“Thanks,” I say, “for Tuesday night and today.”
“No problem, Emma. See you Monday.” Then he turns to David and says, “Hey.”
“Hey,” David says to Matt in return, with a lift of his chin.
“She knows, dude. I just told her. You can thank me later.” And with that, Matt turns away from us and runs like hell toward the parking garage.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“What was that all about?” David asks. “Should I be running after him right now?”
“No,” I say with a laugh. “Just let him go.”
“What did he tell you?” He looks a little worried.
“That you’ve got it bad for me.”
“No news there.” Inside I am jumping up and down like a schoolgirl.
“And that he thinks we fit.”
“Is that right?” he says with a grandfather-like inflection. “I was unaware that Matt is such a good judge of relationships.”
“Yeah, well, it was kinda nice to have a neutral third-party’s opinion on the whole thing. Truthfully, I wasn’t really convinced until I heard it from him.” I am teasing him, but he looks almost chastened.
“What makes you think Matt is a neutral third-party?”
Oh. “What makes you think he isn’t?”
“He knows more about me than you might think,” he says. “Plus, he put you in the shower and saw you half naked.” It makes me wonder what Matt knows about David that I don’t. But I decide that now is not the time to ask.
“Well, regardless of the extent of his neutrality, I’m putting a great amount of faith into his opinion.” His brow raises in question. “And actually, what you just said makes his vote carry even more weight in my book,” I add.
“Is that so?”
“Yes. It means that either he must think you’re an okay guy, even with all the horrible things he supposedly knows about you, or that I am horrible enough myself to deserve to be with the likes of you. And frankly, I’m okay with either of those. Plus, he must not think I’m ass-ugly. I’m sure he wouldn’t want his mate to be seen with a hideous skank. Big relief there, that’s for sure.”
“First of all, I didn’t say that what he knows about me is horrible. And, secondly, he did not refer to your body as ass-ugly.”
“What did he refer to me as?” Hmm. Matt said he didn’t tell David about my panty dance, but clearly they talked about the fact that I was half naked. It makes me wonder why David isn’t making a bigger deal out of it.
“Are you trying to make me feel covetous again?” He looks at me coyly, trying to read my face. I’m guessing he thinks we are treading on thin ice. I, on the other hand, am having a ball.
“Damn straight, I am. Spill it.”
He looks cautious, as if whatever he is about to say might somehow hurt him. “You don’t need to make me feel that way, Emma. I already do. I feel that way every second of every day, whether you are with me or not.” My lungs draw in a rush of air, and I smile, knowing that I have never heard a better string of words roll out of someone’s mouth. “Let’s just say the man is lucky I cut him some slack for taking care of you. If the words that he said had come out of another man’s mouth, you would have had to pry me off his beat-to-death body with a crowbar.”
I pause for a second and then leap at him, throwing my arms around his neck and kissing him.
David takes me to a restaurant down the street from my office building. As we are eating, he asks me if I’d like to go to the firing range again tonight. We decide to spend an hour or so there and then go out for a beer. I’m definitely getting the hang of shooting the gun. I do much better this time, hitting the target a dozen or so times. David, on the other hand, is a great shot.
When I ask him why he’s so good at it, he tells me that he once had a girlfriend who was “a gun hound.” She taught him how to shoot and even bought him his first gun. An S&W revolver that he tells me he still has. I wonder if Anna Spaight is the ex-girlfriend he’s referring to. The thought of a gun in the hands of someone so unstable is a sobering thought. As is the thought of David having other ex-girlfriends. I shut both ideas out of my head.
I ask how many guns he has now, and he tells me just those two. Any more than that would make him “a gun hound,” something he does not aspire to be.
“I really just keep them as protection,” he says. “I didn’t grow up around guns or anything. I just feel better having them around. They make me feel like if all hell breaks loose, I can keep shit under control. You know? And I definitely like knowing that you can load and shoot this one. Even though you’ve got a lot of room for improvement.” He grins at me with his noise-canceling headphones resting on top of his head, and it makes me feel all mushy inside. Gag.