“You’ve been reunited for all of ten seconds. Reese wouldn’t tell you if she did feel coddled.”
The sirens stopped.
“Thank god! I have to pee.” My mom ran out of the back room.
Fisher stood and held out his hand. “We’re alive. Looks like your prayer was answered.”
I didn’t take his hand or give any more attention to his statement because I felt certain that it fell into the fifty percent category that I needed to ignore.
He waited at the door for me to exit the back room. As I squeezed past him, I shot him a quick glance and inhaled deeply, proving that God didn’t answer all my prayers.
“So …” he rubbed his lips together.
I gulped a mouthful of saliva, unable to tear my gaze away from him.
“When do you want to do it?” His voice deepened.
My heart pounded to the point of feeling it in my throat. What if my mom had heard him? I wasn’t having sex with him. And I lost all ability to speak those words because it was the boldest thing a man had ever said to me.
“Start working for me. When do you want to start working for me?” His voice was no longer low. And he slowed his words as if he were talking to a child or someone who didn’t speak English well.
Embarrassed wasn’t the right word to describe how I felt in that moment. More like … mortified. And when Fisher smiled, as if he’d been reading my mind the whole time, I wanted to do physical harm to him. Never had I felt so angry toward another human in my whole life. The most frustrating part? I wasn’t sure why I was so angry with him. For not wearing a shirt? For having a sinful body? For winking and smiling? Maybe talking in a slightly deeper voice, which tripped my imagination, sending it tumbling into a dark, forbidden place.
“We can do it … I mean …” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I can start working for you. Well … your business … whenever.” Gah! I might as well of had “parochial-schooled virgin” tattooed on my forehead.
Chapter Five
The next day, my mom took me to lunch and gave me a quick tour of Denver, promising me we’d go to a Rockies game when she returned from Los Angeles. That night, I sat on her bed next to her suitcase while she packed.
“Is it weird?” I finally got the nerve to broach the subject. “Being with someone so much younger than you?” It wasn’t the question I needed to ask her, but I hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask her why she was growing pot in the storage room of her salon.
She folded a pair of black pants and added them to the growing pile in the suitcase. “You’re my daughter.” A hearty laugh followed her answer. “Or are you meaning that the women I was around in the correctional facility were all my age? Because they weren’t. Crime comes in all ages, sizes, colors, and social statuses.”
“No. I mean Fisher.”
She shrugged. “He’s my landlord. I think he’s twelve years younger than me. So … twenty-eight. I suppose I’m a little envious that he’s been so successful this early in his life. But it doesn’t bother me to have a landlord younger than me.”
My nose wrinkled. “Again, that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Her eyes narrowed, lips still curved into a grin. We had the same smile. My dad used to say it before she went to prison. Then he stopped comparing me to her at all. But she had tiny dimples like mine, and her smile was a little crooked like mine. Hair. Eyes. I was her mini me.
“Then what are you talking about?”
“Fisher is … your boyfriend. Right? I mean … I know he’s your landlord too, but you seem to be close to him, more so than a landlord-tenant relationship.”
Her lips parted, eyes unblinking for several seconds. “N-no …” She coughed a laugh. “We’re just friends. I can promise you that.”
“Really?”
Another laugh. “Really.”
“Does he have a girlfriend?” That question came out so quickly I didn’t have a single second to stop it.
Adding more clothes to her suitcase, her eyebrows lifted a fraction. “No. Why? Are you into older men? Please say no.”
“Of course not. I mean … I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with a year or two older, but not ten years older. I only asked because I noticed he didn’t lock his side of the door at the top of the stairs. And I think if he had someone living with him or even visiting, he wouldn’t want you going into his space unannounced. I’m not at all interested in him.” I rolled my eyes.
My mom bit her lips and nodded slowly. “I see. Well, I knocked, so that was my announcement, and he started it, so I know he’s okay with me going upstairs.”