Deadly Intuition(28)
Grady leaned his head back and stared up at the ceiling. “When did you know that you felt something more for Mandy than just the normal stuff you usually felt for a woman?”
“It was pretty quick,” James said. “She was different. She made me feel … different.”
“But you still bolted after the first time you had sex,” Grady said. “You weren’t ready to admit she was different.”
James scowled. “We’re not talking about that,” he said. “I still feel like an ass, even though she’s let me off the hook.”
“That’s not what I’m getting at,” Grady pressed. “I want to know when you knew that she was … when you knew you could be happy with one woman.”
“She didn’t give me much of a choice,” James said, chuckling. “I just knew.”
“When did you know you loved her?”
“When I knew she was in trouble and the idea of trying to live without her scared the shit out of me.”
“So, you knew that night with Troy?”
“I did.”
“When did you tell her?”
“That night. When we got back here, when she was safe, I just felt it and I needed to say it.”
Grady was fidgety. James was answering his questions – but his answers weren’t what he was really looking for. “When did you know that you wouldn’t be looking for an escape route?”
“Are you worried you’ll be looking for an escape route with Sophie?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does she want you to have an escape route?”
“I don’t know.”
James tilted his head to the side, his eyes unreadable. “What happened tonight?”
“We kissed.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“We were going to do more, and then she changed her mind,” Grady admitted. “She said she needed to think. She said she didn’t think she was a one-night-stand girl.”
“She’s just being honest,” James said. “You need to be honest, too. What do you feel?”
“If I knew how I felt I wouldn’t be here asking you questions,” Grady said. “By the way, you haven’t answered the last one. When did you stop looking for an escape route?”
James sighed. “Once I went back after the incident I was never looking for an escape route. I don’t think that it was a conscious choice. It just … was.”
“When did you know it was okay not to be looking for an escape route?” Grady asked, wringing his hands. “At some point you must have realized that you were done looking for that exit door.”
James muted the television, leaning forward. “Okay, here’s the situation. I’m going to tell you, but it has to be just between us.”
Grady nodded mutely.
“She has these underwear.”
“I don’t want to hear this.” Grady covered his eyes in disgust.
“It doesn’t get dirty,” James said. “Just listen. She’s got these underwear. They’re different than her regular underwear.”
Grady rolled his eyes. “Are we talking black lace and thongs?”
“No,” James said. “Those are what she wears every day. Something about panty lines or something. I forget. She had some big, long explanation. I like those underwear. Those were the underwear I was trained to like. She’s got these black garters that she wears with them under her little skirts and they drive me crazy.”
“I’m uncomfortable talking about Mandy’s underwear.”
James ignored him. “She has these other underwear. They’re the ones she wears when she’s just hanging around the apartment and wants to be comfortable.”
“Like granny panties?” Grady’s mouth tipped into a frown. “Don’t tell me that. That’s a picture I’m never going to be able to get out of my head.”
“They’re not granny panties,” James said. “They’re cotton. They look like men’s briefs. They’re fancier, though. They have little cartoon characters on them.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“They cover her whole rear … I know, they sound awful,” James said. “They’re not, though. Some of them have Wonder Woman on them. Some have Hello Kitty. There are Grinch ones, and Oscar the Grouch ones. She’s got that owl with the Tootsie Pops slogan on a pair, too, and I honestly find those distracting. My favorite pair, though, have a shark on them.”
Grady raised an eyebrow.
“She’s got a thing for Jaws,” James said. “It’s a long story. Anyway, these shark panties have the shark biting something and they say ‘Jawesome.’ I’m not making it up.”