The Big Kahuna (Fox and O'Hare #6)(66)

“Sounds kind of surreal,” Nora said.

“That’s how it is,” I said. The surreal was ordinary and the ordinary was surreal. “Ready for some dessert?” I took the pan of chocolate brownies from the oven. I’d made them from a box, but I added a swirl of whipped cream to each plate before I brought them out to the table. Not too bad, I thought, and with a hint of vanilla, too. But she wasn’t eating hers. “You don’t like brownies?”

“I do, but I’m stuffed,” she said, patting her stomach. “If I eat anything else, it might end up on my thighs.”

I laughed, then I saw that she was serious. “Come over here for a minute,” I said, pushing back my chair so she could sit on my lap. I held her close, running my hand along her legs and around her hips. “Your thighs are beautiful.” I moved my hand to her chest. “But my favorite part of you is this.”

“My breasts?”

“Your heart.”

Our eyes met. She looked away. “Don’t say things like that, Jeremy.”

“Why?”

“It’s going to make this complicated.”

“This is already complicated.”

Outside, the crickets were singing, a nighttime serenade I hadn’t paid much attention to until now, as I waited for her to speak. When she finally looked at me, I saw that she was appraising me in a new way. Something was being decided in that moment between us. I rested my head in the crook of her neck, but the doorbell rang, and I had to go answer it.

“Dude. Where you been? You’re late.”

Fierro was on my doorstep in a T-shirt, jeans, and the baseball cap he usually wore to the gun range. I was irritated at him for interrupting my dinner, at myself for forgetting that I’d agreed to go with him, and again at him for reminding me of my commitment. “Shit. I totally forgot.” Though I stood in the doorway, he walked past me, somehow alert to the smell of food and flowers and female presence. I followed him into the dining room, a strange knot forming in my chest. In one fluid motion, Nora stood up from the table and pulled up the strap of her dress, which had fallen down her shoulder.

“I didn’t know you had company,” Fierro said.

Nora smiled at Fierro and Fierro smiled at Nora and they both looked at me.

“Sorry,” I said. “Nora, this is Bryan Fierro. Bryan, this is Nora Guerraoui.”

“It’s lovely to meet you,” she said, offering her hand.

“Nice to meet you, too.”

“That’s a cool shirt.”

“You like Kyuss?” Fierro said with a grin. “I love ’em. I saw Josh Homme in concert a couple of years ago in Palm Springs. He was fantastic. I wanna go again when he comes to Vegas in October.”

“Maybe we can go to the range tomorrow night instead,” I said.

“You ever seen Homme in concert?” Fierro asked.

“No,” Nora said. “But I bet he’s great.”

“Dude. He’s awesome.”

“I read somewhere that he has a new band with John Paul Jones?”

“That’s right, they did Coachella two years ago.”

“Listen, man. We can go to the range tomorrow.”

Fierro glanced at me with irritation. “They have the Tuesday night special. And I want to try out my new Glock.”

“It’s all right,” Nora said, reaching for her purse. “I was just leaving.”

But I didn’t want her to leave. I wanted her to stay and talk to me and spend the night with me, holding on to me in her sleep. I wanted Fierro to leave and stop being so needy and get on with his life. As she made her way out, I followed, carefully closing the door after us. Outside, the weather had cooled; she shivered in her sundress.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I completely forgot he was coming.”

“It’s fine, really.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

“Oh, and Kyuss?”

She laughed. “What? I was trying to be nice.”

I kissed her goodbye, then watched her get into her hybrid and pull silently out of the driveway. When I walked back inside, I found Fierro standing at the sink, eating a chicken drumstick he’d taken straight from the pan. I cleared the dinner plates and started loading the dishwasher, moving with practiced efficiency in my narrow kitchen.

Fierro turned away from the sink. “Dude. She’s smokin’ hot. Where’d you pick her up? I know it’s not at the gym. I never seen her there before.”

“I didn’t pick her up. Let’s go to Rod & Gun. I don’t want to drive all the way out to Twentynine Palms tonight.”

“She picked you up? Wow.”

“Nobody picked anybody up. Rod & Gun?”

“Rod & Gun closes early. She Mexican?”

“No. Let’s go to Pistol & Rifle, then.”

“Huh. She kinda looks Mexican.”

“She’s not.”

“What is she, then?”

“Moroccan.”

“Moroccan,” he repeated, as though it were a word he had never heard before. “Did you fuck her?”

Ordinarily, I would’ve said yes. I was not above bragging. In some deep, dark corner of myself, I was still a fat seventeen-year-old that none of the girls wanted—and somehow the opposite, too, a fit nineteen-year-old on home leave who all the girls suddenly noticed. Hell, yes, I would’ve said. I fucked her on this table right here. Twice. You should’ve seen the tits on this one, or that one gives fantastic head. But whatever it was I had with Nora was not the same. It was old, and yet it was new. It was muddled in a way that felt so different I didn’t want to talk about her, least of all with Fierro. I turned away and started wiping down the countertops. “I can drive to the range. But wash your hands. I don’t want your paw prints everywhere.”