Dark and Deadly

“Yeah. He said the same thing.”

“Jeez, Pam, you asked him?” Torie said, a little stung that Pam thought about her cousin that way.

Not like…Torie shied away from the thought. Instead, she focused on her friend.

“So, you fought? You yelled at him, some of your men came by, what?”

“No.”

“No, what?”

“Nothing like that. One minute we’re rolling around on the floor tearing each other’s clothes off…” Pam said it with such gusto that Torie blushed. Pam was, after all, talking about doing the horizontal mambo with Dev. Hot as he was, there was a kind of “ewwww factor” in knowing her friend and her cousin had slept together. “Then the next thing I know, he’s saying he hit his head, has a headache. I’m getting aspirin, joking about how, well, you know, saying the way I do, that doing the wild thing will cure anything, up to and including hair loss.”

“Yeah, as always I agree, but then again,” Torie stopped. Her standard answer to Pam’s hair-loss quote was that she wouldn’t know since she wasn’t getting any. She’d gotten plenty just that morning, so she couldn’t say that with a straight face.

Fortunately Pam didn’t notice the lapse. “Yeah, well. So then his phone rings.”

“He answered it?” Torie was shocked that someone could resist Pam in full siren mode, offering aspirin and wild monkey sex on the floor.

“Yeah, that bummed me, too,” she said, closing her eyes again. “He checked the caller ID, then went really funny looking.”

“Funny looking?” Dev?

“Yeah. He answered it, really sharp and almost mean sounding. Then he made some bogus excuse, and left.”

“Just left?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re stuck on him, aren’t you.” Torie didn’t ask it as a question. She knew the answer. For the first time since high school, Pam was actually smitten with someone.

Heart touched.

“But why would he just leave? I’ve tried to call him, he didn’t answer.”

Torie frowned at that. “How long ago did he leave?”

“Four hours. An eternity.”

“Jeez, Pam, snap out of it,” Torie said impatiently. “That isn’t like Dev. He’s too straight-up about things. If he was just here for a fling, he’d have bought you something pretty to remember him by and had you drive him to the airport. That’s his style, which is to say, he has some style.”

“But he just left.”

“You’re always telling me not to live in the past, Pam. Not to keep living there. You rag on me not to let what happened to me, all the pain of it, rule my life.” She drew a shaky breath, realizing this pent-up need to speak was not going to be stalled. “Well, you’re right. But don’t you sit there and tell me that again, just like you have all these years, and then do it yourself.”

“What are you saying?” Pam demanded, her eyes firing with hurt and frustration. “That I ran him off?”

“No!” Torie exclaimed. “Of course not.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m telling you that you were right,” Torie said, thinking about Paul, about what she’d done to keep him away. Had she been afraid of him all along? Afraid of what they could do to one another? Afraid of the power of their connection?

“About what?” Pam managed around her tissue.

“Not getting over what happened in college. About Todd. Life.” Torie got up to pace. “A lot of things.”

“Well, halle-fuckin-lujah. This isn’t about you,” Pam fired back, still angry. “Why are you attacking me, saying I ran him off?” She was on her feet now, the blanket she’d had wrapped around her shoulders dropped to the floor, tissues scattered like mutant snowflakes.

“Whoa. I’m not attacking you.” Torie put up her hands in defense. An irrational Pam, wrapped in a blanket, was nothing to fool with. “I’m telling you to take your own advice, and not live in the past. Just because you had some jerk leave you and break your heart doesn’t mean every man is going to leave you and break your heart if you get close to him.” She was nearly shouting now, standing toe-to-toe with one of her oldest friends in the world. “So just back way the hell down and take a fucking compliment.”

There was a heartbeat of silence. Neither she nor Pam blinked. Torie didn’t know whether or not to hug her, or duck.

“You said fuck.” Pam was wide-eyed now. Amazed.

“So what?” Torie growled. “I think I’m entitled. I have no home, I have no clothes, my laptop’s toast, my dog’s got a plate and five screws in her leg and is costing a fortune in vet fees, and I slept with Paul.” It was Torie’s turn to yell.

“You what?” Pam screeched.

“I have to go.” Torie realized she had just admitted to what Pam might consider the worst sin in the world.