Starlight (Peaches Monroe) (Volume 2) Paperback – September 2, 2013 (17 page)

Whatever.

I tucked my chin against my chest and let myself out the door. Keith appeared at my side a few seconds later, looking dazed.

We walked in silence to the van, and Keith helped me get my bag loaded into the back, on top of the bags of soil.

Inside the van, I held my hand over my face, not sure how I felt, exactly, but part of the emotional mix was definitely humiliation.

We started driving, putting space between us and the strangeness.

After a few minutes of driving, I said, “Tell me what he told you by the door.”

Keith frowned and shook his head. He wasn’t telling.

“Was it something depraved and sexual? Turn this van around. Turn it around right now and I’m going in there to kick his ass properly, like I should have the minute I got there.”

“Let it go.” He fiddled with the stereo and put on a station with easy listening music. “People are like living ghosts, haunting their lives with their issues. If you don’t like the story, change yourself or change your location.”

“Meaning?” I reached back and dragged my suitcase closer to my seat so I could check that my laptop was inside.

“He’s got his life, and his house, and I wouldn’t trade him, because he’s lost you, and none of his rich-guy stuff matters compared to losing a woman as precious as you.”

My heart did that thing where it squeezes up when someone says something kind and unexpected.

“You’re just saying that because you want to bury your face right here between my peaches.” I pushed my girls together with my upper arms and flaunted the food-catchers his way.

“Don’t.” He shook his finger at me. “Don’t turn away from contact by making a joke. Don’t distract from true, deep physical intimacy by bringing candy into the bedroom.”

“Technically, it was marshmallows, not candy, and you asked for it. And if we’re going to talk
depth
here, I took you pretty deep. Getting those last marshmallows from around the base made my eyes water.”

He grinned. “Which I appreciated.”

“I’ll say you did.”

We drove in silence for a minute, then I asked him again, “What did he say at the door?”

“He said it to me, not to you, for a reason.”

“Fine. Don’t tell me. I don’t even care anymore.” I retrieved my laptop from my bag and opened it to make sure everything was working. I tried really hard to act like I didn’t care about what Dalton had said, even though it was killing me.

“Wanna get some lunch?” Keith asked.

“Definitely. Acting like a trash-monster from a reality TV show, picking up my things from one guy’s house with another guy as my escort, has really worked up my appetite.”

“You’re not a trash-monster.”

“I didn’t slap anyone or throw a drink in their face.”

“The day’s not over yet.”

“What was up with you two guys and the alpha-male behavior? I thought I’d seen your chest puff out when we were modeling, but that was intense. I thought you two were going to start chimpanzee-screaming and throwing rocks around.”

“Now you’re making fun of me. I was in control of myself the whole time. If you ask me, Dalton could use a little meditation.”

I giggled at the idea of Dalton meditating. He’d get so bored after two seconds, just like me.

After a minute, I said, “Thank you.”

Keith looked over at me, his brown eyes gold in the bright sunshine streaming in the van’s windows.

“Thank you for everything,” I said. “Including coming inside, even though I told you to wait in the van.”

“I’m all for equality, but sometimes a man has to be a man, and stand behind his lady, so she can see how much he cares.”

“Are you trying to get into my pants? Because you don’t have to try so hard. You are really, really sexy.”

He shot me another moody look. “Be serious.”

I shook my head. “It is really hard to be serious when I’m thinking about getting icing and sprinkles and decorating your body like a cupcake.”

“Are all the girls from Beaverdale like you?”

“No. Some of them are weird.”

He started laughing, and soon I was, too.

I stopped laughing abruptly when he pulled into the parking lot for an all-salad restaurant.

I survived lunch at the salad place, but just barely. They had a few interesting salads that challenged my salad-as-a-meal prejudice, including one with grilled turkey and candied pecans. Paired with a fruit smoothie, it promised a delicious meal.

Keith and I both commented on the Niçoise salad, because it sounded good, but he ordered something with kale and goat cheese instead.

Our waiter was a rugged-looking older gentleman with silver hair at his temples, and whenever he came by our table, a wild animal thing happened. Keith stuck his chest out like a threatened primate, and his voice got so deep, I worried about vocal chord damage.

I decided that most guys have a little alpha male in them, even if they’re not spanking you and bossing you around like Christian Grey.

After our lunch, we browsed on our phones for other things to do during the day in LA, and I admitted that going on a bus tour of star homes was something I “could probably be talked into,” meaning I
really
wanted to go and was embarrassed by how cheesy that made me.

If I didn’t already think Keith was a sweet guy, his reply that he
insisted
I accompany him on a bus tour of star homes would have won me over.

As we boarded the bus, elbow to belly with tourists, Keith suggested we introduce ourselves as newlyweds from Nebraska. I thought that was an excellent idea, and told everyone my name was Pam. Keith said his name was Jack, which gave me the giggles, because he was not a Jack at all.

The tourists were friendly enough, except for a few older guys who grumbled about the cost and inconvenience of everything while their wide-eyed wives made the I-can’t-believe-I-put-up-with-this-for-thirty-years faces. We met a newlywed couple from Queensland, Australia, named Trevor and Heather, who suggested we join them the next day for a tour of Universal Studios.

Keith said we had to stay in the hotel room all day because I was ovulating and we were trying for a honeymoon baby. The couple got red-faced, and then Trevor leaned in and said they were doing the same. Heather rolled her eyes and said, “Yeah, but it doesn’t take all day.”

We laughed and laughed, because everything is a billion times funnier when an Australian says it.

For the rest of the bus tour, I wondered if I was ovulating, and Keith somehow knew, thanks to his earth muffin, meditating, salad-eating ways. I’d had my period right before the trip to LA, so probably not. We’d been using condoms, but staring at Keith’s face and thinking about him fertilizing my lady garden got me flustered. Bare skin on skin. Juices commingling. Extremely raunchy metaphors and mental images. For example, him coming inside me and painting me with his ecstasy, slicking my walls with one coat after another.

I kept crossing my legs and trying to focus on what the tour guide was saying, but pretending to be a newlywed had gotten in my head and there was only one cure for the fever I had.

“I feel dirty,” I said that evening as we were driving back to his apartment. The sun hadn’t set, but the sky was like milky tea on the horizon.

“I can draw you a nice bath. I’ve got some aromatic epsom salts.”

I reached over and squeezed his bare knee, right at the hem of his camouflage cargo shorts.

“No. I mean I feel
dirty
. Like
Reverse Cowgirl dirty
.”

“Is that a dance? You want me to take you out clubbing?”

Squeezing his leg again, I simply said, “Not a dance.”

He nodded slowly. “Good thing we’re going straight home, then. Wait, I know what Cowgirl is, so wouldn’t Reverse Cowgirl just be… Missionary?”

Feeling both embarrassed and turned-on at the same time, I said, “It’s still with the girl on top, but the girl faces your legs.”

“Would this girl be you?”

“Unless you want me to phone our new Australian friends about a swap. That Trevor was one tall glass of water.”

He laughed. “No swapping. You’re all mine for one more week.”

One more week.

I didn’t like him saying that, even though it was the truth.

He grabbed my hand, pulled it up to his lips to kiss sweetly, then moved it down to his crotch. I stroked his hardness through his shorts.

He said, “All this Cowgirl talk is making me
Cowboy Up
, if you know what I mean.”

I shifted to the edge of my bucket seat and unzipped Keith’s zipper so I could slip my hand into his shorts. “Hello, Lone Ranger,” I said, gripping his cowboy tightly. “Or should I say Woody?”

He smiled, his eyes steady on the road despite the distraction.

“Call me whatever you like.”

“Definitely Woody,” I said, caressing the ridges of his glans. “And this is Woody’s cowboy hat.”

“I’m going to pull over this van and wear
you
like a hat, missy.”

“Ooh, you’re so manly when your voice gets deep like that.” I switched into my high-pitched girlie voice. “You’ve been such a big ape of a man all day today, sticking out your chest and talking deep. My pussy is getting so wet for your big manly cock.”

He turned and gave me a look of respect. “Don’t stop. And keep doing the voice. It’s weird, like you, but I dig it.”

The granite-hard cock in my hand didn’t disagree. Keith liked me talking dirty and ditzy to him.

“You know I’m no virgin,” I said softly, my voice still high. “But I do feel innocent and scared by the big world. Except for when I’m in your big, strong arms. You make me feel safe.”

“Go on.”

I felt the pressure of being put on the spot, and my throat closed up. I pulled my hand out of his shorts and got some bottled water from my bag.

Keith chuckled and zipped up his shorts. “To be continued as soon as we get back to our apartment.”

“Yes.” I handed him the water, not commenting on him calling it
our
apartment instead of
his
apartment.

But, after a minute of driving, I said, “
Your
apartment, not
our
apartment. I am going home in a week. This is fun, what we’re doing, but I’m not under any illusions. I won’t be waiting by the phone, waiting for you come visit, pretending we have a future.”

“You could come to Italy.”

“Hah!”

He frowned, glancing over at me with a glowering look. “Fine, there’s no deal yet, but they haven’t said no, either.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to doubt you’d get the job. That was just my honest reaction to the idea. I mean… Italy? What would a flight out of Washington even cost? Never mind. We’ve had a nice day, Keith. Let’s keep having a nice day.”

“Sure.” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, eventually falling into rhythm with the song on the radio.

We got back to the apartment building, and I felt heavy on the walk to his door. My feet were swelling in my shoes, the way they do if I eat a ton of salt and get too much sun. I still felt dirty, but I did not feel sexy.

Inside the apartment, Keith grabbed two towels and said, “Swim time.”

I just wanted to lounge around with my phone, texting Shayla, but I stripped down to my underwear and followed him to the pool.

Once in the cool water, weightless again, I started to smile.

“What are you grinning about?” Keith asked, paddling around me with a pool noodle wrapped under his armpits.

“Just happy.” I stared up at the sky, which was turning navy blue as the sun disappeared. “Do you use this pool every night?”

“Used to. With Tabitha, or with my sister. The three of us typically had the place to ourselves. We used to play this game…” He paused, looking troubled. “Never mind.”

I rolled onto my back in the water, the other pool noodle stretched across my upper back to make floating easy. Keith was paddling with his back to me, and I hooked my feet under his armpits to tag along like a caboose.

“What happened with you guys?” I asked.

He continued to paddle, towing me with him. “I don’t get why people are always so curious about breakups. What happened doesn’t matter. If I tell you Tabitha went with her cousins to a party in Las Vegas and slept with her ex-boyfriend, I don’t know what good that accomplishes.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He kept paddling, his back to me. “Nobody does shit with sorry. Sorry and a dollar will buy you four quarters.”

I wiggled my toes, which were still hooked under Keith’s armpits. “Some people say talking about the bad stuff helps. Every time you visit a bad memory, you get to re-frame it in a new light.”

He threw his arms up and submerged again, slipping away from me. A few seconds later, he came up near the edge of the pool.

Grinning, his dark brown eyes mischievous, he said, “That sounds like a lot of new age talk coming from the person who says she’s not into meditation.”

“I went to therapy. Therapy isn’t new age talk.” I splashed water his way.

“Why’d you go to therapy?” He swam toward me, looking shark-like.

I put my foot on his chest, keeping him away, but he leaned down to kiss the top of my foot and stroke my legs, massaging my calf.