Читать книгу Just Between Us... - Tori Carrington, Tori Carrington - Страница 9

“I’M SUPPOSED TO BE AT the church right now,” Layla wailed over the phone to Mallory the following morning. Now that the emotional fireworks were over, apparently the bride was having second thoughts about dumping her groom.

Either that or she was mourning the dress.

“I have the image all laid out in my mind,” Layla continued without any prompting from Mallory, who was hiding under the covers in her bed wishing the world and Layla would just go away. “My mother would be standing behind me fixing my veil. You’d help me put on my garter and make sure I had sexy underwear underneath, and Reilly would be calming any prewedding jitters with caffeine-free coffee and sticky buns.”

Mallory’s brain caught on the word coffee. She threw aside the sheet and pulled herself into a semi-standing position.

It was 10 a.m. and she was only half-awake at best. She moved her cell phone to her other ear and shuffled from her bedroom into the tiny living/dining area of her apartment, then into the closet that was her kitchen, kicking clothes, notebooks, and crumpled pieces of paper out of her way as she went. “So call Sam and patch things up,” she grumbled to Layla, who was obviously heartbroken.

But at least her friend could talk about it. Mallory, on the other hand, had to keep her own relationship woes to herself.

Coffee.

She needed coffee.

She took the stained carafe out of the coffeemaker, eyed the half inch of murky contents, then dumped it down the sink.

“I can’t,” Layla whispered.

“Why can’t you?” Mallory asked, filling the reservoir with water then taking the small coffee can from the pint-sized refrigerator. She popped the rubber top and peered inside at the grounds that barely covered the bottom of the can, then shook it. Enough for one cup. All she needed to see her through to getting to Reilly’s.

“I just…can’t,” Layla whispered into her ear.

Mallory searched through her empty cabinet for filters and came up with nothing but a half-empty package of stale taco shells and an empty jar of peanut butter. She dropped her right hand to her side. “What’s so difficult about it, Lay? All you have to do is pick up the phone, press the speed dial number for Sam, and say ‘hi.”’

Layla laughed without humor. “Excuse me, but if I’m not mistaken, you were at the dinner last night, weren’t you? You saw what happened. I can’t call him!”

Looked like making coffee was out.

“So don’t call him then, I don’t care,” Mallory grumbled.

Silence.

Great. She’d just pissed off her grieving friend. She squinted against the sun slanting in through the kitchen window then closed the stained shade against the glare. Grieving? Layla hadn’t just lost a relative. She’d called off a wedding. Purposely. With full knowledge of what she was doing.

“Filter,” she said absently.

“What?” Layla asked.

Mallory shook her head then trudged back out into the living room/dining room, searching for something, anything she could use as a filter. “Nothing,” she said. “Look, Lay, why don’t you go out somewhere? Go to Reilly’s. That’s where I’m planning to be in twenty minutes. Meet me there.”

A heavy sigh. “Maybe you’re right. I probably shouldn’t be sitting here by myself moping around. And I’ve already done all the canceling that I can. By now everyone knows what happened anyway. If they don’t…well, I guess they’ll find out when they get to the church, won’t they?”

There was a brief knock at Mallory’s apartment door. She stared at the closed and multiple-locked barrier, an image of Jack with an extra-large cup of coffee popping to mind. She wasn’t sure which made her mouth water more. Jack or the coffee. She hurried to the door and threw it open.

Not Jack.

Not even coffee.

Instead, her neighbor Candy Cane stood in the doorway looking well turned out—as usual—in full makeup, teased blond hair, and pink-and-red kimono robe, likely just having returned home from a busy night walking the strip.

“Oh, it’s you,” Mallory said.

Candy flashed her a smile. Somewhere around forty, Candy was a prostitute who never made any apologies about who she was or what she did for a living. Mallory liked that about her.

Unfortunately she was also an early riser; something Mallory didn’t like.

“Sugar?” Candy asked, dangling an empty porcelain coffee cup from one perfectly manicured finger.

“Filters?” Mallory returned.

“Who’s there?” Layla asked over the phone.

“Candy. Just a second,” Mallory answered then dropped the receiver to her side. “I’ll trade you sugar for a coffee filter.”

Candy scrunched up her nose, making her look cuter if that were at all possible. “I don’t touch the stuff. Do you know what it does to your skin?”

“I don’t care what it does to my skin. I just care that it wakes me up.”

Candy shook her head, walked through to the kitchen, got her sugar, then was standing in the doorway again in no time. “Thanks, hon,” she said with a large smile. “And maybe you should think about some of that instant flavored stuff. I like that.”

Mallory shook her own head then slammed the door after her. What kind of person didn’t drink coffee?

Then again, what kind of hooker took in every kind of stray imaginable, both of the animal and human variety?

“Mallory? Mallory? Are you still there?”

Oops. Layla.

She lifted the receiver back to her ear. What had she been saying? Oh, yeah, they’d been discussing meeting up at Reilly’s to help Layla make it through the day of her cancelled wedding. “I’m still here. And what you just said about everyone finding out on their own steam? Well, you sound like the Layla I know and love again already.”

Mallory’s gaze traveled around her apartment. Newspapers, her plastic-wrapped bridesmaid dress, the panty hose to go with it.

Panty hose…

She picked up the square package, a nagging voice at the back of her mind telling her that maybe she shouldn’t. What? she answered. There was no wedding, so she didn’t need them anyway.

She tore open the plastic, yanked out the silky stockings then headed back for the kitchen.

“You always make sense,” Layla said. “I knew there was a reason I called you.”

Mallory grimaced. Whatever that meant. She got a pair of scissors out of a drawer and cut the foot out of one of the stockings. With help from a rubber band, she fastened the makeshift filter to the holder then dumped the coffee grounds in.

“So I’ll see you at Reilly’s in a few, then?” Mallory asked.

“Got it,” Layla confirmed.

Mallory clicked the disconnect button then put the cell down on the counter and stared as the coffeemaker gurgled then spat out her one precious cup of caffeine. Her gaze drifted back to the cell phone. She picked it up and pressed a speed dial number.

ACROSS THE WAY IN Culver City, Jack sat at his narrow kitchen table in a pair of jeans and leisurely drank a cup of coffee, his ten-year-old bloodhound at his feet, the morning newspaper in his hand. As far as apartments went, his wasn’t much bigger than Mallory’s. But it was much better organized. And a great deal neater. If there was one thing he hated about Mallory, it was her housekeeping skills. Or lack thereof.

No good. The negative reflection wasn’t enough to chase from his mind the memory of her face as she reached orgasm in the linen closet last night.

Damn.

He glanced over the paper at the calendar on the wall with the number 26 circled in red indicating the deadline for his January column, then rustled the paper back to block it again.

What was Mallory doing right now?

He frowned. Probably sleeping. Probably thinking everything was still right as rain between them. Probably choosing to forget the entire conversation they’d had the night before.

He rustled the paper again, trying to make himself focus on the words, but he couldn’t seem to link more than two of them together, and two words didn’t make a sentence. Or a whole lot of sense for that matter.

Boomer lifted his head to stare at him with his droopy eyes and then whined.

“What is it, B?” Jack glanced over at the dog’s full food and water bowls, then looked at the newspaper again. Boomer sighed heavily then laid his head back down.

At ten years of age—which was ancient for a bloodhound—the dog was becoming increasingly lazier. If that was even possible. One morning Jack had actually timed him and the dog hadn’t moved in five straight hours. Not to eat. Not to use the dog door to go into the patch of dead grass that served as his backyard to go to the bathroom. Nothing.

He should call the vet and find out if the behavior was normal. Then again, he’d just taken Boomer to the vet for his annual two months ago and everything had checked out fine.

The only time the old hound seemed animated was when Mallory was around.

Jack gave up on the paper altogether and blew a long breath out of his inflated cheeks. If he was going to stick to his threat not to have sex with Mallory again, he’d have to stop thinking every other minute about having it with her.

The phone on the wall rang. He glanced over his shoulder where it was two feet away, then leaned back on the rear two legs of the chair to snatch up the cordless receiver.

“Yeah,” he said, settling the legs of his chair back onto the floor.

“Reilly’s. Quick. Pick me up.”

Jack’s throat tightened. It was Mallory. And she’d just said those five words.

“And bring emergency rations.”

She hung up.

Jack stared at the receiver. True to form, Mallory was acting like last night had never happened.

He shut off the phone then laid it on the table.

He picked the paper back up and shook it out, this time intent on getting something out of it.

He was well into his tenth story when the phone rang again twelve minutes later.

“Are you on the road?” was Mallory’s hello.

“Nope.”

“Jack!” she said. “What’s the matter with you? Get over here, pronto. I don’t have coffee and I’m an inch away from dead.”

“So I’ll call the engraver for your tombstone.”

“Ha, ha. Funny man. It’s too early for funny.”

“It’s ten-thirty.”

“Way too early for funny.”

Jack moved the receiver to his other ear and closed the paper again. Despite what Mallory thought, he did have things he needed to be doing. He’d already spent more than enough time screwing around trying to read the newspaper. But in order to see to the other items on his agenda he had to be reasonably sure he could function properly without thoughts of Mallory intruding on his thoughts every five minutes.

“Jack?”

“Hmm.”

“Oh. For a minute there I thought you’d hung up.”

“Nope.”

“But you’re filling the travel cup and getting your car keys now, right?”

“Nope.”

“But Layla needs us.”

He lifted his brows. “How, exactly, does Layla need us?”

“She needs immediate TLC. She’s waiting at Reilly’s as we speak.”

Jack rubbed his hand over his forehead and eyes and absently thought that he needed a shave.

“It’s going to look suspicious if we don’t show.”

“Take the subway.”

A heartbeat of a pause. “And you?”

“I’ll go on my own.”

“Then that’ll look doubly suspicious because you always drive me.”

He thought of the wreck that sat parked at the curb outside her apartment. “So get your car fixed.”

“You know I can’t.”

What sucked was that he did know.

Jack picked up his coffee cup only to find he’d already drained the contents, then looked down at Boomer who’d lifted his head and seemed to be following Jack’s end of the conversation.

“Give me ten.”

Mallory hung up instantly.

THE NEXT HOUR SEEMED like a lifetime to Mallory, despite the endless supply of lifesaving, strong, hot coffee (the one cup she managed to brew at home had looked like a grease slick was floating on top) and sticky buns. Jack hadn’t spoken to her during the drive over—which was really bad because it meant he was serious about his ultimatum and she didn’t have any idea what to do about that. Layla looked like she’d spent the whole of last night crying and her face was a splotchy mess. And Reilly wasn’t faring much better with her unsmiling expressions and long silences.

Mallory sat up, hating to admit that three sticky buns was at least a half a sticky bun too many. At least the way Reilly made them, which was really big and really sticky.

Then again, it might be the whole relationship thing. She’d spent her entire life watching her mother go from husband to boyfriend to husband again, unable to spend five solitary moments alone. Mallory had always told herself she would never do that. Would never put herself into a position where she was emotionally and financially dependent on a man, or anyone else for that matter.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know what you two are so down about. I mean, the way I see it you just dodged the ultimate bullet, Layla.” Her friend cringed. She switched her attention to Reilly. “And, well, you pretty much know I’ve had my doubts about Ben all along, Rei.”

Another cringe.

She looked at Jack who was glaring at her.

“What?” she barked. “What is it about the three of you this morning? I swear, you’re enough to make a corpse be sorry for dying.”

Layla sighed heavily for what seemed like the umpteenth time. “You don’t understand, Mallory.”

“What’s there to understand? I may not be Mensa material, but I’ve been known to rub two thoughts together.”

“You don’t get it,” Reilly said, gesturing with her hands. “Because you’re…single.”

Mallory’s spine snapped upright.

Jack pushed from the table. “I’m going to get some more napkins.”

Coward, Mallory wanted to say.

Instead she sniffed and said, “I’m not single, I’m busy.”

Layla and Reilly looked at her pitifully.

“At least I’m not crying into my coffee like you two,” she said quietly. “God, you guys know how I hate whining. And right now you two are walking, talking poster children for whiners the world over.”

Reilly snapped to. “For someone who claims to be a liberal, you’re awfully opinionated and judgmental.”

Layla agreed. “Is there a single person, group or entity that you haven’t insulted at one point or another?”

Mallory honestly didn’t know what to say.

Layla pushed from the table. “God, you can be so damn cynical.”

“Bitter,” Reilly said. “She’s bitter.”

Jack picked that moment to return to the table. “I’d go with cynical. To be bitter you have to have something to be bitter about. And Mallory’s too scared to live.”

All three women stared at him, shocked.

Making Mallory want to die.

She glanced at her two female friends, wondering what Jack had revealed with his little piece of personal insight. Was what he’d said something a friend would offer up? Of course, it probably was, but when coupled with the fact that he, as a rule, disappeared whenever one of these discussions surfaced, and never contributed anything, his change in protocol was sure to raise some brows.

Interestingly enough, however, neither Layla nor Reilly seemed to catch on.

Reilly pointed at him. “You know something? You’re right.”

Mallory made a face and gathered her backpack. It was chock full of everything a working producer needed.

Now, if only she could find some work.

Actually, not so much work, but capital to work with. Her current subject, The Red Gardenia, was waiting.

The Red Gardenia who haunted her at times when she’d be better off thinking about something else. But there was just something about the subject, about Jenny Fuller, that intrigued her. The similarities in their ambitions, maybe. Whatever it was, this documentary, more than the others, was one she was driven to make.

“Jack, I think it’s time for us to go,” she said.

He leisurely drank his coffee. “Go where? I’m not going anywhere.”

Mallory glared at him, resisting the urge to point out that Layla was watching the interplay with great curiosity. “Yes, we are. You promised to take me to that site for The Red Gardenia, remember?”

He slowly shook his head. “Nope. I don’t recall.”

Reilly narrowed her eyes. “Have you two had a fight or something?”

“No,” Mallory said.

“Yes,” Jack said at the same time.

Layla looked back and forth. “Well, which is it?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Mallory said quickly. “We’ve already kissed and made up. Haven’t we, Jack?”

He didn’t answer her.

Reilly made an uh-oh sound. “Doesn’t look that way to me. What are you two arguing about?”

Oh, was it ever time to get out of there. Mallory grabbed Jack’s arm and virtually jerked him from his chair. “We’d really like to discuss it with you, but from the looks of things you both have enough on your plates already. Don’t they, Jack?”

He looked like he might like to strangle her.

The Red Gardenia had been strangled. Which Mallory really wanted to look into more—if Jack would just cooperate.

“It might help us forget our own problems,” Reilly said.

“Don’t worry. It’s nothing the two of us can’t work out,” Mallory said. “Come on or we’ll be late.” She flashed a smile at her friends. “I’ll call you both later, okay?”

They both smiled at her like they expected those phone calls to fill them in on what they were missing.

Ha! Fat chance.

WHAT WAS IT ABOUT THE woman that got under his skin so?

Jack sat behind the wheel of his ’69 Chevy Camaro Z-28 and watched Mallory walk up and down Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, stopping every now and again to take notes. Today she wore a tight pair of faded jeans and a powder-blue T-shirt that read “Outta My Way or You’re Roadkill.”

Jack leaned his elbow in his open window and sighed. He only wished he didn’t feel like roadkill.

He really couldn’t say what had made him drive her to where she wanted to go. One minute he’d been about to spill all to Reilly and Layla, the next Mallory was giving him directions and he was following them.

He absently rubbed the back of his neck, watching as she approached someone and struck up a conversation, her pen waving in the air as she gestured with her hand. She was good at what she did. He knew that. Her documentaries were edgy and current and offered an unflinching viewpoint that not many filmmakers could capture. The word “real” sprung to mind. Her vision was real. Just like Mallory, herself, was real. Earthy. No nonsense. Sexy as hell.

And an unqualified pain in the ass.

He glanced at his wrist only to find he wasn’t wearing his watch. Which wasn’t surprising, because he usually didn’t wear his watch. That he was even looking to see what time it was said a lot.

Didn’t she understand that he had places to go, people to see?

No, he realized, she didn’t. Because, unlike her, he didn’t lay out his agenda like an open book.

He laid on the horn. Mallory shielded her eyes and looked in his direction while still talking to the woman she’d just introduced herself to. Then she gave him a little wave and returned her attention to her new friend.

Jack was half-tempted to drive away. But he knew he wouldn’t. No matter how maddening it was to watch her curvy little bottom in those tight jeans. Or wonder at the way the light December California breeze toyed with her dark curls. Or stare at the way her mouth moved when she talked.

He forced his attention away and stared instead at the street ahead. Shit. He was in deep, wasn’t he? When he’d thrown out the ultimatum last night, it had begun as a joke of sorts. But once it was out of his mouth, he’d discovered that he’d said exactly what he’d wanted to say.

And was now finding out that not only was he in deep, he was in it up to his elbows.

Not good.

Not good at all.

Especially since he had the sinking sensation that Mallory might never come to her senses and would spend the rest of her life—and his—making him live in a state of limbo.

He searched in the glove compartment for the pack of cigarettes he always kept there. Only he didn’t find them. He pulled down both sun visors, glad when the driver’s side one yielded a crumpled pack with one cigarette inside. He shook it out and lighted it with the car lighter.

Shit.

He filled his lungs with the acrid smoke then slowly blew it out.

Shit, shit, shit.