Hook, Line, and Garter (Bitches and Queens) Read online

  “I thought they were your friends, like me,” Kate said.

  Sam looked genuinely hurt. “No one is like you, Kate,” he said quietly.

  Be that as it may, it didn’t change the fact that he had been masquerading as a gay man for the past few months, and she had given him girlfriends-only access into her life.

  “These won’t work,” Kate clipped sharply.

  “You haven’t even looked at them,” Sam retorted.

  “I don’t like how they feel stretched across my butt.”

  “Your ass looks fantastic.”

  “Sam,” Kate groaned, “could you please just get me another size?”

  He left without a word. When he returned, the door was shut. Kate heard him mutter something under his breath as he knocked on the door. Kate opened it just the tiniest sliver. She held her hand out for the jeans. As she was putting them on, she heard him talking to another woman in the dressing room.

  “Definitely the red one,” he offered.

  The other woman sounded indecisive. “I don’t know if a woman my age could pull it off.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Sam questioned. “It makes me want to fuck you.”

  “Sam!” Kate screamed in outrage.

  “Because that’s what I like to do. I like to fuck women,” Sam continued loud enough for everyone in the dressing room to hear.

  Kate peeled the jeans off her body and then heaved them over the top of the door. “I’m done here,” she shouted.

  “About goddamn time,” he muttered and walked away.

  Reeling by his revelation, Kate took an inordinate amount of time getting dressed. It was a lot to take in. If he wasn’t gay, what did that mean for them? She’d rather not make a major life reevaluation while she was stuck inside a four-by-four stall, but she wasn’t quite ready to step out and face the truth either. Why wasn’t he gay? It didn’t make any sense. Maybe he was just confused?

  When she finally emerged from the dressing-room area, she found Sam waiting for her by a rack of summer dresses. He looked pissed.

  “Maybe it’s just a phase,” Kate said.

  “A straight phase,” Sam said skeptically, “that has lasted twenty-six years. That’s a damn long phase. I don’t understand why it matters.”

  “It just does. It would be like you thinking all this time that I’m an Aries only to discover I was really a Gemini,” Kate said and then frowned. “All right, that is a really bad example but you get the point.”

  “No, I don’t. It’s not like I’m fucking you so I don’t see the difference,” Sam answered.

  “That’s just it,” Kate hissed and started to walk away.

  Sam reached for her hand and then whirled her around to face him. “Kate, I’m totally confused. What are you trying to say? Do you want me to fuck you?”

  “No,” Kate exclaimed, “but you haven’t even tried. I assumed it was because you were gay, but now that I know that isn’t true, it just seems sort of rude on your part.”

  “Wait a minute,” Sam said, sounding perplexed. “You want me to proposition you so you can say no, and because I haven’t, I’m being rude.”

  Kate pulled free and started to walk away. Sam fell in step beside her. “When you put it like that, it does sound bitchy.” She stopped when a clearance rack caught her eye. As she thumbed through last season’s discounts, she explained, “You just told a complete stranger that you wanted to fuck her, and you’ve never once said anything remotely like that to me. It makes me feel unattractive.”

  Sam stepped up beside her. He pulled a sweater from the rack and held it up to Kate. “It’s not like I haven’t thought about it, but when the foregone conclusion is no, it hardly seems worth the effort.”

  “Now you’re just trying to make me feel better,” Kate denied as she wrinkled her nose up at the garment. “Too wooly,” she said.

  “It’s a blend,” Sam said.

  “It would be scratchy,” Kate answered.

  “And if I wasn’t just trying to make you feel better?” Sam murmured quietly.

  Kate looked up and met his eyes. They looked different—more intense, sultrier. She panicked and looked away. “I don’t know if I would like that,” she admitted softly.

  “There you have it. Nothing has changed. You’re still the pickiest woman on this earth, and I still adore you in spite of it. We’re still friends, nothing more,” Sam answered.

  Over the past six months, Kate had grown closer to Sam than she ever had to any person before—man, woman, or otherwise undetermined. They didn’t just share an emotional connection—at times it felt almost spiritual as well. Before she met him, Kate never gave much thought to the notion of soul mates. In fact, she thought the whole idea was just a bunch of made-up nonsense perpetuated by the greeting card industry. It seemed so strange how one person could change her entire belief system, but it was so.

  The only thing lacking was a complete physical connection. It wasn’t as if Kate hadn’t considered it, which was a miracle by itself. There was always a bit of an edge, a blurry gray zone, in their reactions to each other. The first time they started towards the foggy precipice while standing in front of a clearance rack, she had been terrified. Sam seemed to instinctively know and backed off without a second word. There were no questions—no awkward, baffling pauses. He went right back to being just Sam, and Kate had been immensely relieved.

  Sometimes, Kate questioned the cost of Sam’s restraint. Not that she imagined herself irresistible by any standards and she certainly felt even plainer whenever they ran into one of his fabulous ex-lovers. All of them waif thin, blond, redhead, brunette, it didn’t seem to matter. They all possessed a sparkling beauty that set them apart from the rest of the world of normal women. And Kate was just that—utterly normal. She had dark blond hair that was enhanced with salon highlights, ordinary brown eyes, a nose she always felt was slightly too wide, and lips that weren’t all that kissable. Depending upon the time of the month, her weight varied from average for a woman of her height of five feet six inches tall to bloated with five extra pounds of salt water. Yet, Sam always made her feel like she was the most beautiful woman in the room. It didn’t feel like an act either. Kate had seen the look in his eyes, the same look she selfishly ignored, whenever she pulled away and scurried back into her comfort zone. In the span of a blink, before he could carefully hide it away, his smoky eyes brimmed with a sad, cruel expression of torture.

  The last time it happened, Kate tried to explain herself. “It’s not you, you know.”

  “It’s no big deal,” Sam casually denied.

  “It feels like a big deal.”

  “We’re just friends. I understand. Old habits,” Sam shrugged.

  “You were in the habit of turning your friends into lovers?” Kate questioned.

  “I wasn’t always so discriminate,” Sam admitted and then tucked a tendril of loose hair behind her ear. “I’m very happy with the way things are, and I wouldn’t change a thing about us. OK?”

  “OK,” Kate agreed warily, hoping that he truly meant it because she felt that way. She wouldn’t change anything about them, but if she could, she would change a whole lot about herself. For starters, she wouldn’t freak out whenever she detected a sexual charge flowing freely between them. And the currents were there. Undercurrents, over currents, sideways currents, oh heck—they were caught in sexually charged magnetic field. Kate could sympathize with the torture in his eyes because she felt it too. It was cruel to be so overwhelmingly attracted, in every possible sense of the word, to someone and know there was nothing that could ever come from it. If only—so many if onlys—she were a different person. No doubt about it, Kate would lock Sam in her bedroom for weeks on end, only occasionally coming out for food.

  “I look like a vamped-up stewardess,” Kate said as she opened her bedroom door.

  “I believe the proper term is vamped-up flight attendant,” Sam corrected and then smiled. “Oh look, you do have breasts and hips
. Secretly, I always suspected.”

  “Neither of which are very impressive,” Kate said.

  “I don’t know about that. I’m pretty impressed,” Sam remarked with a wink.

  “You’re easily impressed.”

  “Everything about you impresses me. Are you going to work tonight?”

  “No, I took the night off so I would look fresh for the morning, but…” Kate dropped off hesitantly.

  “But what?”

  “Jenner has been after me for weeks to try this new club downtown, and I told her I would go for a few hours.”

  “That sounds like a fabulous idea. Dance away some of that nervous tension,” Sam said.

  “Yeah, except I don’t dance. Jenner conveniently forgets from time to time.”

  “What’s the name of the club?”

  “Hopscotch—have you been there?”

  “Not yet, but I’ve heard of it. I’ll stop by after my photo shoot.”

  Chapter 2

  The music was a blasting, eclectic mix of electronica and hip-hop. From their booth in the balcony, the dance floor resembled an old-fashioned rave where people would pop ecstasy like candy and dance until dawn. Kate’s head was already beginning to throb.

  “I’m getting too old for this,” she yelled to be heard over the music.

  “No you’re not,” Jenner denied. “Just drink your wine. You’ll be numb in a few minutes.”

  “You said that twenty minutes ago. Go ahead and dance; I’m fine by myself.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” Jenner called out and then pointed down towards the dance floor. “Isn’t that Sam?”

  Kate leaned forward and spotted him instantly. It didn’t matter the size of the crowd, Sam was always hard to miss. Besides being the most beautiful woman around, he also stood six and a half feet tall in stiletto heels. He said the heels discouraged any unwanted attention from men, but Kate believed most normal guys were too intimidated by his looks to approach him, because she knew none of them could have guessed that the gorgeous woman was really a man. Her nose crinkled when she saw his companions.

  “Yuck, he brought Hannah and Mary Jane,” Kate said with a grimace.

  “I thought you liked them.”

  “No, they’re too catty for my taste. I just told him I did because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings,” Kate denied.

  She quickly leaned back, trying to stay incognito, but Sam’s eyes zeroed in and he started her way.

  “Like that would work,” Jenner chuckled. “Sam’s Kate-dar is more accurate than most meteorologists.”

  “It was worth a try. Better than being subjected to Hannah’s backhanded compliments,” Kate shrugged.

  A few moments later, Hannah purred, “Kate, you look radiant tonight. Have you lost some weight?”

  As in—you looked a little pudgy the last time I saw you, Kate thought to herself.

  “I don’t think so,” Kate answered with a fake smile.

  “It must be such a relief to eat anything you want. If I eat a piece of cake, I gain ten pounds. It’s so unfair constantly being judged by my looks,” Hannah said.

  “That’s because you don’t eat a single piece of cake. You eat the whole thing and then vomit it up ten minutes later,” Mary Jane said slyly.

  “If you hate it so much, you should quite modeling,” Sam offered indifferently.

  Hannah pouted. Even though she was beautiful with her silver-blond hair the shade of moon glow, which flowed endlessly down her shoulders and reached the middle of her back, and gigantic, sky blue eyes, she always reminded Kate of a bad-tempered two-year-old who was on the verge of having a temper tantrum.

  “Have you danced yet?” Sam asked wickedly.

  “No, not yet,” Kate answered.

  “But the night is still young, and I may have called in a few favors from my favorite DJ in town,” Jenner proclaimed triumphantly.

  “What did you do?” Kate asked.

  “You’ll see,” Jenner promised. “Kate has a hidden passion for boy bands circa 1990s,” she explained over the table.

  “Is that so? I’ll have to keep that in mind,” Sam purred.

  “You didn’t,” Kate said, when the music changed and she recognized one of her favorite songs. “I can’t believe they are playing this song.”

  Jenner stood and held out her hand. “Please,” she pleaded. “Just once, for old time’s sake.”

  Kate growled as she scooted out of the booth. “Just one dance,” she warned as she took Jenner’s hand and obediently followed behind her while she gleefully bounced down the steps towards the floor.

  “I can’t believe they still have this song,” Kate yelled.

  “Look, it’s a hit,” Jenner smiled.

  “They probably just can’t hear what’s being played,” Kate denied as she tried to move her stiff, awkward limbs in any rhythm that would be appropriate.

  It was hard to believe that once upon a million years ago she loved to dance. Growing up, she couldn’t remember how many slumber parties she shared with Jenner, how much time they wasted away dancing into the wee hours of the morning. Before makeup, designer clothes, cheer practice, and boys, there was the love of music, but like so many things gone, that too seemed lost forever.

  “I’m sorry,” Kate pleaded.

  “You’re doing great,” Jenner said and wrapped her arms around Kate’s middle. “Remember, like this,” she coached and began to sashay closer as they stood waist to waist.

  “This didn’t feel quite so gay when we were nine years old,” Kate said in Jenner’s ear.

  “That’s because we didn’t have breasts then. I’d go that way if it would help,” Jenner teased.

  “I appreciate the offer, but I think it would be a little strange considering we are related.”

  “You’re probably right. Why ruin a good thing? Speaking of good things—what’s going on with you and Sam?”

  “What do you mean?” Kate asked as she leaned back so she could see Jenner’s eyes. “We are just friends.”

  “Does he know that?”

  “Of course he knows. Why would you ask?”

  Jenner’s smiled wavered nervously before she gave in, bit her lip, and then groaned. “He’s crazy about you. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, he’s crazy about me in a really good friend sort of a way,” Kate denied.

  “No, he’s not,” Jenner said sadly. “He’s crazy about you in a ‘this is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with making babies with’ sort of a way.”

  “No!” Kate proclaimed heatedly and then took a deep breath. Calmer, she continued, “Sam flirts with everyone. You know that.”

  “Yeah, he’s a flirt, but he is different with you. You have to know, Kate. He’s in love with you.”

  “What?” Kate asked in confusion. Jenner had it all sorts of wrong. They were friends, just very good friends. People don’t fall in love with their friends, especially friends they haven’t had sex with. Yet, Jenner sounded so sure. Sure enough that Kate started to panic. “Why are you so certain? Has he said something to you?”

  “He doesn’t have to,” Jenner explained. “The man has been going around dressed as a woman for the past six months just to be with you.”

  “His cross-dressing has nothing to do with me. He was a transvestite long before he met me.”

  “Yeah, it was his thing, but not a permanent lifestyle choice.”

  Kate slowed until she barely moved. All around her, people swayed wildly. The strobe lights created a hypnotic effect. The flickers of illumination were like the flash of camera. Jenner’s words, both the ones she said and those that remained unspoken, created an image in Kate’s mind. “What are you saying? What are you not telling me?”

  Jenner rolled her eyes impatiently. “Fine,” she yelled. “After the first night we went out, Sam asked me if you were single because he wanted to ask you out on a date, and…”

  “And what did you tell him?” Kate rushed.
r />   “I didn’t tell him anything,” Jenner shouted. “I just said I didn’t think that would be a very good idea because you weren’t very comfortable around men.”

  “So, he has been cross-dressing all this time just to be…” Kate fell silent.

  “Just to be with you,” Jenner affirmed.

  Kate didn’t want to believe her. It hurt too much to believe. Of course, she adored Sam, loved him, but not that way, not the way he needed her to love him. She could never love anyone that way again. Sam had said he wouldn’t change anything about their relationship, but was he telling her the truth? Had she selfishly encouraged him, making him believe things might change between them? Was he holding out hope that she would one day open her heart?

  Painfully, Kate realized that she had to put a stop to this. Somehow she had to make him realize that she would never be what he needed—even if it meant letting him go forever. The very thought drenched her heart with sorrow. Her world without Sam would be like an endless, drab, gray cloudy day. He was her light and bright splashes of color. Yet, it wasn’t fair to keep him close if she couldn’t be those same things for him.

  She made the mistake of looking up towards the balcony. True enough, Sam was looking down at her and, even with the distance, she felt his seething desire. The toxic mix of guilt and sorrow played havoc on her senses. Suddenly, Kate’s mind began whirl and she couldn’t catch her breath. Her stomach clenched into a hard ball, and her heart began to race. It had been a while since she felt this way, but she recognized the symptoms and knew what was coming next. The thought of losing Sam had sent her into a full-fledge panic attack.

  “Oh god,” she groaned and then raced for the restroom.

  Thankfully, there was an empty stall. She sat down on the commode and placed her hands tight against the stall’s wall to keep steady. Sweat poured profusely from every pore on her body, drenching her in saltiness. She tried to take deep breaths, but they only came out as shallow gasps. The pressure on her chest was nearly unbearable.

  It’s only a panic attack, only a panic attack, she silently mouthed to reassure herself.

  Not even a minute later, a pair of silver, peek-a-boo stilettos came into view under the bathroom door.