"You have to be twenty-one most places, but there are a few where you can be nineteen. Montgomery Police. Florida Highway Patrol."
"Seems like they'd have another cop riding with you. I mean, come on. You've only been driving for three years."
"They did. Leroy rode with me until last month. But they were in a hurry to get me in my own vehicle because it took someone else off graveyard shift." He yawned.
"Graveyard shift or not, it sounds like a huge compliment. If they put you on patrol by yourself, they trust you with their lives. Or at least their squad car."
"I guess. They also threatened me. They told me that I'd better not screw up, or.. .Have you seen Braveheart?"
"No."
"They cut off Mel Gibson's—Well. We're about to eat." He gave me a wan smile to go with the unhappy picture.
Even with a wan smile, his dimples showed.
"Now you look nineteen." I tried not to say it tenderly. "What'd you do between graduating from high school and starting this job? Party hearty?"
"No, I went to the police academy"
"Right, the police academy. Please tell me you at least went out and got good and soused on your nineteenth birthday."
"No. I came in to work. It was my first day on the job. Night, I should say." He shifted to his authoritarian voice, calm on the surface with a threat underneath. "Most adults do not take any available opportunity to drink themselves into a stupor. You've been around Eric too long. Eric's not going to make it to thirty."
"Oh, good God. He's harmless."
"I wouldn't be too sure. Especially when he's around you. You never can tell with domestics. They're completely unpredictable."
"Domestic! We're not a domestic. We're not married. Ew." I squirmed at the thought. Which was probably what John wanted.
"That's what we call it." he said. "Domestic."
"That's what you call what? We're not living together. We're not serious at all."
"You're having sex."
Not for over a week, I thought to myself. But I was able to stop myself from saying it. I realized just in time how lame it would sound.
"Then you're a domestic," John said.
I didn't owe John an explanation. And I didn't think this crush I had on him would ever be anything but. Still, it bothered me that he considered me whore-like.
"The thing is," I said, "I really didn't want to with him. I wanted to in general."
This explanation probably did not reduce my whore-like profile.
"Anyway," I blathered on stupidly, "now I'm sort of sorry I did it, because he's nuts." John nodded. "Domestic."
Chapter 9
John held me with the dark look. Part of me wanted to embrace the dark look, chase it wherever it went, on the off chance I could convert it to my side. The rest of me wanted to dodge the dark look. I glanced around at the empty booths: butterfly table, cowboy boot table, Liberace table. I wished I could see the grill from here. I wondered how close our food was to being ready. Anything to distract him. And me.
"He's not your type," John said.
I looked back at John. "Of course he's my type. I won't make it to thirty, either."
He stared at me for a few seconds more, then blinked. "Not Eric. I meant Will."
"Will! Billingsley? Where are you getting this? McDonald's?"
He breathed deeply. Deeply enough that I thought he might have been holding his breath while he waited for my response. His shoulders lowered, and he seemed to relax a little. "Okay, maybe there wasn't anything going on between you two at McDonald's—"
"He pulled my hair, John."
"—but I wanted to make sure you knew what a nice guy he is."
"And therefore not my type, huh?" God, how whore-like did John think I was? "I could try an experiment with a nice guy. I could teach him a thing or two."
His shoulders tensed again. "He's a nice guy, and he would fall in love with you, and you would break his heart."
I leaned forward until my boobs sat on the table like a set of oversize salt and pepper shakers. The tit table. "Just as well. I prefer boys to teach me rather than the other way around."
His dark look flicked to my boobs ever so briefly. Then his eyes met mine again. "It's spring break. School's out." He sipped his coffee like an adult.
I sipped my own coffee and studied him. The stubborn set to his jaw. The way he glanced toward the windows every few seconds to check for danger.
I knew what he was thinking. He wasn't really jealous, but it came out that way. We were a boy and a girl riding around at night together, and he didn't have any other distractions. He didn't want to date me. He was just interested in me, for lack of anything better to do. Because he was lonely. And because I'd given him a jump start the first night at the bridge by reminding him of the dead girl. There ought to be a Hallmark card for this.
"I would never date Will, even if he wasn't a nice guy," I said truthfully. "It was fun to flirt with him, but everyone knows he's like that with everybody. He makes people feel good about themselves. He's also one of those drama club types who says very funny things very loudly with large gestures, like he wants people to look at him."
John's brow knitted. "You're describing yourself."
"What?"
"That's why you don't like him."
"I'm not describing myself."
He smiled. "Don't tell me you don't want people to look at you. And you probably have lots of friends. You're charismatic."
"Charismatic," I acknowledged, "and kind of a bitch. I don't have any friends because I've pissed them all off. I stand people up."
His brow knitted again. "Why?"
"Oh.. .Boys ask me on dates, or girls ask me on girl outings. And it sounds like fun, and I want to go. But then, when it comes right down to it, I can't go through with it. I hate plans. I feel..." I searched for the word. "Handcuffed." I shuddered.
"Handcuffed to the plan?"
"To the other person."
"How do you date Eric, then?"
"We don't date."
"Right." John nodded. "You just screw." Okay, that was too far. "John—" He opened his hands on the table. "How are you ever going to have a relationship?" "I guess I'll be alone."
I could almost see the wheels turning behind his dark eyes, processing this information, looking for a hole in the theory. "You've shown up in time for my shift both nights so far," he pointed out.