Ladies' Night Andrews, Kay (great novels .txt) 📖

executive with an advertising and marketing company. We’d work all day, then go straight to the house, change clothes, and work ’til one or two in the morning, go back to the condo we were renting, fall into bed, then get up and do the same thing the next day. For six months, we worked every weekend. Some nights we were too tired to even drive home, so we’d just crash on a mattress on the living room floor. Neither Ben nor I had any real do-it-yourself skills. So we taught ourselves. It was all a huge adventure, and we were in it together. We just figured if we messed up, we’d rip it out and start over. We were absolutely fearless. One night, I wanted to put up this ten-inch cove-ceiling molding in the living room. We had exactly enough to do that one room, and I knew it would be fabulous. Ben bet me I couldn’t do it. And of course, I totally messed it up and ended up in tears. He took pity on me, took over, and somehow made it work. But it took hours. It was close to midnight by the time we ate our dinner of Chinese takeout and cheap jug wine, sitting on overturned plastic joint-compound buckets. We got silly drunk and ended up naked, hosing each other off in the backyard. And Ben won the bet, so you can probably figure out what happened next. I can’t remember a happier time in our life together.”

Grace closed the notebook. She heard a soft exhalation of breath from somewhere behind and turned just in time to see Rochelle, scurrying back toward the kitchen.

*   *   *

“Good night,” Grace said, walking out into the Sandbox parking lot with the others. They’d discussed what to do about Paula but hadn’t come to any kind of consensus. “Let’s see what happens next Wednesday,” Suzanne had suggested, and short of any other brilliant ideas, they’d agreed to do just that.

She’d turned to go back inside. “Hey, Grace?” She turned and saw Wyatt, standing in the shadow of a clump of palm trees.

“Hi,” she said.

“Can I talk to you?”

“Okay.” She leaned up against the bumper of his truck and squinted to see his face in the flickering green and red light cast by the bar’s neon sign.

“Wow. That rash or whatever it is on your face really looks painful,” she said.

“The stuff on my face isn’t the worst of it,” Wyatt said, grimacing and jerking his chin downward, toward his belt line.

“Oh.” She caught his meaning and grimaced, too. “Sorry.”

“I’ll be okay. As soon as I get home, I’ll, uh, apply the cortisone cream. And take some Benadryl and drift off to la-la land.”

“I hope you feel better,” she said, sounding cold and insincere, even to herself.

“I hope you mean that,” Wyatt said. “I know I screwed up at Coquina Beach.”

Grace stepped sideways in order to escape the flash of the neon, to hide her confusion and embarrassment.

Wyatt cleared his throat. “Look. I’m not good at this crap. I wasn’t good at it when I was a teenager, and I sure as hell haven’t gained any momentum with age. I just wanted to tell you … don’t write me off. Okay? I really, really like you. The other night? That was great. Really, really great. I wanted to kick myself in the ass afterward.”

Grace just looked at him.

“Is any of this making any sense to you?”

“Not really.”

He sighed. “Instead of divorce recovery, they should have dating-reentry therapy. For dweebs like me who never figured this stuff out.”

She had to laugh then. “Dating reentry. Not a bad idea. Maybe you should suggest that to Paula. If we ever see her again.”

“The point is, I think maybe I had a breakthrough when I was at Stackpole’s office with Callie today.”

“Oh?”

“She hates me. My wife, soon to be ex, hates me. I don’t exactly know why, but she does. And to tell you the truth, I’m not so crazy about her, either. Maybe your mom is right. Maybe Bo is better off if we just split up and get on with our lives.”

“And if Callie gets her way and moves to Birmingham and takes Bo with her?”

“Right now, Stackpole seems like he’s switched sides. But whatever he decides to do, I’m gonna fight that as hard as I can, to keep them from taking him away,” he said, his jaw tightening. “Not just because I’d miss my son, but because I know those two aren’t fit to raise him. He’s an afterthought to them. A bargaining chip.”

Grace did what she’d been wanting to do all evening. She reached out and brushed his face with the palm of her hand. He caught her hand in his and kissed the back of it.

“For a guy, you’re not so bad,” she said.

He pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her waist. “And for a man-hating ball buster, you’re not so bad yourself.”

She leaned in and closed her eyes.

The screened door from the kitchen flew open, and Rochelle stuck her head out. Her voice echoed in the still evening air. “Grace? Your goddamn dog was upstairs whining to get out.”

Sweetie scampered out into the crushed-shell lot, looked up at Grace and Wyatt for only a moment, then discreetly trotted around the palm tree to complete her toilette in private.

31

Grace scooped the little brown dog up into her arms. Sweetie squirmed in ecstasy, covering her chin and neck with kibble-flavored kisses. “Poor little girl,” Grace said. She looked at Wyatt over the dog’s ears. “Sweetie hates being locked up. I think she has the doggie version of post-traumatic stress disorder. So that’s that. I’ve got to figure out something else.”

“She really won’t let you keep a dog? Not even after you explain the circumstances?”

“She’s not a dog person. And anyway, it’s against all kinds of health codes,” Grace said. “Guess I’d better start looking for an apartment.”

“Can you afford that?”

“Not really.”

He hesitated. “Look, I was going to suggest this