“Well, not just if he touches it, but if he touches it like he cherishes you, like he would trust you with his life, with his soul.”
I rubbed my palm across my face. Stone definitely made my heart beat faster, but in all fairness to Chance, he and I had been together a long time. We were comfortable around each other. Surely that counted for something. But the face-touching test? They had both already touched my face. I didn’t know whether I should tell Granny that. She was trying to be helpful, and it was going to take more than that tidbit of advice to help me.
Mr. Martin pulled into the driveway, the loud crunching noise from the gravels snapping me out of my thoughts.
“There he is,” Granny whispered with enthusiasm. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck.”
She rose from the rocker and rushed toward the porch steps.
“Granny,” I said, bringing her to a halt as she turned to look at me. “Let me know if he passes the test.”
She winked. “He already has.”
I grinned at her, and she turned and hurried toward his car in a swirl of polyester and the faint scent of cheap perfume.
The lazy afternoon cajoled me into relaxing on the porch a while longer. I needed to work on the promotion for the bookstore. The new project coupled with my first check being transferred into my savings account at the local credit union had motivated me, and I wanted to prove that I could pull this off and increase sales.
Crimson and Scarlet had already agreed to paint fingernails and to help with the face painting. Sophie Murray, Chance’s cousin, was the current and absolutely gorgeous Miss Quail Mountain, and she had agreed to make an appearance.
I had ordered the advertising and the ads had already hit in the local paper this week. I had picked up the flyers and distributed them at some of the local stores. I still needed to pass the rest out. Several cases of snap ‘n pops would arrive in the next couple of days, and the day before the promotion started, I would need to pick up the groceries for the hot dog combo meals.
Panic welled in my chest, and I began to question whether I would be able to pull this off without something going terribly wrong. I had horrible thoughts of running out of food and having angry customers waving their fists at me or stabbing me with plastic forks. One decision made. No utensils. I’d keep it simple with hot dogs, chips, and a drink. That way, I could eliminate at least one of my horrific visions.
The crunch of gravels alerted me to Crimson and Scarlet pulling into the driveway. I scooped up my messenger bag and jogged to the car.
Once we arrived at Awesome Sauce, we ordered our food and I retrieved a notepad from my bag, so that I could take notes.
“We’ll bring all the nail polish,” Scarlet said. “We just received a huge shipment, so we’ll pick out some really hot colors and bring them. How do you like this color?” she asked, wiggling her fingertips at me.
“Ooh la la.” I smiled at her. “I like.”
“Let me see your hands,” she chattered excitedly as she dug in her designer purse.
“Why?”
“She wants you to be her guinea pig,” Crimson chimed.
“Do not,” Scarlet scoffed. “I have a license. I’m past the point of needing guinea pigs. Besides,” she continued, looking pointedly at her sister, “I’ve never had a shortage of guinea pigs before. Since exactly nine minutes and twenty-eight seconds after I was born, I’ve always had you.”
I laid my hand on the table, remembering all the times that Scarlet had tormented Crimson.
Scarlet shook the bottle of nail polish profusely, tapping it against the heel of her palm. She opened it and dabbed the brush against the side of the bottle before she was satisfied and began stroking the hot pink color on my nails.
“Remember the time you made the witch makeup out of green food coloring and hand lotion?” I asked Scarlet.
“You just had to bring that up, didn’t you?” Crimson asked, groaning. She tapped her perfectly manicured nails on the table. “My face was green for a week. Mom was so mad.”
“Well, look how far we’ve come,” Scarlet said, never taking her eyes from my nails. “Now we’re ready to open our own salon.”
“Quail Mountain needs a nice salon,” I said.
“Yes, it does,” Scarlet agreed. “It needs a salon for the younger generation. Some place that screams swag.”
“We’re gonna look at a couple of possible shops today, Dara. Do you wanna come?” Crimson asked.
“Sure. I’m off today, so I have plenty of time.”
Scarlet had just finished painting my nails when the server brought our food. I curled my fingers and blew on the wet polish, trying to speed up the drying process. The color reminded me of exotic, tropical flowers, and I admired the finished product.
I gingerly picked up a French fry, being careful not to mar the polish. While the conversation lulled, I jotted down all the things that I needed to do for the promotion.
“If we decide on a shop today, I can get our business cards printed before the Quail Mountain Books promotion,” Scarlet said in her best I’m-a-professional-businesswoman voice. I had to confess that she was savvier than most of our peers.
“That’d be good.” I jotted down a couple of items on my list.
“We’ve already been advertising,” Crimson added, her dark eyes watching me. “You know Scarlet, the almighty Queen of Social Media.” Crimson stiffened her back during her last comment and spoke in her best British accent, a side effect from her obsession with the nobility.
“It’s smart business,” Scarlet said matter-of-factly. “Don’t hate because I have more friends than you.”
“Are you freakin’ serious?” Crimson asked. “You only have as many friends as you do because my friends feel sorry for you. Mercy friends. That’s what you’ve got.”
“Just get as many of your friends to come as you can,” I said, interrupting Crimson’s diatribe. “I want to prove that I can do this.”
“We’ve got this,” Scarlet assured me. “Nothing to worry about.”
I took a deep breath. Oddly enough, it was reassuring to hear her say that and knowing Scarlet, who was an organization freak, she was right. “Good. Let me read off my list of things that I still need to do, and y’all can tell me if you think of something else.” I read the list. After a brief discussion, I felt more secure, more in control. I could do this.
I tucked my notepad into my messenger bag, ready to free my mind from thoughts of the promotion for now.
“So, Crimson, have you seen Mike lately?” I asked.
“He took me for a ride a couple of nights ago. How about you? Have you been out with Stone?”
“Ever since we went out about a week ago, he’s been avoiding me. I must’ve done something wrong. Something that was a total turnoff.”
“Not likely,” Scarlet snapped. “He’s just strange. If he’s not smart enough to realize how awesome you are, then you don’t need him.”
“I think he’s pretty hot,” Crimson said, fanning herself with her hand in a dramatic display.
“It doesn’t matter how hot he is if he’s a total dumb butt,” Scarlet replied. She smacked herself in the forehead. “Look who I’m talking to,” she mumbled. “My own twin, who readily admits that she’d rather be pretty than smart.” Scarlet turned to her sister. “No wonder you think he’s hot. You’re immensely superficial.”
“Chill out, Scarface. I just said he was hot. I didn’t say I wanted to marry him or anything.”
Chance interrupted our conversation by plopping in the booth beside me. “Hey, Dara.”
“Hey.”
He looked at the twins across from us. “Crimson…Scarlet…how are you two lovelies today?”
“Beautiful as always,” Crimson replied, tilting her head and fluttering her eyelashes.
Scarlet rolled her eyes.
Chance laughed at them. Then, he turned his attention to me. “Have you thought about what I said?”
“Ch
ance….”
“Shhh.” He held his finger up to my lips. “I just want you to think about it.” He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll call you later. I’ve gotta go to work.” He waved and left the booth.
“Are y’all getting back together?” Crimson asked.
“He wants to.”
“And what do you want to do?” Scarlet asked.
“I don’t know. I mean we broke up for a reason, and I was really liking Stone. Then he started acting all weird, like I was a zombie or something and if he got too close to me, I might take a bite out of his jugular.”
“So do the same thing to him that he’s doing to you,” Crimson advised.
“What do you mean?”
“Play hard to get.”
I wasn’t really one for playing games, and Crimson knew enough about me to know that. “It’s not like I’ve been flinging myself at him,” I countered. “In fact, since he’s been avoiding me, I haven’t really tried to strike up conversations with him or anything.”
“Maybe you should,” Crimson said. “Maybe he’s waiting for a signal from you that you’re interested in him.”
“We’ve kissed several times,” I admitted. “I loved it, and I’m pretty sure he knows it. It would be impossible for him to think I’m not interested.”
“Maybe he’s just a scumbag, and you should embrace the fact that he’s avoiding you,” Scarlet offered. “He seems like trouble to me.”
I stuffed a French fry in my mouth, feeling a little bummed about the current situation and kicking myself for not staying totally away from him in the first place. I should’ve known better. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Crimson chided. “So he doesn’t follow all the rules? That’s what makes him exciting.”
“Umm, yeah,” Scarlet said, right before taking a swig of her drink. “And maybe after y’all are married, the prison will allow conjugal visits.”
“Prison?” Crimson huffed in disbelief. “He’s been suspended from school, and he beat the crap out of Caleb White, who’s a freakin’ bully. I’ve never even heard of him being arrested. I hardly think that makes him a candidate for a maximum security facility.”
Scarlet rolled her dark, expressive eyes.
“I know he has a bit of a bad reputation at school,” I admitted, “but I think there’s more to him than that.”
“Dara, you should stick with Chance. He’s a nice guy, and he has a promising future,” Scarlet urged.
“Well, you didn’t see Stone’s house,” Crimson muttered, her lips poised just above her straw. “He is obviously going to be the heir to a small fortune.”
“Oh, great,” Scarlet said less than enthusiastically. “So when he’s sixty and his parents die, Dara will have something to look forward to.”
“The one thing you don’t understand,” I said to Scarlet, who was looking at me with sympathy in her eyes, “is that I feel different when I’m with Stone than I do when I’m with Chance.”
She glared at me as if I had been sniffing nail polish too long.
How could I explain it to her? “I want you to think about something. Think about when we were kids and we’d go outside and make snowmen and have snowball fights. Or you could think about that football game we went to last year when we were having those record-breaking low temperatures.”
“Okay,” she said, obviously wondering where I was going with this.
“You know how you feel when it’s winter and you’ve been outside and it’s so cold that you can feel your nose turning red and every nerve ending in your body is aware of your surroundings, of the blustery wind and the swirling snowflakes and the freezing temperatures? And then you drink a cup of hot chocolate and it feels so good and warm. And you can feel the heat flowing through your body as it reaches every finger, every toe. And when you’ve drained the last drop from your mug, you stare at the bottom of your cup, sad that it’s gone and desperately wishing that you had another cup?
“Stone is my hot chocolate.” There. I said it.
“Well, you definitely got the hot part right,” Crimson blurted, dabbing the corners of her mouth with a napkin.
Scarlet was still silently staring at me, her French fries forgotten. “What about Chance?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “I know he’s a great guy, and I know he cares about me. But I can’t ignore what I feel when I’m with Stone.”
“What about the fact that he’s avoiding you?” Scarlet asked, fulfilling her duty of being the voice of reason.
I slapped my palms down lightly on the table. “I know.” I shook my head. “I know, and he may never give me the time of day again, but I’m not ready to write him off just yet.”
“Okay, but don’t come crying to me when he breaks your heart,” Scarlet warned. “And he will break your heart.”
***
Stone
The promotion was in three days. I watched Dara as she busied herself around the store. She had been cleaning like crazy, sending dust motes scurrying from the books, games, CDs, and DVDs with a bright blue feather duster that looked like the ass end of a peacock. Then, she’d go over the metal shelves with a damp cloth to wipe the dust away. I had to hand it to her. She had proven to be a valuable asset, and considering how much I had riding on this, it made me appreciate her on a whole new level.
My phone buzzed. I stood up from the stool behind the counter and fished for it out of my pocket, frowning when I realized that my father was calling.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I told Tom as I brushed past him, walked through the kitchen, which Dara had scrubbed until it sparkled, grabbed a cigarette from my pack out of the cabinet, and headed out the back door.
“Hello.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. The house is fine. Everything’s fine.”
“Dammit. I know that! Why do you keep badgering me?”
“I know you think I’m a failure. I know that you wish it was Luke standing here right now, but it’s not. It’s me.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m at work, and as you have so helpfully pointed out, I don’t have much time, so I need to focus on the store right now. Can we talk about this later?”
I hung up, crammed my phone in my pocket, and lit the cigarette. I drew in deeply, my hand resting lightly on the handlebars of my motorcycle as I stared out over the back of the lot, wishing things were different.
“Are you okay?”
Shit. How long had she been standing there? I took another long draw off the cigarette and slowly turned to see Dara, her hands full of broken down cardboard boxes, watching me, her delicately plucked eyebrows drawn together in concern.
“I’m fine.” I put the cigarette between my lips, and walked toward her, taking the cardboard boxes from her and walking over to the dumpster with them.
I had hoped she’d take that as her cue to go back in the store, but she just stood silently, watching me as I walked toward her and stopped a few feet away.
I drew on the cigarette again, the end of it glowing bright orange in response, and then pulled it away from my mouth and expelled the smoke.
“Smoking cancer sticks is a nasty habit, you know.”
I felt the corners of my mouth tilting upward as I took another draw. Just what I needed. Another parent. I tossed my cigarette down and ground it out with my boot. “I know.” And I did know. I wasn’t really a heavy smoker, but there were times when I felt it helped ease my stress. Not a good choice for stress relief, but hell, we’re all going to die sometime. Luke was proof enough of that.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
“Talk about what? That my father thinks I’m a failure? Nah. I have no need to talk about it. I do, however, intend to prove him wrong. Not that I really give a shit what he thinks.”
“And how’re you gonna do that?” she asked, her bright green eyes watching me intensely.
And that’s why I needed to stay away from girls like D
ara. They asked too many questions, wanted to dig too deep, wanted guys to talk about their feelings and all that shit that guys hate to do.
“My father owns this store. If sales don’t pick up by the end of July, he’s going to close the doors. He doesn’t think I can make the store a success, but I’m going to prove him wrong.”
And that’s why I needed to stay away from Dara, in particular. She made me want to answer her questions, staring at me with those huge, concerned eyes, making me feel like she actually cared about me.
“Your father owns it?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe you could talk him out of closing it.”
“He’s a businessman. If the venture doesn’t make money, then he gets out of it. It’s that simple. Besides, it’s more important to me to make it a success, so that he doesn’t want to close it, to show him that he can think what he wants, but I am not the failure he tries to make me out to be.”
“He actually tells you that you’re a failure?” I was captivated by her lips as the words softly escaped them, prying ever deeper into my psyche. What was it about them that drew my attention every time I was near her? A guy could be entranced by a pair of lips like that touching his skin. But for me, I knew it was more than that. They were her lips. For the first time in a long time, part of me wanted to completely open up, but I knew how that would end.
“You know what? I think I’m going to leave for a little while. Would you tell Tom that I’ll be back later?”
The corners of her mouth turned down in a slight frown. Then, she gave me a smile. “Yeah, I’ll tell him. I guess I’d better get back to work.”
She turned and went back inside, strands of her silky hair lifting in the balmy breeze. I waited until she had enough time to go back to the front of the store. Then, I stooped, picked up my cigarette butt, and walked through the kitchen and into the bathroom. I ran water over the cigarette butt and tossed it in the garbage. Then, I brushed my teeth and washed my hands to rid myself of as much of the smoke smell as possible. I grabbed my bottle of cologne from under the sink and sprayed it on my shirt. Walking back into the kitchen, I grabbed my helmet from the counter and headed back outside.
Dangerous Page 8
