A Different Kind of Forever(42)

“Lucky for me. So, tell me what you need. A cold drink? Hot shower? Food? Sleep? Sex?”

“Yes. I need all that.” She kissed him again, slower this time, and her body began to burn. She stepped away from him. “A drink first, I think. We’ll go from there.”

He followed her into the house, declined her offer of a vodka martini, and opened a beer. She was wound up, talking nervously as she mixed her drink. She had kicked off her shoes and was pacing around the living room while he sat and watched her silently, letting her ramble. She finished her drink quickly.

“Look, I need a shower. And I really need to eat. Do you feel like a steak? Kevin used to say that stress made me carnivorous.”

“Sure. I’ll call Longacre’s and get a table for what, an hour?”

“Shit, it’s almost six. I can’t believe it’s this late. We’ll never get a table on a Friday night, not now.”

“I’ll call,” he said soothingly. “We’ll get a table. Shower. Change. Go.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “Do you have an uncle at Longacre’s too?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “No. But I’ll use the name Mickey Flynn. That usually gets me what I want.”

She tilted her head at him. “I bet it does. Do you do that often?”

He shrugged. “Not so much anymore. There’s not a lot I want that badly.”

“But tonight you want a table at Longacre’s?”

“No. Tonight I want to make you happy.”

“Oh.” She chewed her lip. “You’ve already done that. I’ve had the week from hell, and I just kept thinking if I made it to Friday, I’d be with you and then everything would be all right again. You can’t believe how glad I am to see you.” She took a deep breath. “I need to shower now.” She turned and walked down the hall.

She felt better after she stood under the steaming water, and some of the tension left her. She grabbed a towel and wrapped herself in it, and looked out of the bathroom, still dripping.

“Did you call? How much time do we have?”

He appeared in the hallway, and began walking toward her.

“We’re in at seven. How long for you to get dressed?” he asked.

“In a pinch, ten minutes. Why?”

He was looking at her, her damp hair piled on top of her head, water glistening on her shoulders. “Perfect. Ten minutes to get dressed, ten minutes to get there. That means we’ve got about half an hour to spare.”

“Half an hour?”

“Yeah.” He reached for her, pulling off the towel. “That’s just about enough time.”



After dinner they walked up and down the streets of Milton, looking in shop windows, talking. Michael was stopped for an autograph by a bunch of teenage boys. He was friendly and gracious, answered their questions, but declined their offer to buy him coffee.

“Does this happen to you a lot?” she asked after the boys had moved on.

“No. I’m lucky. The only people who recognize me are the fans. It’s not like I’m an actor, where thousands of people see my face on television or whatever. And here, the fans are cool. I’m the hometown kid. They tend to give me some space.” He thought a moment about the woman at Rollie’s, and felt a pang of guilt.

Diane had been watching him, and saw a flicker across his face. “What?” she asked.

He told her about the blonde, how she had come on to him so strongly. He told her about standing in the middle of Hoboken, with a stranger’s arms around him, and how he thought about taking her into his truck for a quick release, knowing that all that the woman wanted anyway was to be able to tell her friends that she had f*cked Mickey Flynn.

They found a café, still open, with a few tables on the sidewalk. Michael had another beer and Diane sipped white wine.

“So,” Diane asked finally, “why didn’t you?”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t in the mood for generic sex,” he said.

Diane raised an eyebrow. “Generic sex? As opposed to name brand sex? Did you just make that up?”

“No.” He looked embarrassed. “I had just left you. I wanted you. I didn’t want a substitute.”

Diane felt herself grinning happily. “Oh.”

He was silent for a minute. “Are you done with school?”

Diane shook her head. “No. I still have to post grades, evaluations, and finish reports, just paperwork. All my finals are done, thank God. I’ll have to put in a few mornings next week to clean things up. Then I can work on my rose garden.”