Stranger

My dad didn’t look ashamed. “I’m just saying. You’re a lovely young woman. He’s a young guy.”

I sighed, heavily and on purpose. “And he’s my intern. That’s it. Drop it, okay?”

My dad just looked at me, up and down. He didn’t say he was sorry, the way my mom would’ve, and he didn’t bug me for answers the way my sister would have. He just shook his head slowly from side to side and left me to wonder what that meant.

“What’s that sign out there say?”

Whatever I’d imagined he might say, it wasn’t that. “Frawley and Sons.”

My dad nodded. He put his glasses away into his breast pocket. He stood, the folder of bills in one hand. “Think about that.”

He turned to go, apparently not planning to say anything else, and I got up. “Dad!”

My dad stopped in the doorway, but didn’t look at me.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I cried.

He looked at me then, the same look he’d given when I’d sneaked in after curfew, or brought home a bad grade. The look said he knew I could do better. More than could. Should. Must. Would.

“I’m sure your sister won’t let her kids come within an arm’s length of this place. Your brother…” He paused, but only for a second. “Craig, if he ever has any, won’t either.”

“So it’s up to me, is that what you’re saying?” I blinked, hard, thinking the sting in my eyes would go away.

“You’re getting older, too, Gracie, that’s all I’m saying.”

If I was getting older, why was he still so good at making me feel like a kid? “Dad! Are you kidding me? You are not actually suggesting I need to get married, are you? Have some sons? Just for a stupid sign?”

He bristled. “There’s nothing stupid about that sign!”

“Right, nothing stupid except for the fact I’m not a son!” My shout shot around the room and hung there for a moment until silence defeated it.

Everyone had assumed my brother would take over from my dad. Everyone but Craig. The news had finally been delivered one Thanksgiving when the inevitable argument erupted between him and our dad about Craig stepping into the shoes of the son in Frawley and Sons. Craig, eighteen at the time, planned to go to NYU film school instead. Craig had left the table and not come back for a long time. He lived in New York with a series of increasingly younger actresses and made commercials and music videos. One of his documentaries had been nominated for an Emmy.

“I’ll get these back to you in a few days,” he said.

My dad pushed through the door and I watched him go, then sank back into the seat behind the desk. My chair. My place. My fucking desk, if you wanted to get right down to it. This was my office, and my business now.

Even if I wasn’t a son.

I’d never thought of Jared as anything other than an intern, but knowing that other people were making romantic assumptions about us, I couldn’t stop thinking about him like that. It pissed me off. Until now, we’d had the perfect working relationship. It was as uncomplicated as my dates with Mrs. Smith’s gentlemen.

It wasn’t as if I’d never noticed Jared was attractive or anything. He had a nice face, kept in shape, had an affable personality that made him easy to get along with. We joked a lot, but I’d never had even a hint that he was flirting with me, and I know I never did with him. Why couldn’t men and women just be friends without someone, somewhere, shoehorning sex into it? On the other hand, why did everyone assume that having sex with someone meant you had to fall in love?

“Hey, Grace. Want me to give Betty a bath while I’m out there?”

“You know, I have noticed you have a serious hearse fetish, Jared.” I took the last pile of brochures from the printer and stacked them neatly on Shelly’s desk for her to fold. “But sure. If you want to.”

“Sweet.” Jared grinned and headed out through the back doors into the parking lot and the fresh April air.

Black Betty was my car. A 1981 Camaro, it had been Craig’s first, purchased with his after-school newspaper-delivery money in honor of his obsession with the punk band The Dead Milkmen. I’d inherited it when he’d moved to New York. I only drove it when I didn’t want to use the funeral home’s minivan emblazoned with the Frawley and Sons logo. It was my sex car. She didn’t quite run like lightning, but she sure sounded like thunder. Jared lusted after her. I noticed boys did that a lot. Ben had, too.

I followed him to the garage, a converted carriage house barely big enough to fit our hearse, the minivan we used to transport bodies and Betty. Bigger funeral homes had more cars, and someday I hoped to add a flower car or a vehicle mourners could ride in. One thing at a time.

“You coming to help me?” Jared filled a bucket with water from the spigot and grabbed up a big sponge from one of the neatly kept shelves. He’d already pulled the hearse out into the driveway. “I thought you hated washing the hearse.”

“Yeah. My dad used to make me and Craig do it every Saturday.” I didn’t take a sponge and stayed well away from the splash zone. I was still dressed for work and had an appointment in an hour.

Jared gave me a curious look. “You worried I’m going to hurt Betty or something?”

“No.” I looked fondly at the car that had seen me through two proms, college and numerous other escapades. “She’s a big girl. She can take care of herself.”

Jared snorted and dipped his sponge into the soapy water, then knelt next to the hearse and started working on the wheels. “Just as long as she doesn’t come to life and start killing people. Hey. That would be a good twist, huh? The car goes around knocking people off to bring more business.”

“Ha, ha.” I shook my head. “Don’t ever say anything like that to my dad.”

“I won’t. Your dad’s scary enough.” Jared scrubbed, then gave me a glance over his shoulder. “Boss, you’ve got something to talk to me about?”

I didn’t, really. I couldn’t exactly tell him my dad and maybe half the town thought we were schtupping. “I just wanted to tell you that you’re doing good work. That’s all.”

Jared stopped washing the tires and stood, his hands covered in foam. “Thanks, Grace.”

His smile was nice enough but didn’t send sparkles through me, and the fact I was even trying to see if it did pissed me off. “You’re welcome.”

He was still looking at me curiously. “Anything else?”

“No. Carry on.” I shooed him with my hands and went back inside, where Shelly was busy folding brochures and answering the phone.

I went to my office, where I sat in my chair and surveyed my realm without the satisfaction it usually brought me. No matter how hard I worked, there were always going to be people, my dad and sister among them, who measured my success by their standards. I didn’t want to let their view of what my life should be affect me.

Unfortunately, it did.

Jack’s self-description had not been incorrect. He waited for me where I’d told him to, and though I knew he was a smoker I couldn’t smell it on him. God, he was young. He looked no older than twenty-two or twenty-three, and that was being generous. Young but pretty, even with the metal in his face. More than pretty. Jack was downright gorgeous.

He’d said his hair was dark, but it was impossible to see that under the ball cap he wore pulled low over his eyes. I didn’t recognize the name of the punk-rock band on the black T-shirt he wore over a long-sleeved white Henley pushed up on his elbows to show off an intricate design of tattoos beginning at his left wrist and covering all the skin I could see on his arm. He wore faded jeans low on his hips and held in place with a black leather belt.

“Jack?” I held out my hand.

He shook it firmly and didn’t squeeze too tight or hold it for too long. “Yes.”

“I’m Miss Underfire. But you can call me Grace.”

Jack smiled. “Pretty name.”

If my name were Esther or Hepzibah he’d have said the same thing. As if a name matters. And again, I was thinking of Sam.

“Thanks. So’s Jack.”

Jack smiled, and I stared, dumbfounded at the transformation in his face. Without a smile he was gorgeous. With one…incandescent.

Either he didn’t understand this or he’d long ago learned to deal with gape-mouthed women, because he didn’t look taken aback. “Sure, if you don’t mind the nicknames.”

I burbled something incoherent, unable to manage much more than that, at least until the superpower of his smile released me.

“Nicknames?”

He hung back a little, letting me lead. I turned left out of the parking garage’s small driveway. The street was crowded and would only get more so as the night went on. Listening to Jack laugh was like sipping premium hot chocolate. Warm and decadent. Delicious.

“Jackrabbit,” he said. “Jackhammer. Jack of all trades. Jack Sprat. Jackass.”

I joined his laughter. We headed toward the Pharmacy. Someone had bought the original drugstore on the ground floor and turned it into a hot spot for up-and-coming bands. There was dancing upstairs, where the walls were painted silver and cages were set onto the dance floor.

“I won’t call you Jackass. I promise.”

Jack turned a half-wattage grin on me, for which I was grateful. I didn’t want to be struck dumb again. “Thanks. I’ll try not to act like one.”

This early we didn’t have to wait in much of a line. I thought of sneaking a peek at Jack’s driver’s license when he pulled it out to show the bouncer at the door, but I could only catch a glimpse of his photo. He was old enough to get into the club, at least.

“Jacko,” said the bouncer, barely looking at the license as he slid it into the nifty little machine that scanned it for legality. “You still over at the Lamb?”

Jack took back his license and slipped it into the plain black wallet he’d pulled from a back pocket. “Yeah. Part-time.”

“Yeah?” The bouncer took my card without even looking at me. He slid it through the scanner perfunctorily. I guess I didn’t look underage. “What else you doing?”

Jack didn’t even give me a glance. “Going to school.”

“No shit?” The bouncer goggled. “What for?”

“Graphic design.” Jack shrugged a little. He neatly nipped the conversation short with a grin and one of those specifically male gestures that probably originated as caveman sign language. Kind of a trigger-finger, club-swinging motion.

I let him lead the way inside. Jack was good at picking up my cues, but he wasn’t quite good enough to make it seamless. He got an A for effort, though, when he asked me what I wanted to drink and got it for me, along with a beer for himself.

Downstairs, an odd mix of current hip-hop and old-school rock blared from the speakers as people mingled in front of the small stage where the night’s band would perform. It was cooler and less crowded here than it would be upstairs, and for the moment I was content to sip my beer and watch the crowd.

“So,” I said by way of conversation. “Graphic design? That’s interesting.”

He grinned around his beer and gave the same sort of shrug he’d given the bouncer. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“You must think so,” I said. “Or else you wouldn’t be studying it.”

Jack nodded after a second. “Yeah. It is. I think I’ll be good at it. I like it, anyway. And it beats bartending.”

It might beat fucking for money, too, but I didn’t say that. “You’re a bartender?”

“Yeah. At the Slaughtered Lamb. Just down the street.”

“I haven’t been there.”

“You should come by,” he said, but couldn’t make me believe he meant it.

Two girls dressed in too-tight tops and too-short skirts sidled by, eyeing him. “Hey, Jack,” said the taller one.

Jack nodded. “Hey.”

The girls eyed me next. I smiled and lifted my bottle, waiting for a challenge. The shorter girl tugged the taller’s elbow, pulling her away before there could be one.

“Sorry.” Jack looked pained.

“Old girlfriend?”

He shrugged, nodded, shrugged again. “She thought so.”

“Ah.” I drank more beer, wanting to finish before it got warm. “She the one who called you Jackass?”

God, that fucking smile again. The real one. Brilliance. It totally slayed me and erased each unsmooth moment of this date so far.

“Probably,” Jack said.

This wasn’t the best date I’d ever been on, but it wasn’t the worst, either. Jack seemed new to this, which was forgivable. I wasn’t as demanding a client as I knew some women to be. Sometimes the gentlemen, though they weren’t supposed to, spoke out of school.

“Jack, do me a favor, would you?”

“Yeah?”

I leaned closer to him. Tonight I wore stack-heeled boots that allowed me to reach his ear with my mouth without stretching. “Take off your hat.”

He did at once, hooking it with one finger and shaking his hair when it came off. Guh. So. Fucking. Pretty.

I don’t believe in love at first sight, but I do know firsthand the way my body can be triggered into full-on lust mode at the sight of something simple. Jack’s black hair streamed like silk over one eye. Short in the back, longer in front, it invited my fingers to run through it. He pushed it off his face, fingers stuttering just slightly as if he wasn’t sure what to do with his hand.

“Very nice,” I said.

He was nervous, I realized suddenly. More nervous than I was. I felt tender. Also very turned on.

I finished my drink and put the bottle on the bar. I leaned in again. He turned his head when I did, so his breath sifted over my face. I smelled beer and cologne and still no smoke. Heat filled the minute space between our faces.

I took his hand. “C’mon. Let’s go dance.”

I pulled him upstairs, his hand in mine, and led him to the middle of the dance floor where strobe lights threatened to give the dancers seizures and the music was so loud the bass thumped like a drum in my stomach. There was no question of talking here, so neither of us had to feel like we had to speak. We only had to move.

I love to dance. Always have. I’ve never had lessons, not even the ballet/tap/jazz classes so many little girls take. I wasn’t a performer. I just liked to move, to sweat. To work my body. Good dancing is like good sex. Fucking with clothes on.

Lots of the guys up there stood back and watched the girls writhing. A few shuffled back and forth, or did some grinding. Some, fueled by fifty-cent drafts, jerked around like fish on a line.

Jack had moves. Nothing fancy, just an innate sense of rhythm that kept him moving in time to the beat. He looked good, and I caught more than one group of girls checking him out. He kept his eyes on me, the hat now tucked into his back pocket and his hair still falling like silk. He kept brushing it back, like it annoyed him.

We danced hard, and he kept up with me. When a slower song came on, the floor filled at once with couples doing some sort of grinding, rubbing thing. Jack looked at me. I looked at him and waited for him to take me in his arms.

When he didn’t, I gave an inward sigh and crooked my finger. That grin again, the one that made my thighs twitch, lit up his face. He molded himself to my body without another hesitation. If I’d thought he was a decent dancer before, I discovered he was frigging brilliant, now.

He’d been waiting for permission, and once he had it, he didn’t stop. We danced fast, we danced slow. It was constant full-body contact after that, his hands on my hips and ass and keeping us connected in all the important places. And every now and again he’d give me that grin. He was having fun. So was I.

The best part of all of it was knowing that no matter what happened on the dance floor, it would go no further if I didn’t want it to. Of course, it would go no further if he didn’t want it to, also. Legally, I was paying Jack for his time and company, not for sex. Any monkeyshines we got up to later would be between two consenting adults, only. I’d never had a date turn me down, though, and I didn’t expect Jack to.

If I wanted him, I’d have him, but even though he was lovely and a good dancer, I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to take him to bed. Sam’s face still lingered on the edges of my mind, and though I figured Jack wouldn’t give a damn if I fucked him while I thought of another man, I would.

For now it was enough to dance a lot, drink a little. Feel his hands on me and watch that smile. Sweat slicked us both and kept his hair back when he pushed it off his face. When I pressed my cheek to his, I resisted seeing if he tasted like salt.

I’d half expected to get paged, but the night spun on without so much as a beep from my phone. I did, however, have a limit to my budget. When I gestured toward the stairs, Jack nodded. To my amusement, he didn’t wait for me to lead this time. He took my hand and wove us through the crowd with the same confidence he’d discovered on the dance floor.

My ears still rang from the music as we reached the street. Jack hadn’t let go of my hand. All hell didn’t quite break loose, but it sure as shit rattled the bars of its cage.

“You asshole!” The tall girl from earlier had quite a bit more liquor in her now. She stumbled out of the doorway, her eyeliner and lipstick smeared.

Jack turned away, face pained again. His fingers tightened in mine, but I let go of his hand. He shot me an apologetic look, which I returned with a half shrug as we started walking.

“Hey, Jack! Jackass! Don’t you walk away from me!”

“C’mon, Kira, don’t.” This came from the marginally less drunk friend. “He’s not worth it!”

Scenes like this were probably commonplace at 1:00 a.m. but I wasn’t usually the one involved in them. In fact, part of what I paid for was the privilege to not be swept up in interpersonal dramas from drunk barsluts showing off their thongs.

“Fuck you, Jack!” Kira couldn’t let it go, apparently.

Jack grimaced and pulled his cap from his back pocket. He put it on, but didn’t look at her. We hadn’t gone more than another few steps down the sidewalk when Kira launched herself at his back.

Jack stumbled forward as she pummeled him, her legs and arms whaling akimbo. She didn’t actually manage to hit him more than once or twice, but the spectators leaped out of the way of her whirling-dervish performance. She was shrieking insults, mostly stupid and incoherent ones.

Jack pushed her off him firmly and grabbed her arm at the same time so she wouldn’t fall on her drunk ass right there on the dirty pavement. She kept trying to hit him and missing, and though it shouldn’t have been funny I had to cover my mouth over a laugh.

“Stop it,” Jack told her and gave her arm a little shake before letting her go. When she flew at him again she managed to knock his cap off. Anger crossed his face and he held her off with one arm while she struggled to get at his face with her nails.

“I hope your Prince Albert fucking rips out and you have to piss through three holes!” she screamed.

“Kira, c’mon,” her friend pleaded, reaching for her.

Kira allowed herself to be led away, still shouting insults. Jack picked up his hat and brushed it off, but didn’t put it on his head. He won more points for that bit of common sense, even if he’d lost a few for dating an idiot like Kira.

“Fuck,” he said after a minute. “I’m sorry.”

His chest rose and fell rapidly, and his hands clenched at his sides. He was shaking, just a little. He reached to his pocket like a reflex, but then pulled it away.

“It’s okay.” It wasn’t, quite, but I wasn’t going to make him feel worse than he obviously already did.

He walked me back to the parking garage in increasingly uncomfortable silence. By the time we got to my car he wasn’t visibly angry any longer, but that didn’t really help. I unlocked Betty’s door and turned to him.

“Well, Jack, it’s been interesting.”

He ran his hand through his hair. “I hope…you had fun.”

Three hundred bucks’ worth? Not so much. “Sure,” I said anyway, because there was no point in being a bitch.

Jack straightened a little at that. “You didn’t have fun.”

“No, no—”

“Grace,” he said. “I know you didn’t. I’m really sorry. Shit. I’m oh-for-two, huh?”

I leaned against my car to watch him. Again his hand drifted to his pocket and pulled away. I thought of the huff-breath-hold. “If you need to smoke, you can go ahead. I don’t care.”

Not now, when I knew there was no way I’d have to taste smoke on his tongue.

His look of relief was so vast I laughed. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one with a lighter emblazoned with a picture of the biohazard symbol. He offered me one, which I declined.

We stood a few feet apart, me still leaning against my car and him leaning against the one parked next to it. He blew the smoke away from my face and visibly stopped twitching. We didn’t say anything until he’d puffed a few times. Then he looked at me.

“Sweet car.” His eyes roamed over Betty’s lines, seeing her as she should be, maybe, instead of how she was.

“It’s my bitchin’ Camaro,” I told him with a grin.

Guys dig cars almost as much as they dig pussy.

“Nice.”

It wasn’t, really—it had rust spots and dings and dents and was saved from being a junker solely because of its “cool” factor rather than any extra-special care I’d given it.

“It runs.” I opened the door. “That’s the best thing that I can say about it.”

Jack drew in more smoke and let it out. “She wasn’t my girlfriend. We hooked up once or twice.”

“You don’t have to explain things to me.”

He shook his head. “Yeah, I know. But I am, okay?”

In the parking garage’s harsh lighting he shouldn’t have looked so pretty, his face all smooth lines and curves. With a cigarette in his mouth and smoke squinting his eyes, he should’ve looked harder. Or at least older.

“Look,” he said when I didn’t answer. “I’ll give you your money back.”

“Mrs. Smith doesn’t offer refunds.”

“I know.” He finished the cigarette and dropped it to the floor to grind it out beneath the toe of his black boot. “But this date really sucked, and I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t all that bad. You’re a good dancer.”

His mouth tipped up a tiny bit. “Thanks. So are you. But that business with Kira…shit. That was fucked. I’m sorry.”

“You can’t help it she’s a stupid cunt,” I told him, and Jack looked shocked for one second before he burst into laughter.

“Can I give you some advice?” I asked, watching him laugh.

He nodded. “Sure.”

“Do you plan on doing this a lot?”

He didn’t ask me what I meant by “this.” “Um…well, yeah.”

“And you want to be good at it, right?”

“Yes. For sure.”

I studied him another moment. “First of all, don’t make appointments where you can’t smoke.”

Surprise swirled around his mouth and eyes. “No?”

“No. Watching you suck on that butt was like watching a baby going for its bottle.”

He laughed, chagrined. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just don’t make dates where you’re going to feel like you can’t be yourself. Because I have to tell you, Jack, that’s what’s going to work for you. Not trying to be someone else.”

He nodded, slowly, and gave me an assessing glance. “I sucked that bad, huh?”

“No. Not really. But…” I thought of how to get my point across. “Okay, think of it this way. What am I paying you for?”

“My time and company,” he answered promptly as he pulled out another cigarette and lit it.

At least he got that right. “Exactly. But you have to act like these are real dates, Jack. You have to do your homework. Read the information Mrs. Smith sends you, and pay attention. Be a little more confident. Don’t make it so much like you’re waiting for permission to show me a good time. Just go for it.”

“What if I’m guessing wrong?”

“If you’re doing everything else right,” I said, “you won’t be.”

He sighed. “Great.”

I laughed and reached forward to push the hair out of his face. “And don’t go on dates where you’re likely to run into psycho barsluts.”