I murmur, “He’s so beautiful, it breaks my heart.”
At the top of her lungs, Suzanne shouts, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW?”
I start to laugh, which only angers her more.
“You have GOT to give me SOMETHING here, Megan!” she hollers. “I haven’t gotten laid in about A HUNDRED YEARS, and I’m in no mood to listen to you chirping ‘penis’ this and ‘beautiful’ that like you’re a damn VIRGIN on her HONEYMOON! How big is the man’s DICK?”
I have to answer through my laughter. “It’s enormous. It’s big, brawny, and works like a champ. Satisfied?”
She starts muttering under her breath about shitty friends and the unfairness of life and various other things until I interrupt her tirade.
“Just give me the address, Suzanne. Please.”
“How are you sleeping together and you don’t know where he lives?”
I think about how to answer that. “We, um, actually…it never came up.”
She grouses, “Right. Because you were too busy having incredible, mind-blowing sex that you selfishly won’t share details of with your girlfriend.”
“Suzanne. The address. Please.”
“Wait a minute, I have more questions!”
I mutter, “Of course you do.”
“The last I heard, Theo had left town—because of you, I might add—but then within the space of a week, he’s back and in your pants? How did this happen? What am I missing here?”
“Honestly, your guess is as good as mine.”
I can almost hear her eye roll through the phone. “I know Coop gave you a letter or a note that Theo left for you. I pestered him after church to tell me what he wanted to talk to you about. So what was in the note?”
“A quote from the Bible.”
That shuts her up for a good fifteen seconds. Then she asks hopefully, “Was it a sexy quote?”
“Are there such things in the Bible?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t read the damn thing!”
“But you sit in a church every week and listen to someone who has.”
Her voice drips sarcasm. “I’ll ask the pastor if she’s been skipping all the juicy parts.”
“It was a quote about doors, if you must know, that related to something we’d been discussing earlier.” It also related to a tattoo my dead husband had on his back, but I’m trying hard not to be crazy, so we’re not going there.
Hearing my explanation, Suzanne is dubious. “So he leaves you a note about doors, then he splits for destinations unknown, then he’s back in a jiffy, tickling your lady parts? I’m not the brightest bulb, honey, but there are holes in this story bigger than my boobs.”
“In between the splitting and the tickling, I wrote him an email.”
She ponders that for a while. “Must’ve been some email.”
“Yeah, it was. So…skipping over the details—”
“Bad friend!”
“—what I can tell you is that I’ve seen him twice since he supposedly left town, but he’s not coming every day with the rest of the crew to work on the Buttercup—”
“Whoa, whoa, rewind! Hillrise is working on the Buttercup?”
“Oh. Yes. Did I leave that out?”
She groans in exasperation. “Do you even know how to do the girlfriend thing, girlfriend?”
“I’d apologize again, but I think my apologies just irritate you.”
“So does your god-awful storytelling! I’ve got a five-year-old niece who tells more coherent stories about her imaginary pet bunny, Mr. Nibbles!”
“Okay. Starting over. You were caught up to where I had a public meltdown in church. And you know Coop gave me Theo’s note, and now you know what was in it. Then, when I got home, I wrote Theo an email that basically explained how I was feeling about everything. Then later that night, he showed up and…uh…we…”
Suzanne scoffs. “Don’t pop a vessel trying to find a delicate way to say ‘We screwed our brains out,’ princess.”
I say softly, “We didn’t, though, Suzanne. We made love. Sweet, intimate, passionate love.”
She mutters, “Dear God in heaven, what did I do to deserve this shit?”
“I’ll assume that’s a rhetorical question and continue. Both times after we made love, he disappeared. When I woke up in the mornings, he was gone.”
She gasps in outrage. “He didn’t!”
She sounds so horrified, I feel defensive on Theo’s behalf. “But he left me flowers and a poem.” When she doesn’t respond, I sigh. “You’re right. It sounds bad when I say it out loud.”