Page 50 of True Confessions

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Her hair stuck up on her head like red springs and one hand was bandaged, so that just the tips of her fingers stuck out. Hopped up on painkillers and lack of sleep, Shelly was a bit rummy and feeling very sorry for herself. She didn’t want Hope’s offer of lunch, but she took one look at Hope’s fingernails and decided she’d have a manicure instead.

While Paul retreated to his bedroom for a nap, Hope ran back to her house and grabbed her vanity case. When she returned, she sat on a stool next to Shelly’s recliner and carefully conditioned and cut the cuticles on all ten fingers. While she gingerly filed the nails into perfect crescent moons, she listened to Shelly talk about last night’s drama. The house was unusually quiet and she wondered where Wally and Adam were.

“How were the little boys last night?” Shelly finally got around to asking. She set the vanity case on her lap and pawed through the rows of fingernail polish with her good hand.

“Pretty good, but they like to hit each other a lot,” Hope answered. She gently blew dust from Shelly’s fingers, then added, “And pass gas.”

“Yeah, boys’ll do that.” Shelly pulled out a bottle of Hot Pants Pink and handed it to Hope. “I like this. It looks like something a hooker would wear.”

It didn’t, but Hope didn’t want to argue. “Where are Wally and Adam?”

“Dylan hired one of the Raney girls to watch them over at his house today. He thought I could use the rest.”

“That was nice of him.” Hope took out a bottle of clear polish. “I imagine he’s really tired, too,” she said as she gave Shelly’s nails a base coat.

“Nah, he probably didn’t get home too late.”

Hope knew better and concentrated on the thumb of Shelly’s bad hand.

“Or did he?”

“Did he what?”

“Get home late. Paul said the twins got to the hospital around ten-thirty. So Dylan must have pulled up to your house about an hour after that. After grabbing the boys, he probably got home around ele

ven-forty-five.”

He might have made it home by then, too, if he hadn’t stayed and kissed her neck and her mouth, and if he hadn’t decided he wanted to touch her stomach and pull up her shirt. Hope kept her gaze averted and said on an indifferent sigh, “That sounds about right.” She screwed on the cap of the clear polish, then shook the bottle of Hot Pants Pink.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why do you look like something did?”

Hope finally glanced up. “I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. This Percodan has me feeling kind of funky, but I’m not totally out of it.” Shelly’s red brows lowered on her forehead. “And besides, I saw you two jump apart when Paul and I came into the kitchen. I stabbed my hand, not my eyes. What were the two of you doing?”

“Talking.”

“Yeah, right. I think he likes you.”

Hope shrugged and painted the fingernails on Shelly’s good hand. “I think Dylan likes women- period.”

“Yeah, he does. Always has, even in grade school, but he talks to you a little bit different than he talks to anyone else.”

“How?”

“When he talks to you, he watches your mouth.”

Hope bit her lip to keep from smiling. She hadn’t noticed Dylan watching her. Well, maybe once or twice.

“So what’s up with the two of you?”

The last time Hope had spoken of her love life to a friend, her friend had used it to steal her husband. She knew that Shelly was different, and besides, nothing she could tell Shelly could come back to hurt her anyway. She didn’t love Dylan, and he didn’t love her.

“Nothing really,” she answered, which was basically the truth.


Tags: Rachel Gibson Fiction