The Scenic Route Read Free Page A

chimp in heat.”
    â€œOh,” Tad said, sounding like he was hurt. He couldn’t have it both ways. Mandy vowed to never again date a musician. Or a twenty-five-year-old.
    â€œI don’t mean to be rude,” she apologized, twisting a strand of her long auburn hair, as she often did, and lamenting what she considered its dull color, as she equally often did.
    â€œIt’s okay,” he said. “I gotta get going anyway.”
    Going where?
she wondered. To the kitchen of his studio apartment? And he hadn’t said what time he wanted to meet up. God help her if she had to be the one to bring up the subject. There had to be some small amount of chivalrous behavior that applied even to the most debased of relationships. But he wasn’t saying anything, and she had been the one who wanted to cut the conversation short. “So, what time do you want to get together?” she asked, trying to sound breezy and sophisticated, like Scarlett Johansson, if Scarlett Johansson had to ask a guy for sex.
    â€œOh,” he said again. “I kind of have plans tonight.”
    â€œYou have plans?” She hated that her voice rose an octave.
    â€œYeah. But I wanted to say hi and see how you were doing.” He said this with complete sincerity. She wanted to smack him.
    â€œYou called me at ten thirty on a Saturday night to see how I was doing?”
    â€œWell, I was going to call earlier, but—”
    â€œI’m doing fine, Tad,” she said, and she would be, just as soon as she hung up.
    â€œYou don’t sound fine. You sound unhappy.”
    Why were men always telling her she sounded unhappy? And why was it always the same men who made her unhappy? She didn’t know when Tad had become one of them. More precisely, she didn’t remember when she’d let him have that kind of power over her emotions. Maybe it was when he kissed her earlobe and said she tasted like home. He shouldn’t have said something like that unless he meant it. She could feel her eyes welling up. She needed to get off the phone before she gave herself away.
    â€œI’m happy, Tad. And I have to get back to work. Really. That’s what happy people do.” The truth was that she had no idea what happy people did, but she had no intention of telling him that. Shewasn’t going to explain that her father had died when she was seven. She wasn’t going to share that she still had nightmares of drowning in the ocean. “One apocalypse at a time,” her brother always said.
    â€œAre you upset with me?” Tad asked.
    Don’t answer that,
she told herself. She wanted to exit gracefully. And swiftly. “Why would I be upset with you?” she heard herself say. “You said you’d call Thursday, and you called Saturday. You said we’d get together this weekend, and we’re not. But you checked in to see how I’m doing, so everything’s hunky-dory.”
    â€œDo you have PMS?”
    Mandy would have slammed down her phone if she had an extended warranty on it. Instead, she clicked off and started hammering away at her computer keyboard: “The first thing you need to know about Mandy’s Manstrosity #37 is that he’s a trumpeter, which means he blows a lot of hot air.”
    She shivered as she remembered the feel of his warm breath on her neck. Then she zipped up the blue hoodie she was wearing and continued typing.

CHAPTER THREE
    S tanding under the Frisbee-sized rain showerhead, Austin wanted nothing more than to spend the next hour, or lifetime, letting the Kohler-branded jets of hot water pummel his head and tired muscles.
    The truth was he didn’t want to go to the wedding. It was something he should have admitted before spending the night on the floor of the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. Or even better, before he purchased the airline ticket.
    He had been trying to spin the event as a social opportunity, and in theory, a wedding was