Vicki's heart thumped. All of a sudden her organs were very noisy.
"I never had an affair with her, but to be honest, I wanted to." Dan's voice softened. "I never touched her that way, but I imagined her touch. I've never seen her without clothes on, but I know exactly what her body looks like, naked. And I've made love to her so many times, in my head, that I can't count them all."
Vick felt strangely like she was going to cry. I sure hope this girl is me.
"I told you, and I realized that night, when I thought that I might lose you, that you are my best friend. Remember that night?"
Vicki nodded. There were tears in her eyes. She had wanted to hear what he was going to say for so long, it somehow hurt to hear it now, as if its sweetness were too much.
"Well, you are my best friend. And so, I love you." Then Dan leaned over slowly and kissed her, gently, and she kissed him back, just as gently, until she sensed his hips shift closer to hers and felt his tongue flicker just inside her mouth. In the next instant, his arms closed strong around her, and Vicki breathed in the hard soap scent on his scratchy cheek.
But then something made her heart pull back. "Is this a good idea?" she asked, worried, and Dan smiled softly, holding her in his arms.
"Do you love me?"
"Yes," Vicki answered, because she did, and she had, for so long.
"Then it's a very good idea." Dan grinned.
"But is this a rebound?"
"No, my rebounding sucks. This is love."
Vicki smiled. "And it's really happening?"
"If you ever shut up, it is."
Vicki laughed, and Dan laughed, too, and the laughter ended with a happy kiss, and then another, and next a deeper one, which was joyful in a different way, more serious. And the serious kissing didn't stop when the touching began, or when his flannel shirt came off and then her heavy fisherman's sweater and her white turtleneck and next her old Harvard T-shirt and eventually her pink-waffle thermal undershirt, which was when Dan started laughing, mystified.
"Vick, what were you dressed for?"
Oops. "Sledding, with the kids across the street."
Dan kissed her again, then his mouth made a path down her neck to her chest, and he reached around and unfastened her bra, slipping the silky straps from her shoulders, taking her fullness into his mouth. Warmth surged through her, leaving her weak, and Vicki arched her back involuntarily, giving herself to him, loving the feel of his mouth on her skin and his hands everywhere on her body, and in the next minute, she heard herself whisper.
"Let's go upstairs."
Vicki awoke to knocking on the front door and cracked an eye at the alarm clock. The red numbers glowed 8:15. She blinked against the noise until her brain started to function.
It's Reheema. I am so busted.
She moved aside the covers quietly enough not to wake Dan, climbed out of bed, and hurried for the bathroom. She had no time for a shower, and she grabbed her pink bathrobe and wrapped herself in it on the run. Dan remained fast asleep on the far side of the bed, his head buried sideways in the pillow, his strawberry hair a lovely rumple.
Dan Malloy is in my bed. Yippee!
Vicki ran downstairs and flung open her front door into the frosty air and an unusually cheerful Reheema Bristow. Re-heema's eyes were darkly bright and her smile broad, and she wore her customary knit cap, pea coat, jeans, and Timberlands. In her hand was a tall pink-and-orange Dunkin' Donuts coffee covered with a plastic lid.
"Yo, girl." Reheema offered the coffee. "You look like you need this."
"Jeez, thanks," Vicki said, in a low tone, so Dan didn't wake up. She accepted the coffee and pulled her robe around her, feeling guilty. "I'm really sorry, I'm running a little late."
"S'all right." Reheema stepped inside the living room, looking around. "Nice place."
"Thanks," Vicki said softly.
"Why are you whispering?"
"I'm not whispering," Vicki whispered.
"You are, too," Reheema said, then her eyes narrowed to disapproving slits. "Oh no, you didn't."
"I'll explain later. Follow me." Vicki signaled her out of the room, past the dining room and into the kitchen, then she set the coffee down and started digging for her stakeout outfit among the clothes heaped on the floor.
"In the kitchen?" Reheema's tone sounded admiring, if surprised. "You did it in the kitchen? Damn!"
"Turn away, I'm embarrassed," Vicki said, and when Reheema turned away, she dropped the bathrobe and yanked on her jeans and panties.
"Embarrassed? You weren't embarrassed last night, when you were doin' it on the damn floor." Street Reheema had returned and she was having a good laugh. "You weren't embarrassed, you were bare-assed."
"Very funny." Vicki slid into her bra, thermal underwear, T-shirt, turtleneck, fisherman's sweater, and then two pairs of white thermal socks, one of which was suspiciously large.
"You had the man in the kitchen?"
"Wait here, please." Vicki ran past Reheema in stocking feet, out of the dining room, and up the stairs. She didn't want Dan to know what she was up to today. She'd rather get busted by Reheema than him. She reached the bedroom, slid on the hardwood floor in her soft socks, and hurried around to the far side of the bed, where Dan was just waking up, muzzy and rubbing an eye with a balled fist.
"Vick?"
"Baby." Vicki leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, deliciously stubbled. "Stay asleep. The house is yours. The door locks when you leave. Take care of yourself today. I have to go."
"What? Where?" Dan lifted his head and opened his eyes, in pale blue confusion. His breath was just as bad as hers, which was the only lucky thing that had happened so far this morning.
"I'll call you later. Go back to sleep. I love you." Vicki kissed him again, then straightened up, hurried out of the room, and ran down the stairs, where a gloating Reheema waited at the front door, holding the coffee and red snow boots.
"In the kitchen?" Reheema whispered, grinning, and Vicki ignored her while she grabbed the boots and stuck her feet inside, then snagged her purse and backpack on the fly, and opened the front door.
From upstairs, Dan called out, "I love you, too!"
Vicki hustled them both outside and closed the door before Reheema could say, out loud:
"Oh no, it's not like that!"
THIRTY
Gray and white snow clouds covered the sky, and Vicki and Reheema circled the block on which they thought Jamal Browning lived, in Overbrook Hills, scoping it out before settling into a parking space. In the daylight, his home was a well-kept, if modest, semidetached row house, and its front yard, bounded by a costly wrought-iron fence, contained a snow-covered Little Tikes slide, a Razor scooter, and a black BMX bike with training wheels.
"I don't see a padlock on that BMX bike," Vicki said, snapping a picture through the telephoto.
"Ain't nobody takin' that child's toys." Reheema pulled the Sunbird into a parking space down the street from the house, next to a curbside pile of dirty snow and in front of a side yard, so that no house was directly in front. The street was more residential than Cater and Aspinall; the girls couldn't sit here forever, undetected. Reheema cut the Sunbird's ignition. "This one's the best we can do."
"Maybe we drive around in a little while, keep moving." Vicki looked around. Schoolkids with Spiderman lunch pails and backpacks were gathering on the far street corner with their watchful mothers, evidently waiting for a school bus.
Vicki couldn't help but smile at the scene. "Aren't those kids so cute?"
Reheema sipped McDonald's coffee, where they'd stopped for bathroom and breakfast.