The Next Accident - Lisa Gardner [142]
Rainie had had enough. She drove to the airport, flashed a ticket that wasn’t valid for another two days, told them she had a family emergency and boarded the plane. Eight hours later, she knocked on Quincy’s door. He opened it, looking tense, then shocked, then genuinely grateful. She jumped his bones before he ever made it to the bed. She decided she was getting pretty good at this sex thing.
Later, they went out to Arlington and simply sat next to Mandy’s and Bethie’s graves. Didn’t talk. Didn’t do anything. Just sat until the sun had sunk low and the air had grown cold. On the way back to the car, Quincy held her hand. Funny, she was thirty-two years old and she’d never walked hand-in-hand before. Then he opened her door for her, and by the time he got around to the other side she had this strange ache in her chest. She wanted to touch him again. She wanted to take him into her body and wrap her legs around his flanks and hold on tight.
Instead, when they were back at his house, she put his exhausted body to bed. Then she stayed awake for a long time afterwards, stroking the lines on his face, the ones that didn’t go away, not even when he slept. She fingered the salt in his pepper hair, the scars on his chest. And she finally got it. All of it. The enormity of it. Why people sought each other out and formed families. Why baby elephants stumbled relentlessly through drought-stricken deserts. Why people fought and laughed and raged and loved. Why people, at the end of it all, stayed.
Because even when it hurt, it felt better to hurt with him, and when she was angry it was better to be angry with him, and when she was sad it was far, far better to be sad with him. And damn, she didn’t want to get back on that plane. So silly. They were two adults, they had independent lives and demanding jobs, and it’s not like there wasn’t the telephone, and damn she didn’t want to get back on that plane.
She stayed through the funeral. She held Quincy’s hand. She patted Kimberly’s shoulder as the young girl wept. She met extended family and played nice with everyone. Then she went back to Quincy’s house where they came together as if they’d never touched before and would never touch again.
Monday morning he drove her to the airport. She had that tight feeling back in her chest. When she tried to speak, nothing came out.
Quincy said, “I’ll call you.” She nodded. Quincy said, “Soon.” She nodded. Quincy said, “I’m sorry, Rainie.” And she nodded, though she wasn’t really sure what he was sorry for.
She got back to Portland. Five days, six hours, and thirty-two minutes ago. Her phone did ring. But when she picked it up, Quincy was never there.
“I can’t be this well adjusted forever,” she told her computer screen. “You know this isn’t my style. Are women supposed to change everything for men? I mean, I was hostile, insecure, and stubborn before and he wanted to get to know me better. Now I’m honestly trying to be a mature, productive member of society, and I haven’t heard from him since. On the one hand, the man is under enormous amounts of stress. On the other hand, that’s just plain rude.”
Her computer screen didn’t reply. She scowled. “Do you think it was the sickening-sweet pet names? Maybe if I had called him stud muffin . . .”
Her buzzer sounded. Her head bobbed up, her gaze going to her TV/security monitor. A man was standing in front of the outside doors. He wore normal clothes, but she would’ve known that salt-and-pepper hair anywhere.
“Shit!” Rainie yelled. “Why doesn’t he ever give me a chance to shower!”
Screw the shower. She buzzed him up, ran to the kitchen sink, and hastily splashed water on her face. Two sniffs. Hey, at least this time she’d done deodorant. He rang the doorbell of her loft just as she dragged on a clean white shirt. One last hand through the hair, and she was at the door.
“Hello, Rainie,” he said.
She just stood there. He looked good in his Quincy-like way. A little uptight, a little too smart, a little too much weight