Mr. Perfect Read online

  Well, no one’s life was perfect, Jaine thought. She hadn’t done so great in the romance department herself. She’d been engaged three times but hadn’t yet made it to the altar. After the third breakup, she had decided to give dating a rest for a while and concentrate on her career. Here she was, seven years later, still concentrating. She had a good credit record, a nice bank account, and had just bought her first very own house—not that she was enjoying the house as much as she had thought she would, what with that nasty-tempered, inconsiderate cretin next door. He might be a cop, but he still made her uneasy, because cop or not, he looked like the type who would burn down your house if you got on his bad side. She had been on his bad side from the day she moved in.

  “I had another episode with my neighbor this morning,” she said, sighing as she propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her entwined fingers.

  “What did he do this time?” T.J. was sympathetic, because, as they all knew, Jaine was stuck, and bad neighbors could make your life a living hell.

  “I was in a hurry and backed into my trash can. You know how when you’re running late you always do things that would never happen if you took your time? Everything went wrong this morning. Anyway, my can knocked his down, and the lid bounced into the street. You can imagine the noise. He came charging out the front door like a bear, yelling that I was the noisiest person he’d ever seen.”

  “You should have kicked his can over,” Marci said. She wasn’t a believer in turning the other cheek.

  “He’d have arrested me for disturbing the peace,” Jaine said mournfully. “He’s a cop.”

  “No way!” They all looked incredulous, but then, they had heard her describe him, and red eyes, beard stubble, and dirty clothes didn’t sound very coplike.

  “I guess cops are just as likely to be drunks as anyone else,” T.J. said, a little hesitantly. “More so, I’d say.”

  Jaine frowned, thinking back to the morning’s encounter. “Come to think of it, I didn’t smell anything on him. He looked like he’d been on a three-day drunk, but he didn’t smell like it. Damn, I hate to think he can be that grouchy when he isn’t hungover.”

  “Pay up,” Marci said.

  “Damn it!” Jaine said, exasperated with herself. She had made a deal with them that she’d pay each a quarter every time she cursed, figuring that would give her the incentive to quit.

  “Double it,” T.J. chortled, holding out her hand.

  Grumbling, but being careful not to swear, Jaine dug out fifty cents for each of them. She made certain she always had plenty of change these days.

  “At least he’s just a neighbor,” Luna said soothingly. “You can avoid him.”

  “So far I’m not doing a very good job at it,” Jaine admitted, scowling at the table. Then she straightened, determined to stop letting the jerk dominate her life and her thoughts the way he had for the past two weeks. “Enough about him. Anything interesting going on with you guys?”

  Luna bit her lip, and misery chased across her face. “I called Shamal last night, and a woman answered.”

  “Oh, damn.” Marci leaned across the table to pat Luna’s hand, and Jaine had a moment of envy at her friend’s verbal freedom.

  The waiter chose that moment to distribute menus that they didn’t need, because they knew all the selections by heart. They gave him their orders, he collected the unopened menus, and when he left, they all leaned closer to the table.

  “What are you going to do?” Jaine asked. She was an expert at breaking up, as well as at being dumped. Her second fiancé, the bastard, had waited until the night before the wedding, the rehearsal night, to tell her he couldn’t go through with it. Getting over that had taken a while—and she wasn’t going to pay up for words she thought, but didn’t say out loud. Was “bastard” a curse word, anyway? Was there an official list she could consult?

  Luna shrugged. She was close to tears, and trying to be nonchalant. “We aren’t engaged, or even seeing each other exclusively. I don’t have any right to complain.”

  “No, but you can protect yourself and stop seeing him,” T.J. said gently. “Is he worth this kind of pain?”

  Marci snorted. “No man is.”

  “Amen,” Jaine said, still thinking of her three broken engagements.

  Luna picked at her napkin, her long, slender fingers restless. “But when we’re together, he … he acts as if he really cares. He’s sweet, and loving, and so considerate—”

  “They all are, until they get what they want.” Marci stubbed out her third cigarette. “That’s personal experience speaking, you understand. Have your fun with him, but don’t expect him to change.”

  “Isn’t that the truth,” T.J. said ruefully. “They never change. They may put on an act for a while, but when they think they have you sewed up and tied down, they relax and Mr. Hyde shows his hairy face again.”

  Jaine laughed. “That sounds like something I would say.”

  “Except there weren’t any curse words,” Marci pointed out.

  T.J. waved a signal to cut the jokes. Luna looked even more miserable than before. “So I should either put up with being one of a herd, or stop seeing him?”

  “Well… yeah.”

  “But it shouldn’t be that way! If he cares for me, how can he be interested in all those other women?”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Jaine replied. “The one-eyed snake has no taste.”

  “Sweetheart,” Marci said, her smoker’s voice as kind as she could make it, “if you’re looking for Mr. Perfect, you’re going to spend your whole life being disappointed, because he doesn’t exist. You have to get the best deal you can, but there will always be problems.”

  “I know he isn’t perfect, but—”

  “But you want him to be,” T.J. finished.

  Jaine shook her head. “Isn’t going to happen,” she announced. “The perfect man is pure science fiction. Not that we’re perfect, either,” she added, “but most women do at least try. Men don’t try. That’s why I gave up on them. Relationships just don’t work out for me.” She paused, then said thoughtfully, “I wouldn’t mind having a sex slave, though.”

  The other three burst out laughing, even Luna.

  “I could get into that,” Marci said. “I wonder where I can get one?”

  “Try Sexslaves-R-Us,” T.J. suggested, and they dissolved into laughter again.

  “There’s probably a Web site,” Luna said, choking a little.

  “Of course there is.” Jaine was totally deadpan. “It’s on my Favorites list: www.sexslaves.com.”

  “Just type in your requirements and you can rent Mr. Perfect by the hour or the day.” T.J. waved her glass of beer, carried away with enthusiasm.

  “A day? Get real.” Jaine hooted. “An hour is asking for a miracle.”

  “Besides, there is no Mr. Perfect, remember?” Marci said.

  “Not a real one, no, but a sex slave would have to pretend to be exactly what you wanted, wouldn’t he?”

  Marci was never without her soft leather briefcase. She opened it and dug out a pad of paper and a pen, slapping them down on the table. “He most certainly would. Let’s see, what would Mr. Perfect be like?”

  “He’d have to do the dishes half the time without being asked,” T.J. said, slapping her hand down on the table and drawing curious looks their way.

  When they managed to stop laughing long enough to be coherent, Marci scribbled on her pad. “Okay, number one: Do the dishes.”

  “No, hey, doing the dishes can’t be number one,” Jaine protested. “We have more serious issues to address first.”

  “Yeah,” Luna said. “Seriously. What do we think a perfect man would be like? I’ve never thought about it in those terms. Maybe it would help if I had it clear in my mind what I like in a man.”

  They all paused. “The perfect man? Seriously?” Jaine wrinkled her nose.

  “Seriously.”

  “This is going to take some thinking,” Marci