Fast Women Read online

  “Wait a minute,” Riley said. “You are not going to walk home in the dark. I’ll give you a lift.”

  “I can—” Suze began and looked out at the dark street. “Thank you,” she said. “I’d love a ride.”

  She got into his car and sat quietly while he put it in gear and turned down Third Street. “You going to be late for your date?”

  “Don’t have a date,” he said. “Just a party.”

  “Nobody to kiss on New Year’s Eve?”

  “There will be somebody to kiss,” Riley said as he turned to make the circle around the park. “There’s always somebody to kiss on New Year’s Eve.”

  Suze thought about her big empty house for a couple of blocks. “Not always.”

  He was quiet for a minute, and then he said, “Jack is an idiot.”

  “Jack’s been married for fourteen years. The zing goes.”

  “Not yours.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Suze lifted her chin. “You think I’ve got zing?”

  “You don’t seem too pleased about Nell and Gabe. Or are you just being cool?”

  “It was inevitable,” Suze said, accepting the subject change. She’d been pushing her luck, anyway. Pathetic. “I don’t know what she was waiting for.” I don’t know what I’m waiting for.

  “Gabe was waiting for July,” Riley said. “The dumbass.”

  “Why July?”

  “Two-year recovery period.”

  Suze thought about it. “You know, Tim dumped her two years ago Christmas. She didn’t get the divorce until July, but he left her on Christmas.”

  “So Gabe wins again,” Riley said. “The guy’s a master.”

  He pulled up in front of her house, and Suze felt like saying, “Take me to the party with you.” But she couldn’t. Jack might come home.

  Jack wasn’t coming home. He was with somebody else. Nobody left a wife alone on New Year’s Eve unless he was with a mistress. She knew that from having been a mistress.

  “You okay?” Riley said.

  “Kiss me,” Suze said, and he froze. “I mean it. I’m going back to that house alone and it’s New Year’s Eve and I want to be kissed. Feel sorry for me and kiss me.”

  “No,” Riley said.

  “Ouch,” Suze said. “Sorry.” She yanked on the door handle.

  “Look,” Riley said. “It’s not—”

  She stopped and looked back at him. “What?”

  “You deserve better.”

  “Than you?”

  “Than Jack. And God knows, better than me.”

  “I didn’t mean to put you in that position. You know, a married woman coming on to you—”

  “Any guy would be glad to be in that position.” He sounded sorry for her, which made her mad.

  “Yeah, right. Thanks for the ride.”

  She turned to open the door and looked up to see Jack, standing beside the car with his fists in his jacket pockets.

  “Uh-oh,” she said, and Riley bent to see past her out the car window.

  “Oh, good,” Riley said. “You want me to stay?”

  “I don’t think that will help,” Suze said, pushing the door open.

  He caught her arm. “Is he—”

  “He doesn’t hit,” Suze said. “He yells, but that’s okay. I’m all right.”

  Riley let go of her, and she got out of the car and slammed the door shut.

  “Very nice,” Jack said. “I come home to celebrate New Year’s Eve with my wife—”

  “Damn big of you.” Suze said and pushed past him to go up the steps.

  “Who is that?” Jack said.

  “Riley McKenna.” Suze reached the porch and put her key in the lock. “He brought me home when I went looking for Nell.”

  “Good story,” Jack said, following her up the steps.

  Suze went inside and turned on the light and waved to Riley to go on. “Not a story. You got one for me?”

  “I told you, I was at work—”

  “I called,” Suze said, watching Riley’s taillights skim down the street toward his party. “You didn’t answer.”

  “The switchboard shuts down at night.”

  “I called your cell phone.”

  “I turned it off.”

  “Really?” Suze said. “Why?”

  “Are you sleeping with him?”

  “With Riley?” Suze started up the stairs, suddenly so tired she could hardly move. “No. I barely know the man.”

  He grabbed her arm and jerked her off the steps, and she sucked in her breath, shocked out of her exhaustion.

  “You’re fucking him,” Jack said, and she looked at him and didn’t care anymore.

  “If I was sleeping with Riley,” she said, “I’d be with Riley. I wouldn’t be standing here pretending I still had a relationship with you.” She jerked her arm away and rubbed it and waited for him to raise his hand and hit her because then she could leave him.

  “You told me you were going to be with Nell,” he said. “You told me—”

  “Nell’s with Gabe,” Suze said, “which is good. Nobody should be alone on New Year’s Eve.” She started up the stairs again, daring him to stop her.

  “This is her fault,” Jack said. “Budge was right, she’s a bad influence. You were never like this before she moved down here.”

  “I’ll have to thank her for that,” Suze said, and climbed toward the darkness at the top because it was better than the light he was standing in at the bottom.

  * * *

  Six blocks away, through a postcoital drowse, Gabe listened with only half his attention to the celebrations on TV.

  “This is great,” Nell said. “One big party everywhere, no trauma.”

  “Good.” Gabe settled deeper into his bed, too damn tired and much too satisfied to care.

  “I still feel bad about Suze, though. She sounded so down when I called her. I’m a terrible friend.”

  “Umhm,” Gabe said into his pillow, praying she’d run down soon. She’d put as much energy into them as he had, and now she was sitting up naked beside him, eating potato chips and doing a play-by-play of the fireworks. If she didn’t shut up in the next five minutes, he was going to have to drug her.

  “Hey.” She smacked his shoulder, and he rolled back to see her grinning down at him, the potato chip bag in her hand, her hair making her look like a firecracker in his bed. “We are too new for you to take me for granted. Let’s have a little courtship here, shall we?”

  “Why?” he said. “I scored. It’s over.”

  She let her mouth drop open in mock rage, and he laughed and pulled her down to him while she fought him the whole way, sending the potato chip bag flying.

  “I am not taking you for granted,” he said in her ear as she squirmed. “I’m exhausted from not taking you for granted.”

  She stopped fighting, and he closed his eyes in pleasure at all her suddenly pliant softness pressed against him. He heard a rustle and realized that Marlene had crept up from the bottom of the bed and was dragging the potato chip bag back with her while the TV chanted the countdown for the new year. There’s a dog in my bed, he thought and wondered when she’d jumped up. He was fairly certain she’d waited until all the thrashing was over or they’d have kicked her into a wall. Marlene had excellent survival skills.

  “I’m happy,” Nell whispered in his ear, her voice all smiles, and he thought, I can sleep later.

  He rolled so they were side by side, pulling her closer, still amazed that she was there with him, that he’d finally done all the things he’d been trying not to think about and that they’d turned out to be so much better than he’d tried not to imagine. “Me, too. Happy New Year, kid.”

  He kissed her softly this time, and she relaxed into him and then said, “Look!” He followed her eyes up to the skylight now filled with fireworks like shooting stars. “Everything is perfect,” she said to him. “Absolutely everything.”

  “Don’t say that,” he said, feeling a chill. “You’re temptin