“The hell it isn't.”
Heh, heh, heh, I thought.
* * * * *
THE FOLLOWING MORNING I awoke in a tangle of damp sheets and warm Morelli. We'd made a respectable dent in the condom supply, and I was feeling very relaxed. Morelli stirred beside me, and I cuddled into him.
“Mmm,” he said.
Two hours later there were a few less condoms in the box and Morelli and I were both lying facedown and slack limbed on the bed. I was thinking that sex was an excellent thing, but I probably didn't need any more now for ten or fifteen years. I eyeballed the distance between the bed and the bathroom and wondered if I could walk that far. The phone rang, and Morelli passed it over to me.
“I was wondering what I should wear tonight,” Sally said. “Do you think I should be a man or a woman?”
“Doesn't matter to me,” I said. “Lula and I are going to be women. You want to meet us there, or you want me to pick you up?”
“I'll meet you there.”
“Okeydokey.”
I turned to Morelli. “Are you working today?”
“Half day, maybe. I need to talk to a couple people.”
“Me too.” I dragged myself off the bed. “About dinner tonight . . .”
“Don't even think about standing me up,” Morelli said. “I'll track you down and find you and make your life a living hell.”
I did a mental grimace and managed to get myself into the bathroom without hardly grunting or whimpering. The sex goddess was a trifle sore this morning, feeling a little like a human wishbone.
I took a shower, dressed and ambled down to the kitchen. I'd never seen Morelli in the morning, and I'm not sure what I'd expected, but it wasn't the half-?man, half-?beast that was reading the paper and drinking coffee. Morelli was wearing a misshapen T-?shirt and rumpled tan shorts. He was sixteen hours beyond a five o'clock shadow, and he hadn't combed his hair, which was multiple weeks beyond needing a haircut.
It had been sexy last night. This morning it was downright frightening. I poured out coffee and a bowl of cereal and sat across from him at the small table. The back door was open, and the morning air coming through it was cool. In another hour it would turn hot and steamy. Already the cicadas were singing. I thought about my own kitchen and sad charred apartment and my throat closed over. Remember what Morelli told you, I thought. Concentrate on the positive. The apartment will be okay. Brand-?new carpet and paint. Better than before. And what had he said about the fear? Concentrate on doing the job, not on the fear. Okay, I thought, I can do that. Especially when I was sitting across from the man of my dreams.
Morelli drained his coffee cup and continued to read the paper.
I found myself wanting to refill the cup. And I didn't want to stop there. I wanted to make breakfast for Morelli. Hotcakes and bacon and fresh squeezed orange juice. Then I wanted to do his laundry and put fresh sheets on the bed. I looked around. The kitchen wasn't bad, but it could be cozier. Fresh flowers, maybe. A cookie jar.
“Uh oh,” Morelli said.
“What uh oh?”
“You have that look . . . like you're redesigning my kitchen.”
“You don't have a cookie jar.”
Morelli looked at me like I was from Mars. “That's what you were thinking?”
“Well, yeah.”
Morelli considered that for a moment. “I've never actually seen the purpose for a cookie jar,” he finally said. “I open the box. I eat the cookies. I throw the box away.”
“Yes, but a cookie jar makes a kitchen homey.”
I got another one of those Mars looks.
“I keep my gun in my cookie jar,” I said by way of further explanation.
“Honey, a man can't keep his gun in a cookie jar. It just isn't done.”