Read No Way Home for Free Online Page B

awkward conversation or careful euphemisms about what it all meant.
    Amanda withdrew a round mirror from her purse and gazed into it, wetting her lips. Then she zigzagged her polished fingertips, like an Afro pick through her fulsome hair.
    “You look great,” Jordan said sincerely. He was suddenly aware of the slight thickening around his waist, and he crossed his arms over his chest.
    “It was fun,” she said. “Maybe we can do it again sometime.”
    “I’ll give you a call,” he said.
    “I may have some free time this weekend.”
    Jordan felt her trying to steer him, like a rudder. He veered out of it expertly with the standard excuse. “I’ll be out at my agent’s house in the Hamptons. He wants me to meet a couple of people.”
    “Oh,” said Amanda, nodding knowingly. She walked over to the bookcase and picked up the bracelets she had left there. She peered at a photo in a cardboard frame that was wedged between his alarm clock and an ashtray. “You like them young,” she observed slyly.
    Jordan’s dark, almost sullen eyes lit up. “My daughter. Pretty, isn’t she?”
    “You were married?”
    “Briefly. Years ago. Her name is Michele.”
    Amanda cocked her head to one side. “She is cute. But that hair. She needs to have a good haircut. I could take her to my salon. They’d really do her right. Let me know the next time she’s coming in to town.”
    “I don’t know,” he said. “I usually take her fishing.”
    “Fishing?” Amanda laughed as if that were the most preposterous idea she had ever heard.
    Jordan shrugged. “Up in the country. She likes fishing.”
    Amanda put the picture down and walked over to him. “With all those disgusting worms and everything? I can’t believe it.” She turned her face up to his, and her fingers played across his bare chest. Jordan’s stomach felt suddenly sour from the coffee and the tension of their encounter. It was always awkward, once the urgency of the moment had passed.
    He bent down to kiss her and felt her lips linger on his for a minute. He hoped she was not going to change her mind about staying. “Maybe you want to come back to bed,” he said.
    Amanda shook her head, content that he had asked. “Can’t,” she said. “I won’t get any beauty sleep with you.” She walked over to the door and he opened it for her, looking out into the hallway with its yellowed paint and worn linoleum.
    “Have you got cab money?” he asked.
    “Of course.”
    He kissed her again, more warmly this time. Now that she was actually on her way, he felt stirred again by the scent and the shape of her body. “Good luck tomorrow,” he said.
    She tickled his upper lip below the mustache with her tongue. “I’ll let you know how it turns out.”
    “Why don’t you wait a minute? I’ll slip on some clothes and walk out with you. I want to make sure you get a cab all right.”
    “I’ll be fine,” she said. “I’m just going one block over to Sixth.” He could see that she was pleased with the offer.
    “No, you better wait,” he said.
    “Southern gentlemen.” She sniffed, but she was grinning.
    Some Southern gentleman, Jordan thought as he rooted through his pile of clothes on the chair for a pair of pants and a sweatshirt. It used to be that if you slept with a girl and didn’t marry her, you were considered a bum. Now, if you had your way with her and walked her to the corner in the middle of the night, you were practically a hero.
    “All right,” he said, slipping into his moccasins, “let’s go.” As he pulled the door shut behind him, the phone in the apartment began to ring. He and Amanda looked at one another. Then he looked at his watch. “It’s nearly two o’clock,” he said, and a little frisson of fear ran through him. “I better get it.”
    Amanda shrugged. “I don’t need an escort,” she said coolly, hiking the strap of her pocketbook up on her shoulder as if it were a rifle.
    “Why don’t you wait?” he said, fumbling