explain that I was meeting Freddy at 10:00.
“Sexbar?” he asked. “Isn’t that like some gay sex club or something?”
I nodded.
“You’re going to a sex club after the day we had together? Are you that insatiable?” He slapped me on the head.
“It’s work,” I told him. I explained that once a month, Freddy and I went there to hand out condoms and brochures about safer sex. It was a volunteer thing we did for the agency Freddy worked for.
I didn’t tel Tony that we did it in our underwear.
“OK,” Tony said, “then you have permission.” He kissed me on the forehead. “I think it’s great that you do this kind of thing. You have a big heart to do volunteer work.”
I stood up and took a playful bow. “Thank you.”
Tony stood, too, and put his arms around me. “But I don’t real y understand about your day job,” he said.
“What exactly is it that you do?”
Uh-oh. “I’m a man of mystery.”
Tony pul ed me closer. “No, seriously, what do you do?”
I had just told Tony that he needed to be honest in our relationship. Could I be any less?
But he was a cop. And a man. An Italian man.
Was there a chance he’d be able to accept how I made a living?
“Wel,” I began, not sure what I was going to say.
Just then, the door opened. “Darling,” my mother cal ed. “I’m home!”
Great, I thought. Last night, I spied on Dottie Kubacki naked and now my mother walks in on me and Tony in the buff.
Karma’s a bitch.
“Oh!” she cried. “Excuse me!” She covered her eyes. “I didn’t see a thing!”
“Hel o, Mrs. Connor,” Tony muttered.
“Tony?” my mother asked. I saw her spread her fingers apart as she peeked through them.
“Yes,” he groaned.
“I thought you were married?” she said.
“He’s separated,” I said.
“Oh, wel, that explains it, then.” She put her hands up to her eyes like blinders. “I’m just going to scoot into my bedroom (her bedroom!) and give you two a chance to, um, finish up. Nice seeing you,” she said to Tony. She took another peek at his naked butt. “
Really nice.”
“Uh, bye, Mrs. Connor,” Tony said.
As soon as she closed the door, Tony pul ed away and hurriedly got dressed. “Stil want to spend the night?” I asked.
“I forgot she was staying here,” Tony said. “What are you doing about that?”
“I’m working on it,” I said.
Tony put his hand on his gun. “My offer stil stands.”
“Thanks, but I think I’l save that as a last resort.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, strapping on his holster.
He pul ed me against him. I liked the way my naked body felt against his clothed one.
“Aren’t you going to get dressed?” he asked me.
“I’m going to grab a shower before I head over to meet Freddy,” I said.
“I could use one, too” he said. “Although maybe I’l go to bed with your scent stil on me.”
Inside, I swooned.
“This was great,” Tony said. “Thank you. I’l cal you tomorrow, OK?”
“You better,” I said.
“OK.” He kissed me again. “I guess I’l be going now.”
“OK,” I said, kissing him back. We inched lip-locked toward the door.
“Bye,” Tony said, stil kissing me.
“So long,” I said, not stopping.
“See ya later.” He smiled through our kiss.
“Al igator,” I completed the rhyme.
After a few more minutes, I had to push him away.
“OK, OK, I get the hint,” he said.
I opened the door. “Talk to you tomorrow,” I said.
“I…,” Tony began. “Thank you.”
I thought he was going to say something else.
I closed the door.
I realized that I had forgotten. Forgotten what it was to be purely and total y joyful. To be happy and hopeful and ready for love.
I felt my frozen heart thawing faster than the polar icecaps in an A1 Gore movie.
Oh Lord, was I smitten.
I looked down at my feet. Yep, they were stil on the ground.
But it didn’t feel that way, did it?
I felt like shouting, dancing, and running down the street naked after him. I felt like singing “Don’t Let the Parade Pass Me By” from the back of a steamer ship.
Tony fucking Rinaldi!
I was trying to play it cool. To keep my feelings and expectations low. But now that I had lain in his arms again, now that I thought we might real y have the chance to get back together, I had to admit it: Damn, I loved that boy!
A knock at the door.
He was back!
I was just about to open the door when I realized the knock was coming from inside the apartment.
From my mother’s room.
My room, damn it!
“Is it safe to come out?” she asked.
“One minute!” I yel ed. I kicked my underwear into the closet, hid the lube, and threw a towel around my waist. “OK.”
My mother came out in a red velour robe with matching slippers and a turban. Cleopatra of Long Island. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” she said.
“He was just leaving.”
“Naked?”
“Wel, he was getting ready to leave.”
My mother made her way into the kitchen. “I need some tea. I am tel ing you, you could use Hannah Rosenberg’s bean dip for cement.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. Al I could think was: Tony Rinaldi!
“And her cookies! They could deflect bul ets!”
“Yeah.” His hair was even softer than I remembered. It felt like strands of silk when his head traveled down my bel y.
“So, you’re real y crazy about him, no?”
“Hmmm, interesting.” His biceps were like coiled steel covered with rubber and when he came he made the most sensual…
My mother walked over to me and yanked my hair.
“Ow! What’d you do that for?” I said, rubbing my head.
“You haven’t been listening to a word I said.”
Had she been talking? “That’s no reason to make me bald.”
