Her Man Friday(53)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

"Really?" she asked again, running a hand over her—dark—hair once more.

He nodded, then lifted a hand to his head, pressing his fingertips against his temple. "Yeah. Yeah, it’s comin’ in real clear now. I see a dark stranger about… five-foot-three?"

"Five-foot-four," she corrected him.

He nodded, pressing his fingers to his temple again, feigning a semi-trance. "And I also see candlelight," he continued. "And a bottle of wine—good stuff, not the screw-off-cap kind Leo usually serves—and a cozy little table for two."

"Eddie…" Mr. Freiberger—or rather, Leo—muttered menacingly.

There was that threat/warning again, Lily noted. But just as before, Mr. Dolan seemed not to notice or care. Because he continued in that dreamy, trance-like voice, "A little Johnny Mathis on the stereo—’Misty,’ naturally—a couple of slow dances…"

Lily smiled. "Do go on," she told him.

The psychic astrologer closed his eyes, as if it might improve the vision. "And then after that, I see… handcuffs," he said, opening his eyes and dropping his hand back to his side.

"Handcuffs?" Lily asked.

He nodded. "And also a can of Criscoe and a Twister game. But that could be my own immediate future intruding a little there. Sometimes that happens to psychics, ya know."

Lily’s eyebrows shot up at that. "My goodness, Mr. Dolan, you do seem to have an amazing gift, to see all that detail."

He shrugged off the compliment. "Yeah, well, I have a lot of free time on my hands, Miss Rigby."

"Yes, well, that’s rather obvious, isn’t it?"

"Beat it, Eddie," Mr. Freiberger—Leo—said succinctly. "Miss Rigby and I have plans."

"Yeah, I’ll say you do. Do you even remember where you put your Twister game? If you want, I could stay and help you out with—"

"Go… away," Leo—yes, definitely Leo—said, more adamantly this time.

Eddie Dolan, psychic astrologer to bookkeepers, lifted a hand to his forehead again, this time in salute. "Miss Rigby," he said. "It was nice meeting you. Leo," he added, turning to his… client. "Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do."

Now why did Lily suspect that that left the field wide open?

"Have fun tonight, kids," Mr. Dolan tossed over his shoulder as he headed down the steps. And then, singing what sounded like "Strangers in the night, shoobie doobie doobie," he stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets and strolled down the street.

And then Lily and Leo—oh, yes, most definitely Leo; how had she missed that before?—were alone. With the sun setting low behind her, he was bathed in a dozen hues of gold and orange, framed by the doorway and, thanks to the raised entry, standing even taller than usual.

Lily inhaled a shaky breath and questioned the wisdom in coming here tonight. She couldn’t imagine what she’d been thinking yesterday to be so forward in inviting herself to his house. Oh, wait. Yes, she could, too, imagine. In fact, she could remember quite clearly what she’d been thinking yesterday to be so forward in inviting herself to his house. She’d been thinking that maybe the two of them could engage in some quiet conversation, move a little beyond the "Mr." and "Miss" phase, and then get na**d and make wild monkey love.

It was all coming back to her now.

Thinking she should probably just make an excuse to leave and then run away, Lily heard herself ask instead, "Aren’t you going to invite me in?"

For a moment, judging by the expression on his face, she honestly thought he was going to say No and slam the door in her face. Then he stood aside. "Of course. Please. Come in."

"Yes. Thank you. I will."

My, but the conversation was off to a good start, she thought. Any time now, they ought to be moving right into the polysyllabic stage, and after that, there would be absolutely no stopping them.

"I wasn’t sure what to wear," she began as she moved awkwardly past him, for some reason suddenly unwilling to get too close. "I wasn’t sure what we’d be doing." Other than that wild monkey love thing, I mean, and I did put on some lovely underthings for that. "I guess when I—" Might as well just say it. "When I invited myself over, I didn’t plan that far ahead. I was just thinking about yesterday afternoon…" Uh-oh. "Um, about yesterday afternoon when… um…" Oh, nicely dug pit, Lily. "When, uh…" she tried again.

"Yesterday afternoon in the pantry when I had my hand up your skirt?" he supplied helpfully. He closed the front door and leaned back against it, his posture seemingly benign, the fire burning in his eyes anything but.

She dropped her gaze to the back of her hand, furiously studying her fingernails. "Yes. Yes, that was it," she agreed, fighting back the heat she felt flooding her face. "I was thinking about… that… and I just sort of, um… arrived early."

"Thirty-five minutes early," he pointed out unnecessarily.

"Well, I did say sixish, didn’t I?"

"The operative word here being ish," he said.

"Actually, I don’t think ish is a word, is it?" she asked, trying to steer the conversation into another direction. And at this point, any direction would be welcome. Even a silly one.

"Well, no, not a word, exactly," he conceded, still leaning back against the door. "But it does have a certain implication. When you tell someone ish, they form a definite impression."

"Yes, but that implication is ishish, at best," Lily said. Somehow, she found the fortitude to bring her gaze back up to meet his. "So when one uses ish, it means ‘not specifically.’ Therefore, when I said, ‘sixish,’ what I meant was ‘not specifically six o’clock."

"Yeah, but you got here even before five-thirtyish," he said.

Lily gaped at him. "I most certainly did not. My arrival was definitely after five-thirtyish."

"But way before sixish."

Lily inhaled a discontented breath and blew it out with much exasperation. "Oh, all right," she finally relented. "I’m early. I admit it. There. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

He smiled as he pushed himself away from the door and took the single step necessary to bring his body within a hairsbreadth of hers. "Actually," he said softly, "what I’d like to hear is an explanation as to why the memory of my hand up your skirt made you arrive here so much earlier than you said you would."