#chapter Eight
As it turned out, she didn’t have to call or text Ian, because Saturday night her phone pinged while she was in the shower. Once upon a time, the sound would’ve been like the bell to Pavlov’s dogs. Now, head bent under the hot water washing away the feeling of Daniel all over her, Maura seriously considered not even looking at the message.
She did, of course, though not right away. Let him stew for a little while, she thought. Let him wait. Let him pace and ponder and fret.
She dried herself carefully and smoothed her body with lotion, remembering Daniel’s hands. Here. There. She pressed her fingertips between her legs and felt herself, still slick. Her still-tender nipples tightened under her next touch. She rubbed her hair briskly to dry it, then combed through it and stared at herself in the mirror while she brushed her teeth, all the while waiting for her phone to make that sound again.
It did, finally, when she’d slipped beneath her covers and lay in the dark with her phone pressed to her heart. She hadn’t yet checked Ian’s message, but the fact he had indeed sent another message meant something. Didn’t it? She could read it and find out for sure, but what if he’d said something she didn’t want to read? Something like he’d met someone else, fallen in love. Maybe that he’d finally fucked that girl who always wore yoga pants, the one forever making eyes at him in the coffee shop. Patty, her name was. Yoga Pants Patty.
And what would Maura be able to say to that, considering what had happened less than two hours ago?
She needed to read his message and couldn’t bear to read it. Doublethink, doublethink, she’d grown too adept at the concept of holding two contrasting ideas simultaneously. Pick one, Maura. Read the fucking message or delete it, but do something.
She thumbed her phone’s screen to bring up the text and took a deep breath, readying herself for disappointment.
All it said was hi. Then, hello.
Maura let out a long, streaming burble of humorless laughter. She typed quickly.
Hey
She’d probably missed him. It was late, after all. But no, within seconds came a reply.
Yo
“Oh, God, Ian.” This time, she burst into real laughter and clutched the phone to her chest again like a schoolgirl with a love note. She loved him so fucking much it hurt. She dialed his number and waited, breathless, for him to answer.
“Joe’s Blowhole, best discount blubber on the East Coast.”
Maura didn’t miss a beat. “I’d like twenty pounds of your most gourmet blubber, please.”
“Hi,” Ian said.
“Hi. It’s late.” She snuggled deeper into her blankets and looked up. She’d covered the ceiling with plastic glow-in-the-dark stars. Why? Because she could. A few of them had started to fade, but the ones closest to the overhead light were still bright.
“Were you sleeping?”
“No,” she told him. “I just got in.”
A pause, a breath. She imagined his look of surprise, but maybe he wasn’t. “Oh.”
She waited for him to ask her where she’d been. He didn’t, the bastard. He said nothing, leaving it to her to move the conversation forward.
“What’s up?” Maura said finally in a too-bright voice when an eternity had passed with them both playing the waiting game.
“Nothing much. What’s up with you?”
Games. Always the games. Maura sighed. “Ian. Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?” Predictably, he sounded disgruntled she’d called him on it.
“It’s been weeks since we talked, but that doesn’t make us strangers. Can we not pretend we’re chit-chatting at a cocktail party? Can you just talk to me? Can’t you tell me that you missed me?”
“Did you miss me?” Ian asked at once.
“Every day,” she answered honestly. “All day long.”
Ian sighed. “I missed you too.”
She smiled, relieved but hating herself, just a little, for letting what should’ve been such an easy, no-brainer of a sentiment make her heart leap so high. “Talk to me, sweetheart. Tell me all about it.”
“All about what?”
“Everything,” she said. “What’s been going on?”
The heat between them, that chemistry, the way a simple look from him could make her nipples hard and her clit pulse. That had always been great. But this was what she loved the most. The way they could talk about anything and everything, for hours and hours. She loved the rise and fall of Ian’s voice, the faintest drawl that came from who-knew-where, since he wasn’t from the south.
He told her about his job. Not the work part of it — she’d have listened, of course, if he’d needed her to. No, Ian told her about the people he worked with. She’d never met any of them, but hearing so many stories about his co-workers had made her feel like she had. Good old Merv, the office custodian, full of advice on Ian’s dating life as well as confidential asides about who left rubbers in their trash and who’d been known to hide a bottle in the desk drawer. Perky Peg, the receptionist with crazy eyes who baked cookies every week that Ian suspected might just have weed in them. He had Maura laughing so hard with his stories that at first she didn’t hear the question he’d asked her.
“What, honey? I missed what you said.”
“I asked you,” Ian said, all traces of good humor aside, “where you were tonight?”
Oh.
Maura cleared her throat. This was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? To give him what he’d said he wanted? To make him know it?
“I was on a date.”
Ian said nothing and was so silent, not even the sough of a breath in her ear, for such a long time that Maura was convinced he’d disconnected the call. Finally, he spoke. “I see.”
“I’ve been on a lot of dates.” She kept her voice flat and neutral, wanting no hint of triumph or dismay though in truth, she felt a little bit of both. “Close to forty, as a matter of fact.”
“I see,” he repeated. It was what he said when he was pissed but didn’t want her to know it.
More games. Maura’s jaw went tight. “I’m doing what you wanted me to do. Right? Going on dates. Making sure I know what I want.”
“And this one, tonight? How…how was it?”
“Well, Ian,” Maura said slowly. “Let me tell you a story.”