Faking It - Crusie Jennifer - Страница 23

Steve dozed on the rug beside the couch, oblivious to both of them. He had the right idea. She should have taken a nap instead.

Then Davy pushed himself up on one arm and looked in her eyes, nose to nose. “So what was that?” he said, still breathing hard, looking mad. “A fake or a forgery?”

“Hey.” She tried to sit up, and he shook his head.

“You’re a terrible actress,” he said, and collapsed on top of her again.

“Your foreplay was okay,” she said crushingly to the top of his head. “Your afterplay sucks.”

“Sorry,” he said, clearly not, and eased away from her, and she looked at the ceiling as she pulled up her jeans, and he got rid of the condom and got dressed.

“Well, gee, I can’t thank you enough,” she said when they were both clothed again. She made her eyes wide. “What a good time.”

He shook his head and turned away from her. “Good night, Tilda. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Ouch, she thought, and then he turned back and said, “Look, don’t fake. It’s lousy for everybody.”

“Gee, you sounded like you were having a pretty good time,” Tilda said, stung.

He started to say something and then shook his head again and headed for the door.

When he was gone, Steve jumped up on the couch again and Tilda patted him and tried to blame everything on Davy, but fairness got in the way. Okay, so it hadn’t been good. That was her fault. She wanted to be Louise and she wasn’t. She was a fake, she just wasn’t a hot fake.

Although she was sure as hell a tense fake, damn it.

And if he were any kind of a lover, he would have known something was wrong.

She punched buttons on the jukebox and decided to forget about Davy and concentrate on the comfort of music. She lay down on the couch and Steve climbed on top of her stomach and stretched out, his nose underneath her chin. “Lotta guys doing that tonight,” she told him and when he looked at her adoringly, she relented and patted him. “You’re a good man, Steve. Needy, but good.”

That was one thing Davy wasn’t. She had to give him that. Completely self-sufficient, didn’t need her for anything. Davy would never tell her she had to choose between him and her family. Of course, Davy would never propose, either. That was the problem with independence. It so rarely went well with commitment. Which she didn’t want anyway because she had enough people to take care of.

Maybe that’s why I don’t miss Scott, she thought and then shoved Scott and Davy and uncompleted sex-not that that was bothering her-out of her mind and let the music fill the void until she heard Andrew and Louise come in the back door and hit the stairs. If they were home, it was past midnight.

She got up as the jukebox began to play “The Kind of Boy You Can’t Forget,” and picked up the painting from the table. “Well, let’s look at you,” she said. “You’re the one that started this mess.” She tore the paper off and then stopped, staring at the cupped yellow flowers that rioted under the checkerboard sky while the Raindrops burbled, “I ain’t got over it yet.”

Flowers. Not houses, flowers. He’d stolen the wrong damn painting again. Her already tense system split down the seams, and she headed for the stairs.

She stomped on every tread as if it were Davy’s head as she climbed the three stories to his door, Steve trailing dutifully behind her. “Open up!” she said, pounding on it, not caring who heard.

After a minute he opened the door, wearing nothing but black boxers, looking sleepy and annoyed. “Look, if this is about the couch, I don’t want to hear-”

She shoved the canvas at him. “I said a city?” Snapping at him felt wonderful, really, she just wanted to rip him apart. “These ate flowers.”

He took it and shoved it back at her, pointing at the houses in the distance. “Those are houses. See? Those little red things? That’s a city”

“Yes, little” Tilda spit back. “In the background. Everybody knows if you say city, it means a big city, it means what the picture is about.”

“That’s true,” Dorcas said from the doorway behind them as she peered at the painting from her doorway. “That’s a painting of flowers.”

“Thank you, Dorcas,” Tilda said. “Go away.”

“This is so like you,” Davy said, ignoring Dorcas. “It’s all about what you know and I don’t. I don’t know who Gene Pitney is, so it’s my fault.”

“ ‘Town Without Pity,’” Gwen said from below on the stairs. “What’s going on?”

Davy jerked his head back from Tilda. “Why are you here?” he asked, looking down the stairwell at Gwen.

“I live here,” Gwen said. “Why are you shouting about Gene Pitney?”

“ ‘True Love Never Runs Smooth,’” Louise said from behind her, her black china-doll wig swinging away from her stage makeup as she stretched to see the painting.

“‘Only Love Can Break a Heart,’” Andrew said, from behind Louise.

“ ‘One Fine Day,’” Dorcas said, from behind Tilda.

“That’s the Chiffons,” Tilda said to Dorcas, fed up with everybody. “Will you people please go back to bed?”

“I wasn’t the one screaming in the hall,” Dorcas said and shut her door.

“She has a point,” Gwen said. “What’s going on?”

“Did Davy say something bad about Gene Pitney?” Nadine said, from farthest down the stairs. “Because I think he has a point.”

“It’s not about Gene Pitney,” Davy said, fixing Tilda with cold eyes. “It’s about people who do not give other people the information they need to get the job done.”

“What job?” Louise said, her eyes dark behind black contacts. “Is that the painting?” Tilda turned it so she could see it. “Oh. No. It isn’t.”

“You got the wrong one again?” Gwen said.

“Hello,” Davy said, squinting at Louise in the dim hall with interest. Suddenly he wasn’t nearly as sleepy or annoyed, and Tilda wanted to kick him.

“Hello.” Louise handed the painting back to Gwen, looked him up and down and smiled, and then faded down the dark stairs in her four-inch heels, probably trying to get away before he noticed she was Eve.

Davy stretched his neck to watch her go as Tilda took the painting back from Gwen. “If you’re all finished yelling at me,” he said, when Louise was history, “I’d like to go to bed. Alone.”

“Not a problem,” Tilda said, and he slammed the door in her face.

“So, the evening went well, did it?” Gwen said.

“No,” Tilda said. “The evening sucked. But don’t worry, I will figure out a way to get the right painting back.” She went down the stairs, Steve on her heels once more, slammed the office door behind them, threw the painting back on the table, and plopped herself down on the couch, determined not to cry. It had been a horrible, horrible night. She felt her face crumple. It had been-

Louise came in, leggy in her heels. “You okay?”

“No,” Tilda said, ready to burst into tears.

“Jeez.” Louise sat down beside her and put her arm around her, her long red nails looking like petals on Tilda’s T-shirt. “That bad. What did he do?”

“It’s not him, it’s me.” Tilda tried to smooth out her face and crumpled it more in the process. “God, I’m hopeless.”

“Better not be,” Louise said. “You’re holding the rest of us together. What happened?”

Tilda drew a deep shuddering breath. “Lousy sex.”

“Really.” Louise looked thoughtful as she sat back. “I thought he’d be hot. He’s got that look going on in his eyes. And a very nice body.”

“He probably would have been great with you,” Tilda said, defeated. “I just wasn’t in the mood.”

“Well, why didn’t you say no?”

“Because I was in the mood when we started,” Tilda said. “I really was. Except that it’s Davy, and he sees everything so you can’t let your guard down, plus, the embarrassment factor. I mean, I hardly know him.” She turned to look at Louise. “That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”