Читать книгу Emmy And The Boss - Penny McCusker - Страница 9

Men were slime, Emmy thought. And for once she wasn’t thinking about Roger. Or Nick.

She was sitting in a crowded restaurant in the Leather District, a conglomeration of old leather factories that had been turned into businesses, lofts, restaurants and any other trendy, touristy use that could be found for them. Emmy would have preferred neighboring Chinatown, less fashionable but more relaxing. But here she sat at her best friend’s insistence, nursing a cranberry martini, avoiding eye contact, waiting for Lindy to arrive. The prevailing demographic of the place seemed to be men, ranging in age from barely legal to one-foot-in-the-grave. She’d always considered men another species anyway; tonight she’d classify them as homo erectus rather than homo sapiens. That brought a smile to her face, and she had to drop her eyes to her drink before any of the Neanderthals took it as encouragement.

What was it with men anyway? When you wanted one to stick around, he left, and when you wanted one gone, you couldn’t get rid of him. She looked around. And when you swore off men in general, they all seemed hell-bent to change your mind. Hopefully Lindy would show up soon. Or she could just leave, and the more she thought about it, the more appealing that sounded. She signaled the waiter, dug her cell phone out of her purse and speed-dialed Lindy, keeping a wary eye on the mood of the crowd in case any of these guys suspected she was about to bolt and worked up the courage to do more than ogle.

“I’m not really up for dinner tonight,” she said when Lindy picked up.

“Uh-oh, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m not hungry, and the only reason we were having dinner anyway is so I’d have an excuse for Nick.”

“And here I thought it was my sparkling wit and sunny personality.”

“You know what I mean, Lindy.” They’d been out every night that week just in case Nick fell off the wagon and showed up at her house. “I appreciate you putting up with me all week, but I’m sure you have things to do. Or should I say men?”

Lindy snorted softly. “The only briefs in my life lately have been the legal kind, but you have been kind of cranky the last few days. Tonight you just sound depressed. Wouldn’t be because of Nick, would it?”

“Nick isn’t bothering me anymore.”

“Yes, he is. Maybe not in the way you expected, but he’s bothering you.”

Emmy sighed.

“See? Case closed.”

“Okay, so he’s bothering me. He’s not going to be the only one in a minute.” Emmy had accidentally made eye contact with one of the cavemen and there was a definite shift in the mood of the crowd. If she didn’t do something drastic…

Lindy walked in, took one look at Emmy’s face and said, “if you kill me, who will represent you at the murder trial?”

“Actually I was thinking about giving you a big, wet kiss.”

Lindy did a double take, then looked around, rolling her eyes as she took her seat. “If you’re trying to put these hounds off with a little girl-on-girl action, think again,” she said, shutting off her phone and dropping it into her purse. “You and your tongue come anywhere near me and we won’t be able to beat them off with a stick. And what am I saying? I’ve been trying to attract a little male attention.”

Emmy disconnected and put her phone away, too. “Is that why you picked this meat market?”

“Of course. You may have taken yourself out of the game, but I haven’t. And speaking of games, what’s the deal with Nick?”

“I don’t want to talk about him.” Emmy opened the menu and pretended she had an appetite. “You’re just going to argue with me.”

“Fine, let’s talk about Roger. We agree about him.”

Emmy looked up, caught Lindy smirking. “He called today. How did you know?”

“It was only a matter of time, Emmy. He wanted you back didn’t he?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t return his call.”

“Good, don’t. And since we’re through with Roger, we can get back to Nick.”

Emmy sighed again before she could catch herself. “I’m just tired,” she said before Lindy could put the look on her face into words. “It’s been a long week.”

“You’re not tired, you’re lonely. I’m not the solution to that problem, Em, but I’m here so you’re stuck with me…Hello.”

Emmy shifted in her seat so she could take in Lindy’s field of vision. The busboy was heading for them, or rather for the circular booth next to their table. He bent to retrieve dishes and clean the tabletop, giving Lindy an up-close-and-personal shot of his really excellent backside. And she was enjoying it.

“He’s about twelve,” Emmy whispered behind her menu.

“He’s at least twenty.”

“And you’re not really interested in him.”

Lindy shrugged. “I can look can’t I? It’s never good to take life too seriously. I learned that the hard way—and you’re changing the subject.”

“You changed it first.”

Lindy waved that off, which was just like her—now. She’d been nose-to-the-grindstone in college, all work and no play, until she’d broken under the weight of her own expectations. She’d had to go away for a while, to learn how to depressurize her life. Now she worked when it was time to work, and had fun everywhere else.

To those who didn’t know Lindy, she’d seem like one of the most well-adjusted people in the world. The breakdown had left permanent damage, though. Lindy figured if she was such a perfectionist that she got that messed up over her career she’d better not risk love, let alone marriage and family. So, she’d become a serial dater, never hanging on to a relationship long enough to let it get serious. Emmy was one of the few who saw through her act, to the sadness and loneliness beneath.

“We were talking about Nick,” Lindy reminded her.

“We were talking about me,” Emmy said, because Lindy wouldn’t thank her for turning the tables.

“It’s the same thing, since he’s the problem you’re having.”

“He’s not a problem. He hasn’t tried to kiss me again, and today he snapped at me.”

“Oh, this is good.” Lindy sat back in her chair and grinned—which was hardly the reaction Emmy had been going for, but the waiter arrived, and she decided to let it go.

“I’ll have the chicken pasta.”

“I’ll have a double martini,” Lindy said.

“You’re not eating?”

“There are olives in the martini.”

Emmy rolled her eyes.

“All right, I’ll eat.” Lindy smiled dazzlingly up at the waiter. “You choose for me,” she said to him. “I’m sure whatever you give me will be incredible.”

He froze for a few seconds, his eyes on Lindy, but Emmy had to give him credit for hanging on to his professionalism because he finally nodded and said, “Of course, ma’am.” His words were a bit strangled, he wasn’t breathing quite right, and his upper lip was sweating, but at least he didn’t trip over his own feet the way she’d seen some men do after Lindy unleashed herself on them.

Emmy shook her head, but she was smiling, and it felt good. Trust Lindy to pull her out of the doldrums. “That man is never going to be the same.”

“But my meal will be fabulous. Now, where were we? Oh, right, I was enjoying your upheaval.”

“And I was about to call you a b—”

“Don’t say it, you’ll only feel terrible later.”

“Not this time.”

Lindy laughed off Emmy’s scowl. “You have no reason to complain,” she said. “Roger was considerate enough to go away before getting rid of him involved, well, hiring me. And five minutes later a drop-dead-gorgeous man walked into your life, stumbling all over himself the minute he laid eyes on you. If that wasn’t lo—”

“Don’t say it.”

“Fine,” Lindy huffed out, “but I’m using the other L-word because at the very least it was lust at first sight, and that’s a pretty good place to start. If you had any sense you’d drag Nick Porter home, lock yourself in the bedroom with him for the next couple of weeks and see where it goes from there. My money’s on happily ever after.”

“No such thing,” Emmy said.

“Then why were you marrying Roger?”

Emmy thought about that a minute, then did a hands-up. “The reason escapes me now.”

“It doesn’t escape me.” Lindy took her martini out of the waiter’s hand, barely sparing him a glance this time in favor of taking a big, fortifying swallow. “You don’t want to be alone, but you don’t want to take any emotional risks. You didn’t love Roger, so he wasn’t a threat. If you came home one day and found him gone, you wouldn’t care.”

“I’d care if he took all my furniture.”

“And doesn’t it mean anything to you that you’d miss your end tables more than your fiancé?”

“They’re really nice end tables.”

“Give me one good reason why you can’t get together with Nick,” Lindy said, the soft, wistful tone of her voice more compelling than all the exasperation that had gone before it.

Emmy picked up her drink and took her time fishing out the cherry.

“Well?”

“I’m thinking,” she said. But everything she came up with was either ridiculous or something she couldn’t say out loud. There was nothing wrong with Nick, unless you counted his low ambition quotient, and that was only a flaw to an overachiever like her. The only real problem she had with him was that he made her want things she hadn’t wanted in a long, long time. If she said that to Lindy, they’d be right back to exasperation because Lindy was a stop-griping-and-deal-with-it kind of person. Emmy didn’t want to deal with this. She’d been lugging around her emotional baggage for years, and it hadn’t gotten in her way. She didn’t see any reason to unpack it now.

“You can think all you want,” Lindy said, “but you won’t come up with anything.”

“Roger is gone, and Nick isn’t taking his place.”

“That sounds really convincing, but what are you going to do about you?”

Emmy shrugged.

“No, you don’t,” Lindy said, not letting her duck the subject. “Being a foster kid—”

“That’s the past.”

“Not if you keep letting it affect the present.”

“I’m not going there tonight,” Emmy warned.

“You never go there and it’s unhealthy. One of these days you’re going to wake up in a rubber room, missing a few months of your life.”

“Do I get to pick which ones I want to forget?”

“No, and trust me, I know how it feels. I ignored my garbage until I was forced to deal with it. If you’re smart, you’ll deal with yours before that happens.”

“I’m handling it fine.”

“First you agreed to marry Roger for…I don’t know the reasons, but I can tell you they were the wrong ones.” Lindy leaned forward, keeping her voice down, “and now you’re turning your back on a nice guy like Nick. Doesn’t sound like dealing to me. It sounds like sticking your head in the sand.”

“Whatever. It’s working.”

“For the time being,” Lindy, the voice of doom, said.

Emmy looked away. She could tune Lindy out so she didn’t hear the disapproval, and if she didn’t look at her, she didn’t have to see it, either. But she couldn’t escape her own feelings—and suddenly she was feeling a whole lot. “You asked me to give you one reason why I shouldn’t get together with Nick,” she said. “How about he’s scum?”

“No, he’s not. You’re just saying that because—”

“He’s standing over there with a redhead,” Emmy said, disgusted with herself more than Nick because she hated that he was standing there with any woman but her. “I told you he didn’t want me anymore.”