Love Me Tender Read online

  When Patton comes back, he’s holding a pint of ice cream and two spoons.

  “It’s Trailer Trash 2.0 from Pied Piper Creamery. My favorite. Good thing Hunter isn’t here, or it would be gone already.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Just about everything. Dig in.” He says that, but then he sticks his spoon into the pint and feeds her. They end up sharing a spoon. In minutes the concoction of ice cream, Oreo, Twix, Butterfinger, Nestlé Crunch, Snickers, and M&M’s is gone.

  “Wow,” Leslie says when they get to the bottom. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “But it’s a good sick, right?” Patton says, all hopeful and happy.

  “A very good sick.” Leslie is still a little tipsy. Tomorrow she’ll probably be hungover, so she might as well enjoy herself now. She’s convinced she’s having the best time of her life.

  Patton is sitting on top of the covers. He wears his nakedness with the same grace with which he wears his clothes. No self-consciousness. Not that there should be much of that between them at this point. They’ve gotten as close as two people can get. Leslie can’t stop looking at him. She feels that she has her own personal male centerfold in bed beside her.

  “Why’d you become a writer?” Patton asks.

  Leslie would rather he run the cold ice cream spoon all over her body, but he wants to talk.

  “Journalist,” she says, licking the spot above his belly button.

  “Isn’t that the same thing?” he asks. He pulls her up so that their faces are almost touching.

  “I don’t make things up. I only report on things that are already there.”

  “That’s writing, isn’t it?”

  She thinks. “Of course, but I’m not like some novelist. I aim to inform, not entertain.” She drops her hand to his inner thigh.

  “I think you’re more entertaining than you think you are,” he says. He takes the finger that has been snaking down his body, pulls it toward him, and takes it into his mouth.

  “What do you mean?” she mumbles. She is having too good a time to have a serious conversation.

  “I checked you out online. That Marshmallow Fluff piece totally cracked me up.”

  “The subject matter spoke for itself.”

  He scoots up so that he is no longer leaning against her. “That’s where you’re wrong. You spoke for it. You’re the one who made it funny and interesting. Marshmallow Fluff? That doesn’t sound exciting to me. But you were able to grab my attention. You’re very good at what you do. And I’m grateful you decided to do a story on me.”

  “It was an assignment,” Leslie says. She feels like a shit. She is a shit. Oh, God, why did she have to use this one opportunity to prove herself as a serious journalist? Hell, it wasn’t as if she’d actually acted like a serious journalist. If she’d done the right thing, she would have attended his performance before writing that offensive piece. Instead, she would have praised Patton King to the hills.

  “I think there’s a lot to be said for pure entertainment.” He leans over, covers her with his body, and gives her a kiss that makes her insides curl. He slips his hand under the sheet and runs his fingers over her hip. “I love what I do. If no one ever paid me a dime, I’d still do it. Sometimes, I go over to Cheekwood Botanical Gardens and play in the great outdoors for free. I don’t even leave an open case for tips. People come by and listen, and I’m glad of it, but if no one ever came, I’d do it anyway. I just like it.”

  “Entertainment has its place, but a good journalist exposes the bad things that happen in the world.” Even as she says it, she knows she sounds fatuous, especially under the circumstances. How can she be so grim when Patton’s hand is on that spot?

  “Says who?” he whispers into her neck.

  “Me. I say it.” She scoots away from him and takes a breath. “And my grandfather said it.”

  “What did he know?” Patton teases. He is talking into the spot between her ear and her shoulder. It tickles.

  “He only happened to be the editor-in-chief and publisher of The Commonwealth Courier.

  Patton sits up. “That’s your paper, isn’t it?”

  “My family owns it.”

  “Your family owns an entire newspaper?”

  “They’ve owned it for almost a hundred years.” She looks at him. Let’s face it, when she came down here, she was willing to believe that most southerners were a little slow, even if only in the way they talked. Patton is anything but.

  “So, journalism is in your blood,” he says.

  She loves that he focuses on the passionate aspect of that connection, rather than on the nepotism angle, which is what most people do.

  “It’s in my blood, but the rest of my family isn’t interested. They want to cash out. They think newspapers are a thing of the past. My brother says they’ve found a buyer.”

  “It must be awkward for you, working at The Courier.”

  She is touched by the way he understands her situation so quickly. Few people do. Most figure that being an Arlington-Stern is all charity balls and lawn parties. But Patton King, who, on the surface, has so little in common with her, totally gets it. Gets her.

  “My boss has been hazing me for over a year. The whole time I’ve been at the paper.”

  “She allowed to do that?”

  “Who’s going to stop her? It’s not like I’m anyone’s favorite person over there. They look at me as part of the evil family who is going to cost them their jobs.”

  “But you love the paper as much as any one of the other employees.”

  “More,” Leslie says, taking Patton’s hand. She wonders if she should reveal anything about the piece she wrote about him, but decides against it. This one night might be all they get, and if that’s the case, she’s not about to ruin it with a spell of gratuitous virtue. Patton has no idea that his interview started as just another silly story. It might have been better if it had stayed that way.

  “You like old movies?” Patton asks.

  Leslie figures that this abrupt change of subject must be another foray into getting to know her.

  “I like some, and I don’t like others,” she says. Just because a movie is old, doesn’t mean it’s good. Every era has given rise to its own share of rotten fruit.

  “Fair enough. Name one you like.”

  “I love Brigadoon,” she says. “It’s my mother’s favorite, and though we don’t agree on much, we agree on that.”

  “I played Tommy in my high school musical.”

  “Really? You danced?”

  “So hard to believe?”

  She shakes her head even though she does find it a little difficult to imagine. “I want to hear,” she says.

  “Hear what?”

  “Hear you sing something from Brigadoon.”

  “You don’t have to ask me twice.” Patton leaps out of bed, still naked, and starts to sing “Almost Like Being in Love,” just the way Gene Kelly did in the movie. Patton hams it up, spreading his arms and doing a slap, ball, change, his feet moving fast across the floor. There’s a reason Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly often danced in formal wear. Their kind of dancing, done naked, is absolutely absurd.

  “Stop it!” Leslie howls. She can’t remember the last time she laughed like this.

  “It looks better in costume,” Patton says. He’s laughing, too, as he jumps onto the bed. Then, slowly, he sings the penultimate lines of the song. He sings them soft and sexy. I would swear I was falling. I could swear I was falling. Then, he leans in and gives Leslie a long kiss.

  “You are making it hard for me to breathe,” Leslie says when they finally pull away from each other. “Now your turn. What’s your favorite movie?” She needs a minute to gather herself. If things continue the way they’ve been going, she’s going to melt into the bed.

  “You ever see Sullivan’s Travels?” Patton asks.

  Leslie shakes her head; she’s never even heard of it.

  “Preston Sturges directed it in 1941. I
t’s about a successful film director who decides he wants to get a taste of the real world and find out how regular people live so he can make a movie that’s important. So far, all his films have been trivial—at least that’s what he thinks. And now he wants to make his mark.”

  “So, what happens?”

  “Let’s watch it. I don’t want to spoil it.”

  “You really want to watch a movie?” she asks, straddling Patton and letting her long hair tickle his face.

  “Soon,” he says as she nibbles at his collar bone.

  An hour later, the two of them are staring at the ceiling and trying to recover. Leslie feels like she has no bones.

  “I know we’re very different people,” Patton says. “But I don’t want this to be a one-night stand.” He looks at her and strokes the line that runs from between her breasts to her belly button. She shivers.

  “A two-night stand?” She is trying to joke her way out of the strong emotions she’s feeling, but she knows it’s too late. Hearing him say those words makes her want to burrow into him and disappear down the rabbit hole of a sensuality she has never known before. Maybe she loves his mind, maybe his soul, but she knows for a fact that she loves his body in a deep, primitive way. She can’t imagine being separated from it.

  Patton goes and gets his copy of Sullivan’s Travels and presses it into the DVD player. Leslie can’t imagine why Patton is dead set on her seeing this black-and-white flick tonight, of all nights. She could understand if he wanted to watch Last Tango in Paris or 9½ Weeks, but why this 1940s comedy?

  About twenty minutes in, she is so involved in the story, she doesn’t care why she’s watching it. Patton falls asleep. Leslie uses his belly as a pillow and listens to him breathe while her eyes remain glued to the screen.

  The film’s lesson isn’t exactly subtle. In the end, this big director—Sullivan—has been bonked on the head, lost his identity, and ended up in a rural penitentiary. When the prison population is taken to a church to see a movie, it turns out to be a Mickey Mouse cartoon. When Sully looks at all these downtrodden people laughing and forgetting their troubles, he finally gets it. He starts to laugh.

  He realizes that he doesn’t need to make a masterpiece of erudition. Mirth has its own value.

  In fact, it is worth more to these prisoners than any amount of profundity ever could be. The message of Sullivan’s Travels may be laid on with a trowel, but Leslie doesn’t like it any the less for that. Patton obviously wanted her to see the value in sprinkling a spoonful of sugar onto challenging lives. And Leslie happens to be good at it. Maybe, these frivolous stories she’s been doing are her métier. She wonders if she could ever be satisfied with that.

  Patton is dead to the world, so Leslie carefully extricates herself from him, sliding out from under his arm without waking him.

  She sneaks out of Patton’s bungalow, shoes in hand, just as the sun is coming up.

  Chapter 15

  When you get back to your room at six in the morning, and you are still wearing clothes from the night before, it’s the walk of shame no matter how much fun you had. Leslie’s glad she chose to stay at a big anonymous hotel. There is no one there to judge her as she creeps in, makeup smudged, hair a mess, and clothes askew.

  She opens the door to her room with the keycard and falls onto the bed. Ouch. Her head hurts. And she’s a little sick to her stomach. She has a massive hangover. The physical pain is nothing compared to the emotional pain she’s experiencing. She feels like such an asshole for getting involved with Patton when she knew what she was about to do to him.

  I was drunk and got seduced by Patton’s stage presence, she tells herself. His offstage presence was nothing to scoff at either. She drinks three tall glasses of water and takes two Advil.

  All of this might be manageable if the only thing she was feeling was nausea and regret. But for some reason, expansive feelings of love are dogging her like a frolicking puppy. She feels herself hoping—and this is ironic—that Olive hated the story and decided not to run it.

  Leslie hasn’t even looked at her phone. She’s been at Cinderella’s ball, and one glance at her e-mail could have turned her coach into a pumpkin. The sound of the phone startles her. It’s quacking like a duck. That’s the ring tone she’s assigned to Olive.

  Leslie is almost afraid to answer. If she’s lucky, Olive is calling to read Leslie the riot act and tell her that she was sent down there to write a fun piece on some idiot who thinks he’s related to Elvis Presley, not excoriate the dolt and the whole industry besides. Shit!

  Leslie grabs the phone. “Hello?” She pretends that she doesn’t know who’s on the other end. It gives her an extra moment to think.

  “Wake up, sleepyhead,” Olive spouts.

  “It’s not even seven a.m.,” Leslie points out.

  “The early bird gets the worm.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t asked.” Olive has a habit of clicking her fingernails against her phone, and Leslie can hear it. Tap. Tap. Tappity-taptap-tap.

  “Ask what?”

  “If I liked the story. What else? Jeezus, are you on another planet?”

  “Sort of.” Yes. It was odd of Leslie not to ask. She has finally written a kick-ass piece of authentic journalism. The real Leslie Stern would be itching to know if Olive liked the piece and when it was going to run. “Did you like it?” Leslie finally asks, reaching for another glass of water.

  “To tell you the truth, I thought it was great. Even controversial. I have to admit you did a damned good job. I knew I could count on you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You don’t sound too happy about it.”

  “So, are you going to run it?” Leslie asks. She’s trying to figure out how to ask Olive to bury the story and to forget she’s ever seen it.

  “It’s already up on the website. You should log on. It’s got a ton of traffic already. This is going to be really big for you,” Olive says. Leslie feels like she’s going to choke on her own tonsils. “Aren’t you going to thank me?” Olive’s voice manages to be both nasal and tart.

  “Thank you, Olive.”

  Leslie disconnects. She flops onto the bed and stares at the ceiling. Maybe Patton won’t see the story. Even if he does, maybe he won’t see it right away. No doubt, Nola will be all over it, but if she reads the story and realizes it will disturb Patton, she might have the good sense to put off showing it to him. If Leslie’s lucky, he won’t find out about the article until she manages to skulk out of town.

  Leaving would be easy if she could stand the thought of never seeing Patton again, but she can’t. She has to see him one last time, if only to say good-bye. If she were smart, she’d head to the airport this minute. That’s what she’d do if her brain was functioning properly. Unfortunately, it’s still soaking in last night’s puddle of alcohol.

  She feels like she’s been twisted around a hundred and eighty degrees. What was vital to her yesterday is not so important today.

  Chapter 16

  Patton wakes up to a loud banging and thinks, what the hell? Why is someone at the door so early in the morning? Whoever is out there might as well be hitting the door with a shoe. Hunter was supposed to get the damned doorbell fixed.

  Patton reaches over for Leslie, but she’s not there. She slipped out on him, and it doesn’t feel good. What makes it worse is that he thinks he loves her, and he thought he’d made it clear. He wants whatever is between them to last. A little longer, at least. A lot longer, if they can manage it. One thing he knows for sure is that he doesn’t want it to end with last night.

  Maybe Leslie went out to get them breakfast and locked herself out. After last night, he can’t believe she’d slip out without saying good-bye. She didn’t even leave a note. He was looking forward to waking up together, having coffee, making love.

  He realizes he was even dreaming about Boston, a city he’s never seen. He knows it’s a crazy thought, but Boston does ha
ve a great music scene. He knows it’s too soon to be thinking like this. Maybe he’s going nuts.

  He jumps into his boxers and goes to the door. It’s Nola on the doorstep. Her red hair is sending out sparks of light. She pushes past him.

  “Got coffee?” she asks.

  “I can make some.”

  Nola follows Patton into the kitchen. She looks around. “Where’s Leslie? The way things were going between you two, I thought she’d be here.”

  “So did I.”

  “She went home with you, didn’t she?”

  “A gentleman never tells.” Patton places a filter in the machine and pours coffee into it.

  “Come on,” Nola coaxes.

  “She was here, but now she’s gone.”

  “Well, don’t despair. You were a huge hit last night. I’ve been fielding calls all morning. No doubt you have Leslie, bless her determined little heart, to thank for some of it.”

  “All morning? But it’s only nine thirty.”

  “There’s no rest for the wicked.”

  Olive forwarded the article to Nola. While it didn’t exactly pan Patton as a performer, Nola immediately recognized that it was no love letter. Still, the story has stirred up interest, even curiosity. It proves the rule that any publicity is good publicity.

  Nola decides not to show it to Patton. Let him ride this horse as long as he can without getting bucked off. Leslie’s story is bound to send him flying. The coffee drips steadily. When the carafe is full, Patton pours a cup for both of them, and they take it into the living room. Nola sits in the barrel chair. “I have fabulous news for you,” she says.

  Patton waits.

  “Some guy who was playing at Douglas Corner tonight got sick, and I got you slotted into the spot. Aren’t I awesome?”

  “You are truly something.”

  “I’ve been trying to tell you that. Do you mind Elvis-ing it up a little tonight? Put on some really tight jeans and this.” She pulls a shirt out of her cavernous purse. It’s blue satin with mother-of-pearl snaps.