Starlight (Peaches Monroe) (Volume 2) Paperback – September 2, 2013 (28 page)

“I don’t know if I should.”

“Someone might be convinced to put in a good word for you with Mr. Underwear Model.”

She bit her lip, not saying anything, but not leaving, either. I sniffed the air. Perfume? She looked more dressed up, her fake-looking hair more carefully teased to be full, than the previous two times I’d seen her. Oh, she had not been expecting to see me here at all. In fact, I was pretty sure if I pulled up that little skirt she was wearing, I’d find some slutty underwear.

I should have turfed her out before Keith even knew she was there, but my curiosity got the better of me.

“You were in Las Vegas,” I began for her. “There was a hot tub at the hotel pool, and you were drinking Jagermeister shots, and then you wandered into the wrong hotel room. You took off all your clothes and got into a soft, comfortable bed, only to discover your ex-lover next to you. He’d just eaten room service food with cracked pepper, and you both started sneezing violently, and before you knew it, you both were sneezing and sneezing, with no clothes on, and his penis just slipped right in.”

Tabitha snorted, hesitant to laugh at first, but then I started laughing and soon we were both going.

“Hey, accidents happen,” I said with a shrug. “That happened to a friend of a girl I know, I swear. True story.”

“It all started when we couldn’t get tickets to see the Blue Man Group.”

“Why couldn’t you get tickets?”

“Are you going to let me tell you, or do you have to control absolutely everything?”

“Ouch.” I relaxed back into the corner of the sofa, eating the rest of my sandwich and nodding for her to continue.

She said, “What they don’t tell you with these coupons is that there are blackout dates, and some of these shows are really expensive, even with the coupon. My friend Twyla knew a girl at the Rio, though, so we took three different buses and got lost a bunch of times, and we ended up going to see the Chippendales.”

“Oh! Those are the male strippers who wear the bow ties? I think I see where this is going. All that dancing around while the ladies screamed for more made you go crazy. You called up your ex in a moment of weakness.”

“Close.” She nodded her head toward me and raised her eyebrows suggestively.

“Fuck me. Your ex is a Chippendale?”

“Ten points for Peaches.”

“Did you know he was a dancer? Or was it… like, he comes out from behind the curtains, all oiled up, wearing his little cowboy boots, and he looks familiar, but you don’t realize until he’s giving you a lap dance?”

“He was dressed as a construction worker, and I was so embarrassed about being dragged up on stage that I couldn’t even look the guy in the eyes. I didn’t know it was him until I had my hands on his butt. I thought I was having
déjà vu
, because his butt felt so familiar, but then I looked up, and we were looking into each other’s eyes.”

“That is insane!”

“He said fate must have brought us together so we could say a proper goodbye. We dated back in high school, then tried to make it work long distance when he went off to work on the oil rigs, but we broke up over the phone.”

She stared off at nothing, at the spot on the wall where someone who was a better decorator than Keith would have hung up some art.

“And that’s why you cheated on Keith,” I said.

“I’m not saying I shouldn’t have done what I did, but Keith and I were taking some time apart. We’d been fighting constantly, and his sister Katy was living here, and the three of us kept getting into these strange power struggles.”

“Because Katy is a Level Ten Bitch-monster.”

Tabitha laughed guiltily. “She’s my best friend, but I know what she’s like.”

“Wait. You and Keith were broken up when you went to Las Vegas?”

“We weren’t exactly together. I’d moved back home with my parents. Katy wanted me to move back in to the apartment with her and Keith, but I still had some hard feelings about things he’d said to me.”

“I see.” I nodded. “Let me see your underwear.”

“What?”

“I just want to know if you were coming over here to talk to him, or seduce him.”

“Just to talk, I swear.”

I reached over and flipped up the hem of her skirt. She pushed it back down and slapped my hand.

What happened next was kind of a blur. Let’s just say I did some things I’m not very proud of, but things that needed to be done. I don’t appreciate being lied to, and it was in Keith’s best interests that I found out if Tabitha was planning to seduce him, which meant determining whether or not she was wearing slutty, ridiculous underwear, with matching bra and panties.

What Keith saw when he came out of his bedroom to investigate the ruckus wasn’t pretty. I was pinning down Tabitha on the couch, my head up under her top, yelling, “I knew it! I knew it!”

He tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Tag.”

I pulled my head out from under Tabitha’s shirt and whipped around to face him. “What? Tag?”

He was grinning, looking his usual sexy self in just a pair of shorts. “Yeah. Tag. I guess we’re doing this threesome thing here?” He laughed, very clearly making a joke and not at all serious. “Kind of rude of you two to start without me.”

“Hilarious.” I crossed my arms.

Tabitha had already jumped up and was heading for the door. “You two are both nuts,” she said. “I came over to apologize to you, Keith, but I can see you’re having way more fun without me these days.” She opened the door. “Have a nice life.” She left and slammed the door behind her.

Keith turned to me. “I can’t believe I was going to ask her to marry me.”

I steadied myself, not reacting to this revelation. “You could do better,” I said.

He frowned my way. “What
were
you doing to her, exactly?”

“Market research for my brand. Just wanted to see what kind of underwear she likes.”

“Worn-out gray sports bras and granny panties.”

Ah. Theory confirmed.

“Grilled cheese?” I jumped up and went to the kitchen.

“I really should eat something with more protein, since I just worked out. I’ve got some turkey breast in the freezer.”

He joined me in the small kitchen area and bumped me out of the way with his hip. He got a foil package from the freezer, opened it up, and pulled out thick slices of roasted turkey breast.

I moved aside and watched as he grilled the turkey to thaw it, then put the turkey inside the cheese sandwich I’d started.

“Not bad,” he said after the first bite.

“Smells like Hot Pockets.”

“I’ve never had one of those.”

“They aren’t bad, but stay away from the one with the broccoli because it tastes like Satan’s bunghole.”

“Good to know.” He took a seat at the kitchen counter on one of the stools, eating and watching me clean up.

“I prefer the Philly Cheese Steak flavor. All of them are improved by a sour cream dip, of course.”

He grinned. “Of course.”

I ran some hot water into the sink. “Tabitha’s really skinny.” He didn’t respond to this statement of fact. “I suppose dating her is less of a hazard to your career than dating me.”

“I can eat a little cheese now and then, Peaches. I am an adult.”

“You never told me that you and she were on a break when she allegedly ripped your heart out and ran it over.”

“There are plenty of things I didn’t tell you, like how we had an accidental pregnancy and miscarriage in January, and she shut me out. She spent all her time with Katy, and I was the awkward third wheel roommate.”

“Hmm.”

“The situation wasn’t healthy.”

“When did everyone move out?”

“A few weeks ago.”

“Not that long ago.”

I looked up, meeting his gaze. The look in his brown eyes confirmed what I thought: the void in Keith’s life had literally sucked me in to cork up the energy draining away. Yes, I was a girl-shaped cork. A rebound. And he was mine. And that was okay.

Keith pulled out his phone. “Too late to go to Anaheim today. I guess we’ll have to go tomorrow.”

I clapped my hands together, visions of princesses dancing through my head. “Disneyland? Are you for real? You would take me there?”

“You’ve never been, so I’m practically obligated to take you. I’d be a terrible host if I didn’t.”

I hugged him so hard, I nearly knocked him off the stool.

The funny thing is, I’d joked about going to Disneyland on my trip, but I hadn’t seriously considered going. I didn’t know I wanted to go so badly, until that moment. Like how I hadn’t wanted to be an underwear model until the opportunity came up. How many other things did I secretly desire and not even know?

On Sunday morning, while regular tourists were still in their hotel rooms, adding non-dairy creamer to mugs of coffee made on dressers in those mini-carafes, Keith and I lined up outside Disneyland Park half an hour before the rope dropped.

As soon as we were admitted, Keith grabbed my hand and hauled me through the empty park toward Adventureland and the Indiana Jones Adventure.

The ride was thrilling and every bit as corny and fun as it looks in the ads. As I screamed at the mummies and the insects in the creepy Bug Room, I mulled over the question posed at the beginning of the ride. The temple deity had offered us one of three gifts: earthly riches, eternal youth, or seeing into the future.

When we disembarked at the end of the Indiana Jones Adventure ride, I asked Keith which of those things he’d choose.

“Eternal youth, of course,” he said. “The opportunities for models get slimmer with age.”

“Then you’d be a model forever.”

“I guess I would. A model with a big mansion and an amazing garden. I’d spend my downtime splitting plants and getting dirty.” We both laughed. “What about you?”

I had to think.
Earthly riches, eternal youth, or seeing into the future.

“Not riches, because I’d rather earn them. Eternal youth… sounds good, but I wouldn’t want to have all my friends aging while I didn’t. I guess I’d pick the visions, because who wouldn’t want to see the future?”

“What if you could see the future, but it worked like TV, and you could only see one channel?” He pointed in one direction and started hauling me that way. “New Orleans Square. We’re going to hit the Pirates next.”

“Pirates are fun.” I skipped to catch up, glad I was wearing tennis shoes with a favorite outfit I’d brought from home: olive green cargo shorts and a ruffled pink blouse, which I think of as my Barbie-meets-G.I.Joe outfit.

Keith continued, “What if you can see the future, but just the weather? And only right where you are. Not even globally, so you can’t prevent human deaths from natural disasters.”

“Did anyone ever tell you you’re very unusual, Mr. Raven, guy-who-doesn’t-have-birthdays?”

He blushed. I’d seen him blush once or twice before, but not like this. He looked like he was trying to act natural, but failing.

Something was off. Something I’d said had triggered a reaction.

“Keith, is today your birthday?”

We kept walking, him looking around and waving at Disney characters.

If I remembered correctly, he prevented birthdays from happening by insisting on doing only regular-day things. Going to Disneyland didn’t fit the profile of regular-day things, not even for someone who lived nearby.

“Keith, squeeze my hand once if today is your twin sister’s birthday.”

He squeezed my hand.

We walked on in silence, until I said, “I’m honored that you’d choose to celebrate your birthday with me. And if anyone asks, I’ll lie and tell them we did boring everyday things.”

He stopped walking, stepping in front of me so we were face to face, him looking down into my eyes. The morning sun was behind his head, giving his dark hair a glow, like a halo.

Without a word, he leaned down and kissed me. The park had started filling up and people flowed all around us, and he kept kissing me. When he finally pulled away from me, he said, “You inspire me with your enthusiasm for life, and your honesty, and your passion. Peaches, you make me want to grow up. So, Happy Birthday to me. I couldn’t have picked a better way to spend today, and before you say it, oh, yes, there will be cake.”

“With ice cream,” I added, nodding. “Because someone was a bad boy on Thursday night and promised he’d pick up ice cream, but then he did not. Unforgivable.”

“I told you, the stores were all closed! Stupid Tabitha throwing my phone down a mountain. Tonight there will be both cake and ice cream.”

“Birthday candles? How many? Eleven?”

He grimaced.

“Okay, no candles,” I said, laughing. “Enough personal growth for today, right?”

He grabbed my hand and got us walking again. “Pirates! And then the Haunted Mansion. Oh, and Space Mountain.”

“It’s your birthday,” I said, smiling. “You get to pick everything, because it’s your day.”

“I like the sound of that.”

He got a big grin on his face that didn’t quit the whole day, and it was a long day. A very long day. We crossed over to Disney California Adventure at mid-day and crammed in as much as we could there.

As we toured the attractions and went on rides, I discovered that I did have the magical gift of being able to see the future, and it wasn’t limited to the weather. I could see returning there in a couple of years with my whole family, or maybe just me and Kyle.

Kyle, my baby.

Kyle came home a few days ahead of me, because the doctors weren’t sure about my mental state. I insisted I was completely fine for someone who’d eaten a whole pizza and gotten indigestion.

They told me I’d had a baby, and I rolled over and stopped talking. I couldn’t tell you what I was thinking, because those thoughts are scribbled out in my head to this day, probably to protect myself.

Finally, I told the doctors I’d known I was pregnant, and I’d kept meaning to come into the hospital for pre-natal care, but I’d been scared and pushed it off one day at a time. They bought the story. I told it so many times, I started to believe it myself, these new lies overwriting my actual memories with every re-playing.

At home, my parents barely let me in the house before they sat me down to talk about adoption papers. My father had gone into problem-solving mode the minute they’d returned early from their trip, and once he starts, he’s like an unstoppable cargo train.