Turn Me Loose - Turn Me Loose Part 14
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Turn Me Loose Part 14

Stacy didn't wait for him to leave. "He . . ." She gulped in a breath. "It's just that he can't . . ." Her chin wobbled. "See me. Tonight."

She burst into tears at that, Rochelle put her arms around her and made soothing noises, and Travis stood there and thought again about leaving. He had two younger sisters. He knew all about drama. That didn't mean he enjoyed it.

"Did he say why?" Rochelle asked, smoothing a hand over Stacy's hair.

Another hard shake of the head. "No," Stacy mumbled against Rochelle's shirt, then stood up straight and wiped the heels of her hands across her eyes. "He's busy. He can't. Never mind. I'm going home. I just . . ." Another chin wobble. "I just want to go home."

"Again?" Rochelle said. "What a jerk," and Travis couldn't argue with that.

In a flash, Stacy was scowling at her. "He is not. You're always against him." Her voice was rising, becoming shrill. "A guy can be busy, you know! He can have things to do!"

"Sweetie-" Rochelle began. "No. He can't. Can he, Travis?"

"No," he said bluntly. He'd never understood why women were so hell-bent on fooling themselves. "He can't. Unless he asked you about tomorrow. Did he ask you?"

Stacy shook her head wildly again and rushed out of the cafe so fast, she stumbled over a chair and nearly fell. And then she was on her bike, and gone.

"Huh," Travis said as they watched the lonely figure pedaling away in the sunlight. "She's . . . changeable."

"She sure is." Rochelle looked after her sister with a frown. "She didn't used to be, at least not as much. I think the pressure of school might really be getting to her. Like she finally told you, even though she's never told me. The bad boyfriend doesn't help."

"How bad?"

"Not an abuser. Not physical, anyway, from what I can see, or I'd already have . . ."

"Borrowed your dad's shotgun," he guessed.

"Who says I'd have to borrow one?"

He smiled, and she smiled reluctantly back. She sat down again, turned her beer glass in her hand, and sighed. "But he's got her off balance for sure. Hot and cold, so she doesn't know what to expect. He can be busy until the cows come home as far as I'm concerned, but . . . what kind of guy doesn't want to see you on the weekend?"

"A guy with another girlfriend."

"That's what I was thinking. Or just that he's playing games."

"Guys don't play that kind of game much. The stakes are too high. Giving up a sure thing to win some kind of points? No. If he doesn't want to be with her on the weekend, he's with another girl. If we're talking 'sex possible with both parties.'"

"Wow." She blinked. "You don't mess around."

"Well, no. Not usually. And right now, I should tell you that I'd be happy to ride back and get the truck for you and your bike. Forty-five minutes, another beer while you sit right here, and I'm driving you home."

"No. Of course not." She stood up and shook it off, because that was Rochelle. "I'm good to go."

Five miles in, he could see that she wasn't. Not at all. "So," he said, coming up beside her, "is it your legs, or the seat?"

"Oh." She smiled ruefully. Painfully, too, he could swear. "Is it that obvious?"

"Well, yeah. Sorry. You're in good shape, you swam quite a bit last week, you'd ridden your bike up to school that day, and thirteen miles isn't very far, so . . ." He cut himself off at the look on her face. "I'm digging myself in deeper, aren't I?"

"No. It was a nice idea, and good of you to be all right with Stacy coming along. Not your fault."

"You're a generous woman," he said, and maybe he wasn't just talking about Stacy. "But then, I already knew that."

"Do not even go there," she said, reading his mind. "Right now, it has zero appeal."

"Oh. Not your legs, then."

"Nope, and not my butt, either."

He suppressed a snort of laughter, and at her glare, said, "Sorry, but you see my problem. If I laugh, I'm an insensitive jerk. If I ask you questions, I'm an insensitive jerk. If I get uncomfortable and shut up, I'm a socially awkward engineer, and I lose that spot on your graph. And, yes, I put it in my pocket. I know you saw. It was a sentimental moment for me. Even though I'm not a professor."

"Close enough," she muttered.

"OK, I'm going for it. I decided that 'socially awkward engineer' is worse. You need a new seat."

"No kidding."

"I could research it, if you like."

"You going to Google 'bike seat' and 'clitoral pressure'?"

He laughed. He couldn't help it. "All right. I laughed. I'm officially an insensitive jerk. Yes, I'll look that up. Consider it my penance for putting you through this. I'll find the right seat for you, and I'll even change it out. You can't be the only one. Guys have issues, too. Bike seats are notorious."

"I noticed you weren't wearing padding."

"So rare," he said with a sigh.

"What?" A tiny smile was peeking out. He was distracting her. Good.

"That I get the opportunity to discuss our crotches with the one and only woman I'm looking to use them with. Wait," he protested when she choked back a laugh of her own. "That didn't come out quite right. It was supposed to be much smoother."

"Never mind. If you were trying to turn me on, I'm pretty sure it'll never be possible again."

"So as a going-slow technique, this worked?"

"Yeah." She shifted position once more. "Congratulations."

WAITING FOR PERFECT.

When Travis had picked her up that morning, Rochelle had thought about what it would be like to kiss him good-bye. About how she might take him around the back to look at the rest of her garden first, and how he might have kissed her again the way he had in the lab. Like he couldn't get enough.

She did look at her garden, eventually. It wasn't that exciting. An hour after she'd arrived home, after she'd climbed into a nice deep bath and reluctantly out of it again. When she was turning the hose on the plants in her backyard. By herself.

She saw Charlie first. The little white terrier mix came scampering across the yard, tail wagging, and jumped out of the path of the hose as if it were attacking him.

Dell wasn't far behind. She was wearing a broad red straw sun hat today to go with her cherry-patterned blouse, and carrying a pitcher of iced tea and two glasses out to her patio table.

"Come on over and sit in the shade with me when you're done," she called.

When Rochelle had finished her watering and accepted the invitation, Dell poured her a glass of iced tea, using her special watermelon-printed patio glasses, and said, "That hydrangea in the front is looking all right. Thought it might die, planted so late and all, but it's doing real well. You're taking good care of it."

"If that was supposed to be a subtle opening," Rochelle said, "it isn't working."

"You think I'm a nosy old woman."

"I don't think. I'm sure."

Dell chuckled her low ho-ho-ho. "Now, what's got you all grumpy? Just because you came home hot and tired, and he didn't kiss you good-bye as good as you hoped? What was that peck on the cheek all about?"

"Do you see everything? What do you do, sit over there with a telescope?"

Dell just smiled and lifted her glass. "Honey, my entertainment sources are limited, and people are a whole lot more interesting than soap operas. You're not as good as you could be, though, I've got to say. Now, when the Kavanaughs were living next door? He'd go to work, and, oh, my." She shook her head. "Well, let's just say that I never saw one woman get so much cable TV service in my life, if you get my drift. They've each got their own place now. And today? I saw Stacy come hightailing on home and leaving again, after she started out on that bike ride with you. Was leaving the two of you alone your idea, or hers?"

Rochelle had been smiling, but now, she sobered. "Hers. She's been moody, upset about her boyfriend. And about school, I finally realized today. But Travis was being so sweet to her, took us both to lunch and was helping her with a math problem, and then . . . the boyfriend thing, and she left. Didn't leave me a note, either. Did that Shane come pick her up, by any chance?"

"Nope. She walked. Dressed to kill, too. Skirt up to her hoo-ha. You ever look in her underwear drawer?"

Rochelle blinked. "What?"

"Girls always think they're being so sneaky. And nine times out of ten, it's in their underwear drawer, whatever it is. Or under the mattress. Like nobody in the world ever thought of that hiding place."

Rochelle remembered packing up Stacy's apartment. About how her sister had emptied her sock and underwear drawers, and then had sat on the bed. Until she'd packed up her bedding.

"What do you . . ." She swallowed. "What do you think it is?"

Dell put her head on one side. "Vodka, maybe. That's usually it, because you won't smell it on 'em, and it's cheap."

"No," Rochelle said. "She's not drunk. Not when she's home, and not even when she comes home. At least, not bad."

The blue eyes in their web of wrinkles were sharp. "You know drunk?"

"Oh, yeah. I know drunk real well."

Dell waited, but Rochelle didn't go on. Seems to me like that bitter's trying to drown out all your sweetness. Her marriage was over and gone. Time to put the past behind her.

"Well, check that underwear drawer," Dell said at last.

"I will."

"And ask yourself why."

"Why what?"

"What's a pretty young girl like that so scared of? What's she got to hide away from with . . . whatever it is? With booze, or drugs, or bad boys? She's going to college, got a good family. If she's looking to drown herself in something else-why?"

"Why does anybody do anything?" Rochelle said with a sigh.

"Oh, honey," Dell said reproachfully, "you know better than that. There's always a reason. Why are you holding off that prime piece of beef like he was hamburger? Got to be a reason for that, too."

"I knew you'd get around to him."

"Well, somebody's got to. You going to be good with that, when he gives up on you and finds a woman who wants him?"

"He said-" The cold fingers were inching down Rochelle's spine. "That he was good with going slow."

"Uh-huh. For how long? Because, sweet thing . . ." Dell sighed. "There's plenty of somebodies going to be ready and willing. A fine-looking man like that? One who'll look at you the way he does, like he's got a special treat just for you, and he can't wait to give it to you? One who'll take your sister for a bike ride, and be sweet to her, too? Man who can kiss like that? Give me a time machine, and I'll take him myself."

"Well," Rochelle said, giving it her best shot, "if somebody does take him, there's only so long it would be for, no matter what. He's here teaching for one semester, and that's all. Then he's going home to San Francisco. Back to being a hotshot computer millionaire."

"I can sure see why you don't want him. Sounds like a real loser. What in the wide world are you waiting for?"

"Because I want serious," Rochelle tried to explain. "I want a future. I want the real thing. I want-all right. I want a family. And if I'm spending time with Travis, I'm ruling out finding that guy. The right guy."

"Huh." Dell sat quietly for a minute, sipped her iced tea, and stared out over her curved patch of grass, neat pea-gravel path, and the flowering plants bordering it. All the way to the weeping birch and crab apple trees at the edge of the property, and beyond, to something Rochelle couldn't see. "Well, see, I'd have said that if he wasn't the real thing, I couldn't imagine what real would look like. How do you know he's not it?"

"I told you. He's leaving."

"Did he say he wouldn't ever come back?"

Rochelle moved her legs restlessly under the table. "But-"

Dell wasn't done, though. "Planes only fly one way, then?" she asked. "Or did you make some promise to your dying grandpa saying you'd never go anywhere but here?"

"This is-this is where I live," Rochelle said. "Anyway, he never said anything like that."

"Uh-huh. See how impressed I am?" Dell said. "You saving it up until somebody catches sight of you and tells you right then and there that he wants to marry you so you can be his and only his, forever and ever? Because, honey, that might be how it happens in some book from the drugstore, but out in the real world, that isn't true love, it's somebody who's going to be looking in your kitchen windows and scaring the bejeezus out of you when you finally wise up and break it off. Normally, you find a good man, put him through his paces, see if he's willing to, oh, say, take you on a bike ride, plant your flowers, be nice to your sister, meet your folks. And then you see what happens. Might work, and it might not. If you don't give it a try, you'll never know."

"I've given it too many tries already," Rochelle said. "That's my problem."

"Your parts don't come marked off for only so many users," Dell said, and Rochelle about spit out her iced tea. "You got some number of men in your head you can't go above? Forget the number. Who do you imagine knows it besides you? Long as you've got your heart and your eyes open, whose business is it?"

"You're saying that?"

"I'm watching for entertainment. It's not my life. It's yours. You going to let a bunch of old biddies like me tell you how to live it?"

"All right, then," Rochelle said. "The truth? I don't want to get hurt again. I want to be sure. I want forever."

"There's only one sure way to not get hurt," Dell said. "That's never to love anybody at all. Course, that hurts, too. And, honey, you can be as sure as the day, you can be right as rain, and you can do every single thing in the world exactly perfect. And you still won't necessarily get forever. Only wrong thing Randy ever did was die on me. But the son of a bitch sure did that."