by Lia London
Maybe he’d feel truly worthy of her. A little. But it had to be perfect.
The rain didn’t help. His windshield wipers flapped frantically in his face, scarcely doing their job, and he cursed himself for not replacing them when the guy at Jiffy Lube had suggested he do so.
“Destination on your right,” announced the GPS.
He pulled into the parking lot of the small apartment complex, his mood soured by pressure. He’d never done well in a time crunch, an odd characteristic for a man who lived by deadlines. Scanning the buildings, he growled. “Why don’t they ever label these things clearly?”
He backed into a visitor slot just as he spotted movement on a balcony walkway above.
Amaya.
For the first time, she wasn’t in a dress, which irritated him. They’d be mismatched, since he had on his three-piece suit. Why hadn’t they coordinated? This was going to look ridiculous. People at the restaurant would judge him as a phony.
He flashed his headlights at her and honked. Without turning the car off, he opened the door and called out. “Over here, Amaya! We need to hurry!”
She waved. “Coming!”
A moment later, she arrived beside the car, and he got out to open the door for her. His umbrella in the back seat wouldn’t help him now. They would arrive drenched at the restaurant. Could this disaster get any worse? His credibility would be shot.
“Sorry about my rain slicker,” she said, once they were underway. “I can’t find my good coat.”
Frank’s lips tightened but were unable to stop the cutting remark. “You lose things a lot, don’t you?” He cringed at himself. Why was he taking his frustration out on her? It wasn’t her fault it rained. But then, it was her fault they were running late because she’d lost her phone and didn’t answer his texts.
She stared at him for half a second before answering, hurt clearly registering in her eyes. “Yeah, I guess so. Especially my phone. I really am sorry about that.” She lifted her hands to indicate the pouring rain. “It’s just as well, though, huh? Can’t see anything good in this weather anyway.”
“Yes, just as well,” he said without conviction. Even a sopping wet tour with her would have calmed his nerves, and surely everything about her would have warmed him against the spring squall. “Should I trust the GPS lady or you to get us there?”
“I can navigate. I lose things, but not myself.”
Her self-deprecating humor settled his heartrate, and he loosened the grip on the steering wheel. “All right, Madame Navigator. Lead the way.”
“East.” She pointed. “Left.”
“Right. I’m getting the hang of it. The rivers help.”
She nodded. “Mt. Hood is east; the Columbia is north. If you know which way the beach is, that’s west.”
“And Eugene is south,” he added.
“Right.” She wiped the rain droplets down the length of her sleeves, careful to let them fall onto the floor mat instead of her dressy slacks. “Sorry I’m soaking your car. Lexus, huh? Are my buns getting toasted?”
Frank chuckled. “Yes, the seat warmers are turned up. Is that okay?”
“It’s great.” She folded her hands in her lap and stared out at the dark skies.
He stole a glance at her, noticing a faraway look in her eyes. “Which way?”
“Take a right at the light. Then it’s about five blocks.”
He nodded, feeling awkward. This wasn’t what he’d imagined for their last night together at all. Especially after their evening on the park bench. “How was your day?”
“Mostly pretty good.”
“You seem tense.” Or was he projecting his own feelings?
“I feel terrible about the whole phone thing. Sorry you sent all those texts.” She wrung her hands. “I’m messing up our last night.”
She felt the loss, too? “It’s all right. It’s a perfectly normal mistake. At least you thought to contact me through my website. Good thinking.”
“Hmm.” Something clearly still bothered her. “Left here, and then get in the far-left lane.”
“Did you, by any chance, see the review I wrote?”
“Oh yeah, I saw it.” Her jaw rocked back and forth. “You sure enjoy knocking people’s stars away, don’t you? What’s that all about?”
“What? Oh, no. I meant the review of your show.”
She flashed a strained smile. “Very flattering. Thank you.”
“You don’t sound pleased.”
“Left here and then go three lights.”
Frank stared out into the splashing rain, wondering how on earth his complimentary review of the show could have upset her. “You don’t approve of what I said?”
“About the show? Sure. But did you mean any of it? Or were you just helping out Jenelle?”
“Jenelle?”
“She directed the show. Isn’t that nepotism?”
“But I didn’t review it at her request, remember? I was there with you.”
Amaya unclenched the fists in her lap. “Yeah, I guess.”
Frank dared to put his hand on her knee to get her attention. “Amaya, you were amazing up there. That review came from my heart. No exaggerations. No favors to cousins.”
“No exaggerations?” She pouted. “What about what you said about the restaurant. You tore it down pretty hard.”
A knot formed at the base of his neck. He’d channeled his fiercest alter-ego into the review in order to get Becki off his back. “It was Grumbleygut, not me.”
“Well, I’ve got to admit that this whole Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thing isn’t working for me. I never know what’s real with you, or where your heart really lies. It’s too weird.”
Frank’s foot slipped off the accelerator. This couldn’t be happening. After he’d experienced an open-hearted love for the first time. She couldn’t be rejecting him, too, could she? Would no woman ever want him?
“What do you mean?” he fumbled, trying to hide the pain.
She pointed out the window. “Turn left and follow it all the way down. There should be a Smart Park garage on the right after Taylor.”
Frank turned onto 4th Street, his heart churning with emotions, part angry, part hurt, and part bewildered. “Critiques help people get better.”
“Constructive critiques. Not show-off, heavy-handed beatings with big words.”
Frank’s stomach reacted as if she’d just kicked him hard, and he instinctively lashed out with a raised voice. “Being too soft on people fosters mediocrity.”
Silence followed his outburst, and Amaya looked away. “The softest touch can guide a good dancer, Frank.” Her voice trembled. “It can guide a heart.”
Frank knew more than she ever could how true that was. Hadn’t her gentle touch at MarLee’s melted away his fears? Hadn’t her soft kisses mended broken pieces of his soul?
He turned into the parking garage, and the pounding rain on the roof of the car stopped. The relative silence deafened him, accentuating the hollow feeling in his heart. Without another word, he found a spot on the third level, parked, and came around to open the door for Amaya.
She stood up beside him in the cramped space, her exotic beauty both hot and cold, and it made him ache with reaching desire and burning humiliation. Dipping his head, he murmured, “I’m sorry if what I wrote offended you. Becki—my editor—insisted I play up the part, and I…” He hazarded a look into her eyes when he leaned in to shut the door. “I’m sorry. It was no reflection on how I felt about the evening with you. I assure you that you were a ten-star date.”
The hardness in Amaya’s eyes abated a little. “She really wants you to be a jerk?”
“She really does. She came up with the whole idea of Grumbleygut.”
“Frankenstein’s monster, more like.”
Frank glanced away sadly. Was she making fun of his first name now? “The monster was actually very kind, just misunderstood.” He shrugged.
Amaya slouched and frowned. “I’d quit, if I were in
that position.”
“I imagine you are stronger than I am in that regard.”
She seemed to draw a deep breath, and the intake of air brought to her face a friendlier glow, though her eyes remained narrowed. “So what character wrote the review of my show? Was that all just trying to play up to someone else’s expectations, too? Was anything you wrote what you actually thought?”
Frank’s smile bloomed wide in an instant. “All of it was pure, unadulterated Frank Judd.”
“Hmm.” She didn’t sound convinced, but the corner of her mouth drifted upward. “Big words don’t impress me, Frank.”
“I know.”
“Being an honest, good, kind person does.” She held up a finger before he could defend his honor. “And I don’t mean being gracious and charming as an act. I mean being nice all the time to everyone. I don’t actually care what your editor thinks. If the nice you is the real you, then you should let it out and live that with confidence. Accept your better self.”
Frank felt like a cowering puppy that had soiled the carpet and now faced a reckoning with a rolled-up newspaper. “You’re right, of course.”
“You have a gift with words, Frank.” A smile bloomed at last, lifting the apples of her cheeks. “Use your superpowers for good.”
The way she kept repeating his name reminded him of a maternal scolding until she delivered the last line with a playful shove. He snickered with surprise. “Yes, Wonder Woman.”
“Nuh-uh. It’s too cold for that outfit today.”
He chewed his lip. “I shall try not to imagine you in it.”
Amaya shook her head. “I got nothing to put in that brass bra.” Her smirk brooked no argument, so he dropped the subject. “Come on,” she pressed her palms to his shoulders, backing him up. “We’re going to be late, unless you plan on dining and dancing here between the Hondas and Toyotas.” She unzipped her parka, revealing a white, silk blouse and a stylish medallion on a gold chain.
“Pirate Amaya?”
She stopped mid-stride and pointed down at her attire. “Pirate?”
Frank reached carefully, in case her mood flared again, and slid her coat from her shoulders, placing them in a soft embrace. “Billowing blouse, pirate coin, faux leather leggings, and boots.”
Amaya’s cheek tugged upward, revealing her dimple. “I guess I forgot my big gold earring and the parrot.”
“I feel overdressed,” said Frank.
Amaya took her parka from him and set it on the roof of the car. She then removed his suit coat in the same way he had done, and his heart raced as she lingered with her hands near his wrists. With his eyes locked on hers, he took his coat from her and set it atop her parka. The move brought them half a step closer, his arm reaching over her shoulder. His breath hitched when she tugged at the knot in his tie, pulling it loose and sliding it gently from his neck.
He cleared his throat before he fell into the hopeless trap of tongue-binding attraction. “Better? Casual but dressy?” He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up the sleeves.
“Better. But won’t we get all wet?”
“I have an umbrella.” He opened the door of the car and scooped their coats and his tie into the back seat. Reaching behind the console, he retrieved a compact, black umbrella. “It’s small, but we can huddle for the walk, right?”
“Did I just see McDonald’s wrappers in the back of your car?” Amaya raised an eyebrow.
“Uh … possibly. Sometimes a man wants a simple cheeseburger.”
“Honestly, your taste buds aren’t any more refined than my dog’s.”
“Do you have a dog?”
“That’s not the point,” she countered with a smile. “You don’t even like fancy food, do you?”
Frank’s jaw clenched.
“I bet you hate caviar.”
His lips disappeared between clenched teeth.
“Mmmm. Salty fish eggs on a gourmet cracker. Yum.”
Rolling his eyes, Frank’s face relaxed into a sheepish grin. “Your point?” The elevator door dinged open, and he ushered her out.
“Why do you play the part anymore? Can’t you write the review and still be yourself?”
“I’m still figuring out who that self is, remember? I have to stick with what I know in the interim.”
Amaya felt a pang of pity followed by fear. How could he ever love her if he didn’t accept himself? Why were her assurances not enough? Or had she imagined that he felt something for her in return?
Frank frowned, unsnapping the clasp of his umbrella and pressing the button to extend it telescopically. “Don’t you play a part every time you’re on stage?” They stepped out onto the sidewalk, and he raised the umbrella.
Rather than argue his analogy, Amaya flicked their domed shelter with her fingers. “What self-respecting Oregonian uses an umbrella?”
“Ones who want to stay dry?”
“We’ve all got webbed feet and moss growing on our backs.”
“I don’t think I want to verify that,” said Frank through a suppressed grin.
“All the more reason for me to stay out of that Wonder Woman outfit.” She winked.
He bobbed the umbrella up and down. “Are you saying you’d rather swim the rest of the way?”
“I’m saying …” She sighed. “Can’t we let our guard down this last time and just be who we are?”
“Is it requisite to do that in a way that encourages catching a cold?”
“If you catch pneumonia, I’ll personally nurse you back to health.”
Frank feigned a cough, hiding a grin behind his fist. Amaya gave him a playful shove and then tugged him closer to curl her arm through his. “Your real self is weird and funny. I like it.”
“Perhaps I’m not as comfortable with myself as you are.”
Why couldn’t he just relax and be the man she’d wept with and kissed the other night?
“Your job stinks, Frank.” Amaya grasped his hand where he held the handle and swept the umbrella downward. “Let’s be ourselves for the rest of the commute. Then we can play our parts when we get there.”
The rain spattered Frank’s face, and for a moment, he looked so pitiful that she almost felt sorry for him. He shook the umbrella dry and pulled the lever to collapse it again. “You, the pirate. Me, the man about to get fired.”
“I don’t know. If you click your heels together and stand arched backwards, you might pull off matador.”
“Wonderful. The patrons of the Escondido will assume we’ve come to plunder and stab them all.”
“Escondido is Spanish, isn’t it?” She wiped rain from her eyes and noted with chagrin her blouse was becoming more transparent by the moment.
“Yes, it means hidden, I think.”
She scuttled more quickly into an alcove and folded her arms across her chest. “Yes, well, I just noticed I’m going to need to hide something, now that I’m so wet.”
“This was your idea, you know.”
“Hey, I’m a flawed individual. I own that. Making mistakes is human.” She blushed as Frank’s eyes grazed her trembling torso with a satisfied grin. “For example, it would be a mistake for you to look too closely at me right now.”
“Getting a bit sheer, are you?”
“Frank.” She glared at him.
“Want the umbrella now?” He offered it to her with a bow.
She slapped it away with mock consternation. “It’s a little late for that now.”
“We are already late for our appointment.” Frank took her hand in his and placed the umbrella firmly in her grasp. He then proceeded to unbutton his vest.
“You’re going to join me in exposing yourself?” She gaped.
With a flourish, he removed his vest and wrapped it around her. Gratitude filled her at the gesture. He was protecting her modesty instead of taking advantage of her foolishness. “You’re my hero,” she gushed, buttoning the vest.
“Call me Superman.” He popped open his umbrella again. “And this is my cape.
It doubles as a roof.”
“We’re a soggy pair of superheroes, huh?”
He reached his arm out to her, tucking her into a side hug. “Come on. Two blocks to go. Try to dry the ruffles at your plunging neckline by the time we get there.”
She blushed again and flapped the folds of silk for the rest of the way.
As tantalizing a distraction as was Amaya in a rain-soaked blouse, Frank’s fear crept in to override his enjoyment. They were going to look so unprofessional. What if Becki had some of her stupid spies in this place, too?
He stopped short outside the club and groaned. “You’re rubbing off on me.”
Amaya let go of his arm with a wide-eyed expression. “I wasn’t trying to.”
“No, I mean I forgot something.”
“What?”
“I left my wallet in my suit coat.”
She gasped and covered her mouth, barely hiding a grin. “Did you really?”
“You think it’s funny? We’re going to lose our reservation.” Places like this gave up slots that went unclaimed within fifteen minutes.
“They can’t wait while we run back and get your coat?”
Frank shook his head, more at the situation than at her. “I’ll go inside and tell them. Maybe you can freshen up in the ladies’ room while I jog back?” This wasn’t going to make a good impression on the staff at the Escondido. Hopefully, he hadn’t blown his big chance for whatever Becki hinted at.
Ten minutes later, he traded Amaya’s coat for his vest, and the two of them followed the elderly host to a table located between the bar and the small dance floor. He needn’t have worried about their appearance. With the dark, shadowy ambiance of the place, no one would have noticed if she’d removed her blouse entirely.
“I guess this place is about hiding,” she whispered, scooting her chair around to sit kitty-corner with him. “You can hardly see past the next two tables.”
His stomach did a pleasant little flip when their knees touched, but he distracted himself by fidgeting with his bare neck. The tie must still be lying in the back seat of his car somewhere.
“Are you willing to let them bring us whatever they deem the house specials are, like that other time?” asked Amaya.
