At first, it wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t fun, exactly, but it wasn’t like he was expected to shovel shit, an idea he mentioned to Delaney, who just smiled and said, “I’ve shoveled shit. It’s not so bad. Second hour’s the worst.” In fact, the most innocuous comments he made would provoke the weirdest/coolest/what-the-hell responses from her. It could be addictive if he wasn’t careful.
She hadn’t been at all worried about sharing a hotel room with a stranger, for example. He’d heard about the Minnesota Nice thing, and it was apparently true, even if it meant putting their own safety at risk. She’d explained that there was a sofa bed under one of the piles of Peeps, and he was welcome to sleep on it once he cleared it off. And like every sofa bed ever engineered, the bar hit him square across the middle of his back, because furniture designers are psychopaths. Still, it wasn’t a park bench, which, while more comfortable, would have been much colder.
He’d liberated the spare blanket from the closet,
(“Ah-ha!”
“What? You thought it was a treasure hunt? Putting a spare blanket in the closet isn’t hiding it.”
“Don’t spoil it! This is all I have right now!”)
slid between the blanket and the bar, got comfy, then glanced over. “Delaney?”
“Hmmm?” She’d changed into a pair of tattered black cotton shorts and a purple T-shirt with the logo I JUST WANT TO DRINK WINE, SAVE ANIMALS, AND TAKE NAPS.* She’d climbed into bed ten minutes earlier and was working on a laptop. “What? You want another pillow? They gave me eight, I’ll never use ’em all.”
“No, I’m fine. Listen, you don’t, uh, have to worry. About anything happening. I mean, about my trying anything.”
“I’m not,” she replied without looking up from her computer. “At all.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way—”
“Oh boy.” She sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Here we go. No one ever says that and then doesn’t follow with something jerky.”
“—but why aren’t you worried?” He sat up, giving his back temporary relief. “You don’t know me, not really. I could be anybody.”
“But you aren’t anybody. You’re Rake Tarbell.”
“Well, yeah.” When did I tell her my last name? He tried to remember, but mostly the only thing that came to mind was the canal and being broke and the hangover and Delaney helping him and Lillith. He couldn’t remember when he’d introduced himself, but he must have. Probably while I was drunk. “But I could have any kind of background.”
“You conceived a child—”
“Maaaaaybe. We don’t have the labs back on that one.”
“—in a public park. And you had money until last night. And you can swim, apparently?” She smirked, and it had either been a long day or she was growing on him (or both), because the smirk was less aggravating. “And you hate vermouth, except when you’re getting crazy drunk on it. And your brother, pretty much all the time. And you’re a bewildered father—perhaps,” she added when he opened his mouth. “That’s your background.”
“I don’t hate Blake, he just bugs the shit out of me, and you only know those things because I told you. It could’ve been all lies. Blake could be a lie. The vermouth thing has to be a lie,” he added in a mutter.
She laughed. “Who’d lie about that? Any of it?”
“Look, you’re missing the point.” He wriggled to get comfortable, which was exactly the waste of time he’d predicted. “What if I got up in the middle of the night and was craving a bed without a bar and sex without a condom and tried to start some shit?”
“I’d handle it,” she replied. It was a little startling how calm she was while they discussed her possible potential sexual assault, and his stealing of her bed. Not like she was in denial, but like she’d actually have no trouble handling it. Him. Like she’d weighed the variables and thought about the odds and found them decidedly in her favor. “It’d be fine, by which I mean I’d be fine.”
“But how do you know?” he persisted, even while his inner Blake voice was cautioning him to shut up already and stop looking a gift sofa bed in the mouth (bar). “You can’t know. Not really.”
“No, but I know myself. I had an eventful childhood,” she said with a small, strange smile. “Donna, too. And there’s nothing like an eventful childhood to prepare you for an eventful adulthood. I know you won’t try to rape me, Rake—that’s what we’re dancing around, right? So let’s just say it. I know you wouldn’t, but if you lost your mind and tried, you wouldn’t succeed.”
“Oh.” Now what to make of that? “Well. That’s good.” Puzzling and vague, but good. “Thanks, you know. For helping me.”
“You shouldn’t thank me.” She was still looking at him, her work forgotten for the moment, and she wasn’t smiling. “Because you don’t know much about me, either. We ran into each other last night and again this morning and that’s it, that’s all you’ve got. Maybe I’m a terrible person. Maybe I set you up so I can creep on you in the wee darkest hours.”
He spread his arms and flopped back. “Creep away, woman named Claire who calls herself Delaney. Consider me extremely open to creeping.” I’ve got no problem if a pretty brunette with wonderful eyes wants to get into my pants. Creep into my pants. Whatever. “You don’t scare me.”
“Yes, well. You’re an idiot.” She shrugged. “So.”
Weird (but nice!) how that didn’t sound bitchy, unlike, say, every time Blake said it, starting when they were three and Rake gobbled the green Play-Doh so Blake couldn’t finish the landscaping for his Play-Doh castle. The vomiting had been worth it. Nontoxic, my ass. “G’night, Delaney.”
“Good night, Rake.”
Weird. All of it. But not especially troubling, though perhaps it should have been. Frankly, he was too exhausted to fret much longer. He was clean, and full, and (almost) comfortable, and the headache was gone, and the nausea was manageable.
He was also broke, cut off from his brother (the dictionary definition of a mixed blessing), and had promised to stuff what looked like a thousand Easter baskets over the next few days. And he just couldn’t worry about it much longer, any of it.
He was asleep in moments, and didn’t dream.