The Dirty Book Club(62)
“No,” Hannah whispered. “I think someone’s breaking in.”
M.J. grabbed an egg-yolk crusted spatula from the sink, while Hannah searched for her phone.
“I’m calling the police,” she shouted.
“Who the hell are you?” the intruder called, her voice disturbingly familiar.
“Stand down,” M.J. told Hannah. “I know her.”
M.J. followed the sounds to David’s bedroom, where sports trophies lined the cherrywood shelves, a collage of newspaper articles and photographs featuring the star athlete papered the walls. And a dress, too red to be Hannah’s, had been draped over the lampshade.
“Addie, it’s me,” M.J. said to the lump under David’s blue comforter.
“That’s Addie?” Hannah mouthed. Then with a playful poke, “You’re Davey’s wild sister, am I right or am I super right? He told me all about you.”
The lump stirred and then gave way to Addie, who had the sour expression of a woman who drank spoiled milk. “Davey?” She snapped a look to M.J., as if this was her fault.
Oblivious, Hannah offered her right hand and introduced herself. “I moved in on Friday.”
“Oh, sorry about sneaking in then,” Addie said, her features softening with relief. “I thought David lived here.”
“He does,” Hannah said. “He gets off work at four.”
Addie scooted up on her elbows, the blue comforter now a sagging bridge that hung off her bent knees and sloped toward her black bra straps. “David got a job? Already?”
“He’s the new coach of the high school water polo team.” Then to M.J., “Apparently it’s a big deal. They’re talking Olympics.”
“Are you his roommate?”
Hannah smiled. “I mean, we live together, so yeah, I guess you could say that.”
Addie’s eyes narrowed, as if trying to place a distant sound. “David has a girlfriend?” Then to M.J., “And you know her?”
M.J. wanted to say that it all happened so fast. That she wasn’t trying to hide anything from Addie, and would have told her as soon as she knew the full story, which she just got, by the way. But Addie kicked off the blankets in a huff.
“Sick curves!” Hannah blurted. “Sexy, voluptuous, and perfectly proportioned. Shit, I’d love to sketch you.”
“Sketch this!” Addie spread her legs to reveal the words WELCOME HOME, DAVID written on her inner thighs in fuchsia lipstick. An arrow pointing north indicated “home” should there be any confusion.
“You’re not Davey’s sister, are you?”
“Davey doesn’t have any sisters . . .” Addie scooped up her belongings. “And I just lost a friend.” With an angry toss, she whipped her dress through the open window and crawled out, leaving a fuchsia smear behind on the ledge.
* * *
THE SEARCH FOR Addie began immediately and ended minutes later with the sound of Dan honking his horn and yelling, “Surprise!” He didn’t bother pulling all the way up to the garage or parking as he usually did, with equal amounts of driveway on either side. He abandoned his car, left his luggage and the bag of See’s butterscotch lollypops for another time, and kissed M.J. with the kind of unbridled desire that melts teeth.
Their passion was primal and inspired. A movable feast that stumbled hungrily around the cottage, colliding with surfaces both hard and soft. Consuming enough to keep M.J. from asking why Dan came home from Boston a day early, and yet, incapable of keeping her concern for Addie at bay. A concern so distracting, she lost her orgasm.
It was more than Addie’s heartbreaking discovery or the guilt M.J. felt for not mentioning Hannah sooner. It was that Addie called M.J. a friend; that their relationship mattered enough to hurt.
Dan, breathless and sweaty, collapsed onto M.J.’s chest. Her spine was grinding against the living room floor. She rolled him off her. A rush of air filled her lungs. “What’s our safe word?”
“We don’t have a safe word,” he mumbled while kissing her neck. “Why?”
“You came back early. How do I know this is really you?”
Dan lifted his face to meet hers, and M.J. found those gold bursts in his sleepy hazel eyes.
“The real question is, why did I leave?”
M.J. giggled. It was the kind of answer one would expect from a character in a romance novel, expertly engineered to make lonely housewives swoon. And yet, she swooned, surrendered her cheek to his chest, and urged him to go on.
“Boston was a grind. The hectic pace, lack of sleep, shitty food, cramped living quarters, all those patients we had to stabilize during the relocation . . . It was more grueling than Jakarta, and still—” He folded his hands behind his head and gazed up at the ceiling. A small boy with big dreams. “I loved it.” His heart thumped a tiny bit harder. “But, May-June Stark, I love you more, and I don’t want to mess things up between us any more than I already have, so I came back early, and I’m not going anywhere again unless you’re with me.”
M.J. sat up. Put on his T-shirt. Inhaled his sincerity. Dan was a complete-package kind of a man: batteries included, no assembly required. Most women would spend a lifetime looking for a Dan and never find one. And yet M.J. had been willing to cast him aside because she was lonely. Not willing, mind you, she had actually done it. Signed the contract and FedEx’ed it to Gayle, priority. And for what? A job? A job that didn’t save people; it bogged her down with meetings, e-mails, and soul-sucking office politics.