2

TWO WEEKS LATER, J.J. was able to visit St. Louis. I was incredibly nervous. You’d think there would be a point where I’d had enough sex, broken enough taboos, thrown out enough traditional values that nothing would faze me, but it just didn’t work that way. I was disappointed that it didn’t work that way; it seemed like if you had thrown all the conventional ideas of sex and relationships out the window, it would make you impervious to being embarrassed, or awkward, but it didn’t. I wanted to get angry about that, but I’d expected it to piss me off, so I was ready to fight against the urge to be grumpy. I did pout. I gave myself permission to be grumpy enough to pout about the fact that I felt like I was sixteen again, and had stumbled under the bleachers, tripping over the head cheerleader and star quarterback.

I was nervous and grumpy right up to the moment I saw J.J. step out of the crowd at Lambert Airport. We saw her before she saw us, because we were standing on the raised area that features different local arts and crafts. I was sometimes puzzled by the art, but it was a great way to see over the crowd if you were short like Jason and me. Her face lit up, as if someone had ignited a candle inside her skin so that the happy glow of it filled her and made strangers look at her and Jason, as he ran to her. She dropped her big purse to the floor and flung herself at him. He actually picked her up off the ground, and she bent her knees so he could do so even though she was five foot eight to his five foot four, tucking her feet up so he had all her body weight as they kissed and he turned slowly in place, as if they were dancing to the crowd noise.

Her straight blond hair in its tight ponytail was almost the exact color of Jason’s; he was more petite, though her dancer’s body honed down to bone and muscle made her seem more delicate, and his bulkier, more weight-lifting body gave him more physical presence, so he seemed bigger, even though she was so much taller.

He sat her down, and she landed with her feet in their flat shoes, in a near–dance position, as if she did it without thinking, the way that I used a gun, so that practice and body memory were always there, waiting to happen. She was dressed as comfy as the brown loafer-style shoes, in soft brown slacks and short tan jacket, over one of those silk sweater-shirts that always seemed too warm to me. She even had a gold-and-tan patterned scarf artfully swirled around her neck and shoulders. It looked great, like a real outfit. I didn’t honestly understand accessories once you left shoes and jewelry behind; scarves seriously confused me.

Which is why Nathaniel had dressed me: black skinny jeans tucked into knee-high black boots with a three-inch heel, and a black scoop-neck top tucked into the jeans with a belt that Nathaniel had found in a high-end thrift shop. The belt had a crescent moon for a buckle, and he’d had me throw a tailored leather suit jacket over it all so that it pretty much hid the gun at my back. I didn’t go much of anywhere unarmed.

Jason was wearing a baby blue T-shirt tucked into dark blue jeans, with a black belt that matched the boots that peeked out from underneath the jeans. The colors made his eyes even bluer and just looked great on him. Nathaniel was in his own black skinny jeans tucked into knee-high boots that had more buckles and a platform heel, so they looked more science fiction than the sleeker leather of mine or Jason’s. Nathaniel had gone for a black T-shirt tucked in, showing his silvery belt buckle that was shaped like a crescent moon/sun. I hadn’t noticed that he’d managed to match even the belt buckles until we’d arrived at the airport. We looked like we were going to a Goth nightclub, or to be extras in some futuristic but unrealistic movie where all the dangerous people wore black and looked cool. I would have protested, but honestly most of our dressy-casual clothes were black with a little red, purple, and blue mixed in here and there.

Nathaniel was holding the black leather suit jacket that Jason had worn over his baby blue shirt, because it was really too hot for leather yet, and he’d wanted his hands free to greet his girl. That’s what she was; J.J. was Jason’s girl. It was there in their faces, how they touched, and in the nearly identical blue of their eyes. They did look eerily alike, and we’d come to find out they shared a great-great-great-grandfather, as did a lot of people from a certain section of Asheville, North Carolina. Legally, most of the blond, blue-eyed women I’d met on my one trip home to see Jason’s family weren’t related to him, or to each other, but their shared ancestor had been a very busy and immoral preacher, and apparently he’d been at least as charming as Jason, which was pretty damn charming, or maybe more so, which was frighteningly charming.

They turned toward Nathaniel and me, and they were just so darn happy that suddenly I didn’t feel awkward or stupid. I just wanted Jason not to lose this, not to lose her.

“You both look great,” J.J. said, hugging Nathaniel and planting a light kiss on his cheek. She turned to me and we hugged. She was five inches taller than me, but she was so tiny through the waist and ribs that she hit my radar as dainty. We pressed cheeks together more than kissed, because though she was wearing her usual neutral lip gloss, I was wearing my usual deep red lipstick and I’d learned that it overwhelmed or looked odd intermingled with other women’s lipsticks.

“Nathaniel picked the clothes, so if we look good it’s his fault,” I said, with a smile.

She smiled a little broader. “Trust me, Anita, it isn’t all Nathaniel’s clothes choice that makes you look amazing in the outfit.”

It took me a moment to think it through and realize that J.J. was saying my body looked good in the clothes, and that was from working out in the gym.