you want her to get mutilated by the same guy who broke your cousin’s heart and made that bet with David?”

  That would be bad, Min thought.

  “No,” Bonnie said, doubt in her voice.

  “Then no more pep talks about believing in toads