Envy(80)

“I have,” Roark said with a chuckle. “Like a valentine, isn’t it? Frankly I’m partial to her. She’s the friendliest, too.”

“They do this every day?”

“Except on Sundays. Saturday nights they do three shows, so they usually sleep all day Sunday.”

Amber capped the bottle of suntan oil, then lay down on her beach towel, spreading her thighs wide enough to make certain the sun could reach the insides of them.

“Oh, man,” Todd groaned.

Laughing, Roark stepped from the shower and retrieved his towel. “I think you need a few minutes of privacy.”

“It won’t take a few minutes, buddy.”

Roark was dressed in a pair of shorts, sitting cross-legged on his bed, his keyboard bridging his knees, when Todd appeared in the doorway and propped himself weakly against the jamb. Roark looked over at him and grinned. “Well, what do you think of the apartment?”

“Fucking fantastic, man. I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather live.”





Chapter 18


Mike Strother laid the manuscript pages aside. He sipped from his glass of lemonade made with lemons he had squeezed himself. He was taking a day off from working on the mantel. Yesterday he had applied a coat of varnish and was giving it an extra day to dry because of the humidity. That was the explanation he’d given Parker anyway.

Throughout the morning, Mike had worked outdoors. Parker had seen him on his hands and knees turning the soil in the flower beds with a trowel. Later, he’d swept the veranda and washed the front windows. But the afternoon heat had driven him inside in time to prepare Parker’s lunch, which he was only now getting around to eating.

He had been writing—actually rewriting—since dawn and was now anxious to hear Mike’s reaction to this latest draft.

Parker valued Mike’s critiques of his work, even when they were negative. Although he sometimes felt like telling the older man to go to hell and to take his lousy opinion with him, he invariably reread the disputed passages with a different perspective, only to realize that Mike’s observations were well founded. Even if he didn’t agree with them, he took Mike’s insights into consideration during his rewrites.

Mike was never quick to comment, whether his review was good or bad. But when he was piqued at Parker for one reason or another, he deliberately withheld his remarks until Parker asked for them. Today, he was taking even more time than usual, and Parker knew he was doing so just to be vexing.

But Parker was feeling rather ornery himself. He stubbornly waited as Mike thumbed through the pages a second time, rereading several passages, making noncommittal harrumphing sounds like a physician listening to a hypochondriac’s litany of complaints, and tugging thoughtfully on his lower lip.

This continued for at least ten minutes more. Parker was the first to crack. “Could you please translate those grunts into a semblance of verbiage?”

Mike looked across at him as though he had forgotten he was there, which Parker knew to be a ruse. “You use the word ‘f*ck’ and its derivatives a lot.”

“That’s it? That took ten minutes of contemplation? That’s the substance of your critique?”

“I couldn’t help but notice.”

“Guys their age use that kind of language. Particularly in the company of other guys. In fact, they try and top each other, see who can be the most vulgar, talk the dirtiest.”

“I didn’t.”

“You’re an aberration.”

Mike scowled but let the insult pass. “You also use the word ‘homo.’ Very offensive.”

“Granted. But in ’88, we hadn’t yet coined the term ‘politically correct.’ And, again, I’m staying true to my characters. Randy, heterosexual males having a private conversation aren’t going to be sensitive and deferential when referring to gay men.”

“Or to the female anatomy, it seems.”

“Particularly to the female anatomy,” Parker said, ignoring the implied reproof. “They wouldn’t use the polite or clinical word for an act or a body part when there’s an off-color alternative. Now that your fussiness over the coarse language has been addressed, what did you think—”

“You didn’t go to the cotton gin today, did you?”

“What’s that got to do with the manuscript?” Parker asked impatiently.

“Does it have something to do with the manuscript?”

“You’re being awfully contrary this afternoon. Did you forget to take your stool softener last night?”

“You’re changing the subject, Parker.”

“Or is that lemonade spiked with Jack Daniel’s?”

“More to the point, you’re avoiding the subject.”

“Me? I thought the subject was my manuscript. You brought up—”

“Maris.”

“The gin.”

“The two are linked,” Mike said. “After months of preoccupation with that place, you haven’t been back to it since she left.”

“So?”

“So the fact that you haven’t gone back to the gin has nothing to do with what happened there between you and Maris the morning she left?”

“No. I mean yes. I mean… Shit. Whatever the hell you just said.” Parker hunched his shoulders cantankerously. “Besides, nothing happened.”