“I’m too good for that bastard. You know the whole time he’s lived with me he hasn’t washed his sheets?”
She screwed up her nose. “Gross. For my third guess, I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say you’ve got a boner for the tall girl who works in IT.”
Max almost dropped his beer. “How? What?”
Bonnie laughed. “Oh come on, Max. You used to run out of the room whenever you saw her coming and she was always staring at you…”
Max’s ears and neck went white-hot. Bonnie hooted. “Okay, so, the jig is up. You and Miss Legs, what’s the story?”
“This all seems a bit wrong, Bon.”
“But Iwantto know.”
He frowned. As far as friendly advice went he could do worse than Bonnie. He could confess his miserable, lonely feelings and pent-up frustrations to Dean for example. “Okay, so me and Julia, uh…hooked up. Last weekend.”
A look of jealousy zapped across his ex-wife’s face. Bonnie touched her cheek. “Hoo, part of me did not like hearing that.”
“Seriously?”
“I know, I know, biggest hypocrite ever. I’m sorry, I know I have no right to feel that way. I just…You’re my Handsome Max. The reality of our situation hasn’t sunk all the way in yet.”
Max waved his beer at their surroundings. “Feels pretty real to me.”
She cringed. “I know, I suck. It probably doesn’t help that the IT girl makes me feel soold.”
Max sighed. “Try being interested in her.”
“So how’d you guys hook up?”
I locked her in the property office.“It was kind of on the sly. Neither of us expected it to happen.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Why are you moping around? Did Miss Legs not manage to exceed the extremely high bar I set?”
Max laughed uncomfortably. He wasn’t going to tell Bonnie Julia was the best fuck he’d ever had. “She’s too young. Only twenty-four.”
Bonnie arched an eyebrow at him. “I’m still jealous as hell, but twenty-four isn’t cradle robbing. It’s young enough to make you feel sleazy in a good way.”
“I don’t want to feel sleazy in any kind of way.”
“Well, clearly you have a connection. Why not take it slow and see where things go?”
He shook his head. “I said the same thing to Julia, but I think I was kidding myself. We move in completely different circles. We want different things.”
“What do you mean ‘different circles’?”
“She lives with her crazy sister and about a million dogs on that murder property on Church Street.”
“Where the wife battered her husband with the fire poker?”
Max nodded. “I went there and it was complete mayhem. Her sister called me a stripper, told me to piss off, and slammed the door in my face.”
Bonnie snuggled up to Sparky. “Okay, I’m definitely warming up to this girl. What else?”
“She’s into electronic music and she’s designing this video game about a post-apocalyptic girl gang…”