Mae didn’t have to ask which bumps, and she’d been around the block too many times to get uptight and embarrassed.
“Are you ever going to answer my question?” he asked her.
“What question?”
“What is a girl like you doing all by yourself?”
“Like me?”
“Yeah,” he laughed through a smile. “Sweet. Charming. I imagine that a lot of men are attracted to that warm personality of yours.”
She didn’t think he was funny, “Do you really want to know why I’m here?”
“I asked.”
She could lie or make something up. Instead she decided to shock him with the truth. She wrapped her fists in his jacket and leaned across the table. “I’m meeting my married lover, and we’re going to have wild sex all night at the Marriott.”
“No shit?”
She’d shocked him, all right. Now she expected moral outrage from a man she suspected was fairly bankrupt in the morality department.
“All night?”
Disappointed by his reaction, she sat back. “Well, we were going to have wild sex, but he hasn’t shown up. I guess he couldn’t get away.”
The waitress approached and set down their drinks. As she put Hugh’s beer in front of him, she whispered something close to his ear. He shook his head and dug in his back pocket for his wallet, then handed her two fives.
The waitress had hardly walked away before Mae asked, “What did she want this time?”
Hugh raised his beer to his lips and took a long pull before he set it back down. “To know if John was going to show up tonight.”
“Is he?”
“No, but even if he were here, she isn’t his type.”
Mae took a sip of her drink. “What’s his type?”
Hugh smiled. “Your friend.”
When he smiled and his eyes lit up that way, Mae could see how some women might find him very handsome. “Georgeanne?”
“Yep.” He twirled the neck of the green bottle between his thumb and fingers. “He likes women who are built like her. He always has. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be in the mess he’s in. She’s torn him up pretty bad.”
Mae nearly choked on her drink. She licked the coffee-flavored liqueur from her top lip and sputtered, “Torn him up? Georgeanne is a wonderful person and he has made her life hell.”
“I don’t know about that. I only hear John’s side, and he doesn’t really discuss his personal business with anyone. But I do know that when he found out about Lexie, he kind of freaked out. He got real tense and edgy for a while. She was all he talked about. He canceled a trip to Cancun which he’d planned for months, and he pulled out of the World Cup, too. Instead he invited Lexie and Georgeanne to his house in Oregon.”
“Only because he wanted to trick Georgeanne into trusting him while he screwed her over-in more ways than one.”
He shrugged. “I don’t really know what happened in Oregon, but it sounds like you do.”
“I know that he hurt-”
“Mae?” a male voice interrupted. She turned to her left and looked up at Ted, who stood next to the table. “I’m sorry I’m late, but I had a little trouble getting away.”
Ted was short and skinny, and Mae noticed for the first time that he wore his pants a little too high on his waist. He looked like a real wimp next to the piece of beefcake across the table. “Hi, Ted,” Mae greeted, and pointed toward Hugh. “This is Hugh Miner.”
Ted smiled and held out his hand for the well-known goalie.