Mancandy Crush

by Tawna Fenske

  I peer down at the jagged volcanic rocks below us and think about impalement. “This is really Bree’s wedding venue?”

  He squeezes my hand, which he’s still holding. “If you want a snowy wedding in July, you’ve gotta get creative.”

  My heart thuds in my ears, and I think it has more to do with Josh’s fingers laced through mine than my fear of heights. “Thanks for bringing me.”

  He’s too polite to point out that he more or less had to drag me after I said for the umpteenth time that I couldn’t picture how Bree was going to pull off a snowy wedding in July. He needed to scope out conditions for the bachelor party snowshoe tour anyway, so he invited me along.

  I’m trying not to regret that as I stare down at the sharp cliff walls below. “My life’s been a little short on adventure so far, so thanks for giving me one.”

  “No problem.” His voice is warm and gentle, and I wonder if he does this a lot for scared rafters, or if he’s busting it out special for me. “Look at me, okay?”

  I stare into his blue eyes and get a little dizzy. No wonder my sister fell for him. “How come?”

  “Because you turn green when you look at the ground,” he says. “I don’t want you to puke.”

  Oh. Not very romantic, but what did I expect? This fake fling isn’t about romance. It’s about stopping my sister from flashing her concerned look at me across the reception table. It’s about freeing her to enjoy Raleigh’s proposal without worrying I’m going to fall apart.

  And okay, yeah…there’s a tiny part of me that’s annoyed she lied to me about the sex thing. I don’t understand what that’s about, but I’m too chicken to ask over the phone. Maybe when she gets here Thursday.

  “Look over there.” Josh points, and I squint to see what he’s looking at. “That’s the downhill bike park.”

  I stare at the cyclists swooping down the side of the goddamn mountain at a zillion miles an hour. “Don’t they crash?”

  To his credit, he doesn’t laugh at me. “Sometimes, sure.” He grins. “But the adrenaline rush is awesome right up to that moment.”

  I shiver and tear my eyes off the cyclists. “I always thought that would be an awful way to die,” I tell him. “Flying ass over teakettle over the handlebars of a bike and into the path of a car.” I dare a glance at the cyclists and shiver again. “Or a cliff.”

  He looks at me for a second. “You’ve spent time categorizing the best and worst ways to die?”

  “Sure.” I shrug. “Going in your sleep, that’s the best way.”

  “That sounds so…”

  “Peaceful?”

  “I was going to say boring, but sure.” He sounds bemused. “Okay, so what are the other good ways to die?”

  “Well, flying home from an exotic vacation and the plane explodes quickly on descent,” I tell him. “There can’t be any buildup, though. No sirens or flight attendants telling you to put on your mask. Just—poof! You’re gone.”

  “Poof,” he repeats, sounding incredulous. “I’ve never been on a plane, but something tells me it’s more dramatic than ‘poof.’”

  “You’ve never been on an airplane?” It’s my turn to be incredulous. I dial it back, not wanting to sound like some spoiled rich kid. I know not everyone grew up with the kind of privilege Ness and I did. “Do you want to travel?”

  An odd look passes over his face for just an instant. Maybe regret, maybe just the wind causing this stupid flying porch swing to sway. I hold tight to his hand and pinch my eyes closed.

  “I’d love to do the Zambezi River in Zambia someday, or maybe the Futaleufu in Chile,” he says softly. “The Wairoa River in New Zealand would be amazing.”

  The reverence in his voice makes me open my eyes again. I stare into his blue ones and feel a funny flutter in my belly. “I traveled a lot growing up,” I tell him. “That TV show we were on—Baby Spies? It was filmed on location in Saskatchewan.”

  “I pulled up an episode last night on YouTube.” He grins and doesn’t say it was awesome, because it wasn’t. “You two must have been what, five, six?”

  “Six,” I confirm. “They used us interchangeably because Ness and I were identical, and they didn’t want us working too many hours.”

  “That’s a safety thing, right?”

  I snort and glance down, remembering just how unsafe it is dangling from a wire a zillion feet off the ground. “It’s a money thing,” I tell him. “Safety wasn’t a high priority.”

  I don’t plan to tell him the story. I hate the pitying looks it earns me, the gasps of horror.

  “There was this one time we filmed in a forest.” My voice wobbles a little, but I keep going. “We were wrapping for the day, and I had to pee, so the director told me to go behind a tree.”

  I remember how exciting that seemed at the time. A chance to be outdoorsy and wild instead of a sheltered city girl.

  “Wires got crossed somehow,” I continue, conscious of Josh’s eyes on me. “The whole crew left, all three vans. Vanessa kept screaming that they forgot me, that they had to go back. Of course, they didn’t listen because she was six and they were sure I was on the other bus.”

  “Jesus.” Josh’s brow furrows. “How long were you out there?”

  “Fifteen hours.” Fifteen hours alone in the forest, wearing only the flowery shorts and T-shirt they’d dressed me in for the scene. I take a steadying breath, surprised I’m not shaking the way I sometimes do when I tell this. “I wandered, trying to get to a road, and got lost. That made it even harder for them to find me.”

  “My God.” Josh sounds suitably horrified. “Your parents must have been insane with worry.”

  “They didn’t hear about it ‘til weeks later,” I admit. “They were in Milan, and we were with a nanny. The show got cancelled that fall, so that was pretty much the end of my Hollywood life.”

  I smile to let him know it’s no big deal, but he doesn’t smile back. The look on his face, though—it’s not pity. It’s something I haven’t seen before.

  “Damn.” It’s just one syllable but infused with surprising respect. “You must have been one tough kid.”

  “I—never thought of it like that.”

  He shakes his head, watching my face. He must sense I’m ready to move on, because he slings an arm around me and squeezes. “Badass,” he says.

  “Thank you.” It’s lame that this is the nicest compliment I’ve ever received. I still can’t believe I told him that story, but I’m glad I did. It’s the first time anyone’s reacted to it with admiration instead of pity.

  He squeezes my hand, and warmth pulses up my arm and into the center of my chest. “Okay, so back to the death thing.” He smiles, and I’m grateful he’s not letting me wallow in the pit of childhood memories. “So you’ve given lots of thought to good and bad ways to die.”

  I laugh, delighted by the subject change. Or is it? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to connect my childhood trauma with my fear of…well, everything.

  But most people don’t do that. Don’t make that connection the way Josh just did.

  “Bad ways to die,” I repeat, clearing my throat. “I’ve read some funny articles about it.”

  “About death?”

  “Well, weird deaths. There was this guy in the seventies who overdosed on carrot juice.”

  He quirks an eyebrow. “Say what?”

  I study his face, trying to gauge whether he’s appalled or freaked out. He actually seems…intrigued?

  “I guess the guy was really into health food and thought he was doing a good thing for his body. Only it turns out consuming 70 million units of vitamin A in ten days isn’t so healthy.”

  “No kidding.”

  I’m not sure if he’s more in awe of this random factoid, or the fact that I know it. He seems more intrigued than horrified, so I guess that’s a plus. “What else?” he asks. “Some other awful ways to go.”

  “Well, there was a guy who died at Shea Stadium years ago during a Jets/Patriots
game.” I can recite the details from memory, which is embarrassing proof of how much thought I’ve given to all manner of worst-case scenarios. “They were doing some sort of halftime air show, and there was this novelty plane shaped like a lawnmower. It ended up nosediving into the stands and killed a guy.”

  He stares at me. “A flying lawn mower took someone out at a football game?”

  “Yep.”

  He doesn’t ask if this is a fear of mine. If I spend my days fretting about being decapitated by an airborne appliance.

  For the record, it’s not.

  “Tell me another one,” he says. “Some other freaky way to die.”

  This is so not how I imagined flirting with the hot guy posing as my summer fling. I don’t know what I pictured, but it wasn’t this.

  “There was this guy in Russia a few years ago,” I tell him. “He bet this friend of his he could last twelve hours in a threesome.”

  Josh’s brows lift, and I realize what I’ve just said. That I’ve steered this conversation from death-by-carrot to group sex before we’ve reached the top of the mountain. How long is this damn chairlift ride, anyway?

  Surprisingly, I am no longer eager for it to end.

  “Did the guy win the bet?” he asks.

  “Yes, but then he died of a massive heart attack.” I shrug when he grimaces. “Chugging a whole bottle of Viagra isn’t awesome for the ticker.”

  “Good to know.” He studies me for a second. “That’s not on your list of most-feared ways to die, right?”

  “Not me, personally,” I agree. “I’m more in the ‘fear of falling off a chairlift’ camp.”

  “Hey.” The soothing tone draws my attention back to his face, which is more pleasant to look at. Also, less likely to impale me. “Did you hear the one about the guy who died after getting hit in the nuts by a tennis ball?”

  “What? No. And that killed him?”

  “No. But he fell to the ground and hit his head, and that killed him.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Pretty embarrassing.”

  A strange note makes his voice go gravelly. It occurs to me he’s way more freaked out about the embarrassment than the actual death.

  “What’s your worst way to go?” I ask. “Surely you’ve thought about it.”

  “I haven’t, actually,” he says. “Thanks for introducing me to this very weird pastime.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  He’s smiling like he’s charmed, so I smile back.

  “Let’s see,” he says. “There was a college student here in Oregon—over in Coos Bay, I think. Some friends dared him to eat a live newt.”

  “As friends do.”

  He laughs and continues. “Apparently he picked a newt that has some kind of toxins in its skin. The kid dropped dead before the newt made it all the way through his digestive tract.”

  I am horrifyingly delighted by this story. “I’m sure there was no alcohol involved at all.”

  Josh grins. “And this is why I rarely drink.”

  “Because you’re afraid you might accidentally ingest poisonous amphibians?”

  He shakes his head, and there’s that odd flicker in his eyes again. “I don’t need any help doing stupid shit,” he says. “I do plenty on my own.”

  For some reason, his tone has shifted. Less playful, more resigned. I’m not sure what that’s about, but I know this conversation has given me a nice reprieve from worrying about splatting into a rock a zillion feet below.

  “What are your worst ways to die?” I ask, not quite ready to let go of the conversation

  “Huh.” He looks thoughtful, like he’s really giving this some consideration. “I guess anything humiliating would do it. Choking on a hot dog. Falling off a cliff. Calculating the length of your bungee cord incorrectly and pulverizing yourself at the bottom of a canyon like a big dumbass.”

  There it is again, that fear of humiliation. There’s something to it, but my spidey-senses tell me not to push. To let the conversation flow.

  “I knew a girl in college with a severe peanut allergy,” I tell him. “She almost died after kissing this guy who’d eaten a peanut butter sandwich.”

  “Damn.” He sounds less reverent this time. “I guess kissing isn’t such a bad way to go.”

  “She had an epi-pen, so she didn’t die.”

  But he’s right. Kissing probably falls into the category of excellent ways to kick the bucket. I make the mistake of looking at his mouth. He’s got full lips with a dusting of sandy stubble on his chin, and I wonder what it would feel like to kiss him. Scratchy or soft? Rough or—

  “Of course, it depends on how good the kiss is,” he says.

  “What?”

  I lift my gaze to his, and he grins like he knows damn well what I was thinking. Heat blooms in my cheeks, and I try not to think about how Vanessa told me he kisses like he invented the lip-lock. I don’t want to think about my sister now. I don’t want to think about kissing Josh, either. I’m positive he can read it on my face.

  “The kiss should be a good one if you’re going to die for it,” he continues. “Not the g-rated kind you’d give your aunt.”

  “Or one of those garlicky ones after a date at an Italian place.”

  He laughs. “Or the kind where you accidentally ram your teeth together.”

  “Ouch.” I scramble to think of another. “How about when someone kisses like they’re trying to eat your face.”

  He gives that one a thoughtful head tilt. “I don’t think I’ve had that kind.”

  Heat’s flooding my cheeks, and I wish I didn’t blush so easily. “I’m just hoping I’ve never been that kind.”

  Josh smiles. “You don’t strike me as a face eater.”

  He’s looking at my mouth now, and I wonder if he’s thinking about it, too. Wondering what it would be like to kiss me.

  “We should kiss.”

  I blink. “What?”

  He smiles like this is the most normal suggestion in the world. “If we’re pretending to have a fling, we should know what it’s like to kiss each other.”

  It sounds so logical when he puts it that way.

  But there’s no logic screaming in my brain as my gaze drops to his mouth again. Something squeezes tight inside me, makes my breath come a little faster. My lips part without my consent, and I find myself shifting closer. He’s watching me, gauging my response.

  I don’t know what makes me do it.

  I lean closer, touching my lips to his. Sparks go off, big, bright, blazing ones. Holy shit.

  I’ve never kissed first, not once, not ever. I’m not the kind who starts things. It’s too risky, too much for my cowardly heart to contemplate, but ohmylord, I set this magic in motion, and I’m going with it.

  Josh slides his fingers into my hair, kissing me back as the chair sways gently in the breeze. He’s soft and rough at the same time, and my head spins from sensory overload.

  This is way more than a test kiss, way beyond an experimental peck on the lips. It’s hot and deep and delicious, and I can’t believe I’m making out with a stranger while flying up the side of a freakin’ mountain.

  When we draw back, he blinks like he’s in a daze. “Whoa.”

  His fingers stay threaded in my hair, and he looks like he’s trying to figure out what hit him. I know the feeling.

  “That was—damn, that was something else.”

  I smile despite the heat rushing to my face. “It was, wasn’t it?”

  Not that I’m an expert on quality when it comes to outdoor smooching with strangers, but it was pretty phenomenal in my book.

  He laughs, and I feel a momentary flicker of self-consciousness. “I don’t think I’ll have much trouble pretending to be totally into you,” he says.

  “Ditto.” So it was good for him, too. I do a dorky little wiggle of pride, fighting to keep a straight face.

  Josh laces his fingers through mine again. “You about ready to get off?”

 
“That usually requires more than a kiss.”

  He busts out laughing, shaking his head. “You’re funny. I wasn’t expecting that.”

  I wasn’t expecting any of this, especially not the way I’m enjoying Josh’s company. We glide toward a giant shed with a door that’s pulling in chairs one by one. I have no idea what’s waiting in there or how we’re supposed to disembark from this freaky porch swing.

  But for some reason, I’m not terrified. “I’m ready.”

  Chapter 4

  JOSH

  I ease the truck to the curb in front of Dew Drop Cupcakes, conscious of the beautiful woman in the passenger seat beside me.

  “Ready for this?” I ask.

  Valerie nods. “I can’t believe we’re taste-testing eggnog in July.”

  I push the door open and hurry around to the passenger side to open hers. I even offer a hand to help her down, though she clearly doesn’t need it. Ever since that kiss, I can’t stop inventing reasons to touch her. “I had no idea stores wouldn’t stock eggnog in the summer.”

  And since I’m tasked with providing snacks on Bree’s post-wedding canoe tour, I got desperate. Luckily, my friend Chelsea came to the rescue.

  “Hey there!” She greets us with a wide smile as we walk through the door. “I was just pulling some cupcakes out. Give me a sec.”

  She hurries to the back while Val surveys the pastel-painted walls and glass cases lined with mouthwatering cupcakes in all colors of the rainbow. “This is amazing,” she says. “I knew Mark’s wife owned a cupcake shop, but I didn’t realize it was this cool.”

  “They taste even better than they look.” I watch her face, loving how her eyes are all lit up. She’s wearing a blue and white striped tank top that’s got me wondering what it would feel like to press my lips against the bare roundness of one perfect shoulder.

  “Thanks for waiting.” Chelsea bustles out of the back, swiping hair off her forehead. “Sorry I missed family dinner the other night. Libby had a ballet recital.” She stretches out a hand to shake Val’s. “You’re Valerie, right? I think I met your sister years ago. I’m Chelsea, by the way.”

  “Great to meet you.” Val’s eyes are kid-in-a-candy-shop round. “Are you constantly hungry working here?”