Immaterial Defense: Once and Forever #4 Read online

  “Seriously?”

  “That it’s illegal to fuck another guy in some countries? Yeah. Can you believe that shit?”

  “You’re not going to drink? Even if it takes all weekend?”

  “It won’t. I know I’ve seen her before, which means she must hang at one of the places I do. So, if you get your ass moving and we finish the track for the new song in time, we can begin the search at 3:02, as soon as I’m done spilling my guts to my shrink. You’re welcome, my friend.”

  “Thanks, Trevor. Thanks a lot.”

  * * *

  We spent the next three days searching for Sara. We didn’t find her. But Trevor was true to his word—not drinking anything stronger than soda all weekend. I could tell it hurt, saw the pained expression on his face when he didn’t know I was looking. So, as disappointed as I was that we didn’t find Sara, at least my friend had shown me I was worth caring about.

  14

  Sara

  I hadn’t stayed home for an entire weekend in a while, but if I’d gone out I would’ve had to talk to people, and after my last run-in with Declan, I just wasn’t up to it. So, I caught up on some homework I’d been putting off and tried to put the whole Declan thing behind me.

  The next week was equally useless—wake up, go to work, go home, and hang out there until Carissa picked me up for class. By Friday, I was going a little stir-crazy and had decided the hermit lifestyle wasn’t for me, after all.

  On the bright side, having nothing interesting to think about for five days meant I’d had time to go through all of the company’s old contracts, make a stack of the horribly outdated ones and any that needed serious reframing, and write up a detailed index of all of them.

  I dropped the whole pile onto Emilia’s desk. I recognized her expression—shock and dread.

  “The recycling bucket is next to your desk,” she joked. “Did you forget again?”

  “That new contract from last week made me wonder how many others should be updated.” I patted the pile. “This is the first batch.”

  “You’re fired.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m earning my fifty-cent raise. Tell Rob to start with the index I put together. It has all my notes about what I think should be changed for our current clients. I also wrote down everything that should probably go into our future contracts.”

  “You want me to get a divorce, is that it?”

  I laughed. “It’s just a lot of paper, Em. But I swear, you must have written every single contract from scratch because they’re all different. Once Rob goes through them and tells me what I got right and wrong in my notes, I’ll write up exactly what we need going forward and contact the clients who need to sign new ones. Did you know there’s this thing called a computer that can store things digitally now? Our clients don’t even have to print anything out.”

  “That’s just crazy.” She flipped through the pages. “When did you do all this?”

  I shrugged. “Lately, I’ve had a lot of stuff on my mind that I don’t want in there. Lucky for you, that means I have to use my brain for something else.”

  “For good instead of evil, huh?” She didn’t wait for a response—she knew me well enough to know how right she was. “Thanks, Sara. This is great. But once you’ve made up the new contracts, I’ll reach out to our clients—gotta earn my keep around here, you know?”

  “Perfect,” I said, relieved. Emilia might not be great with paper and contracts, but she was fantastic with people. Her business did well because she knew how people worked and could convey her desire to see others succeed and that she could help them do it.

  “Thanks, Sara. This is huge. Rob will be as impressed as I am.”

  “No problem.” As soon as I felt the heat on my cheeks I spun around and went back to my desk. I hated blushing almost as much as I hated being complimented. Both were things I had little experience with, and I was fine with that. Most of the time.

  At around noon, hefting a paper box full of the contracts I’d given her, Emilia left for a Women in Business luncheon followed by more house hunting. So, I spent the rest of the day alone.

  Aside from my nails, I did the filing, some homework, and, unfortunately, some thinking. To keep my brain from replaying and critiquing everything I’d said and done with Declan, I started thinking about a topic only slightly less painful—what I wanted to do after graduation.

  Basically, I spent about an hour silently and uselessly panicking about the future without coming to any conclusions.

  * * *

  Carissa had signed us up for an extra-credit seminar that started at four o’clock, so at three, I locked the office door behind me and took the elevator downstairs. The tenants of this building ran the gamut—small businesses like Emilia’s, insurance salespeople, a few high-end acupuncturists, and a deli on the ground floor.

  But the fourth floor was special. And whenever the elevator stopped there, I came very close to stepping out of it. But I never did. In fact, I never-did so hard, the opposite happened—I decided to judge all the people braver than me.

  Okay, so I’m not perfect. In fact, occasionally, I can be slightly…horrible. The fourth floor consisted of nothing but therapists. Every time someone got on the elevator on the fourth floor, I always said, “I see crazy people.” But never out loud—that would’ve been cruel. I just said it to myself and then giggled internally.

  Huh. I say things and then respond, all inside my own head. What was that expression about not throwing stones?

  Everyone should be in therapy these days, and almost everyone I knew was. Oddly, it was always the people who needed it most who didn’t go. My mother, my stepfather, my stepbrother.

  Me.

  At least they always seemed like well-functioning and nice crazy people. If I were completely honest with myself and had much bigger balls than I did, one of these days I’d get off on the fourth floor and beg one of the therapists for an emergency appointment. But since I wasn’t always honest with myself and didn’t have any balls, I made myself feel better by judging people who were braver and probably saner than me. Yeah, that was really horrible.

  When the doors opened, my jaw dropped in surprise. What were the chances? In a city as populated as this one?

  The second to the last person I expected to see leaving the fourth floor smiled and yelled, “Holy shit! It’s the Sara!”

  “What are you—?”

  “This is why you looked so familiar!” Trevor didn’t stop, bounding into the elevator while I desperately pressed the lobby button over and over. “And to think I spent an entire weekend sober because I was so sure I’d seen you somewhere before.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do you work in this building?”

  “Yep.” I stopped his hug by putting both palms on his chest and holding my ground. “Hi, Trevor.”

  “Aww,” he said, backing up a step, his grin never wavering. “You remembered me.”

  “You’re pretty hard to forget, but I think you know that.”

  “You flatter me, darlin’,” he said, feigning shyness. “Keep it coming.”

  Trevor reminded me of the chubby and charming sidekick in a rom-com whose job it was to crack distasteful jokes and make sure the film deserved its R rating. No one could be near him and not smile. As if he had laugh-inducing pheromones or used nitrous oxide-spiked breath mints.

  “How are you?” I asked tentatively. I didn’t want to embarrass him into admitting why he was here. Even though I was dying to know.

  “Not too bad. Not too bad. Just got the stamp of approval from my shrink, so I’m cleared from the looney bin for another week.”

  I had no idea if he was kidding or not. His smile never faltered, but he’d definitely be the type to cover his pain with humor. So, I kept my mouth shut and smiled back at him.

  “Well, well, well. The Sara…” The wall was a step too far away from him, so when he tried to lean back against it, he did a dramatic air-flail before catching himself at the last m
inute. I got the feeling he planned out his comedy routines in advance. “Wanna get something to eat and talk about how great Declan is?”

  “Um…”

  “Or we could talk about how great I am, if you’d prefer.”

  That, I could laugh about. But it didn’t change my mind. “I can’t. I have to get to a meeting. Work, work, work. Know what I mean?”

  “Nope, never had a nine-to-five job, but you know what they say, ‘Lunch is the most important meal of the day.’”

  “I think they say that about breakfast, actually. Plus, it’s three o’clock.” And a little late for lunch.

  “Breakfast? At three o’clock. That doesn’t sound right.” He shrugged. “Maybe we should call Declan—he knows normal people stuff.”

  “That’s not what I meant, but...” I couldn’t exactly tell him that the last thing I wanted to do was talk about, or to, Declan. The last time we’d spoken, he’d told me to have a nice life. So, knowing more good things about him would only depress me more and ruin the decent and boring day I was currently having.

  “Thanks for the offer, Trevor, but I really can’t.” Just then, the elevator stopped, and the doors opened. Perfect timing...if it had been the ground floor.

  Trevor nodded as two middle-aged men got on. “I get it. The last time we met, I spooked you, didn’t I?” He put his hand over his heart. “I’m all talk, I swear. Obnoxious, inappropriate talk that sometimes gets me in trouble. That’s why I keep Dec around. He keeps me in line, and I keep him from being boring.” His eyes widened momentarily. “Hey, that reminds me…” He reached into his back pocket, took out a flyer, and smoothed it on the wall. “Dec and I are going to be at Tunnel Vision tomorrow night. You know it?”

  “Of course. Who doesn’t?” I took the flyer he pushed at me and read it. Apparently, some band called Self Defense was playing there tomorrow at eight. “Is the band any good?”

  “The best!” he shouted, raising his hands to shoulder height and shaking them. “You should come. I know Declan would love it if you were there.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “You might have read him wrong about that.”

  “Impossible. I know that guy better than I know myself. I’ve known him so long that when we met, his voice was about three octaves higher than it is now and he’d literally never held a guitar.” He leaned in a bit and waited expectantly. “He’s pretty fucking good, too. Have you ever heard him play?”

  With my arms folded tightly across my chest, I just nodded. I hoped the silence would force Trevor into saying something—anything—that would take my mind of Declan and his damn guitar.

  And, of course, at that exact moment, an image of the last guitar I’d seen popped into my head. On the night Declan and I met, when we’d stumbled into his apartment, I’d briefly let go of him to get my shirt off and had noticed a guitar hanging on the wall.

  Once we’d started kissing again, I forgot all about it and pretty much everything else I’d ever noticed before. Until later.

  When he’d showed me how good he was with his hands, I discovered that his fingers were not only the perfect length for foreplay, they were also very, very dexterous. So, when I came out of the bathroom that night and saw him playing his guitar while he waited for me, it all clicked together. Including where his creativity came from.

  I hadn’t realized it at the time, but the way his fingers moved on that guitar had practically hypnotized me. One hand shifted from perfect position to perfect position without him even having to look where they were, and the other plucking each string separately or strumming them all together? Ugh. Who knew all that skill could be transferred to a woman’s body so flawlessly?

  It had taken me twenty-three years to figure out why everyone thought guitarists were so sexy. And it made me want to cry to know that some women might go their entire lives without ever realizing it.

  So, had I heard him play? Of course—that night and in a few of my more…detailed fantasies. Did I know he was amazing at it? Yep. Playing guitar and lots and lots of other things.

  Did I know Declan had ruined every string instrument for me because I could no longer look at them without remembering the orgasm he’d given me shortly afterwards? Oh, good God, yes. Yep, for the rest of my life, I would never be able to look at a guitar without having a hot flash. At twenty-three.

  “So, will you come?” Trevor asked, holding the elevator door open for me on the ground floor.

  “I don’t think I can make it.” Not if just the memory of Declan and his guitar made certain parts of me clench and start tingling. No way could I trust myself to be around him before that stopped happening.

  “Come on, the Sara. He’d want you there. Promise.”

  “Um…” I couldn’t agree to go, but I also couldn’t deny that I’d kind of enjoy seeing Declan again. I could handle going home with lady blue balls for one night. Besides, I’d just bought new batteries. “I’ll try. Maybe stay for one drink or something.”

  “Nah, you gotta stay for the band’s whole set. Seriously, you’ll love it.”

  “No promises, but I’ll think about it,” I lied. I knew he meant well and obviously cared about his friend but had no idea where his friend and I had left things the other night.

  “Sweet! See you there.” He bounded off, the crowd of people in the lobby seeming to step out of his way at exactly the right moment so his gait never changed. Once I couldn’t see him anymore, I made my way much less gracefully through the crowd, wondering if Carissa would be waiting for me out front when I finally got there. What I wasn’t going to wonder about was what I would wear to the club tomorrow if I were to go. Because I wasn’t going to the club tomorrow.

  When we first met, I remembered Declan mentioning that his favorite color was the same as my Electric Lemonade. Strangely, I just happened to have a really cute top with that exact shade of blue in it.

  Damn it. I was planning out what to wear to the club tomorrow, wasn’t I?

  15

  Sara

  I tried not to eat out very often. The way I saw it, every meal I ate at a restaurant equaled one more day I couldn’t afford to get my own apartment. But after a week of doing nothing, I guess I was especially vulnerable to peer pressure when Carissa invited me to dinner after the seminar. Or maybe I was just looking for a distraction, anything that would stop my mind from replaying the best parts of my night with Declan over and over.

  There were a lot of best parts to replay. It was annoying as hell. A week since he’d rejected me, and I still couldn’t get him out of my head.

  I’d been with gorgeous men before. Six-pack abs, tight asses, and big cocks weren’t completely new to me. And I’d even had some great sex. Not a lot of great sex, but more than many women have in a lifetime.

  So, why was it so hard to stop thinking about this particular night of great sex with this particular six pack, tight ass, and incredible amount of endurance? And worse, why was I thinking about how much I wanted to ignore all that stuff and just talk to him again?

  Okay, sure. Realistically, finding all of those attributes in one person wasn’t something I’d run into before, but those things were superficial. Remembering him should’ve just made me horny. I should be feeling my crotch tighten with the memories, not my chest. And my stomach definitely shouldn’t be the organ that fluttered.

  Maybe I was coming down with something.

  When Carissa looked across the table at me I had my hand on my forehead. “Are you getting sick?”

  “No,” I said, dropping my hand. “I just feel a little off, I guess.” I had to be the only person on earth hoping they had a tapeworm.

  Maybe it was E. coli. I dropped my fork and pushed my salad toward the middle of the table.

  “Well, I’m glad you felt up to joining me for tonight’s excursion.”

  Since Carissa had only lived in San Francisco for about a year and a half, she was on a mission to try out as many different bars and restaurants as she could. I’d lived in the c
ity my entire life, but since I’d only gotten a fake ID four years ago and had only been able to drink legally for two years, almost everywhere we’d gone was new to me, too.

  Thankfully, she stuck to the cheaper spots on her list when she was with me since I didn’t have the liquid assets she did and hated feeling like a mooch. Weekends didn’t matter because everything was free for women in the big nightclubs. Except for gay clubs, obviously. Gay men didn’t give a shit about how hot we looked.

  She leaned back in her chair and sipped her drink through two thin straws. “This place is cute, right?” The pub was a lot smaller and quieter than the other places she’d dragged me to.

  I nodded. “I feel a little like I’m inside a coffin, but yeah, it’s cute.” We were encased in wood—the chairs, bar, walls, ceiling, everything.

  She laughed. “I was thinking more of a hunting lodge, but I see your point.”

  “Is that why you ordered the steak? Because it reminded you of hunting trips back home?”

  “Not everyone from my hometown hunts, Sara.” She poked her fork into the giant chunk of meat on her plate. “But we wouldn’t be able to call ourselves Texans if we ordered salad at a restaurant either. At least not in my family.”

  Carissa and I had met on her first day at SF State. She’d chosen to spend her last two years of undergrad at the school that was as far as politically possible away from her very conservative parents back home. And I’d chosen to finally, someday, maybe finish my degree at the school where my very annoying parents were forcing me to take more than one class at a time. According to my stepfather, taking three classes was the absolute minimum if I wanted to live under his roof. Ironically, the last thing I wanted was to live under his roof. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a choice in that either.