Welcome to Temptation/Bet Me Read online

  “How about Rob?”

  Sophie pointed over to the neon blue jukebox where Rob was arguing with Rachel.

  “Rob tries to think ahead, but he never practices the basics. So he plans ahead four balls and then miscues on the second one and that throws him off so much that he panics and just starts banging balls around.”

  “You play with Stephen Garvey?” Sophie asked.

  “Why are you so interested?” Phin said.

  “Because I never thought about pool like this.” She sounded sincere. “It’s so smart of you to figure this out. That you could tell what kind of person somebody is by the way he plays pool. I’d never have thought of that.”

  “That’s because you can’t,” Phin said. “Some people are very sharp, but they never learned to play the game right. So they screw up, but it’s not a function of personality.”

  “But Rob and Frank learned right?”

  Phin nodded. “My dad taught all of us. And Ed Yarnell plays us, too. Good training.”

  “So how does Stephen Garvey play?” Sophie said, smiling at him, lush and warm and round in the dim light, and Phin gave up trying to figure out what she was up to.

  “He plays position, but he hits the ball too hard. The harder you hit the ball, the smaller the pocket gets, so it’s easier to miss. He thinks it’s macho to slam the cue into the ball which is why he loses a lot.”

  “But not always,” Sophie said thoughtfully.

  Phin shrugged. “Sometimes you have to hit the ball hard. In those cases, he wins.”

  “Sophie!” Georgia slid in beside her and jammed her into Phin.

  “Sorry,” Sophie said to him. “Easy, Georgia, we’re a little cramped here.”

  She shifted to make more room, and Phin could feel the warm length of her thigh against his. Thank you, Georgia. Not that he intended to do anything about it, that would be dumb, but having Sophie pressed up against him even briefly was a pleasure. He let his arm fall along the back of the booth.

  “Amy showed me some of the tape today,” Georgia was saying as she beamed across the table at Amy. “I was so impressed. There I was, right there on the television. You have to come back from Cincinnati to tape our theater productions from now on.”

  “I’m not staying in Cincinnati,” Amy said, and Phin winced at the look on Wes’s face. “I’m going to drive to L.A. as soon as I have the tape edited.” She leaned across the table to Sophie. “I forgot to ask. Can I take the car? To L.A., I mean?”

  “Oh.” Sophie looked taken aback. “Sure.”

  And what are you going to use for transportation? Phin wanted to say, but the last time he’d suggested she think about herself, she’d gotten hostile.

  “Well, you have to come back here to visit,” Georgia was saying to Sophie. “We just really like you a lot.”

  “That’s very sweet of you, Georgia. I like you all a lot, too.” Sophie looked up at Phin, imploring instead of hostile: Get me out of this. Then she drained her rum and Coke.

  Phin thought about offering her a ride home and decided to keep her trapped there a while longer. For one thing, she felt really good pressed up against him, which was selfish of him but fortunately, he didn’t have a problem with selfish. For another, if she got tanked, maybe she’d come across with more information about the movie. He looked down her dress again. It was a real shame he wasn’t in a position to encourage her to come across with some other stuff, too. That was the trouble with dangerous women: They were almost always attractive. “The devil’s candy,” he remembered. “Women who would ruin you as soon as look at you.”

  Sophie looked up at him pitifully, but before he could say anything, Georgia bellowed, “Frank!” and Frank turned around from Clea to scowl at her. “Sophie needs a drink, honey.”

  “No, really,” Sophie said, but Frank nodded and came over a minute later with another rum and Coke.

  “Clea said this is what you’re drinking,” he told her, delighted to be reporting that he’d had conversation with Clea, and Phin thought, Frank, you’re a moron and your wife is going to kill you.

  “Thanks,” Sophie said. “But really, you shouldn’t have.”

  “Well, we’re all so pleased you’re here.” Frank smiled at Sophie and Amy.

  “Yes, we are.” Georgia toasted Sophie with her drink and spilled some of it on the table in the process.

  “And that you brought Clea back to us,” Frank finished.

  Georgia put her glass down.

  Frank looked back at Clea and Rob. “That boy of mine,” he said. “He’s so starstruck, he doesn’t know which end is up.”

  Phin looked around Frank and saw Rob at the bar being dazzled by Clea, who looked pleased to have him there.

  “If he’s not careful, Rachel’s going to get jealous,” Frank said. “I better go tell him to take care of what he’s got.”

  “Good advice,” Georgia said, but Frank was already heading back to the bar. She turned to Sophie, “I’m sorry, but Clea Whipple is a fucking bitch from hell.”

  Phin winced, but Sophie just said, “Cheers,” and drank another slug of rum and Diet Coke.

  “She’s still trying to get him, that bitch,” Georgia said. “She’s never gonna learn. She tried to get him in high school, bet she didn’t tell you that, did she?”

  “Uh, yeah, she did,” Sophie said into her drink, but Georgia wasn’t listening, which was about par for Georgia, Phin thought. Center of the universe, at least in her own mind, that was Georgia.

  “Thought she was going to get him, but she didn’t. I fixed that. I fixed that good.” Georgia drank again. “You gotta keep men in line or they’ll just run all over you.”

  Phin spared a moment of sympathy for Frank until he looked back and saw him at the bar, leaning into Clea’s cleavage. Get a grip, Frank, he thought, and then he looked down Sophie’s dress and thought, Never mind, Frank.

  “But I got what I wanted,” Georgia said. “You can get what you want, too.” She squinted at Sophie. “What do you want?”

  “World peace,” Sophie said, and tried to move away from Georgia a little.

  Since that pressed her up even closer to Phin, he tried to think kinder thoughts about Georgia, but it was hard.

  “I got everything I wanted,” Georgia said. “Except a little girl. I never got my little girl. Boys aren’t the same.”

  “This is true,” Sophie said, and shifted on the booth seat again.

  Very true, Phin thought gratefully, as the lavender in Sophie’s hair drifted up to him again. Of course, if he’d been born female, there’d be blood in his brain right now, but a little light-headedness seemed a small price to pay for the rush he was getting every time Sophie moved. He tried not to think about that, but that was hard, too. Everything was hard.

  “I really wanted a little girl,” Georgia said. “I really did. But we never got one. When that bitch got her big Hollywood break, Frank said we could try, and we tried and tried but I never did get my girl. And I had the cutest clothes already bought for her.”

  “Oh, God,” Sophie said into her drink. When Georgia went on in detail about the cute little dresses—“smocked with little tiny roses”—Sophie let her head fall back against Phin’s arm, and he started calculating square roots so he wouldn’t lunge for her mouth.

  “He’s still mad because we had to get married,” Georgia said, looking back at the bar. “That’s why he’s doing this. That’s why.”

  “You didn’t have to get married,” Sophie said.

  Georgia straightened. “No, we certainly did not.”

  Phin had heard all about Georgia’s eleven-month pregnancy when Diane’s rabbit had died. “She’s lying just like that Georgia Lutz,” his mother had said, but when Ed confirmed it, even Liz had been defeated. Too bad Frank hadn’t had a Liz in his corner.

  “We did not have to get married,” Georgia repeated, staring now at Frank and Clea. When she turned back to Sophie, her face was tragic. “You do what you have to do,” she told