Tori Carrington - Shameless

Gladys waved her hand as she took a bite of her tuna salad sandwich on whole wheat. “That’s been done for weeks. Where have you been?”

Right here. And she’d enjoyed three lunches with her since then. But Nina figured it was as good a place to start conversation as any. Urging her grandmother into a monologue about the fit nature of the handyman the decorator had sent to do the more difficult work—or the good-looking decorator himself, even if he did prefer men to women—would have gotten the ball rolling.

But her grandmother wasn’t biting anything more than her sandwich as she watched Gauge entering the café for a cup of post-lunch coffee.

Her grandmother elbowed Nina so hard she almost fell from her chair.

“There he is.”

Nina relaxed back in her seat, slowly chewing her own bite of tuna sandwich. Ah, yes, there he was, indeed.

A little thrill ran up her back at the memory of their conversation the other night combined with the interesting dreams she’d been having. She told herself she should be appalled, but her own recently awakened decadent side refused the response.

“He’s a lazy lover, you can tell.”

Nina nearly choked on her food. She quickly reached for her drink.

Gladys smiled widely. “Lazy, but his endurance would be out of this world. All day. And all night. That’s my guess.”

Nina watched the lines of Gauge’s bottom in his faded jeans, and then appreciated the muscles of his back and arms in his snug black T-shirt.

She looked over to find her grandmother staring at her.

“If I didn’t know better, girl, I would think you were giving him the lover’s look.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Nina said, hoping that her cheeks weren’t as red as they felt. “Gauge and Kevin and I have been friends forever.”

“And partners…”

“Business partners,” Nina stressed. She shifted in her chair. “I talked to Mom yesterday.”

Nothing was capable of derailing her grandmother more than mention of her daughter, Nina’s mother.

In all the world, she didn’t think there were two people less alike. Where her grandmother was a free spirit, her mother was as uptight as they came, attending church three times a week, working with Meals on Wheels and playing the role of perfect housewife to her father’s perfect corporate gentleman. While they weren’t wealthy, they were well-off. And her mother had never worked a day of her life.

Her grandmother, on the other hand, refused to let any man take care of her….

Of course, it probably didn’t help that Gladys called Helen her mistake.

Nina’s mother had never liked the attention that Gladys had showered on her granddaughter from a young age. Growing up, Nina’d never understood the feud between the two most important women in her life, but as she got older, she’d come to realize that perhaps Gladys regretted not taking more time out with her own daughter, and was determined to rectify the mistake by playing a significant role in her granddaughter’s life.

Then again, maybe the two women were too different to ever have been close.

If that was the case, what did it say about her and her grandmother? Could it be that Gladys saw herself in Nina? And that’s why she’d formed the bond?

Or could she be trying to counteract Helen’s influence so she wouldn’t turn into a “dried-up old prune,” as Gladys called Nina’s mother?

Another elbow, another scramble to keep herself from falling off her stool.

“There’s the other one.”

Nina didn’t have to ask to whom her grandmother was referring. She’d watched as Kevin joined Gauge at the cashier’s counter in the audio section, apparently having finished his own lunch. Speaking of which, Nina looked down, surprised to find she’d nearly demolished the contents of her plate, as had her grandmother.

“Now him…he’d be a generous lover,” Gladys said. “He’d be eager to please you. Loving.”

Nina watched as Kevin leaned both hands against the countertop, his shirtsleeves rolled up, revealing the coiled muscles of his forearms.

“Do you think so?” she was surprised to hear herself ask.

Gladys’s grin made her wish she hadn’t said anything. “I don’t think so, Nin. I know so.”

Her grandmother made a play at wiping her mouth with her napkin, pushed her plate away, and then went about refreshing her lipstick. “So…which one are you looking to bed?”

“Grandmother!” Nina whispered harshly when a couple of women at a neighboring table gave them a hard look.

“Don’t ‘grandmother’ me. I see those looks you’re giving both of them. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.” She put her lipstick and mirror away and closed her purse with a click. “And I know you.”

Nina grimaced. She’d never credited Gladys with knowing her well. Gladys bought her only granddaughter bizarre Christmas and birthday gifts in garish colors that were more her own style than Nina’s. Instead of taking her to Disneyland when she was kid, she’d taken her to the Windsor casinos, convincing the pit bosses that she was eighteen when she was only fourteen and earning her a spot at a blackjack table, which made things easier for Gladys because it meant she wouldn’t have to go up to the room so often to check on her, although Nina hadn’t played.

At least not until she did turn eighteen and could enjoy a hand or two on her own.

“They’re my partners, Grandma, my best friends. I couldn’t possibly get involved with either one of them,” she said, but even she knew that there was no strength behind her words. Only a vague fear.

“You’re also adults, Nina.”

If only her grandmother knew what Gauge had suggested and what Nina was hoping the men would act on. The topic hadn’t been mentioned again since that night. But, oh, how she wished it would be.

“Where are you going?” Nina asked, grasping Gladys’s arm as she started to get up.

She was half afraid that her grandmother would make a stab at a matchmaking effort—if matchmaking was the right word for a connection that would only involve sex.

“I have a date for the matinee in twenty minutes.”

Nina instantly relaxed. “It’s not like you to make plans on our lunch day.”

“I didn’t.” She smiled wickedly. “But since it looks like things are well in order here—” she spared the two men another glance “—very well in order, I’m going to give you the space you need to make your decision and go check out the new usher at the cinema. I hear his wife died last year. So that makes him prime mattress-boogie material.”

Nina gave an exaggerated eye roll. “Do you ever think of anything other than sex?”

Her grandmother shrugged into her coat and smoothed down the front, appearing to give the question some consideration. “No, I don’t. And seeing as at my age there aren’t too many opportunities, I have to take full advantage of those that do come my way.” She waggled a finger at her. “And it’s nice to see that you’re finally beginning to follow in your grandmother’s footsteps.”

5

“I’M NOT going to discuss this with you,” Kevin said emphatically.

Gauge considered his friend who leaned against the cashier’s counter. He’d been aware of Nina and her grandmother’s attention on them ever since the women had sat down to eat their lunch.

“Then what are you doing here?” he asked.

What was he doing here? Simple. He wanted all this highly suggestive talk to end. Now. It had gotten to the point where he couldn’t sleep, could barely eat, and fifty-nine minutes of every hour were spent fantasizing about what it might be like to claim Nina for one sweet night.

“I’m here to appeal to your better judgment to stop this. Right now.”