About Face (Wolf Within) Read Free Page A

was by the front door and the other was by the kitchen table. My purse was on the table. I had no earthly idea where my panties were, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to stick around to find out.
    “You don’t have to?” Ron-or-Don made the statement into a question. I wanted to scream, but didn’t. “I mean, I’d like it if you stayed, okay? Unless…you have a boyfriend, right? You kept telling me last night you didn’t, but you do, don’t you? Can you stay for ten minutes to eat something? Please?”
    As he spoke, I shimmied into my bra and last night’s cocktail dress. I spied my panties tucked half under one of the sofa cushions. Disgusting. With a grimace, I plucked them free and debated whether I wanted to put them on.
    “Oh, I just wanted to tell you? I used a condom, okay?” He gave me a sheepish smile and then turned back to the eggs on the stove. They smelled gruesome, and I pressed my lips tightly together to keep from gagging.
    The way he looked at me made me think he expected some sort of response. Congratulations, perhaps? Gratitude? A high five for quick thinking even while inebriated?
    “Safe sex, you know?” he added. I didn’t even remember getting laid, let alone whether there was a condom involved.
    “I have to go,” I repeated as I slid on one of my shoes and lurched for the other, one leg magically longer now, thanks to the four-inch heel.
    “It was a mistake, wasn’t it?” Ron-or-Don asked. “You wish you’d never met me, don’t you?”
    My head hurt. I massaged my temples with the fingers of one hand while I braced myself against the door with the other and slid my foot into the second shoe.
    “I was drunk and so were you.” I was aware I wasn’t being kind and the poor bastard hadn’t done anything wrong. He looked at me in the harsh morning sunlight and more than ever did not resemble Murphy. What the fuck had I been thinking?
    “Look, I’m sorry, I can’t stay. You’re a nice guy.”
    That made him wince. I guess Others didn’t like being called nice. I had no time to figure him out. I didn’t want to figure him out. It did seem as if our roles were reversed. Generally, wasn’t it the guy who rushed out the door in the morning and left the girl to feel guilty and used? Or maybe I was being sexist. I didn’t have a clue.
    “You know what? Can you tell me your name? Can you believe I forgot it?” he confessed as I unlocked the door. Perhaps this was his attempt at a cheap parting shot? I flashed him a rueful smile over my shoulder on the way out.
    “That’s okay, I can’t remember yours either.”
    * * * *
    Lauren’s makeup was spread out in a vast confusion across the bathroom vanity when I walked into our motel room just after five PM that afternoon.
    She wore a peach-colored slip, and her hair had obviously been styled at a salon. Her finger and toenails were colored a darker peach than the slip. Summer color.
    As soon as I walked in, a radiant smile lit up her lovely, perfect face, and she was in my arms a second later. She smelled like Chloe and Calvin Klein’s Escape because, of course, she hadn’t been able to choose between them. I’d thought I’d been so clever. I’d gone through her suitcase before we’d left and taken out all but two perfumes—one for day, one for evening. I should have known she’d wear them both.
    “I thought you’d left. When I came back to the room this morning, your bed wasn’t slept in, and I thought you walked out.” She burrowed her soft face into my shoulder and, as I hugged her, I thought how inverse our relationship was. She was more like the child and I, the mother. It had been that way since my teens, and that aspect hadn’t changed in the past two months, even though I’d desperately wanted it.
    Oh, for a mother I could confide in. What would it be like to have one who would listen to my woes and thoughts and hopes and offer advice, comfort, understanding? All Lauren ever did was look to me to fix things, to