Jennifer Crusie - GETTING RID OF BRADLEY

He’d be a fool to fall for her. She was a forever kind of woman, and his idea of forever was a three-day weekend.

Lucy looked up and caught him staring at her.

“Zack?” Her eyes were huge in the firelight, and her lips were soft and full, and without thinking, helpless with wanting her, he bent and kissed her.

Lucy’s lips parted a little, and then she kissed him, too, moving gently against his mouth, leaning into him so slightly that he sensed rather than felt her and went dizzy at the sensation.

And he wanted to pull her close more than he’d ever wanted anything. She was soft and warm and the best place he’d ever been, but he had to get away. If he didn’t get away, he’d do something stupid like make love to her, and then when he’d leave -and he would because he always left- she’d be unhappy. He’d be worse for her than Bradley had been.

The thought of hurting her cooled him down considerably.

“Sorry.” He drew back. “I’m really sorry. Very unprofessional of me. I’m really sorry. Really.”

Lucy looked lost.

“Uh, excuse me.” He gently tipped Maxwell and Heisenberg off his legs and got up. “I better check in with Tony. I’ll use the upstairs phone.”

“Oh.” Lucy bit her lip. “This late? It must be after ten.”

Zack checked his watch as he edged away. “Twelve, actually. But he won’t care.” Then he escaped to use the phone while Lucy sat with the dogs and hugged herself in front of the fire.

“GET ME OUT OF HERE,” Zack said when Anthony answered the phone on the sixth ring. He stood in the hall, stretching the phone cord to peer nervously over the banister into the faint glow cast by the fireplace below.

“Zack?” Anthony mumbled, half asleep. “Are you in trouble? Where are you?”

“Lucy’s. Get me a replacement. Now.” Zack thought for a moment. “Just not Junior.”

“What are you talking about? It’s the middle of the night.”

“It is not.” Zack dropped into a chair on the landing. “It isn’t even one yet. Wake up.”

“I am awake. But I’m not coming to get you just because you’ve decided you don’t like the company.”

“That’s not the problem.” Zack pressed his hand to his forehead. “I’m crazy about the company. I’m having immoral thoughts about the company. At any moment, I’m going to start making my move on the company, and then I will be in trouble. Get me out of here before I do something to make this permanent.”

“Go take a cold shower,” Anthony said. “Better yet, grow up. Learn to control your baser instincts.”

Zack looked over the banister again to make sure that Lucy hadn’t come within earshot. “Listen,” he said, lowering his voice. “She runs around in this white thing that’s big enough to roof Riverfront Stadium, and she still drives me crazy. A cold shower is not going to do it.”

“She has green hair, too,” Anthony said. “I meant to ask, did she do that on purpose?”

“Will you please concentrate?” Zack took a deep breath. “I’m serious here. I’m too young to be married. Married is for old guys.”

“Married? Zack, you’ve only been there two days. Get a grip. You’re hysterical.”

“Listen to me. Lucy is not the kind of woman who plays around. Lucy is the kind of woman who gets married. And I want her, but I don’t want to get married. And I don’t want to hurt her.”

“Good. I don’t want you to hurt her, either. I like her.”

“Forget it. You’d be worse for her than I am.”

“Zack…”

“If you really like her, you’ll get me out of here. Think what a lousy husband I’d make.”

“Zack…”

“Tony, get me some backup and get me out of here, or I will end up the stepfather of three dogs.”

“Worse things could happen.”

“ Get me out of here ,” Zack said.

“No,” Anthony said and hung up.

“Hey!” Zack said to the dead phone, so loud that the dogs came up the stairs to see what was wrong, then toenails clicking nice castanets.

“Zack?” Lucy called up from the living room.

“Nothing,” Zack called back. “It’s nothing.” He looked down at the dogs. “If you have any loyalty to your mother, you will bite me if I get within two feet of her.”

Einstein leaned against his leg, Maxwell stared into space, and Heisenberg rolled over on his back.

“You guys have got to get a new routine.” He let them, calling back, “Dead dog,” when Heisenberg refused to roll over. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll see you in the morning,” he yelled down to Lucy, and then all but ran for the bathroom.

“Zack?” she called after him, but he slammed the bathroom door behind him to shut her out.

And in the morning, I’m gone, he thought. Because if I don’t leave in the morning, I will never leave, and I’ll end up remodeling this house, and telling Heisenberg “Dead dog” twenty times a day, and making love with Lucy until I die.

He stopped, nailed by the thought.

“Cold water,” he said, and stripped off his clothes.

WELL, THAT’S THAT, Lucy thought, settling back in front of the fire. He kissed her once and then he ran up the stairs to get away from her.

She couldn’t possibly be that bad a kisser.

It must be that she wasn’t his type. He probably went for really exciting women. Women who wore black lace and had long, thick, blond hair.

As opposed to, say, dry, fuzzy, curly, green hair.

Could hair as bad as hers send a man running up a flight of stairs?

“It’s not the hair,” she told the dogs who had padded down to rejoin her when Zack shut them out of the bathroom. “It’s me. I’m dull and unemotional. I should have jumped him when he kissed me, but did I? No. I was too polite.”

She let her head fall back against the love seat.

“Maybe this is all just fallout from the car blowing up,” she told the dogs. “You know, that ‘You’re never more alive than when you’re on the edge of death’ thing people are always talking about. Except, even with the car bomb and everything else, I still find it hard to believe somebody’s trying to kill me. Which would seem to mean it’s not the edge of death that’s getting me into trouble here. It’s the edge of Zack.”

She considered what Tina had said. “Be irresponsible.” She should just go right up those stairs and climb into bed with him and seduce him until he was witless.

Except she wasn’t sure how.

She thought about it for a while, trying to figure out how black lace nightgowns and champagne and all the other classic stuff would fit with Zack’s cheerful eroticism. Zack would probably prefer somebody who just crawled into his bed naked.

She couldn’t do that.

And then there was her hair.

Forget it.

She sighed and called the dogs to go upstairs to bed.

AFTER A NIGHT OF frustrating fantasies about a fully-clothed Lucy, Zack came downstairs planning to tell Lucy he was leaving right after breakfast. Then the phone rang, and he answered it, and the caller hung up.

“I don’t like that,” he told Lucy as she came down the stairs. “That makes me nervous.”

“Everything makes you nervous.” Lucy moved past him to the kitchen. “You are a walking exposed nerve.”

“Hey, I can be calm.” Zack followed her to the kitchen, wanting to be with her. “I’m steady.”

“Well, I’ve got to admit I’m amazed you’ve stayed in one place this long. I thought you’d be out the door by now.”

Zack froze in the doorway. “Oh? Why?”

Lucy opened the refrigerator and took out an egg carton and the milk. “I thought you’d get bored. I had no idea you had this much staying power. And I want you to know, I appreciate it.” She nudged the refrigerator door shut with her hip and smiled at him. “I’m not really scared. But I appreciate it anyway. What do you want to make for breakfast? Eggs or French toast?”