by BETH KERY
A Cerridwen Press Publication
www.cerridwenpress.com
Flirting in Traffic
ISBN 9781419918834
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Flirting in Traffic Copyright © 2009 Beth Kery
Edited by Ann Leveille.
Cover art by Dar Albert.
Electronic book Publication March 2009
With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing Inc., 1056 Home Avenue, Akron, OH 44310-3502.
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Cerridwen Press is an imprint of Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.®
Flirting in Traffic
Beth Kery
Trademarks Acknowledgment
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Accu-Chek: Roche Diagnostics GmbH LTD
Chicago Tribune: Chicago Tribune Company
Chicago Cubs: Chicago National League Ball Club, Inc.
Cosmopolitan: Hearst Communications, Inc.
Dairy Queen Blizzard: American Dairy Queen Corporation
Dodge Intrepid: Chrysler Corporation
Dodge Viper: Chrysler Corporation
Ferrari: Ferrari S.p.A.
Ford Taurus: Ford Motor Company
Fortune 500: Time Inc. Corporation
Godiva: Godiva Brands, Inc.
GQ: Advance Magazine Publishers, Inc.
Häagen-Dazs: HDIP, Inc. Corporation
Junior League: Association of Junior Leagues International, Inc.
Keds: SR Holdings, Inc.
King Kong: MGA Entertainment, Inc.
Lamborghini: Same Deutz-Fahr S.p.A.
Lexus: Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.
Medicare: Executive Director Department of the Army Federal Symbol Office For Dependant’s Medical Care
Oldsmobile: General Motors Corporation
Porsche: Dr. Ing. H. c. f. Porsche Aktiengesellschaft Corporation
Red Cross: American Red Cross Inc. Association
St. Jude’s: National Shrine of St. Jude, The Association
Town & Country: Hearst Magazines Property, Inc.
Viagra: Pfizer Inc.
White Sox: Chicago White Sox, Ltd.
Wonder Woman: DC Comics General Partnership
Chapter One
Esa laughed with a mixture of amusement and exasperation as her best friend poked at her shoulders and herded her out the door like she was a cow in the Chicago stockyards.
“What’s with you?” Esa asked as she closed the office door and locked it.
“I’ve got a date at six,” Carla said, her face glowing with excitement and the new foundation product she’d bought on the internet last week while she was supposed to be filing Esa’s Medicare claims. Esa sighed. That’s what she got for hiring her down-and-out best friend to be her administrative assistant.
“You’re nuts. We’ll never make it downtown by six in Friday night construction traffic.”
“We don’t have to make it downtown,” Carla said with a self-satisfied expression. “We just have to make it to the viaduct on 63rd and the Dan Ryan.”
“You have a date with someone at 63rd Street and the Dan Ryan,” Esa repeated dryly.
“Well, not exactly. It’s not so much a date as it is a checking-out-the-goods session. Kitten’s reporter called it a Scheduled Traffic Flirtation, I think.”
Esa’s steps slowed as they crossed the parking lot. She’d caught a nose-full of trouble on the cool autumn breeze. It was hard to say whether it was the reference to her hugely successful, size four, mischievous little sister or the mention of her ridiculously popular magazine for single young Chicagoans, Metro Sexy, which had the more pungent odor.
“Scheduled Traffic Flirtation?” Esa asked warily.
Carla giggled hysterically as she grabbed Esa’s arm and hurried her to the awaiting red convertible.
“You didn’t read the article in Metro Sexy, did you? The one about singles flirting in Dan Ryan construction traffic? I’m the one who gave Kitten the idea,” Carla squealed with irrepressible excitement. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment to tell you. I’ll explain everything once we get on the road. Give me the keys, I’m driving.”
Esa caught a quick glimpse of vanity plates that read SXKITN69 on the back of her sister’s racy Ferrari convertible. You’d think she’d been driving naked to work for two days given all the lewd stares, shouted indecent proposals, suggestive cell phone waving and creeps following them off the interstate. Esa’d practically killed them during Smoky-and-the-Bandit style evasive maneuvers, trying to lose the horny jerks while Carla laughed hysterically in the seat next to her.
Kitten—Rachel that is. Esa refused to call her sister by that stupid childhood nickname—lived and worked downtown. Otherwise there was no way in hell her extremely pretty little sister would put up with the ridiculous behavior Esa had been forced to endure while driving that racy sports car to the suburbs. But maybe Rachel just considered such idiocy part and parcel of her sexy image.
Suddenly her sister’s insistence that she trade cars with her took on a sinister aspect. Rachel had claimed that she needed a more staid vehicle for her extended business trip to Indianapolis.
That was Esa all right, the staid, stodgy, boring, older Ormond sister.
“How long have you been planning this?” Esa asked as she got into the passenger seat. She realized that she sounded bitter but in truth she was a little hurt that Carla and Rachel had been plotting together without her knowledge. Sure, she was the gerontologist in the family and not the life of the party, sexy publisher but she was still a fun-loving city gal, wasn’t she?
Or at least she used to be.
Carla, Rachel and she used to regularly stay out until three or four in the morning on the weekends, dining out at the trendiest restaurants, helping to plan Junior League charitable functions and then dressing to the nines for the lavish events, skipping out of work early on a Friday to catch a Cubs game, dancing and drinking at the clubs and creating all sorts of mischief in the romance arena.
The appeal of being a carefree Chicago socialite had dimmed quickly, however. Esa grew weary of the backbiting and vicious sniping between women. In addition, her parents—who used to wear patient, vaguely amused expressions when she and Rachel discussed Junior League events—could hardly be considered high-society headliner material.
“We haven’t planned it for long,” Carla said with a wave of her hand before she pulled on her seat belt. “A month or two. Long enough for me to have organized the Dan Ryan Construction Flirting chat loop online.”
“The what?”
Carla’s ecstatic expression faded quickly when she glanced down.
“Oh shit.”
“What?” Esa asked, more confused by the second.
“I forgot it was a stick shift.”
Carla’s blue eyes looked enormous when she met Esa’s gaze. Her lush lower lip, shiny with freshly applied lip gloss, poked forward in a pout. Esa knew from years of experience that Carla’s “helpless blonde” expression reeled the sharks in like filet mignon on the end of a hook. Fortunately for Esa, she was both a straight female and a vegetarian.
“I can’t drive a stick shift!”
“I know you can’t. I was wondering what you thought you were doing,” Esa replied with a smirk.
Carla’s eyelids narrowed speculatively. The manic gleam returned. “You’ll just have to drive.” She plopped the keys into Esa’s lap and clambered out of the driver’s seat. “I told Vito I was a blonde bombshell. You’re an auburn-haired girl-next-door. He’ll never mistake you for me. What difference does it make who’s driving?”
Vito? Esa mouthed in silent incredulity. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the car keys. This just kept getting better and better, didn’t it? She still hadn’t moved when Carla flung open the passenger side door.
“Well?” she asked breathlessly. “Come on, Esa, you owe me after forcing me to go on that boring medical bookkeeping seminar last month.”
“I sent you on that all-expense-paid seminar in Des Moines, Iowa because I thought you might want to improve your job skills,” she muttered between tensed lips. Carla gave her a bland look.
“All right, I’ll drive. Under one condition,” Esa added when she saw Carla grin triumphantly. “Tell me everything about this stupid idea. I want to know precisely what kind of idiocy I’m going to have to bail you and Rachel out of.”
“You won’t be able to bail us out if you’re in the clinker right there with us. Come on, Esa, picture it—a yummy, muscle-bound, bronzed construction worker-dude glazed from perspiration after some serious labor in bed.” Carla’s eyes sparkled merrily. “Don’t tell me you’re not thinking about how fun it would be.”
Esa didn’t put up too much of a fuss when Carla insisted she put down the top on the convertible once they’d reached 67th Street on the Ryan. The crisp fall air felt refreshing on her skin and temporarily made her forget that she was breathing the fumes of thousands of trucks and cars that communally moved like a gargantuan glass and metal slug on the pavement. Now that she understood that Carla’s “date” wasn’t actually mobile—some psycho stalker who could follow them into the city—but a stationary target, Esa felt a little better about her friend’s crazy scheme.
“Since when have you been attracted to construction workers?” Esa asked as they inched forward in the clogged river of vehicles. The gargantuan project to widen I-94, otherwise known as the Dan Ryan, was already the stuff of urban legend even by Chicago standards, where everyone knew there were only two seasons—winter and road construction. The Dan Ryan project wasn’t so much highway construction as it was road building on an epic scale, like the Romans used to do. Commuting from Esa’s downtown loft to her suburban office had become a downright nightmare.
Carla waited for the rattling ‘L’ train next to them to pass before she answered. “Are you blind, Esa? You must be the only straight woman in Chicago who isn’t drooling over those hunks while you’re driving to work in the morning. I mean, there’s got to be—what?—thousands of them parading around out there. The only thing better than tight butts in jeans are flexing tight butts in jeans.” Carla checked her lipstick quickly in the mirror. “Steely thighs, bronzed biceps, broad shoulders—”
“Anything holding these guys’ body parts together?” Esa asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “It’s a good thing I drive us to work or you’d be helping other horny woman in the city contribute to Chicago’s traffic nightmare.”
“Just stop it right now, Esa.”
Carla’s sharp rebuke nearly caused Esa to plow into the Ford Taurus in front of them.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked Carla in dawning amazement. Carla hardly ever got truly pissy, which is exactly what she appeared to be at the moment.
“I should be asking you the same thing,” Carla said as she hurled her lipstick into her makeup bag like a deadly missile. The scowl she wore marred her otherwise pretty, perfectly made-up face. “Or better yet, I should be asking you who you are and what you did with my best friend Esa Ormond. Clearly someone has stolen her and replaced her with some kind of alien robot whose idea of a good time is to write journal articles on the pros and cons of Viagra use and attend bingo night at the Shady Lawn Nursing Home.”
“Carla, listen—”
“No, you listen. I tried not to complain too much when you started to refuse to go out with Kitten and me. I figured you’d just been burned a few too many times dating and were starting to focus more on yourself and your career.”
“I did want to focus more on my career—”
“But no,” Carla continued, oblivious to Esa’s interruption or the loud beeping of the car horn behind them when Esa didn’t immediately scoot forward ten feet in traffic. “Instead you gave up everything. You’ve forsaken any type of the usual fun that a twenty-nine-year-old single woman has. Ever. You won’t so much as go out to have a drink with Kitten and me on a Friday night so we can laugh together or hang out with us to catch some rays on North Avenue Beach. Why don’t you just go ahead and get your room reserved at Shady Lawn Nursing Home before your thirtieth birthday?”
Esa grimaced. As if she really wanted to put her near-nude, mile-wide curves on display next to Carla and Rachel’s svelte, gym-hewn bodies at the beach. But she’d be damned if she’d give Carla the satisfaction of saying that out loud.
“I’m Shady Lawn’s physician, Carla. I can’t help it if I have to spend so much time there.”
“You have more fun socializing with those old coots than you do me!”
The driver behind them gave up laying on the horn and glared at Esa as he passed in the next lane. Esa was too busy staring at Carla in stunned disbelief to even notice. Finally she clamped her mouth shut and shot forward a long stretch of road.
“Well, that certainly came out of nowhere,” Esa muttered after a moment.
Carla sighed. “Sorry. But I’d be lying if I said any of it wasn’t true. You’re no fun anymore, Esa.”
“I’m fun,” Esa snarled.
“Sure, the residents of Shady Lawn think you’re the life of the party,” Carla muttered under her breath. She noticed Esa’s glare. “Okay, if you’re so fun, prove it. If Vito’s all he’s cracked up to be I’m meeting him and a few other chatters from the online traffic group for a drink at One Life, that new club on Huron Street downtown. Go with me? Please?”
Esa hesitated, thinking about all the medical charts she had stuffed into her briefcase. Carla’s scolding warred with her practical nature. Even though she’d been acting so superior in regard to this whole flirting in traffic affair, Esa had to admit that it felt kind of good to have Carla beg her to take part in a loony scheme.
“I guess it’ll be interesting if nothing else.”
“Perfect.” Carla clapped her hands happily before giving Esa a concerned look. “You’re going to at least take off your glasses before going in One Life though, aren’t you?”
Before Esa could unclench her teeth, Carla’s blue eyes overtook half her face. “Look, we’re almost to the 63rd Street viaduct.”
“What’s this Vito supposed to look like anyway?” Esa asked, curious despite herself. Her gaze flickered over the road construction to the left of the car, a vast landscape of cranes, drills, broken-up concrete, exposed rebar and hard-working men. The project was so massive that a full crew would work until nightfall. At that point gigantic lights would be illuminated and abbreviated work would continue until well past midnight.
The sight of a man exiting the door of a construction trailer snagged her roving gaze. Her eyes widened. Maybe Carla was right about this sexy-construction-worker thing. Talk about a long, lean slice of pure heaven. This guy was some serious eye candy. Esa fo
cused on the subtle rolling motion of trim hips encased in low-riding, clinging jeans as he came down the stairs, work boots stomping.
Those long legs and that sexy saunter would have caught her eye anytime, anywhere. Surely a guy who moved like that just had to move well in bed. At five-foot-eight-inches herself, Esa liked a tall man. She wanted to feel feminine in comparison to a date, not like Durgha, Queen of the Amazons. Maybe she was brainwashed by a sexist society but was it too much to ask for a man who she’d bet without a doubt could beat her in an arm wrestling match?
She found herself staring fixedly at the fullness behind the construction guy’s fly. She blinked dazedly. A warm, tingling sensation flickered in her lower belly and simmered down to her sex. The sensation took her by surprise, it had been so long since she’d experienced it.
She glanced forward just in time to stop them from plowing into a Dodge Intrepid.
The man drew her gaze again like a magnet, however. Her eyelids narrowed in fascination as her gaze traveled up a whipcord-lean torso that slanted tantalizingly to shoulders that weren’t necessarily brawny but extremely muscular and perfectly suited to his build. The dark blue t-shirt that he wore covered what Esa guessed were powerful biceps but left a pair of strong, tanned forearms exposed. He crossed them below his chest in a casual gesture when he paused next to a pickup truck that had just come to a neat stop next to him.
Esa was so busy mentally slobbering that it took a few seconds to realize that Carla was talking.
“I know what you’re going to say. Guys can say they’re Brad Pitt’s twin online and then you meet them and they’re more like Quasimodo’s uglier brother but I don’t know, Esa. I’ve got a feeling about this guy. He’s six foot three, dark blond hair, works out regularly at his club in addition to all that hard work that he does during the day so you know his body’s got to be rock-hard, thirty-one years old—”
