The Boyfriend of the Month Club (23 page)

Penny nodded. “Not Heathcliff, exactly, but Grace is right. I want Butch to be so crazy about me that he couldn’t imagine living without me. I don’t want to be that chick who gives her boyfriend the ‘propose or else’ ultimatum, which is exactly how the whole thing went down.”

“Every woman wants a grand passion in her life,” Ellen said wistfully.

Penny blinked away the tears from her eyes. “Speaking of passion, what’s going on with you and the dentist?” she asked Grace. “Have you gone out with him again?”

Penny was changing the subject, the way she did whenever she couldn’t handle whatever was going on. It was no use trying to redirect the conversation back to Butch. Penny would talk about it again when she was ready, and not a second sooner. End of story.

“When did Grace go out with the dentist?” Ellen asked, frowning. “The one who pretended he didn’t know her after trying to pick her up the Wobbly Duck?”

“You’re not the only one who can keep secrets,” Grace told Ellen. “Only it’s not a secret because it’s not a big deal. Joe and I have decided to keep it on a strictly friends basis. Going out for coffee, a casual dinner, that sort of thing.” She decided to omit the fact that he’d asked her out for tonight. And that she’d wanted to say yes.

“So . . . what do we want to watch next?” Sarah asked in an overly cheery voice. “There’s
Sleepless in Seattle
—”

“They don’t meet till the end,” Penny said.

“How about we just watch the ball drop? It’s almost midnight,” Grace suggested.

“Already?” Sarah glanced at the clock. “Tonight has gone by so fast!”

Not fast enough
.

Grace lanced another strawberry. Not that she regretted her decision to turn down Joe’s invitation. Sarah needed the support of her friends, and since Grace was her best friend, it would have been totally traitorous of her not to be here. But she still couldn’t help wondering if Joe had asked someone else to the party.

Sarah kept flipping stations until a view of Times Square popped on the screen. The crowd looked happy and a little drunk and a whole lot cold. It was cold in central Florida tonight too. At least cold enough for the natives to feel the bite. Which meant it was probably in the forties.

Ten . . . nine . . .” the crowd in Times Square chanted.

“Hold on! We need more champagne,” Ellen said. She went around the room, refilling their flutes.

Sarah raised her glass in the air. Her blue eyes looked misty. “A toast. To old friends.”

“Two . . . one . . . Happy New Year!” the announcer yelled. And everyone in Times Square began kissing everyone, and all Grace could think of was who was Joe kissing right now. She set down her champagne without tasting it.

Sarah grabbed her in a hug, and soon all four of them were hugging, and now even Sarah was crying. Only the tears weren’t happy ones, and Grace couldn’t help but feel her own eyes water up. At this rate, they’d all end up having to buy stock in Kleenex.

“It’s not about Craig,” Sarah said, sniffling, “It’s really not. I want him to be happy. But Penny got me thinking. Ellen’s right. I want a grand passion in my life too.”

“I know, sweetie,” Ellen said, rubbing Sarah’s back. She sighed. “Another New Year, another year of being single.”

“Well now, that’s just damn morose,” Sarah said, swiping her tears away in an angry gesture. “And I refuse to allow myself to be depressed, even though I think New Year’s Eve is just about the most depressing holiday there is!”

“‘Auld Lang Syne’ is the worst song
ever
,” Grace said.

“I agree,” Penny said. “Whatever it means, it sucks.”

“Okay, now that the sad stuff is out of the way, which movie did we decide on?” Sarah asked, looking like she hadn’t just been crying less than a minute ago.

Sarah had an incredible way of compartmentalizing her feelings. Ten minutes of feeling down and getting all those bad emotions out and she was good to go. But Grace couldn’t function like that.

“I say we blind pick,” said Ellen. She closed her eyes and reached for the pile of DVDs and pulled out
The Philadelphia Story.

“Excellent selection,” said Penny. “Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart. What could be better?”

Grace got up and stretched her arms above her head. “I think I’m going to call it a night. Tomorrow or rather today is a holy day of obligation and we’re doing the family Mass thing to be followed by the traditional O’Bryan New Year’s Day brunch, which you’re all invited to, by the way.” Penny was a definite yes, Ellen was planning to sleep in, and Sarah didn’t commit one way or the other.

Grace gave Sarah another hug on her way out the door. “Come by the house.
Please
. We’ve avoided it all night, but the fact is Craig is getting married today and you shouldn’t be alone.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t worry about you?” Grace wanted to throttle her. How could she
not
worry about her? “Say you’ll come. Everyone will be disappointed if you don’t show up.”

“Maybe,” Sarah said. She waited at the door while Grace warmed up the engine to her car and waved her off.

It was twelve thirty, too early for most people to be leaving a New Year’s Eve party, so the streets of Daytona were mostly clear. Every once in a while the sound of a distant firecracker broke through the silence in her car.

Why had she left Sarah’s? She wasn’t sleepy. Not by a long shot. As if on autopilot her car drove down the street that led to her neighborhood, but instead of driving to her house she went to Joe’s. There were no lights on inside his town house and his Range Rover wasn’t in the open garage.

Grace banged her head against the steering wheel. “Stupid! What did you think? Because you’d turned him down he didn’t go to the party? He probably took a date. A really hot date. He’s probably bringing her home tonight and
she
won’t want to just be friends and—”

A knock on the car window made her jump.

Crap!

Joe opened the door and looked past her to the empty passenger seat. “Who are you talking to?”

“I . . . I was singing along to the radio.”

He glanced at the unlit dashboard. “Are you okay? It’s cold. Let’s go inside.”

He ushered her into his town house and flipped on a light.

“Where did you come from?” she asked. “I thought you were going to a party tonight.”

“The party was just a mile down the road. I’ve had a few beers and I didn’t want to chance being pulled over. So I walked home. I’ll get my car in the morning.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” She tugged on the end of her sweater in a nervous gesture. Was Joe drunk? He didn’t seem drunk. He didn’t even seem tipsy. “I was just driving by and thought I’d wish you a Happy New Year,” she explained. “Then I saw that your car wasn’t here and I was just about to leave, when you . . . you know, snuck up on me again.”

“I’m glad I didn’t miss you.”

“Yeah, me too.”

There was a book facedown on his couch. It was the copy of
The Old Man and the Sea
that he’d bought at the store.

“So how was the party?” she asked, trying to sound casual. She couldn’t meet his eyes. What must he think of her, showing up at his place this time of the night? She knew what she would think if the situation had been reversed.

“It was all right. How was Sarah’s party?”

“It wasn’t really a party. Like I said, it was just a girl thing.”

“It’s good,” Joe said, following her gaze to the book. “You can borrow it if you’d like. Since you’ve never read it.”

“Thanks. Yeah, maybe I’ll do that.”

They stood there for a few seconds, not saying anything. He wore jeans and a white button-down shirt with a black blazer and loafers, no socks. His hair looked like it needed a trim, and she was reminded of her first impression of him. An older version of a preppy, brooding Abercrombie and Fitch model.

“So, Happy New Year,” she said.

“I thought it was customary to kiss someone when you wish them a Happy New Year.”

“Oh, yeah . . . sure.” She stretched up and gave him a peck on the cheek.

He looked unimpressed. Insulted, almost.

“What?”

“I’m not your damn brother, Grace.”

He didn’t sound angry, more like frustrated. It was startling to realize that she, on the other hand,
was
angry.

She was angry at Sarah. Although for what, Grace had no idea, but there it was. Finally out in the open, pulled from somewhere inside her subconscious, and she didn’t even know she was feeling it until this very moment. There was something not right about Sarah’s divorce. But she didn’t trust Grace enough to confide in her about it.

She was angry at Joe too. Because he was beautiful and smart and funny and she wanted to find just
one
thing wrong with him. Just one thing that would put them on an even playing field. And because he’d known from the start that whatever there was between them wasn’t just friendship.

But mostly she was angry with herself. Because she wanted Joe. Even if he wasn’t the one, according to Abuela’s dream. And, silly as it sounded, because she didn’t believe in any of that woo-woo stuff, some part of her sensed that Abuela was right
.
Joe wasn’t the guy she was supposed to end up with. And she’d never made love with anyone where the possibility hadn’t at least existed that he
could
be the one.

“Who did you take to the party tonight?” She hated how insecure she sounded, but she had to know.

“I asked the only girl I wanted to take. She shot me down.”

Her heart stopped. Or maybe it was her lungs. She wasn’t sure.

“No, she didn’t.” Grace reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck and took all the anger and confusion and suppressed lust she’d been feeling and channeled it into a kiss.

Like everything else Joe did, it was perfect. The summa cum laude of kisses. It was tongues and moans and bodies pressing up against each other. It was the kiss every girl dreamed of whenever she fantasized about the guy who was supposed to sweep her off her feet. Rhett kissing Scarlett by the roadside. Mark Darcy kissing Bridget Jones in the middle of a snowy London street.

He began walking her backward, his kisses turning her from a solid into a warm liquid caramel, all bubbly and hot and easy to slide around, just like the sugar in her flan. Since the layout of his place was exactly like hers, her body automatically understood where they were going.

They tumbled onto the bed. Joe reached over and turned on a light. Grace thought about asking him to turn it off, but she didin’t want to come across as a prude. So what if she had some cellulite on the back of her thighs? No one was perfect . . .

He slipped her sweater over her head and began to nuzzle her breasts through her thin camisole.

“Joe?” she asked, stunned that she still had a voice left.

“Hmmm?”

“Before we . . . before we do this, can I ask you a question?”

“Nightstand,” he muttered, his mouth hovering over her breast. “Condoms are in the top drawer.”

“That’s great. But it’s not the question.”

He looked excited, hungry, nervous. A combination of all three. She liked knowing she wasn’t the only one who felt conflicted.

“I’ll tell you anything. I’ll
do
anything. As long as it doesn’t involve getting out of this bed.” He got rid of her camisole next and started in on her jeans.

“Tell me one thing that’s wrong with you.”

He laughed painfully. “Grace, I’m far from perfect. Stick around and you’ll discover that on your own.”

“You see, that’s like the
most
perfect answer you could give. Modesty is a huge turn on,” she said, tugging his shirt loose from his pants. She didn’t want to be the only one naked.

“You want a flaw? I’m impatient as hell.”

“I don’t know if that really qualifies—”

“Grace,” he said, beginning to sound desperate, “you’re beautiful, but sometimes you talk too much.”

She started to say something, but then he kissed her again and she thought Joe was right. Sometimes she did talk too much.

Grace woke up to the sound of a car engine. She opened her eyes. Joe was still asleep. Blissfully, peacefully, sound asleep. According to the clock on the nightstand it was almost eleven thirty. She had fifteen minutes, tops, to leave and still make it to Mass in time. Carefully, she slid out from beneath his arm and gathered her clothes off the floor.

Should she wake him up before she left? It seemed rude not to say good-bye. But they’d just fallen asleep a few hours ago, and he looked so, well . . . worn out. Joe hadn’t exaggerated about the “hours of hot, sweaty sex.”

She tiptoed to the kitchen, found a caffeinated sports drink in the refrigerator, a blank sheet of paper, and a pen. She’d never been in this situation before and a simple “thanks and see you later” didn’t seem sufficient. She took a few sips of the drink, thought about it some, and began writing.

Dear Joe,

Because you place such importance on satisfaction surveys, I thought I’d fill one out regarding last night’s activities. In case you’re looking for feedback in order to improve future performances (pun intended).

Foreplay: 10

A note of general interest: When using your mouth, you might want to be a tad more careful during bathing suit season. Luckily, that’s not for a few more months because I’m fairly certain that I’m now the proud owner of a hickie on my left inner thigh. Not that I’m complaining, because the events surrounding my acquiring that particular little love bite were, to say the least, spectacular. Really. There are no words to describe it. They don’t teach you that kind of oral technique in dental school, do they?

Actual Consummation: (please note there are three separate scores here because I believe that each separate consummated act deserves its own individual mark).