So what if he was big? She was mad, and mad beat big any day of the week.
"I'm noisy?" she said through gritted teeth. It was tough to get much volume when her jaw was locked, but she tried. "I'm noisy?" She jabbed her finger at him. She didn't want to actually touch him, because his T-shirt was torn and stained with... something. "I'm not the one who woke the whole neighborhood at three o'clock this morning with that piece of junk you call a car. Buy a muffler, for God's sake! I'm not the one who slammed his car door once, the screen door three times what, did you forget your bottle and have to go back for it? and left his porch light on so it shone into my bedroom and kept me from sleeping." He opened his mouth to blast her in return, but Jaine wasn't finished. "Furthermore, it's a hell of a lot more reasonable to expect people to be sleeping at three o'clock in the morning than it is at two in the afternoon, or" she checked her watch "seven-twenty-three in the morning." God, she was so late. "So back off, buddy! Go crawl back into your bottle. If you drink enough, you'll sleep through anything."
He opened his mouth again. Jaine forgot herself and actually poked him. Oh, yuk. Now she'd have to boil her finger. "I'll buy you a new can tomorrow, so just shut up. And if you do anything to hurt my mom's cat, I'll take you apart cell by cell. I'll mutilate your DNA so it can never reproduce, which would probably be a good thing for the world." She swept him with a blistering look that took in his ragged, dirty clothes and unshaven jaw. "Do you understand me?"
He nodded.
She took a deep breath, reaching for the rein on her temper. "Okay. All right, then. Damn it, you made me cuss; and I'm trying not to do that."
He gave her a strange look. "Yeah, you really need to watch that damn cussing."
She pushed her hair out of her face and tried to remember if she had brushed it this morning. "I'm late," she said. "I haven't had any sleep, any breakfast, or any coffee. I'd better leave before I hurt you."
He nodded. "That's a good idea. I'd hate to have to arrest you."
She stared at him, taken aback. "What?"
"I'm a cop," he said, then turned and walked back into his house.
Jaine stared after him, shocked. A cop?
"Well, fuck," she said.
CHAPTER TWO.
Every Friday, Jaine and three friends from Hammerstead Technology, where they all worked, met after work at Ernie's, a local bar and grill, for a glass of wine, a meal they didn't have to prepare, and girl talk. After working all week in a male-dominated atmosphere, they really, really needed the girl talk.
Hammerstead was a satellite company supplying computer technology to the General Motors plants there in the Detroit area, and computers were still largely a male domain. The company was also fairly large, which meant the general atmosphere was a little weird, with its sometimes uneasy blending of computer geeks who didn't know the meaning of the words "appropriate for the office" and the usual corporate management types. If Jaine had worked in any of the research-and-development offices with the weirdos, no one would have noticed she was late to work that morning. Unfortunately, she was in charge of the payroll department, and her immediate supervising manager was a real clock watcher.
Because she had to make up the time she was late that morning, she was almost fifteen minutes late getting to Ernie's, but the other three had already gotten a table, thank God. Ernie's was already filling up, the way it always did on a weekend night, and she didn't like waiting in the bar for a table even when she was in a good mood, which she wasn't.
"What a day," she said as she dropped into the empty fourth chair. While she was thanking God, she'd add to the list her thanks that today was Friday. It had been a bitch, but it was the last bitch at least until Monday. "Tell me about it," Marci muttered as she stubbed out a cigarette and promptly lit another one. "Brick's been on a tear lately. Is it possible for men to have PMS?"
"They don't need it," Jaine said, thinking of her jerk of a neighbor a cop jerk. "They're born with testosterone poisoning."
"Oh, is that what's wrong?" Marci rolled her eyes. "I thought it was a full moon or something. You'll never guess Kellman grabbed my ass today."
"Kellman?" the other three said in synchronized astonishment, their combined voices drawing the attention of everyone around them. They burst into laughter, because of all the possible offenders, he was the least likely.
Derek Kellman, age twenty-three, was the walking definition of nerd and geek. He was tall, gangly, and moved with all the grace of a drunken stork. His Adam's apple was so prominent in his thin neck that it looked as if he had swallowed a lemon that became permanently lodged in his throat. His red hair was a stranger to a brush; it would be matted flat in one place and standing out in spikes in another: a terminal case of bed head. But he was an absolute genius with computers, and in fact they were all sort of fond of him, in a protective, big-sisterly way. He was shy, awkward, and absolutely clueless about everything except computers. The office buzz was that he'd heard there were two sexes, but wasn't certain the rumor was true. Kellman was the last person anyone would suspect of being an ass grabber.
"No way," Luna said.
"You're making that up," T.J. accused.
Marci laughed her husky smoker's laugh and took a deep drag off her cigarette. "Swear to God, it's true. All I did was walk past him in the hallway. The next thing I know, he grabs me with both hands and just stands there, holding my ass like it's a basketball and he's about to start dribbling."
The mental image had them all giggling again. "What did you do?" Jaine asked.
"Well, nothing," Marci admitted. "The problem is, Bennett was watching, the jerk."
They groaned. Bennett Trotter thrived on picking on those he considered his subordinates, and poor Kellman was his favorite target. "What could I do?" Marci asked, shaking her head. "No way was I going to give the asshole more ammunition to use against the poor kid. So I patted Kellman on the cheek and said something flirty, along the lines of 'I didn't know you cared.' Kellman turned as red as his hair and dodged into the men's room."
"What did Bennett do?" Luna asked.
"He got that nasty smirk on his face and said that if he'd known I was so hard up I'd settle for Kellman, in the interest of charity he'd have offered his services a long time ago."
That set off an epidemic of eye-rolling. "In other words, he was his usual jerk self," Jaine said in disgust. There was political correctness, and then there was reality, and the reality was that people were people. Some of the guys they worked with at Hammerstead were nasty leeches, and no amount of sensitivity training was going to change that. Most of the guys were okay, though, and it all evened out because some of the women were barbed- wire bitches. Jaine had stopped looking for perfection, in the workplace or anywhere else. Luna thought she was too cynical, but then Luna was the youngest of their group and her rose-tinted glasses were still intact a bit faded now, but intact.
On the surface, the four friends had nothing in common other than their place of work. Marci Dean, the head of accounting, was forty-one, the oldest of the group. She had been married and divorced three times and, since the last trip through the courtroom, preferred less formal arrangements. Her hair was bleached platinum blond, her smoking was her ginning to take its toll on her skin, and her clothes were always just a bit too tight. She liked beer, blue-collar men, rowdy sex, and admitted to a fondness for bowling. "I'm a man's dream," she'd say, laughing. "I have beer tastes on a champagne budget."
Marci's current live-in boyfriend was a guy named Brick, a big, muscle-bound oaf whom none of the other three liked. Privately, Jaine thought his name was appropriate, because he was as dense as a brick. He was ten years younger than Marci, worked only occasionally, and spent most of his time drinking her beer and watching her television. According to Marci, though, he liked sex just the way she did and that was reason enough to keep him around for a while.
Luna Scissum, the youngest, was twenty-four and the wunderkind of the sales division. She was tall, willowy, and had both the grace and dignity of a cat. Her perfect skin was the color of pale, creamy caramel, her voice was gentle and lyrical, and men dropped at her feet like flies. She was, in effect, the direct opposite of Marci. Marci was blatant; Luna was remote and ladylike. The only time anyone had ever seen Luna angry was when someone referred to her as 'African-American'.
"I'm an American," she had snapped, whirling on the offender. "I've never even been to Africa. I was born in California, my father was a major in the Marine Corps, and I'm not a hyphenated anything. I have a black heritage, but I also have a white one." She had held out one slim arm and studied the color of it. "Looks to me like I'm brown. We're all just different shades of brown, so don't try to set me apart."
The guy had stammered an apology, and Luna, being Luna, had given him a gracious smile and forgave him so gently that he ended up asking her out on a date. She was currently dating a running back for the Detroit Lions football team; unfortunately, she had fallen hard for Shamal King, while he was known for his wild partying with other women in every city where there was an NFL team. All too often Luna's dark hazel eyes held an unhappy expression, but she refused to give up on him. T.J. Yother worked in human resources, and she was the most traditional of the four. She was Jaine's age, thirty, and had been married to her high-school sweetheart for nine years. They lived in a nice suburban home with two cats, a parrot, and a cocker spaniel. The only obvious fly in T.J.'s ointment was that she wanted children and her husband, Galan, did not. Privately, Jaine thought T.J. could be a little more independent. Though Galan worked as a supervisor on the three-to-eleven shift at Chevrolet and wasn't at home anyway, T.J. was always checking her wristwatch, as though she had to be home at a certain time. From what Jaine gathered, Galan didn't approve of their Friday night get-together. All they did was meet at Ernie's and have dinner, and they were never out later than nine; it wasn't as if they were hitting all the bars and drinking until the wee hours.
Well, no one's life was perfect, Jaine thought. She hadn't done so great in the romance department herself. She'd been engaged three times but hadn't yet made it to the altar. After the third breakup, she had decided to give dating a rest for a while and concentrate on her career. Here she was, seven years later, still concentrating. She had a good credit record, a nice bank account, and had just bought her first very own house not that she was enjoying the house as much as she had thought she would, what with that nasty-tempered, inconsiderate cretin next door. He might be a cop, but he still made her uneasy, because cop or not, he looked like the type who would burn down your house if you got on his bad side. She had been on his bad side from the day she moved in. "I had another episode with my neighbor this morning," she said, sighing as she propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her entwined fingers. "What did he do this time?" T.J. was sympathetic, because, as they all knew, Jaine was stuck, and bad neighbors could make your life a living hell. "I was in a hurry and backed into my trash can. You know how when you're running late you always do things that would never happen if you took your time? Everything went wrong this morning. Anyway, my can knocked his down, and the lid bounced into the street. You can imagine the noise. He came charging out the front door like a bear, yelling that I was the noisiest person he'd ever seen."
"You should have lacked his can over," Marci said. She wasn't a believer in turning the other cheek. "He'd have arrested me for disturbing the peace," Jaine said mournfully. "He's a cop."
"No way!" They all looked incredulous, but then, they had heard her describe him, and red eyes, beard stubble, and dirty clothes didn't sound very coplike.
"I guess cops are just as likely to be drunks as anyone else," T.J. said, a little hesitantly. "More so, I'd say." Jaine frowned, thinking back to the morning's encounter. "Come to think of it, I didn't smell anything on him. He looked like he'd been on a three-day drunk, but he didn't smell like it. Damn, I hate to think he can be that grouchy when he isn't hungover."
"Pay up," Marci said.
"Damn it!" Jaine said, exasperated with herself. She had made a deal with them that she'd pay each a quarter every time she cursed, figuring that would give her the incentive to quit.
"Double it," T.J. chortled, holding out her hand. Grumbling, but being careful not to swear, Jaine dug out fifty cents for each of them. She made certain she always had plenty of change these days.
"At least he's just a neighbor," Luna said soothingly. "You can avoid him."
"So far I'm not doing a very good job at it," Jaine admitted, scowling at the table. Then she straightened, determined to stop letting the jerk dominate her life and her thoughts the way he had for the past two weeks. "Enough about him. Anything interesting going on with you guys?" Luna bit her lip, and misery chased across her face. "I called Shamal last night, and a woman answered."
"Oh, damn." Marci leaned across the table to pat Luna's hand, and Jaine had a moment of envy at her friend's verbal freedom.
The waiter chose that moment to distribute menus that they didn't need, because they knew all the selections by heart. They gave him their orders, he collected the unopened menus, and when he left, they all leaned closer to the table.
"What are you going to do?" Jaine asked. She was an expert at breaking up, as well as at being dumped. Her second fiance, the bastard, had waited until the night before the wedding, the rehearsal night, to tell her he couldn't go through with it. Getting over that had taken a while and she wasn't going to pay up for words she thought, but didn't say out loud. Was "bastard" a curse word, anyway? Was there an official list she could consult?
Luna shrugged. She was close to tears, and trying to be nonchalant. "We aren't engaged, or even seeing each other exclusively. I don't have any right to complain."
"No, but you can protect yourself and stop seeing him," T.J. said gently. "Is he worth this kind of pain?" Marci snorted. "No man is."
"Amen," Jaine said, still thinking of her three broken engagements.
Luna picked at her napkin, her long, slender fingers restless. "But when we're together, he... he acts as if he really cares. He's sweet, and loving, and so considerate "
"They all are, until they get what they want." Marci stubbed out her third cigarette. "That's personal experience speaking, you understand. Have your fun with him, but don't expect him to change."
"Isn't that the truth," T.J. said ruefully. "They never change. They may put on an act for a while, but when they think they have you sewed up and tied down, they relax and Mr. Hyde shows his hairy face again."
Jaine laughed. "That sounds like something I would say."
"Except there weren't any curse words," Marci pointed out. T.J. waved a signal to cut the jokes. Luna looked even more miserable than before. "So I should either put up with being one of a herd, or stop seeing him?"
"Well... yeah."
"But it shouldn't be that way! If he cares for me, how can he be interested in all those other women?"
"Oh, that's easy," Jaine replied. "The one-eyed snake has no taste."
"Sweetheart," Marci said, her smoker's voice as kind as she could make it, "if you're looking for Mr. Perfect, you're going to spend your whole life being disappointed, because he doesn't exist. You have to get the best deal you can, but there will always be problems." "I know he isn't perfect, but "
"But you want him to be," T.J. finished.
Jaine shook her head. "Isn't going to happen," she announced. "The perfect man is pure science fiction. Not that we're perfect, either," she added, "but most women do at least try. Men don't try. That's why I gave up on them. Relationships just don't work out for me." She paused, then said thoughtfully, "I wouldn't mind having a sex slave, though."
The other three burst out laughing, even Luna. "I could get into that," Marci said. "I wonder where I can get one?"
"Try Sexslaves-R-Us," T.J. suggested, and they dissolved into laughter again.
"There's probably a Web site," Luna said, choking a little. "Of course there is." Jaine was totally deadpan. "It's on my Favorites list: www.sexslaves.com."
"Just type in your requirements and you can rent Mr. Perfect by the hour or the day." T.J. waved her glass of beer, carried away with enthusiasm.
"A day? Get real." Jaine hooted. "An hour is asking for a miracle."
"Besides, there is no Mr. Perfect, remember?" Marci said. "Not a real one, no, but a sex slave would have to pretend to be exactly what you wanted, wouldn't he?" Marci was never without her soft leather briefcase. She opened it and dug out a pad of paper and a pen, slapping them down on the table. "He most certainly would. Let's see, what would Mr. Perfect be like?"
"He'd have to do the dishes half the time without being asked," T.J. said, slapping her hand down on the table and drawing curious looks their way.
When they managed to stop laughing long enough to be coherent, Marci scribbled on her pad. "Okay, number one: Do the dishes."
"No, hey, doing the dishes can't be number one," Jaine protested. "We have more serious issues to address first." "Yeah," Luna said. "Seriously. What do we think a perfect man would be like? I've never thought about it in those terms. Maybe it would help if I had it clear in my mind what I like in a man."
They all paused. "The perfect man? Seriously?" Jaine wrinkled her nose.
"Seriously."
"This is going to take some thinking," Marci pronounced. "Not for me," T.J. said, the laughter fading from her face. "The most important thing is that he wants the same things out of life that you do."
They lapsed into a little pond of silence. The attention their laughter had gotten from the diners at the surrounding tables moved on to more promising targets.
"Wants the same things out of life," Marci repeated as she wrote it down. "That's number one? Are we agreed?" "That's important," Jaine said. "But I'm not sure it's number one."
"Then what's number one for you?"
"Faithfulness." She thought of her second fiance, the bastard. "Life's too short to waste it on someone you can't trust. You should be able to depend on the man you love not to lie to you or cheat on you. If you have that as a base, you can work on the other stuff."
"That's number one for me," Luna said quietly. T.J. thought about it. "Okay," she finally said. "If Galan wasn't faithful, I wouldn't want to have a baby with him."
"I'll go along with that," Marci said. "I can't stand a two- timer. Number one: He's faithful. Doesn't cheat or lie." They all nodded.
"What else?" She sat with the pen poised over the pad. "He should be nice," T.J. offered.
"Nice?" Marci looked incredulous.
"Yes, nice. Who wants to spend her life with a jerk?"
"Or next door to one?" Jaine muttered. She nodded in agreement. "Nice is good. It doesn't sound exciting, but think about it. I think Mr. Perfect would be kind to kids and animals, help old ladies across the street, not insult you when your opinion is different from his. Being nice is so important it's close to being number one."
Luna nodded.
"Okay," Marci said. "Hell, you've even convinced me. I don't guess I've ever known a nice guy. Number two: Nice." She wrote it down. "Number three? I have my own idea on this one. I want a guy who's dependable. If he says he's going to do something, he should do it. If he's supposed to meet me somewhere at seven, he should be there at seven, not come strolling in at nine-thirty or maybe not at all. Is there a vote on this one?" They all four raised their hands in an aye vote, and "Dependable" went down in the number three slot. "Number four?"
"The obvious," Jaine said. "A steady job."
Marci winced. "Ouch. That one hurt." Brick was currently sitting on his butt instead of working.
"A steady job is part of being dependable," T.J. pointed out. "And I agree, it's important. Holding down a steady job shows maturity and a sense of responsibility."
"Steady job," Marci said as she wrote.
"He should have a sense of humor," Luna said. "Something more than an appreciation for The Three Stooges?" Jaine asked.
They began snickering. "What is it with men and The Three Stooges?" T.J. asked, rolling her eyes. "And bodily function jokes! Put that at number one, Marci no toilet jokes!"
"Number five: Sense of humor." Marci chuckled as she wrote. "In the interest of fairness, I don't think we can dictate what form the humor takes."
"Sure we can," Jaine corrected. "He's going to be our sex slave, remember?"
"Number six." Marci called them to order by tapping her pen on the rim of her glass. "Let's get back to business, ladies. What's number six?"
They all looked at each other and shrugged. "Money's nice," T.J. finally offered. "It isn't a requirement, not in real life, but this is fantasy, right? The perfect man should have money."
"Filthy rich or comfortable?"
That called for more thought.