Read Online Still Life with Shape-shifter by Sharon Shinn - Free Book Online

it, and says, “Bargain.” He lays thirty dollars on the table for a total that I know cannot have exceeded twenty dollars. Add to the list of his positive attributes the fact that he’s a generous tipper. So far, the only fault he seems to have is that he wants to destroy me.
    “Maybe next time we can have that root beer float,” he says as he scoots out of the booth and stands up.
    “There isn’t going to be a next time,” I say, but I’m not sure my voice is convincing.
    He shrugs and leads the way to the door. “I’ll let you think it over a few days, then give you a buzz,” he says. “Maybe you’ll have changed your mind.”
    I’m still smiling as we settle into the Jeep. Maybe because I’m amused that he thinks I’ll ever betray Ann. Maybe because I’m pleased at the thought that I’ll actually hear from him again. It’s full dark by now, and the parking lot is crowded, so I turn on the headlights and back carefully out of my parking spot. Not until I put the Jeep in drive do I notice the car that’s parked two spaces over and spilling its four occupants onto the lot. The large man is occupied with keeping the two small boys from running into traffic, but the woman is standing next to her closed door, and she’s staring at me right through my windshield.
    It’s Debbie, out for a dinner with the family, though it’s awfully late by Corinna’s standards. I roll down the window, and call, “I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.” I’m almost laughing as I turn out of the parking lot, but there’s an edge of hysteria to the sound. Seriously, this has been one of the strangest days I can ever remember.
    “Is that one of the people you don’t want me talking to?” Brody asks.
    I snort. “Ha. She’s one of the few people I’d trust not to tell you anything. If there was anything to tell. She’s my best friend.”
    “Well, good. Maybe you can introduce me sometime.”
    I don’t answer, and we don’t speak again until we pull up in front of the house. I’ve left the lamp on in the main room but forgotten to turn on the porch light, so very little illumination reaches the front-yard-cum-gravel-parking-strip that borders the road. The sounds we make as we slam the doors and crunch across the rocks are very loud in the nighttime stillness. I come around the Jeep to stand next to Brody at the driver’s side of his Honda.
    “I guess you don’t want to invite me in,” he says.
    “Yeah, you know, I feel pretty battered. I just want to curl up and watch TV or maybe go straight to bed.”
    He nods. “Can I phone you later in the week?”
    Now that I can’t see his face, I’m struck again by the quality of his voice, a soothing tenor with a timbre of sincerity. I don’t want to be seduced by vocal cords, so I try to peer at him through the darkness. “You already threatened to do it.”
    I think he’s grinning. “Yeah, but it would be nicer if I didn’t think you were dreading the call.”
    I make a helpless gesture with both hands. “I don’t know what to say. I’m never going to talk to you about Ann.”
    He shrugs. “Okay. Maybe. Or maybe once you get to know me, you’ll realize you can trust me, and you’ll decide to tell me stuff. And if not—” He shrugs again. “Still doesn’t seem like it would be a waste of my time to hang out with you.”
    I try to suffocate the treacherous little flare of warmth that curls around my heart at the words. God, when’s the last time someone flirted with me? “Lotta great entrées you still need to try at Corinna’s.”
    “Yeah. Just what I was thinking.”
    I can’t come up with anything else to say, so I point at his car. “You think you’ll make it safely back home before your car breaks down?”
    He pats his chest in the general vicinity of his shirt pocket. “If not, I can always call my new friend Kurt. I bet he’d come get me.”
    I laugh. Not the worst way to end this long and tumultuous evening. “I bet he would.” I