Chapter 2 #3
But I was too late. Mary Alice was waving us over, and Ricky broke free and trotted off toward her table. She stood as we approached, meeting us halfway across the room.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice. “Things aren’t too lively in here tonight. There was some excitement earlier at my Aunt Cecilia’s birthday party at her house in town—that’s her, sitting at the piano—and I think everyone’s a little tired.”
“Excitement!” The older woman who had been sitting next to Mary Alice came up behind her.
She was tall, dressed elegantly in a linen-colored sweater and matching slacks, with a sweep of deep auburn hair and a brow that seemed resigned to a life of being disappointed in everyone and everything around her.
“It wasn’t excitement, it was a fire. Some idiot”—she cast an accusing eye over her shoulder to where the younger woman, now alone at their table, was inspecting her nails—“thought it was a good idea to put eighty-five candles on a cake, dropped it, and burned down Cecilia’s dining room. What a bore.”
She turned to Mary Alice, clutching her by the arm.
“Look, I’m sorry, I think Richard is still going to be working in our room for a while, so I’m going to take the girls to a movie.
We need some air. God!” She waved a summons to the two girls, who broke away from talking to Erik at the bar, and the three of them swept out of the room.
“A fire burned down their dining room, and it was a bore? She must lead some life,” Ricky said to Mary Alice.
She gave a small smile. “A lot of things bore her. Usually, it just means that she doesn’t like something.
That was my cousin Richard’s wife, Rachel, and their daughters.
Playing the piano is my Aunt Cecilia’s nephew, Wylie, from her husband’s side.
Over there”—she indicated the young woman with the fascinating cuticles—“is his wife, Tawny. Aunt Cecilia’s daughter, Lis, was around here a minute ago, but I don’t see her now—I was actually looking forward to introducing you to her; she would have liked some non-family company.
Anyway, like I said, maybe tomorrow would be a better time. ”
I wasn’t going to turn down an out. “That’s okay by me if it’s okay by you,” I said, giving Ricky a look.
He caught my eye and lifted an eyebrow slightly. “Sure. Tomorrow will be fine.”
As we turned to go, Tawny got up from her table and tottered after us on alarmingly high leopard-print heels. I was surprised at how quickly she could move in them; she caught up to us near the doorway back to the lobby.
“Hi,” she drawled, grabbing Ricky into a handshake in some kind of blindingly fast jujitsu move. “I thought maybe Mary Alice was gonna introduce us, but I guess she forgot. I’m Tawny—what’s your name?”
“Oh, uh, hi,” Ricky said, the look of shock on his face turning into a help me look as it landed on me. “I’m, uh …”
“Jeff, honey, come on,” I said, grabbing him by his other hand. Jeff? I had no idea where I’d come up with that one.
“Yeah, Jeff,” he said to Tawny as he broke free from her grasp and hustled me toward the elevator. “Nice to meet you, but we have to go, uh, check on our baby.”
“Aww, a baby,” she cooed after us. “Well, look, Jeff, I’m gonna go get some air, so if you need some, too, after you’re done with your baby and all—” She kept talking at Ricky until the elevator doors slid closed.
I burst into laughter. “I’m sorry, I tried to help, but she did not care if you had a gayby with me.”
“Yeah, whatever happened to the sanctity of the family?” he laughed. “Thanks for the fake name, by the way, but Jeff?”
I shrugged at him with my most enigmatic smile as the elevator released us onto our floor.
I keyed us into our room, feeling suddenly adrift as I wandered in.
I had wanted to be here, alone with Ricky; now I was, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
Our upstairs neighbor was loudly playing classical music in the room above us, and I didn’t know whether to be annoyed that it was shattering the illusion that we were alone, or grateful.
“Sounds like a party upstairs,” Ricky commented as he flopped down on the sofa. He turned a wolfish grin on me, patting the cushion next to him. “Good. We can make as much noise as we want and they won’t be bothered.”
“What kind of noisy activities did you have in mind? Popping balloons?” I sat daintily on the edge of the offered seat, pushing myself into not pulling away.
Ricky pondered this for a moment. “I guess I don’t know what would actually be that noisy,” he admitted. He shot a glance toward the balcony. “We could try out the hot tub. We’d be outside, away from the music, and the jets might drown it out if we can still hear it.”
My stomach contracted. My mom watched enough reality dating shows for me to know the enticing terrors that could await me in a hot tub with a handsome, mostly naked Ricky.
My mind hadn’t dared to go to any mostly naked places before, but I had wanted to try to move forward with Ricky.
Keep pushing yourself, Oliver, I reminded myself.
“Um, okay,” I finally squeaked.
Ricky’s wolfish grin came back as he got up, flicked on the light switch next to the balcony door, and stepped out to turn on the heat and the jets.
I sat, pinned to the couch in fear, as he came back in, fished a bathing suit out of his bag, and stepped into the bathroom to change.
Then I realized that I wasn’t ready to see him when he came out, all bare-chested and barelegged and—oof—so I got up and hunched over my duffel, rooting around and pushing my own swimsuit down to the bottom of the bag so I’d have to dig a while longer to get it out.
I heard the bathroom door open, heard his bare feet pad toward the balcony behind me, and bolted for the bathroom to change into my suit.
I leaned over the vanity for a minute once I had my trunks on, trying to take calming breaths but mostly wishing I wasn’t so skinny and pale.
Over the faint swelling of the music upstairs, I heard Ricky getting into the hot tub with an exuberant splash.
Not sure I was feeling quite so pumped myself, I steeled my nerves, draped a towel over my shoulders in an effort to look insouciant while actually covering as much of my upper body as possible, took one more deep breath, and stepped out and headed for the balcony.
Through the door, I could see Ricky’s back, his broad shoulders glowing golden in the dim light from the bulb next to the door, tapering down into shadow at the narrow small of his back, his butt—god, that butt—covered in a gloriously short pair of red shorts.
Wait—his butt? Hadn’t I heard him getting into the hot tub?
How was he standing beside it now, perfectly dry?
I realized I had stopped moving toward the door, that I was standing, staring, transfixed. Then I realized that Ricky wasn’t moving, either, and seemed transfixed by some novel sight of his own. Slowly, he turned toward the door, his face frighteningly pale.
“Oliver,” he called in flatly through the door, not seeming to see me right in front of him.
“I’m here,” I said, still stuck to my spot in the middle of the room, now a little frightened for a new reason. The world had gone silent, the music upstairs suddenly gone, the mechanical hum of the hot tub’s jets fading as my ears filled with curious dread. “What’s wrong?”
“Oliver.” His eyes were wild, finally latching onto me.
“What?”
“The hot tub.”
“What about the hot tub?”
He was starting to go glassy-eyed, blinking slowly and swallowing hard before saying, “Well, it has a dead guy in it.”