Perky

by Julia Kent

  “Perky made me sign up for a dating site. I met this guy named Dave, who asked me to a dance lesson for our first date, at a dance studio called Bailargo. It seemed like such a fun idea. Turns out, Dave is a salesperson for the corporate owners of Bailargo. He invites women on first dates, then stands them up and hopes a percentage of them will convert to paying customers,” Mallory explains, mouth twisting with bitterness.

  “That's genius!” Parker exclaims.

  “Right?” Will chimes in. The side of his body next to Mallory jolts suddenly. “Ow!”

  “You deserved that,” she says with a growly sigh. “It's NOT genius,” she adds pointedly to Parker. “It's cruel manipulation of a lonely woman's emotions.”

  “Right. Terrible,” Parker adds with a grin. He looks at Will. “Why were you there?”

  “My sister was getting married and I needed dance lessons.”

  “What a coincidence.”

  Will gives Mal a loving look. “The best.”

  “Who else ribs you for our being together?” Mal asks him.

  “Mrs. Philomena claims she knew all along.”

  “She was our ninth-grade English teacher. How would she know?”

  “She and her husband run that little farm stand on the north side. My mom thinks their raw honey is quaint,” Will explains, digging the hole deeper. “I got an earful when I went there last week.”

  “Earful?”

  Maybe Will's not so smart after all.

  “You know.” Will reaches for his glass of water and takes a sip, eyes unfocused, clearly trying to craft his answer carefully.

  “No. I don't know.” Mallory rests her chin on one hand. “Tell me.”

  “Are you blushing, Lotham?” Parker asks, leaning on the table. He's the masculine version of Mallory as he rests his chin in the web of his open hand, grinning with a deep amusement that carries so much sex appeal for me that I'm the one who blushes, hard and fast.

  Between my legs.

  “She said I should have dated you long ago. Back in high school. That I let you get away and I was damn lucky some smart local boy didn't snap you up.”

  “I always liked Mrs. Philomena.”

  “You hated her in high school!” I bark, amazed to hear Mal lying. “She's the one who never gave you a hundred on any of your papers.”

  “She never gave anyone a hundred,” Will says bitterly.

  “What you're saying,” Mallory interrupts in an arch tone, “is that lots of people in town think you're an idiot for not noticing me sooner.”

  “I noticed you,” he says without protest. “I just...”

  “What?”

  “I left. I was gone for ten years.”

  “Were you planning to look her up when you came back?” Parker asks, invested in the conversation, feeding Will an easy lie if he needs one.

  “Yes.”

  Mallory blushes. “No, you weren't.”

  “We talked about this. Remember?”

  She blushes harder. That means they talked about it in bed.

  “We'll never know. We met on that porn set, and the rest is history.”

  Parker snorts. “This, I've got to hear. I don't know anyone who has a relationship story that starts with, 'We met on that porn set.'”

  “You two met in jail!” Mallory protests.

  “But they're not together,” Will points out helpfully, his words turning my heart into a lump of lead.

  “Where are the menus?” I ask, needing to talk about anything but the fact that Parker and I are not together.

  “We already ordered,” Parker explains.

  “What? How did you know what I want?”

  “Salmon on a cedar plank, cooked medium, with roasted root vegetables and a sweet potato-fig puree,” he says smoothly. “Made gluten free.”

  Drool forms in my mouth. The fact that he remembers my celiac disease makes me choke up a little. I suddenly understand the special bread plate.

  “How did you–but I–well, damn,” I say, shoulders dropping. “You did know what I want.”

  He leans in. “And I would love to always give you what you want.”

  On cue, the server appears and sets our plates before us, the luscious scent of Tuscan herbs tickling my nose and making my stomach groan for deliverance. My plate has that same red ring around it, a clear sign of a kitchen accustomed to food allergies. The added little extra touch makes me feel vulnerable and cared for at the same time.

  Safe.

  Our hands have to untangle, the cool air that rushes in at the absence of Parker's touch a relief.

  For the next ten minutes, we eat and make appreciative sounds, Mal offering Will a bite of her chicken, Will declining. At no point do Parker and I offer each other anything.

  We already have.

  An olive branch has somehow been extended under the tabletop.

  I'm just not sure who extended it to whom.

  “How do your parents like Will?” Parker asks Mallory as we slow down, each of the four of us taking random bites of food.

  “Dad loves him. They watch Pats games together.” Mal wrinkles her nose. “Gives Mom and me a chance to go to the movies. And Mom adores Will. Adores him.”

  “She just wants grandbabies with my color eyes,” Will says, clearing his throat.

  “She actually said that to you?” Mal gasps.

  “Sure. Complete with a wink.”

  “Sharon isn't subtle,” I groan sympathetically, Mallory giving me a look that says, Can you believe this?

  “Your mother hates me.” My statement is a toss off as I nudge Parker.

  It's also true.

  “Hate isn't the right word. My mom doesn't hate you,” he adds, but his words are diplomatically anemic.

  “Fine. Loathe.”

  “She does not loathe you. She just–”

  “Wants to see me eaten by a civet, shat out, cleaned off, and roasted, to be sold as Persephone Whole Bean coffee?”

  “That's not exactly what I was going to say.”

  “But I'm close, aren't I?”

  “You and my mother actually have a few pieces of common ground.”

  “Like what?”

  “Coffee. A passion for fairness for workers.”

  “And you,” Will points out.

  Parker sighs. “Mom has her own ideas about who she wants in my life.”

  “Your mother has a rigid construct for what she wants your life to be,” I correct.

  “I'm my own man.”

  It's the way he says it that melts me. I stop, putting my hand on his forearm. “I know you are, Parker. You've never been the kind of person to change who you are just for her.”

  “Thank you.” The tightness in his voice gives way. “I don't need your validation, but I won't turn it away.”

  “Of course you need my validation. Everyone needs my validation. The Perky Seal of Approval makes careers. Lives. Empires.” I give him side eye. “Campaigns.”

  “I wish your validation included trusting me, Persephone.”

  “Excuse me,” Mallory says suddenly, hip checking Will. “I need to go to the ladies' room.”

  They both get up, Will giving Parker a look. He goes with her toward the restrooms, leaving us alone.

  “I wish for a lot of things, Parker. Doesn't mean they happen,” I say through gritted teeth.

  “You have total control over believing me.”

  “I wish that were true.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I–sometimes I want to trust you. To push away the horror of what happened. To think that it wasn't your fault. But I can't.”

  “You can.”

  “I can't.”

  “You mean you won't.”

  “It's–”

  He turns to me, a tilt of surprise in the way he moves. Something in my tone makes him react with less of a shell, the armor dropped a half-inch for reasons he doesn't quite understand logically, but reacts to emotionally.

  And I get it–
because that's me right now, too.

  “–it's not simple.”

  “Quit deflecting. Tell me what you really think.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course.”

  I take in a long breath and ask, “Do you remember that time I sucked you off so hard, you broke a bunch of blood vessels right on the tip of your cock and we called you Purple Mushroom for a month?”

  “Wasn't expecting you to say that,” he coughs.

  “It's what I'm really thinking.”

  “I like how you think.” His eyes drop to my lips, then he smiles, eyes wrinkling with amusement and memory. “Purple Stephanie gave me a Purple Mushroom.”

  Giggles consume me. I can't blame the martini, because I only had one.

  “I still have the hat you ordered from the handmade crafts website, embroidered and all.” He winces. “And a visceral memory of a week of chafing and pain.”

  “Worth it, though. Best orgasm you ever had.”

  “Until the next one with you.”

  I lose all of the air in my lungs, all the blood in my head, and all the will to hate him in a single gasp.

  “I was on the campaign trail in a little town called Piddlewick, Texas,” Parker begins, looking away. “And there was a restaurant called The Purple Mushroom.”

  “You're making this up.”

  He puts his hand over his heart and looks at me. “Not making it up.”

  “Liar.”

  “Do you want to hear the story or do you want to be right?”

  “I can have both!”

  “No, you can't. One or the other.”

  “What if you tell the story and it turns out I'm right? Then I do get both.”

  “After the fact, Persephone. Right now, you have to choose. Say you believe me before I finish.”

  “Fine.” I cross my arms over my chest, not in defiance but so he can't see how hard my nipples are right now. “I believe you.”

  “If you believe my story about the Purple Mushroom restaurant in Piddlewick, Texas, why can't you believe me when I tell you I never sent that picture to anyone?”

  Oh, no. I've walked into a trap.

  I rally, fast.

  Looking away, I say lightly, “Because I've got nothing to lose. If you're lying about a restaurant, my life isn't ruined. My heart isn't shredded to pieces, blowing in the wind like ribbons caught on an electric wire. Like a balloon that popped long ago.”

  So much for the lightly part.

  “I didn't do it.”

  “You didn't eat at a restaurant called The Purple Mushroom in Piddlewick, Texas?”

  “Actually, I did.” Sad eyes meet mine. “It made my dick hurt the entire time, but I ate there.”

  “Why?”

  “Why did I eat there, or why did my dick hurt?”

  “Both.”

  “There you go again, wanting both.”

  “And there you go again, questioning–”

  Before I realize what's happening, his hands are on my waist, my fingers are in his hair, and he's kissing me. My mouth melts against his, bodies awkwardly twisted in the booth, the tight space both intimate and constraining. Hip to hip, we turn toward each other, but still face forward, desperately trying to connect but the structure is working against us.

  I taste the past in his kiss. I taste apologies and regrets, questions without answers, the fine-grooved sense of time making me relax and tense up at the same time. Meaning doesn't matter in this brief flash of touch. What this kiss means isn't important.

  That it's happening at all is.

  “Before they come back,” he asks, smoothing my shirt sleeve, forehead against mine, “promise me you'll go out with me. On a real date. Not like this.” Nudging his head toward the other side of the booth, he gives a wistful grin. “Mallory and Will are great, but I want you to myself.”

  “What about Saoirse?” I ask, the words escaping before I can reel them back in.

  He tenses.

  “What about her?”

  “I see you in the news. The pictures with her.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you there's nothing going on there?”

  “How many times do I have to ask because–”

  His fingers press against my lips, eyes beseeching, begging–no.

  Demanding that I believe him.

  “One date. That's all I ask. Let me convince you.”

  “Convince me? Of what?”

  “That it still matters, Persephone. It matters that we're still in love with each other. Whether you admit it or not.”

  I stand abruptly. “I can’t do this. Not here. Not trapped in a booth with you.” At that exact moment, both of our phones buzz.

  “Come here,” he says, standing, reaching for my hand and tugging me out of the booth, around a few tables, and into a dark hallway. We stand in front of the door to the women’s room.

  “Oh, no. I’m not falling for that again,” I say, but suddenly, I have an aha! moment.

  Maybe coat-closet sex is exactly what I need.

  Complete with phone in hand.

  Now’s my chance.

  “I just want to talk. Every time I try to get you to talk about how you feel, you shut me out.”

  “All you do is try to kiss me!”

  “You’re the one kissing me,” he counters. “Not that I’m complaining.”

  I take a chance and open a door. It’s a small storage room, dry goods on wide, tall shelves. I pull him in. A motion-sensor light comes on.

  Perfect.

  “Look,” I say, emotions warring with my plotting brain, eyes darting all over the place as I try to figure out how to hold back the burning, greedy arousal in me, give in to it at the right moment, and manage to record this.

  Whatever this is about to be, I know one thing:

  I need to record it.

  My question about Saoirse casts a pall over the moment, a bitter sense that everything's slimy and not quite clear. Why is she around at all? She makes me suspicious, and when I'm suspicious, I go into lockdown mode.

  And then I get stupid.

  Bzzz.

  Our phones buzz again.

  “Ignore it.” His kiss gives me a headrush, the worry about Saoirse evaporating as his intent comes through loud and clear in his touch, his tongue, the way he holds me.

  “I can’t!” I lie, grabbing my phone. I’ve downloaded a special app for this, one that I can activate by voice commands, but suddenly–I can’t do it.

  I can’t trigger Record. Can’t say the words.

  Fiona and Mal will be so proud of me. When push comes to shove, I just…

  Can’t.

  I set the phone down on the metal-grid shelf behind me, propped up on the vertical bracket. There’s no shelf above it, the space to the ceiling empty, clearly storage for enormous boxes. A lower shelf digs into the middle of my back as Parker stares at me, chest rising and falling, eyes taking in my face, my neck, the tops of my breasts–

  All of me.

  “You kiss me, Persephone. You let me touch you. But you’re not hearing me.” The air feels heavy. Charged and crackling, but with an intense feeling that’s less playful.

  The stakes are higher.

  “I hear you.”

  “I don’t want to just screw you. I want to love you. I want to talk to you. I want to... everything with you.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.” He moves forward until my ass presses into the edge of the shelving. His hips are against mine, his hands on my shoulders, and he’s sucking his lower lip in. “You feel it, too.”

  “I always feel this with you,” I murmur. “Always. But why me? I'm scary and unpredictable and I'm weird and chaotic and–”

  His mouth shuts me up. Ending the kiss, he presses his forehead against mine and whispers, “And you're always genuine. Never fake. I need how real you are. I need it in every cell of my body. Why you? Here's your why.” My arms encircle him, the familiar leather belt making an image in m
y mind, and suddenly, I’m lifted up, my ass on the shelf, Parker leaning over me with powerful hands that know exactly how to possess me. Pushing against me, he half hovers, mouth on my breasts as he pulls my silk shirt down enough to take one nipple in his mouth, shifting my body.

  Ka-thunk. Something next to my ear falls. I don’t care.

  I don’t care because I’m with Parker and he smells so good, his head right below my chin, my hands on his broad shoulders. While the nice suit jacket he’s wearing makes what he’s doing with his mouth feel sophisticated and oh, so dirty at the same time, I wish I could reach down and touch the marbled skin of his bare shoulders.

  “Hey. Seri–” he says, kissing me, voice dropping to a whisper. “–ously.” Another kiss. “Record this in your heart. On your skin. Everywhere inside you. I just want you.”

  He rises up and slides his hands under my ass, lifting me and pushing me back, splitting my legs so fast. Something is under me as his fingers linger along my inner thigh, coming to the thin slip of panties that he pulls aside, soaking wet, all for him.

  And then his tongue replaces his fingers and I arch up, his hands pushing my skirt up with an almost savage motion, my panties pulled down and off, his mouth on me again as he pairs the sensation with a finger, then two, inside me.

  “Oh, God,” I moan, fingers in his hair, cold steel on my ass as I lower my hips. With his free hand, he slings my right leg up over his shoulder, the changed angle moving my whole body to a new layer of sensation. What we’re doing is so indecent, where we’re doing it is so illicit.

  And so perfect.

  He’s going down on me in a restaurant supply closet and as my abs clench and his tongue takes me up, up, up, I just want to live here forever.

  Slowly, with aching precision, he moves his fingers in that curling, pumping motion he perfected five years ago. Color explodes behind my closed eyes and I am soaking his mouth, his hand, the shelf, my ass bucking against him. Whatever is under me slides, too, with a metallic sound, but water rushes in my ears like an Amazon rain and I am gritting my teeth, flushed with pleasure, riding and riding the wave of what Parker is doing to me.

  He pauses, mouth still just as I’m about to come–hard.

  “You like this?” he asks, the question nothing more than a cruel tease. I hate myself for needing more, but I do. If Parker doesn’t get that tongue back on my clit right now, I’m going to die. Craving nicotine has never felt anywhere near as bad as this.