Done Deal Read Online Free Page A

Queen
’s mooring back to the hotel docks where they’d left the car. Deal had his head back over the cushions, his feet up on the seat across from them. He watched the still-blazing
Queen
recede in the distance behind them.
    “Maybe we could call off morning,” he said. He put his hand on her leg.
    “I had a nice time,” she said. She put her hand atop his. Laced their fingers together.
    A hopeful sign, he thought. “We’ll have to start getting out more,” he said, nudging his hand higher.
    “
Deal
,” she said, pushing it back.
    “It’s okay,” he said. “The captain won’t mind.”
    “Deal!”
    “Really. The owner’s a friend of mine.”
    And so it went until he fell asleep.
    ***
    “Janice, all I said was maybe we could try to cut back for a while.” He sat on the edge of the bed, trying to will his headache away.
    She came to the bathroom door and took the toothbrush out of her mouth. She’d pulled off the T-shirt she’d slept in.
    “There’s a baby on the way,” she said, mildly. “We’re going to need things.” She glanced around the bedroom, their furniture crowding every space, waved her arm about. “We
need
a bigger place.”
    Deal nodded, still staring at her. It was only her second month, but there were signs. Deal liked that, her changing that way. He found himself aroused. He remembered they’d started something last night, but he’d been so tired…
    “I know,” he said. “Things are tight. But we have to take the long view. By the time the baby’s here…” he trailed off, suggesting a future of endless possibility.
    She wiped toothpaste from the corner of her mouth, giving herself a moment. “By then,” she said, “we’ll be bankrupt.”
    He wanted to say something, but he wasn’t sure what. Every argument seemed weary, even to him. Janice stuck the toothbrush back in her mouth and disappeared into the bathroom.
    Deal swung his legs down from the bed and sighed. He felt exhausted, as if he’d spent the entire night running in place. He was almost weary enough to do it: Forget DealCo and all the hassle, take the supervisor’s job with Kendale Homes. Security, security, security. Maybe it was the smart thing to do.
    He reached for the television remote and pointed it at the tiny set that rested on their dresser. The face of a local weatherman congealed gradually and Deal pressed the volume button in time to hear “…back to a normal summer pattern, high in the low nineties, an eighty percent chance of thundershowers. We’ll keep an eye on those developing tropical waves for you.”
    “Terrific,” he said, flipping the channel.
    He caught a brief glimpse of a reporter finishing a standup in front of a burned-out gas station, police milling about in the background. The place looked familiar but the image faded into another weatherman about to proclaim the same sad news. Deal snapped off the set and stood up.
    He was pawing through his sock drawer, looking for a mate to the only white one he’d come across, when Janice came out of the bathroom in her walking gear. She had gotten involved with a group from the condo, and he was glad for that, though he suspected they encouraged her more extravagant tastes.
    Her dark hair was pulled back beneath a sweat band, her breasts hidden now under a spandex top. She wore a dark leotard beneath that, and white socks crumpled in rolls at her sneaker tops. She looked like the kid he’d met fifteen years ago.
    Something in his gaze must have caught her. She stopped and sighed, then came to him. “Oh, Deal,” she said. She looked at him sadly for a moment, then reached to kiss him on the cheek.
    She started to pull away, but Deal held on.
    “I’m late,” she said.
    “
Be
late,” he said, nuzzling her.
    “Deal,” she said. But she arched her neck at the touch of his lips.
    He edged them backward, toward the bed. He licked the underside of her ear. “They’re waiting on me,” she said, but her breath was quickening.
    They