“Nothing.” He said the word like we were fighting, like he was throwing it at me.

I frowned at his oddness and was about to question him further when Sandra stepped in front of me.

“Will we be seeing more of you?” she asked Drew. She crossed her arms over her chest and paused. I recognized her tone as one she used when conducting an interrogation, though her question was benign enough.

Drew’s attention settled on Sandra, and he mimicked her guarded stance.

“Yes.”

“So, Charlie….”

“The name is Drew.”

Sandra ignored the correction. “How often will we be…seeing you?”

His eyes narrowed a fraction. “Daily.”

“Reeeeally.” Sandra lifted her chin. I could tell she was sizing him up. Heck, even Drew could tell she was sizing him up.

Neither spoke for a prolonged minute. Elizabeth and I glanced at each other, and I shrugged.

I was about to break the weird stink-eye stalemate with a suggestion that I walk Drew out—even though the thought made me strangely nervous—when Sandra said very gently, “Not all women are bad, you know. We’re not all viperous bloodsuckers. There are some good ones…like Ashley. She’s a good one. You might have noticed: the outside matches the inside.”

My mouth fell slightly open, and I shifted back a step as Drew’s eyes flickered to mine. They were such a steely cold blue that they nearly knocked me off my feet. His gaze was shuttered and hard, and his mouth was set in a firm, unhappy line.

“Good night,” he said, and then he walked away, his steps audible as he descended the stairs.

*dpgroup.org*
CHAPTER 6

“If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.”

— Robert Frost

The three of us stood in place for several beats, and I knew without a doubt that my face held an expression of stunned bewilderment. I was still tired, and this day had started out on a bizarre note and was still circling the drain of strange. Maybe it was just everything happening all at once, but I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around what had just occurred.

Therefore, I blurted, “I’m so confused.”

“He is too.” Sandra said this thoughtfully, still looking at the spot where Drew had been standing. “But not as confused as you are, because he’s not blinded by grief.”

“Sandra.” Elizabeth shook her head. “Don’t meddle. Ashley has enough going on.”

I was sentient enough to detect an edge of warning in Elizabeth’s tone. I glanced between them as the implication of their non-conversation hit me like a slow-moving river of molasses. “You can’t…you can’t possibly mean…?”

I didn’t finish the thought because it was entirely ridiculous, like turning down fried pie at the state fair.

“Uh…yeah.” Sandra shut the door and faced me. “I do mean that the good Dr. Runous is a smitten kitten. Or, maybe a better way to put it is a turned-on python.” She frowned and her eyes moved to a position over my shoulder. “That’s not a very good analogy either. I’m going to have to think on this.”

“No, no, no. You are wrong. You are so, so wrong. He doesn’t like me at all.”

I’d been around plenty of good-looking guys in my life. I’d dated a few I’m-too-sexy-for-this-pizza-place narcissists. I knew better than to be attracted to the top one percent of good looking single men. The top one percent didn’t believe in monogamy, or human decency, or manners, or—honestly—good sex. Sex was a stage and, after their curtain call, the show was over.

Drew was definitely in the top one percent. Therefore, I knew better. Furthermore, I was intensely aggravated with myself for noticing that Drew was in the top one percent. Additionally, why in tarnation was I thinking about sex?

“He may not like the fact that he likes you, but he does.” This came from Elizabeth, her words reluctant and laced with an apology she verbalized as she continued. “I’m sorry, Ashley. But the guy is into you.”

“By the way, what’s in that little notebook he carries? The leather one with the Norse symbols on it?” Sandra asked us both, as if either of us would be in Drew’s confidence and have any earthly idea.

“How should I know? I met him yesterday. We don’t know each other. All of our interactions have been unsavory.”

“But he looks at you like you are savory,” Elizabeth said, “like he knows you, like he knows you knows you.” After a brief pause, she added in a soft voice, “Like he’s invested in you.”

“You’re misreading things.”

“Both of us are misreading things?” Sandra snorted. “That’s unlikely.”

“No. You’re wrong. He seems truly dedicated to my mother and my brothers. If you’re seeing anything resembling warmth or affection it’s because of them.”

Neither of them looked convinced. It occurred to me that they probably weren’t convinced because I wasn’t convinced.

Sandra crossed to me. She gripped then squeezed my shoulders. “Look, all I know is, he came up here and looked at you like he knew you. Then he looked at you like he wanted to know you better. Then he looked at you like he was undressing you with his eyes. Then, most incriminating of all, he looked at you like he hated you.”

“Yes. I noticed it too,” Elizabeth chimed in. “He was basically staring at you the whole time. There was nothing subtle about it.” She nodded her head for emphasis, though her expression was sympathetic.

I sputtered, floundered, and settled on saying, “You’ve got the last part right. He does hate me.”

“Yes, he probably does.” Sandra narrowed her eyes as she stepped back and surveyed me from head to toe. “I think he does hate you…in a way.”

I stared at them because I could do nothing else. My brain was still slippery, overwhelmed. This was not a conversation I needed or wanted to have, especially not now.

My history with men was terrible.

My whole life—all twenty-six years of it—could be measured in the number of times I’d allowed myself to be conned by men, my father being the first. Then came my brothers (although their normalcy and kindness now had me all mixed up). Then came my best friend in high school, Jackson James. Then came every guy I’d dated in college and graduate school. They saw a nice piece of ass and a pretty face, and heard a southern accent and assumed it meant I was low class and uneducated.

I had a gift for attracting assholes and users, probably because every boy I knew growing up—and then every man I knew—eventually treated me like garbage. Now, working with big-ego, chauvinistic, ivy-league medical doctors was great. They served as a daily reminder of what real men were like and why my heart was safer with the fictional variety.

Plus, I wanted to believe that Sandra and Elizabeth were both wrong about Drew. I needed to believe they were wrong. But that was hard to do when I recalled the look of complete aggravation he’d given me in the quonset hut the day before, the Nietzsche quotes he’d intoned implying that I was a cow, and the fact that he was fictionally handsome.

Everyone knows that in real life, fictionally handsome men are vacuous vessels of Satan.

Add to all of this the fact that it didn’t matter. How Drew felt about me was completely irrelevant. My hot and cold feelings about him were irrelevant.

My life was in Chicago, not Tennessee. I needed to keep my head down, live through the next four to six weeks (or so), soak up as much time as possible with Momma, then get back to my peaceful and unremarkable existence reading books and knitting.

Above all, I was going to avoid vacuous vessels of Satan.

“I can’t deal with this right now,” I said. “I can’t even deal with the thought of it. My brain feels like it’s covered in Crisco. Time is moving too fast and too slow. I have no desire to be liked or hated by Drew or anyone else.”

“No desire?” Sandra prompted. “None whatsoever?”

“How can you ask me that?”

“Well, his parts fit with your parts. And he’s here. And he’s interested. And he’s extremely easy on the eyes despite the fact that he never speaks. And you’re both alive, so necrophilia isn’t an issue.”

“Do you really think I’m here on a man hunt?”

“No, of course not, and that’s not what I meant. But you’re allowed to notice a hot guy.”

“Of course I’ve noticed! How could I not? He’s like a Viking cowboy.”

“Does he give you zings in your things?” Sandra asked this question using her best serious face.

I groaned. “Yes, if that means what I think it means, which means he’s bad news. I have the uncanny ability to attract only users and assholes. It’s like I’ve got a sign on me someplace that tells nice men to steer clear. If what you’re saying about Drew is correct and he is attracted to me, then I guarantee you he’s a jerk.”

Sandra studied me with curious detachment, and I knew before she opened her mouth that she was no longer my friend Sandra; she was now Shrink Sandra.

“Why do you think you only attract users and assholes?”

“Because I do.”