Low Pressure

“I heard what you said. But if you’re telling me the truth, and you’re not even getting laid in the bargain, then what’s in it for you?”

“Exoneration.”

After a considerable pause, Gall said, “Fair enough, Ace.”

Responding to the soft knock, Bellamy went to the door connecting her room to Dent’s and pressed her palms as well as her forehead against the cool wood. “What, Dent?”

“I need to ask you something.”

“You can ask me through the door.”

It had been somewhat surprising to her that he hadn’t pestered her for details on her marital split, but, after she’d told him about the dissolution of her marriage, they had both lapsed into a brooding silence, exchanging only desultory conversation for the remainder of their flight.

The busy, noisy restaurant where they’d eaten dinner hadn’t been conducive to intimate conversation, so they’d kept theirs impersonal and as light as possible given the circumstances.

When they’d checked into the chain hotel, he’d remarked on the economic reasonableness of sharing a room, but she’d ignored the remark, and when they reached their neighboring rooms, they’d parted company.

It would be best to leave it that way.

But he knocked ag

ain and said, “I have to be looking you in the eye when I ask what I need to ask.”

She counted to ten silently.

“Come on, A.k.a. You can always scream and knee me in the balls if I get out of line. But I won’t.”

She hesitated a moment longer, then, with exasperation, flipped the latch and pulled open the door. “What?”

He took in the haphazard, scraggly topknot of hair and her squeaky-clean face. She wore a shapeless T-shirt and plaid flannel pajama bottoms that pooled over her bare feet, one of which she folded over the other in a parody of modesty.

He snuffled a laugh. “That’s how you go to bed?”

“That’s your question?”

He grinned. “Not that it isn’t sexy.”

“I wasn’t going for sexy. I was going for comfort.”

He’d made himself comfortable, too. He stood in stocking feet, bringing her eye level with his chin rather than his clavicle. Several of the pearl snaps on his shirt had been undone. She tried to keep from looking at his chest in the open wedge.

“Your question?”

Reaching behind him, he pulled a toothbrush from the back pocket of his jeans. “Can I borrow some toothpaste?”

“Why didn’t you buy toothpaste when you bought the brush?”

“Have you got some, or not?”

She turned away, went into the bathroom long enough to get the tube from her toiletry bag, and returned with it, noticing that he’d stepped across the threshold into her room. Staying at arm’s length, she extended the toothpaste to him. He took it from her, but instead of uncapping it, squeezing some paste onto his brush, and leaving, he pocketed both and stayed.

“I do need the toothpaste, but that wasn’t what I was going to ask.”

She folded her arms across her middle and waited for him to continue.

“What’s the plan for tomorrow?”

“Oh.” For a moment the simplicity of the question took her aback. She hadn’t expected a practical one. “Maxey’s is a ten-minute drive from here. It opens for lunch at eleven-thirty. I thought we should arrive about then.”