“You need your sleep.”
“You sound like my mother,” he said, smiling. “Who you should meet sometime,” he added.
A huge lump formed in her throat. “Uh…” she drawled. “The clinical psychologist?”
He began to guide her down the street to his place. She stopped him. “I actually have to be at work in the morning, too, Alex. So…”
Uncertain, he stopped, studying her carefully. “I don’t want you to think I just called you for sex.”
“I’m offended.”
“I was worried about that!” he exclaimed, running a hand through his hair.
She swatted at a mosquito on her shoulder. “I’m offended that you wouldn’t call me for just sex.”
“Huh?”
“I’m not good enough for a booty call?” Joke with him. Catch him off center. Step away from the mother talk. Dear God, you told him you loved him during sex. Get the f**k out of here, Josie. The voice in her head was screaming at her.
“Ah. I get it.” Smiling, he pulled her in for a toe-curling kiss. She could get used to this. Very used to this.
Too comfortable.
“I’ll call you tomorrow?” he asked.
She nodded. As they parted, he made it halfway down the block and then ran back, an arm snaking around her waist and cinching her to him, the final kiss deep and exploring.
“It’s not just sex.”
“No. It’s not,” she replied.
And that’s the problem.
Chapter Ten
“Hey! Howzitgoin’?” Darla’s voice boomed through her smartphone. Hitting “pause” on her movie, Josie curled up with Dotty in her lap, wondering what her niece was up to.
Niece. Cousin. Technically, they were cousins, but considering the seven-and-a-half-year age difference, and the fact that Josie had practically helped raise Darla after their dads died in the car accident, they just called each other “aunt” and “niece,” finding it easier. There was no rhyme or reason to it—Darla had just started calling her Aunt Josie when she was four and they lived together while their moms recovered in separate hospitals, and it stuck.
“It’s going. How about you?”
“Booooooooring. Everything is so booooooring here. Nothing fun ever happens. I’m about to drive home from my shift and it’s soooooooo dull.”
“I see nothing’s changed back home.”
Darla snorted. A cash register dinged in the muffled distance. “Nope. What about you?”
She thought about spilling her guts about Alex, but stopped herself. Her mom and Aunt Cathy always hoped Josie would meet and marry a doctor, and then everything would be just perfect, as if she’d be rescued from her own life. For Marlene, she knew, a physician for a son-in-law meant money. Maybe access to pills. Ah, the delusions of a woman with the conscience of a cockroach and the narcissism of Kim Jong Il.
Her hesitation made Darla ask, “Josie? You got something to say?”
“No. Not really.”
“‘Not really’ is different from ‘no.’” Darla was fishing, and she was right—Josie wanted a friend to talk to, and Laura hadn’t answered her texts or two voicemails yet. She was bursting.
“True.”
“Aaaannnnnnd….?”
“Hypothetically…”
“Unicorns and fairies are hypothetical.”
“So is my story, if I’m going to tell it.”
“Fine.”
“Hypothetically, imagine you’re dating a guy who makes you feel like you can trust him. Like he doesn’t judge you.”
“Oh, look!” Darla shouted. “A unicorn with a fairy on its back, shitting gold coins!”
Sigh. “I know. Right? Impossible.”
“Hey, if you found one of those guys, I wouldn’t tell anyone. It’s like having a winning lottery ticket. You cash it in all quiet-like and don’t say a word. Just go off on a trip to Disney World and act like you’re in the hospital for a bunion or something.”
“You’re comparing the guy I’m dating to a bunion?”
“You’re dating? Josie, you never date! You make fun of men, grind into them with your body, and only spare them the black-widow treatment if they’re lucky.”
“Shut up.”
“You’re my idol. That wasn’t a criticism.”
“It’s so touching how you support me emotionally, Darla.”
“I aim to please.”
Josie laughed, the air now cleared of any desire to pour out her heart. “Why did you call? To bust my chops?”
“No.” Darla’s voice went quiet. “I just missed talking.”
“You could come out and visit, you know.” Every phone conversation ended like this. “I’ll pay for the plane ticket.”
“If you do that, Aunt Marlene will wonder why you didn’t send her the money for one.”
“So we’ll find a way. What my mom thinks shouldn’t stop you from visiting.”
“You aren’t the one who has to live around her and hear the non-stop bitching.”
Bile rose in Josie’s throat. Getting away from the enmeshed chaos of her mother had been nearly impossible, but she’d done it. That Marlene could somehow manipulate family dynamics so that Darla felt she couldn’t even come to Cambridge for a visit made her temper explode and her heart crack in two at the same time. How could she hope to have some sort of future with Alex when her past was such a burden? His clinical psychologist mother was from a different world. Her mom was a harpy in Lycra with a massive entitlement complex.
Shit, she’d probably hit on Alex if given the chance. The thought made Josie gag.
“Ewww, you sick? Or was your cat hacking up a hairball?” Darla asked.
“No, just thinking of something unpleasant.”
“Like home?” Darla laughed; Josie joined her, though neither added much mirth to it.
The sound of wind filled the phone. “You outside?”
“Yeah. Gotta go get in the car and head home. I’ll check in with you later in the week.”
“Okay.” Josie felt deprived. Empty. Full. Like an abyss of everything and nothing dragged at her from the belly. As Darla got off the phone, Josie stared at her living room. A quick flash of Crackhead confirmed the cat was still alive. Dotty wasn’t eating all the cat food, then.
She felt utterly alone and in need of a good talk. A quick check of her phone and—nope. No answer from Laura. Between her mother’s dominion over everyone in Ohio, holding them captive through sheer craziness and narcissism, and Laura’s new, baby-filled life, she felt like the only way to manage the churning newness of Alex was to hold it all back. Shut it down. Close up and stick to what she knew.