Done Deal Read Online Free Page B

toppled over onto the bed. “I’m already dressed,” she said.
    Deal had his hand hooked under the band of her leotard. “Not for long,” he said, his own voice thick, his fingers probing.
    “Oh, Deal,” she said again, lifting her hips against him. And then he was lost in the heat and the musk and the dampness.
    ***
    Though his eyes were closed, Deal had convinced himself that he was floating on a diving raft somewhere in the middle of a broad lake rimmed by snowcapped mountains. Where he lay, it was warm and pleasant, the planks as soft as cotton, the sun beating down on his bare body, drying him. There was a faint scent of jasmine, and of sex, and the comforting touch of Janice’s shoulder at his side. Only the slightest trembling of the raft to disturb him and the sound of quiet sobbing.
    Sadness
, he thought. How could there be sadness in such a lovely world? And then he came awake.
    Janice lay with her back toward him, her shoulders shuddering, her face pressed into a pillow. Deal pressed his eyes closed momentarily, longing for the dream to take him up again, but what he saw instead was an image of fighter planes swooping low, strafing a deserted beach. He was in the picture somewhere, a gaunt man shaking a stick at the planes, his eyes as crazed as Job’s.
    He opened his eyes and moved close to her, his chin tucked over her shoulder. How many times had this happened, would it happen?
    “Janice,” he said. He reached to move the pillow from her face. Her eyes were squeezed tight, her cheeks streaked with tears.
    “Janice?” he repeated. He raised himself up and placed his hand on her shoulder. With his other hand, he began to knead the tautness at the base of her neck. Her sobbing began to subside. He moved both hands to her shoulders and pressed his thumbs into the long muscles of her back.
    Gradually, he felt the tightness fading, and after a few moments she sat up, wiping at her cheeks with a corner of the tangled sheet. She took a deep breath, her hands folded in her lap.
    “I’m trying to make this work,” she said, staring at her hands. “I am. I am.”
    Deal had the odd sensation that she was talking to herself, that he was not even in the room at all, and he put his hand atop hers to reassure himself.
    She glanced up at him. “I’m not going crazy, if that’s what you think.”
    “I know,” Deal said. “I know.”
    “Sometimes, things just get to be too much,” she said.
    Deal nodded. “I’m going to take care of everything, Janice. You don’t have to worry.”
    She glanced around the room again, and Deal saw it as an accusation. They’d had to sell the house in the Shores, almost a year ago now, and though they’d tried to keep contact, they’d apparently left most of their friends behind in the move. It had gotten to be a big city, Deal thought sadly. And he’d been so busy, busting his ass trying to stay afloat, that he hadn’t had time to put much of a personal life back together.
    “Mr. Penfield told me he wanted to talk to you last night,” Janice said, breaking into his thoughts.
    Deal nodded.
    She was staring at him. “Well, did he?”
    Deal felt the awful weariness piling down on him again. He’d managed to drive it away for a bit, and here it was, climbing back on his shoulders, ready to ride him around until he dropped, if it could.
    He sighed. “He said he had somebody else interested in the fourplex.”
    “And?”
    “I told him the same as last time. We weren’t interested.”
    She stared at him. “What was the offer?”
    Deal shrugged. “Three sixty-two five.”
    She nodded. “That means you could get three seventy-five.”
    “Maybe.”
    “The land is clear. Subtract the construction loan, that leaves nearly a quarter of a million dollars.” Her expression was determinedly neutral.
    “Which we could piss away.”
    She threw up her hands. “I don’t understand you. Look at how we live. We could buy a house…”
    “We can’t sell the fourplex,