One Real Thing Read Free

didn’t want to go the distance with him. He didn’t want that for her either. He was sick and tired of being bad for people.
    Wisely, Holly got out of the way as she tried to smack him.
    Three steps to the bed. He could get that far.
    “Fuck you.” Malinda pouted and slouched against the door. Holly sprawled on the bed and squinted against the slivers of light coming in around the curtains, so he could see her professionally sculpted face.
    “You’re slumming,” he told her, tucking one arm under his head before his neck quit holding it up. “You don’t need it, Malinda.”
    “Fuck you,” she said again, tossing back her straw-blonde extensions. “You don’t know what I’m feeling.” She teetered over to the table—only then did Holly realize she was wearing a pair of silver stilettos and nothing else—and pawed through the mess until she found a crumpled pack of cigarettes.
    “You’re feeling like you want your own damn television show,” Holly muttered under his breath, but he hid it by rolling away from her and off the other side of the bed.
    “What?” Her voice was like a dry stick snapping. She paused in the act of lighting a cigarette and struck a dramatic pose.
    “Nothing, baby.” Holly found his balance just in time to keep from lurching into the bathroom and headed for the closet instead. “Just had an idea. How about you go out and get something for us?”
    She grumbled, digging through some of the shopping bags he’d dropped behind the chair. Holly fished a bit of cash out of an old tennis shoe. Experience had taught him to keep the money hidden, and in more than one place—hidden from himself as much as the leeches that kept finding him. He peeled off two twenties and grabbed a pair of boxer shorts from the floor on the way out of the closet. Putting them on restored some small scrap of dignity.
    “How do I look?” Malinda turned to face him.
    Life with Sierra had taught Holly to bite back his first answer. It wasn’t usually productive, even on his good days. Malinda was wearing a cashmere vest that came to midthigh. At least it matched her heels, since it was pale gray. He’d bought it on his postbonfire shopping spree, not because he’d meant to wear it, but because it reminded him of Nick: reserved in form and color, but soft against his cheek. She could have it. Holly didn’t deserve Nick or anything having to do with him.
    “Great. Very hot. Taking the ‘boyfriend’s closet’ look right downtown.”
    The metallic alligator bag under the bed wasn’t his. He wasn’t sure it was Malinda’s either, but what the hell. He grabbed a few other things from under there that were hers—a half-full fifth of vodka, a black-and-pink push-up bra and matching thong, a hot-pink snakeskin wallet and a silver compact—and shoved them into the bag as well. When he surfaced, Malinda was admiring herself in the mirror over the rickety dresser. The cigarette, abandoned in an ashtray on the table, spiraled a thin thread of smoke into the sunlight.
    “I’m pretty,” she said to no one in particular, running her fingers through her hair and pushing it back. She had been even before the surgeries, but Holly kept that thought to himself. Someone’s huge, glossy sunglasses were on the dresser, and she put them on, smiling at her bug-eyed reflection.
    “Here, baby.” He put the bag on her arm, then steered her toward the door.
    “Where am I going?” She looked over her shoulder at him as he ushered her out into the blistering sunlight.
    “You’re gonna go down to the front desk here,” he said slowly and precisely, pressing the folded bills into her hand, “where you’re going to call a cab.”
    “A cab? This won’t get me anywhere I need to go.”
    “It’ll get you as far as your dad’s office.” Holly pushed her away carefully so she didn’t fall off her heels.
    “My dad?” Holly watched her struggle to keep her balance and work out what he was saying at the same