The Bad Jokes #1: The Redhead

Chapter 14: Hi, I'm Anyone Else

Women have long fucking memories apparently. Rory had flung my words at me not once but twice tonight. She also didn't appreciate me running off Law, so I wouldn't make that mistake in front of her ever again.

But it had bothered me seeing her looking like she'd been freshly fucked -- her hair was a mess, her makeup was smeared and her clothes were in disarray. Did he do her in his car? I'd hoped not, because Rory was not a girl you'd fuck in your car for the first time together -- especially since Law drove a two-seater sports car when he wasn't on a construction site. She was a woman who deserved a bed, soft lights, flowers -- not some rough and fast sex in the back seat of a car. I mean, that could come with time, but she needed to be savored a man's first time with her. She needed --

Shit. She needed me to not be thinking about all the ways I would treat her like a woman. 

I'd waited in the hallway until she locked her door, then turned around...and found Sherry watching me from her doorway.

"Looking for some company tonight? Looks like your red-headed friend already had her fun tonight."

Since her condo overlooked the front parking lot, I had no doubt she'd been watching me outside and had witnessed Rory and Law talking with me once they came back from their date. 

"The answer is no. I've explained that we're done."

"We don't have to be," she pushed, and I huffed out an annoyed breath. 

"Have a good night," I said as I walked past her door.

"Xane," her voice stopped me, petulant and irritated. "There's nothing she's got that I don't."

I turned to look at her, unreasonably angry that she'd think there was any comparison between her and Rory. "Tell yourself whatever helps you sleep at night."

Then I made my way down to my condo, but not before I saw her face turn dark with anger.

My cell phone began ringing right when I walked into my place.

"Hey, Law," I said when I answered.

"What the hell was that tonight, Wright? You got something going with her?"

I hesitated. "No." Not yet. Maybe never since I pretty much blew it with her.

"So what was all that?"

Again I hesitated. "She's just...she's a nice girl. She doesn't deserve to get fucked in the front seat of a car -- or some alley, or wherever the hell you did her."

A burst of laughter met my ears.

"I didn't lay a hand on her. She looked like that because she pulled some payback on her cousin. That's it."

I breathed a sigh of relief. 

"We going to have problems when I take her out again?"

When, not if. 

Yes, we are going to have problems.

"No, no problems." How he could miss the edge in my voice, I had no clue.

"Good to know," he said, "because I already did ask her out again and she said yes. But Rory was real clear that she was going to be dating other men, too, and that this would only be casual for now. Casual as in we were free to date other people. She told me if we ever felt like this had real potential, then we could have a different conversation about serious and exclusive. But she is definitely going to be doing a lot of dating."

 Fuck. This woman had been mine for the taking, and I'd thrown her away.

The next day, close to dinner time, I'd intercepted the FedEx man eyeing the stairs as he balanced a tall, heavy box on his hand truck. It was going to none other than Rory's condo, so I'd told him I'd handle it and he gratefully handed it off to me.