Stranger - Megan Hart

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at his sides. He was shaking, just a little. He reached to his pocket like a reflex, but then pulled it away.

      “It’s okay.” It wasn’t, quite, but I wasn’t going to make him feel worse than he obviously already did.

      He walked me back to the parking garage in increasingly uncomfortable silence. By the time we got to my car he wasn’t visibly angry any longer, but that didn’t really help. I unlocked Betty’s door and turned to him.

      “Well, Jack, it’s been interesting.”

      He ran his hand through his hair. “I hope…you had fun.”

      Three hundred bucks’ worth? Not so much. “Sure,” I said anyway, because there was no point in being a bitch.

      Jack straightened a little at that. “You didn’t have fun.”

      “No, no—”

      “Grace,” he said. “I know you didn’t. I’m really sorry. Shit. I’m oh-for-two, huh?”

      I leaned against my car to watch him. Again his hand drifted to his pocket and pulled away. I thought of the huff-breath-hold. “If you need to smoke, you can go ahead. I don’t care.”

      Not now, when I knew there was no way I’d have to taste smoke on his tongue.

      His look of relief was so vast I laughed. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one with a lighter emblazoned with a picture of the biohazard symbol. He offered me one, which I declined.

      We stood a few feet apart, me still leaning against my car and him leaning against the one parked next to it. He blew the smoke away from my face and visibly stopped twitching. We didn’t say anything until he’d puffed a few times. Then he looked at me.

      “Sweet car.” His eyes roamed over Betty’s lines, seeing her as she should be, maybe, instead of how she was.

      “It’s my bitchin’ Camaro,” I told him with a grin.

      Guys dig cars almost as much as they dig pussy.

      “Nice.”

      It wasn’t, really—it had rust spots and dings and dents and was saved from being a junker solely because of its “cool” factor rather than any extra-special care I’d given it.

      “It runs.” I opened the door. “That’s the best thing that I can say about it.”

      Jack drew in more smoke and let it out. “She wasn’t my girlfriend. We hooked up once or twice.”

      “You don’t have to explain things to me.”

      He shook his head. “Yeah, I know. But I am, okay?”

      In the parking garage’s harsh lighting he shouldn’t have looked so pretty, his face all smooth lines and curves. With a cigarette in his mouth and smoke squinting his eyes, he should’ve looked harder. Or at least older.

      “Look,” he said when I didn’t answer. “I’ll give you your money back.”

      “Mrs. Smith doesn’t offer refunds.”

      “I know.” He finished the cigarette and dropped it to the floor to grind it out beneath the toe of his black boot. “But this date really sucked, and I’m sorry.”

      “It wasn’t all that bad. You’re a good dancer.”

      His mouth tipped up a tiny bit. “Thanks. So are you. But that business with Kira…shit. That was fucked. I’m sorry.”

      “You can’t help it she’s a stupid cunt,” I told him, and Jack looked shocked for one second before he burst into laughter.

      “Can I give you some advice?” I asked, watching him laugh.

      He nodded. “Sure.”

      “Do you plan on doing this a lot?”

      He didn’t ask me what I meant by “this.” “Um…well, yeah.”

      “And you want to be good at it, right?”

      “Yes. For sure.”

      I studied him another moment. “First of all, don’t make appointments where you can’t smoke.”

      Surprise swirled around his mouth and eyes. “No?”

      “No. Watching you suck on that butt was like watching a baby going for its bottle.”

      He laughed, chagrined. “Sorry.”

      “Don’t be sorry. Just don’t make dates where you’re going to feel like you can’t be yourself. Because I have to tell you, Jack, that’s what’s going to work for you. Not trying to be someone else.”

      He nodded, slowly, and gave me an assessing glance. “I sucked that bad, huh?”

      “No. Not really. But…” I thought of how to get my point across. “Okay, think of it this way. What am I paying you for?”

      “My time and company,” he answered promptly as he pulled out another cigarette and lit it.

      At least he got that right. “Exactly. But you have to act like these are real dates, Jack. You have to do your homework. Read the information Mrs. Smith sends you, and pay attention. Be a little more confident. Don’t make it so much like you’re waiting for permission to show me a good time. Just go for it.”

      “What if I’m guessing wrong?”

      “If you’re doing everything else right,” I said, “you won’t be.”

      He sighed. “Great.”

      I laughed and reached forward to push the hair out of his face. “And don’t go on dates where you’re likely to run into psycho barsluts.”

      “Well, that limits me.”

      We laughed together. I looked into my car but didn’t slide behind the wheel. He moved toward me, one arm sliding around my waist to hold me against his body.

      “Is this what you’re talking about?”

      Against his dark brows, his eyes looked very blue. Not a hint of green anywhere. His hair had stayed off his face this time.

      “Yes.”

      He inched me closer. “So…are we saying good-night?”

      “Yes, Jack.” I tempered it with a smile.

      He didn’t let me go. His fingers splayed on my hip. “Is it because of the way things went tonight?”

      I shook my head and answered honestly. “No.”

      “The cigarettes?”

      “Oh. No.” I meant that, too.

      Jack paused, his eyes searching my face but finding what, I didn’t know. “Do you think you might call me again?”

      “Sure.” I might. Or might not.

      “Great!”

      Then he let me go and stepped back to let me get in the car. The world shook a little and my body with it, because he gave me that smile again, that bright and shiny brilliant smile that made me want to dip him in butter and gobble him up.

      He sauntered away and I watched him go, and I realized something. That smile had almost made me forget Sam the stranger.

      I would definitely be calling Jack again.

       Chapter 04

      I didn’t have time to think of smiles or strangers for a few days. I had services to oversee and families to soothe. I know many people think what I do is morbid. Maybe even creepy. Few understand the purpose of a funeral director is not to take care of the dead, though that’s a part of it. My job is to care for those whose lives stutter in the face of their grief. To make the horrible task of saying goodbye

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