"Not on my chicken."

"Seemed like it would make a good marinade."

"Seemed like it would make a good fire starter."

"Gave me a chance to be a hero and rescue you from the blaze."

She could see him, tanned arms in some ripped up T-shirt, rushing the flaming grill. "You pushed it on the lawn to keep the railing from going up in flames. I was never in danger."

He seemed to laugh at himself. "I didn't think that chicken would ever go out."

It had, it had been on fire a long time. "Remember when the neighbor's dog rushed in and burned his tongue trying to eat it?"

"I'm lucky he didn't die of smoke inhalation. They did not go down easily."

She sighed. Weren't young mistakes so great? Most of them. Most of them were only stumbles on the way to figuring things out. "Well, you learned to cook. Mostly you did. The salmon should have been taken off about five minutes ago."

"Oh," Max grabbed the tongs, and pulled the fish off, plated it, and motioned with a couple of tong snaps toward the door.

She sat back from the best dessert money could buy. Real fat ice cream. She'd forgotten, after years of frozen yogurt, how good it could be. "That was a wonderful dinner, thank you, Max. I'm not sleeping with you."

"You're welcome. I didn't ask."

She felt her eyebrows come together. What was his game? "You--"

"More coffee?"

He refilled her cup before she could answer, and she decided to ignore his ridiculous denial. "I just think that things are complicated."

"They are. Cream?"

"No. Thank you. You don't even know how complicated my life is right now. My daughter is here. In my room. I couldn't even stay here tonight."

"That's great."

"It's great that I can't stay over?"

"Again. I didn't ask you. And why wouldn't it be great that your daughter is visiting?"

"Well, it is. But... would you quit saying that you didn't ask?"

"But I didn't."

He'd had his teeth on her jammie tie the weekend before, and it wasn't like he hadn't invited her over, and there'd been a look or two. "Your eyes did."

"This sounds like the sort of thinking a date rapist employs. Am I in danger?"

"That's not what I meant."

"Is she here to stay for a while?"

"Who?" She tried to follow his side of the conversation, but it didn't make any sense. "Missy? I don't know. She just broke up with her boyfriend, and she's not sure what she's doing." She held up her hand to stop him from commenting. "I know what you're thinking."

"You do?"

"You're thinking that she's just like me, that she picked a tool because I did, and when he dumped her, she came running because she doesn't know what to do now because I've always taken care of her, over taken care of her. Okay, it's true. You'd think a mother couldn't do too much for a child. But she could, she really could. You think maybe I screwed her up. Badly. But you don't know her. She's smart and wonderful. She has a beautiful voice. And she's now kind of, well, a little bit pissy. I'm not sure when that happened, but she's a really great person. She always has been, and now she's just not who she could be."

She stopped and studied Max, who listened to her like he was really listening, like he felt something about what she had to say. Like he heard. It almost took her breath away.

He waited, and when she just watched him, he smiled. "She's your girl, Gwen. She'll find her way. You found yours."

She snorted. He had apparently not heard a word she'd said about her daughter's life or anything Ellen had blabbed about hers. She wished the females in her family had a genetic pre-disposition to find their way, but they were three generations of women derailed by ridiculous taste in men. At least her mother and her daughter had picked exciting ones. She studied Max. Well, she'd been knocked off track by one exciting one and one insurance salesman.

"Gwen, you did find your way." He said it with such conviction, she wanted to believe him. "You're just finding a new way now. Nothing takes away from what you've done the past twenty years, and that was raising a child and giving her a home. And regardless of what a tool Steve was and is," he raised his hand, "Sorry. But I know you had to have been a good wife. You couldn't be less. It's just not your way."

Holy Hell. The one person on the planet she'd genuinely screwed things up with thought she'd lived her life well. "Wow. First dinner and now you're insightful and kind."

"And for the record I wasn't thinking any of those things you thought I was thinking." He met her eyes so directly she knew why he could win at poker. "But I'm a little worried."

She pointed the aha finger at him. "I knew it."

"Damn straight. I don't know how I'm going to get you out of my house before you do something we'll both regret." He stood to clear the empty bowls.

Oh, so she was the wolf in his warped little scenario. Even if she were... "You wouldn't regret anything I could do to you."

He stood beside her, picked up her bowl. "My life is very complicated right now."

She laughed and was sorry to encourage him because he leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. "I'm not kidding." And then he left for the kitchen.

She felt a mild embarrassment that grew the longer she sat there. Had he really just rejected her? It wasn't like Max to be rational about sex. Hell, it wasn't like any guy in the history of guys to be rational about sex. He was using reverse psychology on her, the asshole, being nice to deliberately confuse her. Well, she had an A in psychology, and he had so picked the wrong mark.

She sashayed into the kitchen, sashayed being the only way she could describe the extra hip motion some women did so naturally. She may not be that kind of woman, and she wasn't claiming to nail it completely, but she felt she was close.

He stood at the sink rinsing dishes and missed the show, so she came up behind him and pressed her body against his back.

He froze, and she heard a glass fill to overflowing at the bottom of the sink. After a long run of rejection, that was more like it. If she could sashay, she could... She put her hands in his front pockets, but kept them to his hip bones. She didn't posses that much boldness, although she could feel the fabric tighten and that was encouraging. She kissed him on the back of the neck, and it was so warm and delicious, she bit the muscle at the side, right where it went into his broad shoulders. The man was a perfect triangle.

Without any thought in her head, she slipped her hands from his pockets and traced the line from his shoulders down to the narrow of his waist. She stopped at his jean clad butt, squeezed, and sighed. A woman could break a nail on this man. She squeezed again then stepped back and blew out a long breath. She'd better go while he still had his virtue because she was in danger of not being in control of hers.

She bolted out of the kitchen, grabbed her coat, and yelled over her shoulder on her way out, "Thanks for dinner."

He heard the door slam before he moved. Or breathed. If he hadn't been so immobilized by the rush of pure desire, he would have chased her down and nailed her on the porch, right under him or over him or in whatever position they first made contact, and it was his front porch. There were cars going by and neighbors, some them he'd even known from his childhood and still he would have taken Gwen right against the wood. His... The porch's...

He tried to stop the movie in his head, the lovely porn one that was only going to torture him. He could and would concentrate on what he was doing at the sink, yeah, rinsing dishes and trying, for once in his life, to be noble. The right thing to do was to avoid complicating her life with sex, his life with sex. The two of them had a messy history and a messy present.

He really had wanted dinner and talking. Those were definitely two things he wanted. She may think he was all about sex, and while he couldn't think of anything else at the moment, he had, a couple of times during the evening, had other thoughts, like that she was smart and funny and as warm as always. Why she thought caretaking was her worst quality was beyond him. More people should be afflicted with that illness. She was just a giving kind of woman. She'd always been generous, with friends, with family, in bed...

He turned the sprayer on and hit the last plate. He ought to turn it on cold and put it down his pants, if he could fit anything else in them at the moment.

Damn. That woman was either the best or the worst thing that had ever happened to him. He was beginning to think she was both.

The rest of her week passed in a haze of lamb and sexual frustration. She'd never thought either would happen to her. She'd come from such a nice family. Isn't that what people said? Well, not about her. Her dad was gone and Ellen, while not mean, certainly, was a little too wild to be called nice by anybody's standards.

Watching her floor number light up, she waited for the elevator doors to open, stepped out, and caught a whiff of her hair. She pulled a corky strand closer. Whew, it was very Greek of her to be perfumed with souvlaki. She needed a shower and a Friday afternoon nap... that lasted until Sunday. But first, she needed to check on Missy.

For nearly a week, Missy had been either asleep or gone. The meal coupons were missing, so she'd been eating in the cafeteria. Gwen suspected she'd headed there at odd times to avoid sitting across a table from her mother. Sometimes Missy took her guitar and played in the car. Gwen had spotted her more than once in the parking lot. She'd claimed the graduation present, and Gwen hoped that the next semester she'd claim the college money as well.

It would work out. She and Steve, regardless of anything else, had never been troubled by money conflicts. She sent out a little wish that he didn't have that kind of luck with the new woman. Regardless, Missy's college money was safe, and she and Steve would divide up the other assets. She didn't want to think about it in any detail, the savings, the house. She'd have to let all kinds of security go if she stayed at Belmar and started a career. But there'd be enough. With Steve there'd always been enough.

She passed the hallway leading to the lounge and saw a football game on the big screen and the top of a couple of baseball hats. She would have kept going but something didn't seem right. It was too quiet. The game was on mute and so were the boys. Heading into the lounge, she saw Jason, large and draped across the club chair, looking like he might cry. "Hey, fellas, team losing?"

Jason sighed. "No, we're up."

Bryan and Hayden seemed just as unhappy. "Well, that explains the mood. Geeze, nothing worse than your team winning. Because..."

Bryan, slumped in the corner of the sectional, seemed to barely rally enough to answer. "We were cut."

Gwen studied the game more closely and saw a tiger striped logo at the top of the screen. "By the Bengals?"

"By Chi Omikron."

Chi Omikron? Probably not an honor society. Jason and Bryan wouldn't want to be in that, and Hayden would be crowned their king. Then she remembered the tailgate party, the boys so eager. "I'm sorry. You wanted to pledge a fraternity?"

Bryan sat up straighter. "Not a fraternity, Chi Omikron, the best fraternity at Belmar, probably anywhere."

Hayden, good posture as always, turned from the game. "They picked the first round of freshman pledges, the usual guys who always get picked. The Chi's won't be giving up any more slots."

Jason jerked and the legs of his chair scritched on the linoleum. "It sucks to be a freshman. We aren't even gonna get to go to the Halloween party. The biggest night of the whole friggin' year."

Had Halloween really replaced Christmas? New Year's Eve? Where had she been? Home too much to notice obviously. "Wish I could help, guys. Let me know if there's anything I can do. Hey, have you seen a new girl around here?"

Hayden gave it some real thought, but Bryan perked up instantly. "Is she hot?"

Gwen shook her head. "I don't want to know."

Bryan tipped his head in confusion, but Gwen waved it off. "Hang in there, guys. These are the best years of your life."

"That's just mean, Venus." Jason closed his eyes.

"Sorry." She smiled at him anyway. What she'd said was true, and that was the worst kind of mean, wasn't it?

Chapter Twelve.

Greek dishes evoke a long history of culinary pleasures.

She'd gone through half a bottle of shampoo before the souvlaki odor washed out. She'd need to put dishwashing soap in her shower caddy. She left the bathroom in her fuzzy bathrobe and flip-flops, and saw the boys waiting at her door.

"We thought of something."

"Greaaaat."

Jason turned his hat the right way as if asking for a favor required some kind of civility. "What are you doing tomorrow night?"

October thirty-first. Halloween, an apparently major holiday she hadn't celebrated in years. "Uh, passing out candy?"

"How about you pass out food? At Chi Omikron?" Bryan looked ready to fall to his knees and beg. "It would totally get us into the party. You're amazing, Venus."

"Yeah, enough of the sucking up."

Hayden turned to Bryan. "Venus is getting feistier. Have you noticed that?"

"Yeah, I thought it was just me."

"I like it. I think she's really adjusting."

Jason nodded slowly as if with great wisdom. She didn't doubt his father employed just such a nod. "Clearly, we're all adjusting."

The boys were too weirdly adorable to deny. "I'll cook tomorrow night on two conditions."

"Name it."

"First, the fraternity has to buy some lamb." She smiled, knowing she'd solved Deb's problem and one of her own. With just another day of lamb preparation, she'd be free for all eternity. "Second, nobody goes after the new girl."

Jason and Hayden nodded in agreement, but Bryan held up a hand. "We haven't seen her yet. We can't say no to a new girl if we haven't even checked her out. What if she's hot? Super hot?"

Jason seemed to withdraw his yes. "Nucular hot?"

Gwen turned to him. "That's nuclear, and it doesn't matter. I need your promise. All of you."