We Are Made of Stardust - Peaches Monroe #1 (13 page)

I screamed, and Cujo reacted by barking and knocking me to the ground again.

After a few choice words, Adrian got Cujo off me again and helped me to my feet.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked. “Are you stalking that actor who’s staying by the lake?”

“No!” I pretended to be fascinated by the twigs nesting in my hair. “I’m out here for other, completely unrelated reasons.”

Adrian grinned. Even without the lip ring, his smile brought back memories. All those long nights in the computer lab, and me being his you’re-a-girl buddy, answering his many hypothetical questions about asking out Chantalle Hart.

Unlike me, Chantalle Hart was a fun girl, who had fun with all the popular boys at Beaverdale High, the only high school in our little town. Chantalle was the one who taught me how to give a blowjob—using a banana from my lunch. She oozed sex appeal. So much so, that when she did the banana demonstration, I felt a strange tingling sensation in my panties, and wondered if I was a lesbian. For about two days, I was excited about maybe being a lesbian, and getting to join the Theater Appreciation Rocking Thespians, or TARTs, who were the de facto gay and lesbian alliance.

Then I also got those same tingles the next few times I ate a banana, so I realized it was the banana part of the equation that had gotten me excited.

But I digress.

Alone in the woods with my former crush, Adrian Storm, I pulled some twigs out of my hair and lied about why I was there. “I went for a hike and lost track of the time.”

“Of course. Let me walk you back to your car.”

“I don’t have a car, but you can walk me up to the road, if that’s okay with Cujo. Or if you have your car here, you could just drop me off in town.”

“I can do that.” He waved me on ahead of him, along the trail. “And I do know why you’re out here, but don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone. Your secret is safe with me.”

“Okay,” I said cautiously.

“But if you get a big pay check for your work, maybe throw a bit my way.”

I shot him a dirty look. What exactly did he think I was doing out there? I didn’t want to know.

We walked in silence up to a cleared space for parking. The only vehicle in the lot was an expensive-looking, canary yellow sports car.

“I thought you were broke,” I said.

“I am. And cars like this are partly the reason why.” He opened the passenger door and folded the seat forward so Cujo could amble up into the back and sit on his towel. “Get in and enjoy it with me before the repo men track me down.”

I put on my seatbelt and looked around the interior of the car, admiring all the fancy dials in the dash.

Once he got in and settled, he turned to me and said, “Peaches, you’re a girl.”

“Yes. I am a girl.” I got that deja vu feeling, because of all the times he’d said that phrase to me back in high school. What followed would be a hypothetical question about a girl, but this time I didn’t mind.

As Adrian told me about this girl he’d met, who he couldn’t get a clear reading on, I rubbed my index finger back and forth across my lower lip and thought about what a great kisser Dalton Deangelo was.

Adrian Storm talked most of the way back to my house, but I wasn’t paying close attention. I kept thinking about Dalton, and the way his hot skin felt under my hands, and how if I got another date with him, I’d take things slower.

We pulled up in front of my house, where the lights were still on.

Adrian said, “So should I just ask her out? Actors and actresses are so weird. They’re very outgoing people, and I think they have to be. To do their jobs, they have to connect with their characters and with the other actors instantly. It’s, like, visceral.”

“This girl is an actress?”

“Yes. That’s why I feel so weird around her, like there are cameras on us when she talks to me. Everything she says to me sounds so measured and precise.”

“Huh.”

“It doesn’t feel real to me, but I still like it. I love the attention, even if it’s pretend.”

“What do you mean, pretend?”

“Well, she’s an actress. That makes her the world’s best liar, doesn’t it? Even if she’s honest, how would I ever know?”

“Don’t you trust your instincts?”

Cujo sneezed in the back seat and stood up, wagging his tail and bonking it against the window. He seemed like a nice enough dog when he wasn’t knocking me to the ground.

“I used to trust my instincts,” he said. “Then I gambled away my future.”

“You could just take it one day at a time,” I said to Adrian. “Whether it goes anywhere or not, it’s fun while it lasts, right?”

He turned to me, his pale eyes lit by the streetlamps and suddenly looking haunted. “It’s no fun to be played a fool and have your heart ripped out.”

I laughed to lighten the mood. “Not even a little bit?”

He tilted his head, as though seeing me in a new light. “How about you? Are you seeing anyone?”

Ah, so clearly he thought I was
doing
something other than Dalton out at Dragonfly Lake. Perhaps taking pictures to sell to the tabloids. That added up.

“I’m seeing someone,” I said. “Right now is the fun part, before my heart gets ripped out.”

“Be careful. I know you’re as tough as ten-dollar nails, but even a girl like you can get hurt.”

“A girl like me?” What. The. Fuck?

“A girl like me?” I repeated.

Adrian Storm turned to stare ahead at the clock on the dashboard, and tapped the steering wheel rhythmically. “Good seeing you, Petra.”

I pushed open the car door, got out, and slammed it behind me without a word. I stomped up to the house. What the hell?
A girl like me?

I fumbled with my keys and the lock, choking on indignation.

A girl like me.
Did he mean a fat girl?

Of course he did.

That was why he used to talk so candidly to me about his girl problems. He never saw me as a viable dating option, and he still didn’t.

I hoped he did date some actress and get his heart ripped out. He had it coming.

A girl like me.
Hah!

He couldn’t handle a girl like me. It took a real man to do that job.

I stomped up the stairs and found Shayla lounging in the clawfoot bath tub, the tea kettle on the floor next to her.

I put down the toilet seat and sat down next to her.

Her eyes widened. “You’re filthy! What happened? Do you need me to call the police? Or should I put Vaseline on my face and slick my hair back so we can go kick some ass?”

“Easy there, One-Woman Army of Vengeance. Dalton was a perfect gentleman. I just took a shortcut on the way home and got treated like a training dummy by a retired, toothless police dog.”

“And you say you’re not the fun one. I ate a tin of Almond Roca and stalked people from high school on the computer all night.”

“Freaky. It’s like we’re magically trading places.”

I thought about telling her all about Adrian insulting me, but my mouth didn’t want to make the effort. Screw him.

Shayla sunk down into the tub, opened her mouth to let water pool in, then spat it at me in a perfect arc.

I sat there and got soaked, too exhausted from my crazy night to get out of the way.

“Tell me what depraved sexual things you let Dalton Deangelo do to you,” Shayla said. “Or I’ll keep spraying you with water.”

“Well, you know how I always say I can’t see the fuss over receiving oral sex?”

Her face lit up.

“Let’s just say I’m a believer,” I said. “This postal outlet is now open for incoming mail of the tongue variety.”

“You dirty slut!”

I got up and closed the bathroom window, because Mr. Galloway didn’t need to know what a dirty slut I was, and I was about to tell Shayla every detail, even the embarrassing ones.
Especially
the embarrassing ones.

~

I woke up in my own bed, which contained only me and some fig newton cookie crumbs—a few more fig newton cookie crumbs than I would recommend for a good night’s sleep.

Shayla and I had stayed up far too late discussing every word out of Dalton’s mouth and what it all could mean.

She annoyed me, actually. The way she acted like what happened next was completely up to me. Bullshit it was.

I hate when people tell you “it’s all about the attitude” and “fake it ’til you make it.”

You know what that advice amounts to? Kicking you when you’re down. Because now it’s your fault, because you didn’t believe in yourself enough. You didn’t clap your hands, and all the pixies died… or however that story goes. You know what I mean.

If a willingness to be confident was all it took, we’d all be confident. We’d all leave the house in one-piece rompers, ass hanging out for everyone to enjoy.

That morning, I should have been in a great mood, but I wasn’t. That’s the thing about moods—they’re not logical. And change is stressful, even if it’s good change like dating someone hot.

When you have nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose, but dating a hot guy meant I could potentially fuck everything up with a hot guy.

Argh!

I took it out on myself by putting on a drab outfit of dark brown cords and an olive green button-down shirt. I looked like I was going off to war.

What people wouldn’t know was that underneath those drab clothes, I wore a hot pink bra and panties set—another brand-new set I had been saving for a special occasion. Apparently, that occasion was today.

I ran out the door and started the walk to work with my morning Pop Tart in one hand and my phone in the other. I didn’t remember giving Dalton my number, but I still had hope he would call.

Mr. Galloway, out in his front yard tending his roses, waved and said, “Sell those books at your store!”

“You know it,” I replied, feeling guilty for the lie of omission.

A lot of people around town think I am the owner of Peachtree Books. Naturally, they assume the store is named after me, or vice versa. I suppose the fact I refer to it as “my” bookstore may be most of the problem, but it’s so much easier to say “my bookstore” than “the bookstore I manage and work way too many hours at.”

The truth is, the shop is owned by the same people who own the whole building: the Oliver family. Mr. Gordon Oliver founded the bookstore in 1982, and passed it down to his son Gordon Junior in 2003, when he retired and moved to Phoenix, Arizona. There, he lived in a trailer park half the year with his Canadian Snowbird girlfriend Ida, who, from what I hear, is a terrible cook.

Gordon Junior liked the money, but he didn’t like books. For a number of years, his money-focused system worked well for Peachtree Books, and business grew. He believed in customer service, and met people’s needs quite well. However, he still didn’t care that much about the actual books, and when Black Sheep Books opened up across town, the customers were ripe for the poaching.

I was working there part-time, having just dropped out of college, when he started making drastic changes. Desperate changes. Like those internet coupons.

To avoid bankruptcy, we brainstormed many ideas together, along with the rest of the staff, and came up with some good ones. Our initiatives always seemed promising at first, but then Black Sheep Books would copy things like our Customer Loyalty Program and find a way to one-up us. They literally ran a sale called the One-Up Sale, where customers donated a used book for charity in exchange for a discount.

Gordon Junior knew we’d never be able to increase sales by much, so he set to work on the other side of the formula, reducing costs. Because his family owned the building, he had a lot of power.

Without consulting me, he got the necessary permits, and a construction crew showed up one day when I was receiving stock and asked where I wanted the wall.

Gordon’s big plan was to put a wall right down the center of the bookstore, bisecting the place to save money. He added another door and more signs. Now the shop on one side was books, and right next door was a brand new specialty wine and beer store.

Just try and guess which business was more profitable.

As the wine business took off, and he spent more time over there (he was as passionate about wine as he was
dispassionate
about books), I took over more of the bookstore’s operations. I put in the orders, then entered them in our computer. I received the stock, put it on the shelves, and hand-sold books to customers. I pretty much did everything except write the darn things, and I’ve half a mind to do that some day as well.

It’s not so hard to write a book, I bet. You just pour yourself a tall glass of inspiration and start typing, right? I’ve already met a sexy, famous actor, so that’s plenty of inspiration and research all rolled up in one.

I started thinking about Dalton Deangelo on the walk into work, and my vagina (I hope you’re not offended by my frankness, but I’m not going to call it a funny word every time) got swollen and lubricated in a way that made walking both pleasurable and embarrassing. I tried walking like a mermaid, the way Dottie had recommended, but that felt too much like foreplay, what with all the rubbing. What had gotten into me? Not Dalton Deangelo, if you didn’t count his fingers, which I didn’t. Oh, but I wanted him to get into me. Big time.

By the time I opened the front door of the bookstore, my pleasure pumpkin (ha ha! I lied!) was demanding I take some “art” books into the back room for a little personal time, or “Safety Session” as my friend Ricky would call it.

Ricky was a college friend I fell out of contact with, but who will always remain in my heart. Over pizza and after tequila, he told me the most disturbing yet sweet story about watching movies with his parents. Whenever a sex scene came on the TV, his parents wouldn’t ban young Ricky from the room, but simply said, “Blanket!” At that command, Ricky would cover his eyes with a blanket to avoid being exposed to on-screen sexuality at a young age. I’m sure you’re snickering, thinking that
listening
to on-screen sexuality with a blanket over your eyes and your parents at your side is so much healthier!

There were a lot of things about sexuality that Ricky found confusing, perhaps due to sitting on a couch with his face under a blanket while his parents watched movie sex scenes. That could warp a person. Ricky’s cousin was the one who introduced Ricky to pornography and masturbation, assuring the young boy that jerking off was not just acceptable, but healthy, because it staved off the horror of blue balls.