by J. Bengtsson
“Could you imagine the toothy gremlin breast-feeding? I mean, come on, clomping down on Big Lips, Fake Tits? Heaven have mercy… you know what I’m saying?”
“I do,” I whispered. “And so does everybody else.”
“Am I talking too loud?” she asked, raising her voice… on purpose.
Big Lips gave Frannie the wickedest glare. I prayed she wasn’t going to make her way over because then things would really get nasty. Part of being ‘friends’ with Francesca meant suffering through the cringe-worthy confrontations that inevitably arose from her shameless ‘honesty.’
“Emma?”
I knew that drawl, and I reluctantly lifted my eyes to find Dr. Schlong, a.k.a. Logan, a.k.a. my last hookup, smiling down upon me.
From under the table, Frannie kicked my shin. It was no light tap but a full-on karate chop. She knew of our tryst and how he’d treated me afterwards, so of course she hated him with a passion. I scowled at her, demanding restraint, before returning my attention to Logan. “Yes?”
“I was curious what you were doing this weekend. Maybe we could hang out. What do you say?”
“I’m going to Sun Desert this weekend,” I replied. But of course he already knew that; hence the reason he’d made the effort to come over to me in the first place.
“Oh, really?” he remarked, feigning ignorance. “That’s right. Your brother’s performing, isn’t he?”
I grinned. Logan was so transparent. The fact that Jake was headlining the weekend festival was no big secret. I would have had more respect for him if he’d just asked for a ticket and gotten it over with, but this whole charade of wanting to spend time with me now… it was so contrived.
“Yeah, he’s performing Saturday night.”
“Oh, huh. Well, I wouldn’t mind going there. If you wanted some company, that is.”
“Sorry, it’s my dad’s birthday, so just family is going, but thanks for the offer. Maybe I’ll see you there, though.”
“Only if you can get me a ticket or two. They’ve been sold out for months. But doesn’t Jake get a bunch of VIP passes to give out?”
Frannie kicked me again, but this time it was more a courtesy tap. Her eyes were blazing with anger. Clearly she wanted my permission to set him straight. Ahh, Francesca Marley really was a good friend to me. I couldn’t think of anyone else, outside my family, who’d be willing to defend my honor. I smiled and nodded my head in response to her request, and watched in awe as Dr. Schlong was crudely ripped a new one.
I could have driven to the concert with my family, but that would have left me without a car and without the freedom it afforded me. I’d gone to these types of festivals before and was not a fan of the rampant drugs, ear-splitting music, and ultra bitchy, wanna-be hippie-chic attitude of many of the attendees. When I wanted to relax with music, it was always of the classical variety. Just the sound of a lone piano could lift my spirits. That’s when I appreciated Jake’s music the most… the stripped down, vulnerable piano versions of his songs that he recorded in his home studio just for me. Of course, I understood that simple and sweet didn’t fill arenas. My brother gave his fans what they wanted, and usually that was in the form of screaming guitars, pulsating percussion, and stadium-stomping rock anthems.
If I wanted to be completely honest, were Jake and I not siblings, I wouldn’t be caught dead at one of his concerts. My brother knew this traitorous fact about me yet never took offense. In fact, my distaste for his music was a source of great amusement. After all, Jake and I had a long history of musical sparring.
Of all the siblings, the two of us were the only ones who’d exhibited a propensity toward the classical stylings of the piano early on, and our mother, always the opportunist, had jumped at the chance to cultivate us. While the others were out having fun, Jake and I were becoming little concert pianists. I thrived in the restrictive environment; Jake did not. The poor kid was always plotting ways of escape despite the fact that his creative abilities far outweighed my own. And that annoyed the crap out of me. I’d work hours to perfect a certain number only to have Jake, dragged in by his ear, plop down on the bench in his dirty jeans, and after a few minutes of tinkering, deliver it effortlessly.
Showoff.
I’m not going to lie; Jake’s early genius was completely lost on me. In fact, his creativity drove me to whole new levels of insanity. An obsessive perfectionist who went strictly by the book, I clung to the timeless compositions as if they were law and the breaking of them a grave and deadly sin. I’d pour every last bit of myself into some favorite classical number and then watch impatiently as Jake would take the same piece, rip it to shreds, and from its ashes, create his own uniquely daring masterpiece. No. Stop already! Musical desecration, that’s what it was! There were rules that needed to be followed. Law and order, kid. Law and frickin’ order!
As you can probably imagine, my uptight little self was eager to voice its outraged displeasure, screaming shamelessly at my brother to stop butchering my favorite melodies. My frustration knew no bounds. How was I to know that the little shaggy-haired eight-year-old was a musical prodigy? Thankfully, my brother never listened to my rants, wisely choosing to follow his own unique path. Unlike me, Jake wasn’t bound to the conventional.
By the time he hit double digits, I begrudgingly admitted to myself that Jake was going to be someone someday, and I either had to get on board the rickety life raft with him while he was still a nobody or in later years I’d be waving from the pier as he floated by on his luxury yacht. So I learned to embrace Jake’s ‘fingernails on the chalkboard’ type talent, eventually even taking great pride in his melodic massacring. Jealousy was so overrated.
My stomach scolded with loud, rolling protests as I checked the clock on the dashboard. In an effort to beat the LA traffic that would soon be crawling through the barren landscape on its way to the three-day festival, I’d skipped breakfast and now my abdomen was rebelling. It wasn’t until I found an old-school diner on my side of the road – something that was strangely important to me – that I decided to give my whiny belly a break.
Pulling into the parking lot, I immediately honed in on a guy leaning under the hood of his pickup truck. The first thing that caught my eye was the grease stain on his jeans. I felt my heart rate increase ever so slightly. I didn’t like muck… or really just anything that tainted nice, unsoiled surfaces. It was just sloppy. Maybe that’s why I’d studied to be a nurse. With its sterile goodness, the bleached blandness of the hospital always afforded me a sense of calm.
My eyebrows puckered in judgment as I took in the offending male. That oily residue was going to transfer onto something else, sullying another clean surface in the process, and in turn forcing the cycle to continue on endlessly. I inhaled sharply, trying to steady my rapidly increasing irritation. Breathe. And stop being so overly critical. No wonder people think you’re a bitch. Scanning the poor faceless dude again, I decided to cut him some slack due to the predicament he found himself in. Chances were he really couldn’t help his grimy appearance.
Then came the next speed bump in the appraisal process, and this one would prove harder to rationalize. This one involved the man’s ass, and not for the reasons you might think. His tush was encased in a pair of distressed blue jeans – so distressed in fact that a portion of his boxers was peeking out from the hole in the pocket of his left butt cheek. Dressing like a hormonal teen had nothing to do with the unfortunate circumstances he found himself in now. No, he’d actively chosen the ripped up ensemble this morning, and that aggravated me so much more than it should have. I pursed my lips and fought the urge to grab the sewing kit from my emergency supply box and stitch him up on site. Yes, sometimes there were clothing related emergencies that required immediate attention.
I shook my head at the gall of the man. All the sympathy I’d once had for his dilemma vanished. For the life of me I couldn’t understand why he would consider it a good idea to walk out of his house today with his ass hanging ou
t of his jeans. Tacky! I liked male buttocks as much as the next girl, but I preferred them draped nicely in slacks or even tucked up in a freshly pressed pair of medical scrubs. Stuffy. Academic. Controlled. Much better. Still, the way this guy was swaying back and forth with the tiniest bit of exposed flesh peeking out just below the boxers delivered an unexpectedly swift kick to my ovaries. Easy, girls.
Driving around to one of the spots in front, I inadvertently positioned myself with a head-on snapshot of the parking lot mechanic, and the view was quite spectacular. My eyes freely roamed over his landscape. Huh. Okay. I had to admit, even with his obvious wardrobe malfunction, the guy did have a nice ass… rounded and tight, with just the right amount of, well, everything. Suddenly and without warning, my brain conjured up a rather explicit picture of his naked backside.
“Well, there’s a nice hello,” I commented to myself.
As his butt bobbed to the task at hand, so did my eyes. I couldn’t seem to break the connection. Was I really that erotically deprived that the soiled behind of a faceless stranger was all it took to rev me up? Please. I held myself to a higher standard than that, and thankfully, I was a rational woman who could see the situation for what it was. Sure, he had a notable tush, and yes, of course, it did fill out every microscopic nook of those shredded Levis, but certainly it would impress all females, not just me. And not only that, but I had to give the man props: it was rare indeed, in this day and age, to see a guy fixing his own vehicle. Certainly the grease monkey deserved some credit for that.
I loitered in my car longer than was really necessary, unable to drag my attention away from the personal peep show happening before me. I was well aware that I’d reduced him to an object gyrating on a pole; but then if he didn’t want eyes staring at his behind, he shouldn’t be exposing so much of it. It occurred to me then that I’d become overly invested in this guy in the amount of time it had taken to park my car. Maybe it was the fact that I had an incomplete picture of him that kept me bolted to my seat. I was all about attention to detail, and being such a fan of symmetry, it was important to have every miniscule fact in front of me in order to make a qualified assessment. Simply put, I could not move forward with my life until I had a face to go with the tush.
Having nothing better to do while I waited for closure, I launched a thorough investigation of his lower half. Judging strictly by the very small area of his body available to me, I’d have to say this guy didn’t spend all that much time at the gym. Not to say that he was skinny in any way, but his long, lean legs and waist-to-hip ratio suggested an athlete in top condition as opposed to a muscle man rippling with brawny strength.
Several minutes passed, and I was getting antsy. Good lord, what was taking so long… was he asking the engine out for dinner? Come on, dude, I’m hungry. Let’s get a move on.
And, as if on cue, booty man pulled out from under the covering, straightening his back and gripping the hood with his grease-stained hands. Coiled, sweaty brown curls escaped from the edges of his baseball cap and clung to his slick neck. Noooo! Not curls! Jesus. He might as well have just stayed under the hood. Curly haired dudes needed to keep it closely cropped to the scalp, or if they wanted to go a little crazy, maybe a poofed-up or slicked-back number on the top would be acceptable – but not this. Not long, wild curls. It suggested disorganization. Messy. Chaotic. Unpredictable. My pulse raced just thinking about it. Nope. Not worth the wait at all. Dammit, I’d expected so much more from an ass of that caliber.
Hungry and disappointed, I realized that in life – and attraction – some things just couldn’t be overcome. Having completely lost interest, I gathered my book and purse and was about to exit my vehicle when the mechanic demanded my attention once more. Knotted tension formed in his arms as he stood there rigidly peering down into the engine. You know what? Maybe I’d been too hasty in my gym-shaming proclamation. Veins bulged and muscles popped. Wow. It was entirely possible that he spent some quality time pumping iron. Well, good for you, Ronald McDonald. At least you have something going for you. Suddenly, and without warning, he slammed his hands against the rusty metal and dropped the f-bomb.
Unprepared for his disgruntlement, I jerked in surprise. “Easy there, stud.”
The minute the words left my mouth, he turned in my direction, a grimace of frustration etched upon his swoon-worthy face. My god! Even with that hair, this guy was a sizzler. His features were nothing short of grubby perfection. Not the classic, stuffy handsome, this man was all sexy goodness, and I felt the attraction right down to my very core. Before I could get my eyes back in their sockets, the mechanic took a pass at me, settling his stare on my star-struck face.
“Shit!” Heart fluttering with sensuous excitement, I tore my eyes away and studied my purse with unmatched interest. Yes, there was something of incredible importance inside the leather bag that required my immediate and undivided attention. Ah… right, a tube of Chapstick… that’s what I’d been searching for.
Wait a minute. Why the hell was I short of breath? This was ridiculous. What was I doing? I didn’t duck. People avoided me, not the other way around. Calm and collected, that was my motto; yet the wave of heat overwhelming me now was a clear indication that I’d lost my frickin’ mind. What did it matter if he’d been staring at me? I should have stood my ground and returned the favor of his alluring gaze with my own icy response. Instead, I’d slipped down further on my seat like some lovesick teenager.
Admittedly, the mechanic was way more attractive than his curly hair suggested, what with his squared, tensed jaw, straight sloping nose, and those pretty blue eyes. But was his jaw-dropping appearance worth the loss of my dignity? No, I didn’t think so.
Because of my knee-jerk reaction, I was now stuck. I couldn’t very well hang out under my steering wheel indefinitely, and that meant I needed to pull it together. I was a twenty-six-year old, voraciously hungry professional woman, and I had too much pride to allow myself to be trapped in parking lot purgatory with an empty stomach.
Smoothing my hair and checking my reflection in the phone, I gathered the prowess necessary to exit my vehicle. Sunglasses in place? Yes, the gold Ray-Bans would project the image I was going for: cool, uninterested chick. Exhaling audibly, I straightened back up, swung the door open, and stepped out, avoiding all eye contact with him even though I knew instinctively that he was still staring. Striding into the restaurant in a fiery display of steely confidence, my shaking hand was the only sure giveaway. Get it together, Emma. He was a guy with an ass. All men had them. No need to get worked up over that particular one.
Reclaiming my wits, I settled into the booth and gave my order to the waitress. The heat that had unexpectedly consumed me was slowly receding, and I’d nearly managed to push all thoughts of the guy from my mind when his gorgeous face exploded into my visible horizon once more. Entering through the front doors, the mechanic scanned the room as I watched. He was looking for me, I was sure of it. And when he found me, those eyes of his grabbed hold of mine, and this time neither one of us looked away. My body immediately switched the furnace back to the high setting, and warmth spread everywhere. Even my cheeks blushed, and I hadn’t done that since I was a pimply teen.
After that moment of unplanned attraction, his eyebrows did a little dance of amusement as he bestowed upon me a slightly upturned smile. To my surprise, it wasn’t full of arrogance, as I’d come to expect from the smiles that came attached to the men I generally spent time with. Their grins were usually predatory and uninviting… but not this guy’s smile. His seemed surprisingly genuine – probably because that mop of hair, still under the protection of the baseball cap, forced him to put a little muscle behind his personality.
My stomach tightened, and instead of holding my ground as I normally did, I unexpectedly looked away… again. Something about him made me nervous. He was a good-looking guy, for sure, but I was no stranger to beautiful men. The prettier they were, the easier they were to manipulate. A little ego stroking was
usually all that was needed to bend them to my will; but for whatever reason, I knew the mechanic wouldn’t fall for such games. He was a real guy, living a normal life. Why did that freak me out?
And why was I so damn excited by him? Before I’d hastily looked away, I couldn’t help but notice the dark t-shirt clinging to his sweaty body and the cuffs on his short sleeves hugging his strong arms and the grease stains that streaked his body and even speckled his scruffy face. On paper, this guy was everything I avoided… dirty and sweaty and greasy and curly. I imaged after a night of passion with him, a woman would have to go through a full series of decontamination procedures. And yet, while I condemned him for breaking every hygienic rule in the book, I couldn’t help being inexplicably drawn to his unsterile sexiness.
By the time I’d found the audacity to look back up at him, the guy was gone. Evidentially he’d decided not to stick around for my juvenile antics. Good for him. Feeling flushed and unsettled, I grabbed my book and attempted to continue the story I’d begun before my concentration had been stolen away. But no matter how many times I read the words, I couldn’t get the image of him out of my mind.
Lunch arrived, offering me a welcome distraction. With one hand holding my book and the other used to ungracefully shovel food, I didn’t see the object of my affection until his smooth male voice interrupted my juggling act.
“Hey, I’m sorry to bother you.”
Of course I knew it was him, and yes, he was bothering me; at least that’s what I told myself in order to keep from squealing like one of Jake’s fangirls. I shot my head up, determined to put him in his place with a show of strength and prominence but was greeted with the warmest, most inviting smile I’d ever seen from such a handsome male face. My steely façade melted into puddles, and I smiled back at him with the same affecting emotion. Oh, no no no. What was happening here? Was I about to look away again? No, Emma! Don’t do it… be strong. Dammit! Once again I was staring down at my hands. Coward.
