She frowned. "Why?"
"Well, remember when I asked you what you were doing tonight? And you said you were doing me?"
Perry"s eyes widened and she looked at Rebecca in embarra.s.sment.
"Oh, don"t worry about her, she already knows you"re doing me," I added.
"Dex!" Perry cried out.
Rebecca rolled her eyes. "So much for speaking in code."
"Hey, we"re all adults here. Except maybe Perry. You are dangerously close to being underage."
"Dex," Perry said again, her tone harder.
I reeled it back with a playful grin. "Anyway, I"m taking you out tonight."
"Out?" she asked.
Rebecca put her hands on her hips and watched our exchange with amus.e.m.e.nt. I had hoped to ask Perry out on our first date without an audience, but oh well, too late for that.
"Yeah. You know, outside? There"s a great pizza place around the corner. I"d buy you dinner. Some drinks. Get laid after. You know...a date."
She blinked a few times but finally smiled. "Are you seriously asking me out on a date?"
"Am I not being clear enough? Yes. Perry Palomino, will you go out with me?"
She looked over at Rebecca who threw up her hands and said, "Hey, if Dex is paying..."
Perry looked back at me, trying to hide her smile now. But I saw it. It made my heart want to f.u.c.king burst. "Okay, Dex Foray, I"ll go out with you."
I couldn"t stop grinning. I thought my head was going to split open.
Rebecca shook her head. "I never thought I"d see the day. Are you sure I"m not making things awkward by standing here and watching all of this? Perhaps you"d like some pre-date privacy?"
"Nah, we"re a good threesome," I told her with a wink.
She glared back at me. "Anyway, there was a reason for me coming over here other than returning your fartin" mutt and telling you my sob story. Jimmy."
"What about Jimmy?" It was hard to concentrate on work matters when Perry had just said she"d go out with me. I know it was reducing me to a thirteen-year-old kid all over again, but I didn"t care. I felt like running down the halls of my old high school and yelling it to the world.
Rebecca"s stern look reminded me that I was living in an adult world. "He"s been trying to get a hold of you too, and when he couldn"t reach you yesterday, he started hara.s.sing me. Seems a police officer from wherever you were in Canada called him wanting to confirm that both you guys did in fact work for him."
I wiggled my jaw back and forth. "Huh. Was that it?"
She looked at me dryly. "Was that it? It was kind of distressing to learn that you guys were involved in some police matter. Some local man was killed by an animal."
"Sasquatch," I corrected her.
"Right. Sasquatch. Of course."
"We"re serious," Perry said. "It was Sasquatch. Or some terrible missing link. Definitely not a mangy bear."
I could tell that even Sasquatch was a stretch for the usually open-minded Rebecca. "Either way, it freaked Jimmy out and then it freaked me out. And then he started barking at me, like I had something to do with it. Apparently the police confiscated your footage?"
I was starting to get the feeling that perhaps Jimmy wouldn"t be as understanding over the whole thing as I had thought.
"They did, for evidence," Perry explained. "And anyway, it wouldn"t have been right to air what we shot. A man seriously died."
A man that probably deserved to die, I thought, feeling all the anger coming back over catching Mitch trying to rape Perry. But even with that fact, I knew that not showing the footage was the right thing to do. Whether he deserved it or not, death was death and his death must have been a terrible one.
"I understand," Rebecca said sympathetically. "But I would not count on Jimmy feeling the same way. He was throwing around the words "fire" and "cancellation.""
"Oh come on," I said. "He can"t seriously consider cancelling us again. We"ve barely been back!"
She shrugged. "You know how he is."
I groaned in frustration, rubbing my forehead. "Can"t we just have one day of peace before we get s.h.i.t on?"
"You do get one day," she said. "He told me to tell you to come to his office tomorrow, both of you, at two. Until then, go back to...what was it, doing each other?"
Perry"s cheeks flushed adorably at that. She cleared her throat and looked at her feet. "So, Rebecca, did you want to get that cup of coffee now? Leave Dex here with his dog?"
She agreed and soon they were leaving the apartment for Top Shop Donuts, promising to bring me back a double chocolate artery-clogger. Whatever they ended up talking about, I hoped a skittish new lover and a jaded lesbian would take it easy on me.
"I"m going to go powder my nose," Perry told me, and I instinctively reached across the table and tapped her on the end of hers. My s.e.xy bunny.
She slid out from the booth and made her way to the washroom. She was wearing a low-cut, bright blue dress that hugged her in all the right f.u.c.king places. Watching her walk away was dessert before dinner.
After she came back with Rebecca, she didn"t seem any worse off than she was before. She seemed pretty normal actually, and from the way she yammered on about poor Rebecca and her break-up, I could tell that maybe they didn"t spend much time discussing our relationship at all. Maybe there was no relationship to discuss. I still had a hard time with that one.
There was one thing that was off, however. Despite my smooth moves (which, honestly, was just feeling her up in the kitchen), Perry didn"t succ.u.mb to my advances and more or less brushed me off from our s.e.x session, saying she needed to go for a run to clear her mind. Okay, so maybe she and Rebecca did discuss me.
And, keeping in mind what Rebecca had told me, her fears that she pressured Emily too much and drove her away, I quickly removed my hands and told her to go get some fresh air, that jogging was a good way to get to know the city, and other such bulls.h.i.t that covered up the fact that I wanted to stick my d.i.c.k in her, make her scream my name, and f.u.c.k her until she felt something for me.
When Perry returned from her run, she looked a lot calmer, more pliable. I kept my distance a bit, getting sucked into yet another Mythbusters marathon with Fatty Rab, while she showered yet again and then joined me on the couch.
The interesting thing was that she sat on the other side of the dog. The farty little thing was being used as a G.o.dd.a.m.n buffer!
"You know," I said, turning to face her, "when you sit over there, it makes it a lot harder to put my arm around you."
I knew I was putting her on the spot. Didn"t care. I wasn"t too proud to admit that Dex Foray needed cuddles. Just because we were f.u.c.king each other didn"t mean I"d stop being affectionate after the last drop was milked out of me.
She looked at the dog shyly, her hair falling in her face. I reached over and tucked it behind her ear.
"What is it?" I asked and took my hand back.
She fidgeted in her seat, still avoiding my eyes. "Don"t you find this a bit weird?"
"Weird?"
"Yeah." Her eyes darted to mine. "You and I. Together like this. Suddenly."
My heart thumped like it took a hit of crack. Now I was really starting to worry about what her and Rebecca talked about. Becs had always been on my side, but chicks before d.i.c.ks and all that. And in her case, it really was chicks before d.i.c.ks.
I licked my lips, trying to be careful. "I don"t find this very sudden, Perry. And I don"t find this weird. I"m a bit weird, you"re certainly weird, but this? This is the opposite of weird."
She smiled. "So it"s normal?"
It"s destiny, I thought. I leaned over and kissed her softly. When I pulled away I said, "Whatever it is, it"s good. It"s very, very good."
And then I picked up the dog and tossed him to the ground and put my arm around my motherf.u.c.king woman.
The pizza place I took Perry to, Zeke"s, was just down the block from the apartment, along the monorail tracks and close to the s.p.a.ce Needle. We got a small booth by the window and put an order in for our pizzas and beer.
I could tell she was nervous by the way she downed her beer and kept playing with her hair. It was pretty d.a.m.n cute. It was also refreshing, considering I used to make her nervous for different reasons.
While she was in the bathroom powdering her nose or whatever, our server came back over. His name was Marcus and I"d gotten to know him pretty well over the years. He was a good looking guy for what it"s worth, one of those Italian types with black curls the ladies seemed to go gaga over and really hairy arms, like his testosterone needed a place to go.
"How are things?" he asked, loitering around the table, hands folded behind his back. He was also really tall, which I hated. I could obviously take him in a fight though and I was certain my d.i.c.k was larger.
"Fine," I told him, eyeing him inquisitively. "I mean, the beer"s fine, if that"s what you"re asking."
He smiled and jerked his head to Perry"s empty seat. "Who"s the chick?"
I frowned. Look, I"ve called every woman a chick, from the old lady at the post office to my teacher back in university. But it didn"t sit right to hear it from another guy when talking about Perry, not in the tone that he was taking, anyway.
"The woman, you mean?" I asked slowly. "Her name is Perry."
"Nice," Marcus said with a grin. "Two women at the same time? I promise not to tell." He made a crossing motion over his heart.
I was a tad confused. "Two women? I don"t have two women."
"What happened to the super hot Maxim babe? Your girlfriend?"
"Jenn?" I asked. "We broke up."
He shook his head. "I swore I just saw you guys in here."
"It"s mid-March, Marcus. That was back in December. We broke up. I"m with Perry now." I felt like I was talking to a two-year-old.
He stared at me like he didn"t quite believe me. "And," I added, feeling defensive, "Perry"s also a super hot babe. She just wasn"t in Maxim. Because it"s a s.h.i.tty publication."
Marcus nodded, his eyes going over to the other side of the restaurant where Perry was coming out of the washroom area. "She is pretty hot, I"ll give you that. You lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s are so much better than the other ones. Gotta get them when they"re young, am I right?"
"Hey," I growled at him. "That"s my girlfriend you"re talking about."
And there it was. I had just said the G-word. I had just publicly announced Perry as my girlfriend. Thank G.o.d she was too far away to hear it.
"Now, if you don"t mind, we"d like another round of beer, stat," I said to him, watching her come closer. She was turning a few heads as she walked and I was met with this strange combination of worry and pride.
"Gotcha," Marcus said, firing his hand at me like a gun. He walked past Perry, ogling her bouncing b.r.e.a.s.t.s like I wasn"t there. I gripped the edge of the table and tried to keep Hulk Dex at bay. Now wasn"t the time. In the middle of the Canadian Rockies was, but in the middle of Zeke"s Pizza in Belltown wasn"t.
"I ordered you another beer!" I told her, smiling too much.
"Uh, thank you," she said, taking her seat. She moved her purse to the corner and gave me a funny look. "You okay?"
"Great," I said, my voice unnaturally high. I needed to calm the f.u.c.k down. What the h.e.l.l was wrong with me?
She pursed her lips, studying me. I felt like she was looking into every crevice. I busied myself with a beer, wishing Marcus would bring back a pitcher instead.
"You"re nervous," she observed.
I almost choked on my beer. "No, you"re nervous!"
"Yeah, I am, Dex. But you know what? I think that"s okay now. I think we should be nervous. I don"t think we ever gave us this chance."
She put her soft hand on mine, milky white against light tan.
"I"m pretty sure I used to make you nervous," I told her. "When you first met me. You looked like you were about to run away every five minutes. Every time you were in the car with me it was like you were being trapped with a mental patient. Which, I mean, was a fairly accurate a.s.sessment."
She smiled and squeezed my hand and the affection was doing weird twirly, tingly, unmanly things around my heart. "You did make me nervous. You make a lot of people nervous, Dex."
"Cause I"m too awesome for them to handle."
"Yes, well, that"s also true. But I was nervous because I didn"t know you...I didn"t know how you thought. I didn"t know what you thought of me."
"And now?"
"Now I know you. I"m starting to know how you think. And I think I know what you think of me. I"m nervous for a whole new set of reasons. Because I"m...scared. And I"m excited. This, this us, this is totally new for me."
We stared at each other and I felt blessed with her bout of honesty. "It"s new for me too. But new can be good."
Marcus came by with the new beers and the pizza and he escaped with only a death glare. As I munched away at my prosciutto pie, I found my mind wandering to the time I first met her, that f.u.c.ked up night in the lighthouse. I"d felt something at that moment for her, whether it was l.u.s.t or a certain connection, I couldn"t be too sure. I had no idea I"d be lucky enough to have her sitting across from me at Zeke"s as something more than a stranger. I had no idea that this tiny little woman with all her insecurities and bravery would become my everything.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked after she drank a healthy swig of her beer.
"About the first time we met."
"In Oregon?"
"In the lighthouse. You ran into me. Remember?"
"That"s something you can never forget."
"So what was it like for you?"