Chapter 4

I have to admit I was a little sore the next morning. I could tell by Julie's gingerly movements in the shower that she was uncomfortable too.

"Muscles I haven't used in a while," she explained after a kiss. "And portions of my anatomy that aren't used to visitors. Well, non-plastic visitors. Eight times in 24 hours. Not bad for a couple of old fogies.

"But if you come near me with that thing in the next, say six hours, we are going to have to find another place to put it," she added as she rubbed her butt against me.

Amazingly I got erect again. Julie smiled and patted my hard-on gently.

"Ask me again sometime," she said. "When he's not sore and I'm not feeling so sluttish. Or maybe when he's not sore and I am feeling so sluttish. Maybe tonight we can just kiss each other's boo-boos away."

I had a morning meeting scheduled with Belinda and Danielle — or Bebe and Danni as they had asked me to call them since we were friends now as well as coworkers — so the kissing part couldn't begin.

Julie rode into the city with me and claimed my truck for the day. Julie was, by all accounts, tiny. I always got a smile watching a woman barely 5-feet tall wrestle with a full-size pickup. The meeting with Bebe and Danni didn't flow as smoothly as they usually do. I guess my mind was elsewhere and it seemed theirs might be, too. We wrapped up a little before 11 and they asked me to accompany them to lunch.

I agreed and we wound up a deli a few blocks away.

"It's time for a heart to heart," Bebe announced. "We both like Julie so please don't take this the wrong way. We just like you more. Please don't jump in over your head. The past few weeks you've been like a totally different person. You've always been nice and treated us well. But lately you've been joking around with us and going to lunch with us.

"Just be careful, David."

I understood the motivation behind her speech and a part of me appreciated it. But another part took umbrage at their temerity for jumping back into my personal life again.

Danni seemed to sense this and moved to alleviate it.

"That's what we meant by 'don't take this the wrong way, '" she said with a smile. I saw why her e-mail address was Danni Dimples. Her smile worked as she probably knew it would.

"I know things are going well," she said. "And I'm happy for you. Just don't fall back in love with her until you're sure."

I considered what she had said and I realized it was good advice. In had been only three days and while those days had been wonderful we had managed three wonderful days before and I didn't want to forget how that ended.

"Good point," I conceded. "Things are going pretty well. But you're right. I have noticed some marked changes in her personality from what I knew before. But I have to see if those are long-term changes or just something for my benefit."

"How long is she staying?" Bebe asked with a glance toward Danni that I didn't understand. I admitted that I didn't know.

"You're not planning to go back to L.A. with her, are you?" Danni wondered with a worried look on her face. "She isn't trying to convince you to quit your job and move there, is she?"

I pondered the questions. I believed that Julie knew me well enough to know that L.A. wasn't a place I wanted to live. But she also knew me well enough to know that if things were going well for us, I probably would be willing to move there with her for a short time, job or no job.

"I don't think that's her goal," I decided. "I think she wants to come back here — to start over. But I can tell you firmly that I have no plans to leave my job or to move to L.A. I might visit her there from time to time but I can't see myself being happy living there.

"Perhaps if I could take my girlfriends along with me, it would be OK," I joked, earning a giggle from Danni and a head shake from Bebe. "But for now you don't have to worry about breaking in a new boss."

Before I knew it five days had passed and I heard the words I dreaded.

"I have to go back to L.A.," Julie told me on Saturday morning. What she said next sent a cold chill down my spine.

"It'll only be for a few weeks, just until I get things settled. Then I'll be back."

I doubted she would remember but it was almost word-for-word what she had said to me five years earlier. I held my tongue but my countenance belied my emotions.

"Seriously, David," Julie said as she took my hand. "I just have to get some things wrapped up there. I'm coming back. I want to be here with you if you want me to be."

I dropped her off at the airport Sunday evening.

"I love you," she told me at the terminal gate. She put her finger over my lips when I started to reply. I think she knew I wouldn't be willing to share those words even if it was what I was feeling.

"Don't say anything," she said. "I know how you feel. I just want you to think about something. When I come back do you want me to look for my own place or move in with you? You know what I would prefer but understand if you want to slow down. Don't answer now. Just think about. Promise?"

I nodded and she removed her finger and replaced it with her lips.

"I'll call you when I get in," she said as she departed.

I decided that I should wait to see if she came back before I made up my mind about where she should live.

If Julie's words were eerily reminiscent of her previous departure for points south, our actions continued the similarities.

For the first week we were apart we spoke on the phone for hours at a time. We talked about big things and silly things. We talked about her work and my work. There would be a cute e-mail waiting in my inbox every morning and I would wish her goodnight the same way every night.

But after 10 days or so it seemed as if we ran out of things to talk about. Our chats dropped off from an hour or two to 10 or 15 minutes. The e-mails became more sporadic as our lives got busier.

By the fourth week it was down to a phone call every couple of days. Then they stopped.

I left a voice mail for her on Tuesday night just telling her hi and to call me when she got the time. I heard nothing from her on Wednesday so I tried again on Thursday with the same result. There was no word from her Friday, either. No voice messages, no e-mail, no carrier pigeon.

Despite my friends' earlier warning, I took it hard. I had slept alone almost every night for the five years prior to Julie's reappearance. Hell, I had slept alone more often than not for the four or five years before she left. But in six short days I had grown accustomed to waking up beside her. I missed the smell of her hair in the morning and the warmth of her back against my chest.

I was disheartened. Again.

Friday was the last day of work for one of my employees who was taking a new post in the corporation. We always had a going-away celebration for those who departed and this time was no different.

I usually stayed for the dinner portion of the evening but skipped out before the hard-core reveling began. This time I stayed and partied with the rest of them. By 9 p.m. it was down to Danni and me at the fourth stop on our bar list. We both were pretty well hammered.

"One of these days, boss, I'm gonna quit," Danni slurred. "And the moment I do, you and I are going to do the horizontal rumba."

Although I had heard Danni mention the horizontal rumba on other occasions, for some reason the wording struck me as the funniest thing I had heard in years.

"What's so funny," Danni asked. "I'm not ashamed to say I'd like to fuck you."

I said the first thing that came to my mind.

"No time like the present."

We stumbled outside and caught a taxi back to Danni's apartment. I have a vague recollection of some hot and heavy kissing and petting in the taxi and a dim memory of the two of us undressing the other.