Man, I know a thing or two about flight or fight, and a hundred-thousand years of human evolution is telling me, You better stand up, Macklin. Right now.
So I try. But as soon as I plant my hands on the couch, the growl gets louder. The garbage truck gets closer.
I stop, mid-rise, my ass halfway off the cushions. He puckers his massive lips, every whisker at attention. And I lower myself back down. The growling stops.
“All right,” I say. “We’re totally good. Whatever you want.”
His eyes are massive, and an eerie blue. And there are thoughts in that head, no fucking doubt about that. Big thoughts. Philosophical thoughts. Home security thoughts. Thoughts like, What the fuck are you doing in our house?
“I’m taking her out to dinner,” I explain. “Just dinner.”
As I say the word, he licks his lips, his gigantic pink tongue rippling across his mouth, over his nose, and back inside again. I get a glimpse of his teeth, and I flash back to childhood visits to the Natural History Museum, to the display of Ice Age Predators and Carnivores.
Then he gives me a big, manly burp, which fills the air with a smell that’s like soggy Cheerios.
A door opens with a squeak. Guppy glares at me once more—I’m watching you, buddy—and then drops down onto the floor, nuzzling my shoe with his huge snout. He claps his eyes shut and rolls onto his side, thumping the floor with his tree-trunk tail. He shows me his speckled belly, and his tongue lolls out happily, like this whole time we’ve been doing nothing but tummy rubs. Then he positions his head so it’s facing the hallway. And he waits for Penny to appear.
The dog is a fucking genius.
Her face lights up in the most gorgeous way when she sees him there at my feet. If
I thought she was pretty earlier, now she’s absolutely out of this goddamned world. She’s changed into little white shorts, a black, low-cut tank top, and a long gold necklace that nestles between her breasts. Her makeup is darker and naughtier, and something slightly sparkly makes her cheekbones glisten.
Fuuuuuuck.
“Was he okay?” she whispers. She cups her hand to her mouth, and lowers her voice even further, leaning into me confidentially. “Any growling?”
Guppy’s bloodshot eyes connect with mine. Two words: Protection racket.
“Nope, totally great.” I smile back at her and dab at the tablespoon of drool on my leg. Guppy scratches his back on the rug again, and Penny gives him a pat.
She grabs a handful of treats from a jar and drops them into a huge bed in the corner of the living room, which features a stuffed armadillo with no face, soaked in drool, and a decapitated stuffed bird, missing a wing. Guppy lumbers over and eats the handful of treats in one pass, sliming the fleece bottom of his bed. Then he sits up, chewing and watching her every last move. As she turns away from him, his gaze lands back on me. I'll piss in your shoes if you don’t treat her right.
“Shall we?” I ask, and stand to go.
Guppy burps in my general direction again. Penny picks up the remote from the coffee table, giving me an absolutely fucking perfect look down her tank top and showing me a little white bra with daisies. Fuck. I’m not sure if she knows I’m looking—who’s drooling now?—but she gently places her hand to her shirt to close the gap. Ladylike, yes. But also fucking tragic.
She turns on the television, and a nature show fills the screen. It’s a documentary about warring walruses, and she turns up the volume to 4, 5, 6. Guppy settles in, putting his massive head on the side of his bed, compressing the foam down onto the floor.
“Alpha male walruses battle for mates each spring, defending their rights to mate with their harem.”
Guppy’s ears go down, and in profile I watch his eyebrow area furrow, like he’s thinking, A harem, how interesting.
Genius, total fucking genius.
“All set?” she asks.
I offer her my arm, and she takes it. She smells like vanilla and she looks like heaven.
This trip went from business to pleasure in one second flat. Even with the dog drool seeping into my pants.
4
Penny
The nicest place in town, if you don’t count the taco truck that parks behind Ace Hardware on Mondays and Wednesdays, is Lucky’s Seafood Shack, off the Old Pier. I give Russ shotgun directions to the end of the Point—I manage somehow to keep myself from snorting when he mentions, “Do you know that Google Maps doesn’t work here?”—and direct him to the beach parking area. It isn’t far at all, and I figure if we really get into the margaritas, we can walk back. Preferably hand in hand, into the breeze, as the sun sets, casting long shadows into our rows of footprints, like something from a Valentine’s Day greeting card. Groan.
From my purse my phone buzzes. I glance down to see a series of texts from Maisie streaming across the screen. Words like diet and man and jawline populate the notifications, as well as, I’m not going to lie, he looks really good in pink.
She’s 100% right about that. I adjust my sunglasses and ease myself back into the big luxurious leather bucket seat. I happen to be a real fan of pink, and he’s pulling it off like only a real man can. “A left at the stop sign, and we’re there.”
He waits for a golf cart to pass, going the opposite direction, his hand tight on the top of the wheel. He’s not even doing anything, he’s just driving—but I’m fizzing for him already. As he makes the left turn, his forearms ripple and flex.
Adele, are you there? It’s me.
He pulls into a parking space, nosing the front end of his Suburban against some pampas grass. He straightens up in his seat and looks out at the ocean. “Old being the operative word in Old Pier?”
It’s true. “Large, rusting posts sticking out of the ocean doesn’t quite have the same romance, does it?”
He rubs his jaw with his massive hand, making a scraping noise as his palm passes against the stubble. I want to know how that feels. Along my throat. Down my stomach. Between my legs.
Everywhere.
But then he turns to me. “Is this where that awful shit happened with the jellyfish?”
Uh-oh. Not the jellyfish. No more with the jellyfish. “I haven’t the faintest…”
But he’s on the trail. He might look like he moonlights posing for book covers, but he’s clearly nobody’s dummy. He turns off the engine. “That was it, right? Jellyfish? I’ve got an aunt down here and she used to send me pictures. Fuck. What was that all about?”
I can, of course, tell him exactly what it was all about, and yet Wikipedia can do a better job at this than I can. I should know, because I wrote the damned article. And it’s not a story I’m particularly keen on telling.
Not again.
So I go ahead and pull my phone from my purse. Miraculously, I have one bar, and don’t miss my chance to ask, “Siri. What does Wikipedia say about Port Flamingo, Florida?”
The thinking pulse line shimmers along the bottom of the screen, and she returns with: “Port Flamingo, Florida, has a population of 21,154. Its elevation is one foot above sea level at its highest point and more than ten feet below sea level at the Great Soda Lake State Park, the only federally protected wildlife park that was the result of a man-made disaster.”
Russ makes a worried grumble. I hold up a finger.
“The town itself was founded in 1853 by shipwrecked sailors, who later died of thirst and starvation. It is known as the home of the first air conditioner, though historians have disputed this claim as having quote no factual foundations whatsoever end quote…”
Of course, I know all this stuff, but he listens with rapt attention, blinking occasionally, as his thick eyelashes sweep along his beautiful cheeks.
But then Siri gets down to business. Bad business. “In 2012, Port Flamingo was home to the largest red tide in the history of the Gulf Coast region, caused by a red algae bloom, which then triggered a massive krill bloom, and finally an influx of the rare and lethal Pinprick Laotian jellyfish. Known commonly as cyanide je
llyfish, they are the most lethal invertebrate in the ocean. For four months, they swarmed along the coast of Port Flamingo, paralyzing the port completely, closing the beaches, and forcing all tourist fishing operations to move to friendlier waters. Though the jellyfish left later that summer, the economic and ecological damage to the county continues. The total population of the city plummeted from nearly fifty thousand to barely twenty. Unfortunately, just as conditions began to improve, two sharks were accidentally freed from the Tampa Bay Aquarium and swam south to Port Flamingo. On June 9, 2013, a fisherman lost his…”
“Oh shit,” Russ says into his fist.
I silence Siri. I can see he’s got the gist, which is good. If he thinks the situation with those stupid jellyfish is bad, the description of the shark attack and the story of the Great Soda Lake would make him get right back on a return flight to wherever he came from so fast, he’d be nothing but a fuzzy blur of pink and gray.
I drop my phone in my purse. “Let’s go show those margaritas who’s boss.”
5
Russ
The place is an old shipping container, wedged into the sand, with bare bulbs on wires over the tables. On the side of the container is the word LUCKY’S, but someone has added an “UN” in graffiti in front of it.
“Unfortunate, isn’t it?” she says.
I turn to her, and she’s got this look on her face like she’s just lobbed me a ball and is waiting to see if I can smash it back. “Undoubtedly.”
“Heyooo!” She makes the noise of a bass drum, ba-dun-dun. “We’ll be here all week.”
Joking and adorable sense of humor aside, the graffiti isn’t the worrying part, not from where I’m sitting. The really worrying part is that even from the parking lot I can see that I wouldn’t be able to find a burger here if my life depended on it. On the big chalkboard I see Jumbo Gulf Prawns (breaded or garlic butter) and Red Snapper (catch of the day) and Blue Lip Oysters (choice of sauce).
Christ.
But she’s so damned pretty, it doesn’t matter. Fuck dinner—it’s her I’m hungry for. She pulls down the visor and checks her lipstick in the mirror, pouting a little in a way that fucking kills me, and then moves to open her door.
“No, you don’t.” I snap into action and walk around the back of the Suburban. I open the door for her, and she gapes at me, smiling.
“Well, isn’t this nice?”
“Madam.” I offer my hand, the way guys do for women crossing puddles in old movies. She not only gives me her hand, but leaves it there. For about three seconds we’re holding hands, gazing into each other’s eyes, while the door dings to tell me I’ve left the keys in the ignition. She keeps her hand in mine, turns, and leans into the Suburban. As she reaches for the keys, she gives me the most ball-tightening view of her whole body, her whole hourglass. Her ass is right there, within pinching distance.
I want to pinch it—and a fuckload more than that—but I resist. She puts my keys in my hand, and I slide them into my pocket. We head from the parking lot onto the beach, and she kicks off her sandals.
Her bare toes slip into the sand, and she smiles up at me. “Don’t get me wrong; you look really good in those pants. But aren’t you hot?”
Hot. “These socks are cashmere. Hot was hours ago.”
She smooths her braid, and the sunset makes her cleavage shimmer. “Take off your shoes then, live a little.”
I look down at my dress shoes. “And what, walk around in my business socks?”
She snickers, but then gets serious. “Business time, business socks.”
A Flight of the Conchords reference, and a not-so-subtle innuendo about what the plans are after dinner, which have been coming together in my head since the instant I stepped off the escalator and saw her.
I like this girl. A lot.
And so I kick off my dress shoes and peel off my socks. She blinks a little and stifles a full-on giggle. “Spend a lot of time indoors?”
She’s ruthless, and I don’t mind it. “Are you calling me pasty?”
She puts her sunglasses back on her head, and they get all tangled up in her hair. She makes some half-hearted moves to free them, but then gives up and shields her eyes from the sand. “It’s blinding!”
“Quiet. We can’t all be sun-kissed and drop-dead gorgeous.”
She clamps her lips together, like I just surprised the shit out of her. Which I totally dig. Together we walk through the sand, and she picks out a table nearest the waves. I pull her plastic chair out for her, and she sits down, looking up over her shoulder at me as she nestles her purse into the sand at her feet. I take the chair opposite her and have a seat myself.
But as my ass hits the chair, I start sinking.
And sinking.
And sinking.
Every time I try to gain some ground—a damned awkward move that involves yanking up on my seat while I try to lift myself with my legs as my feet slip downward into the sand too—I sink even further. It’s like my weight and the table legs are sucking me right down into the beach. “This is like something out of Indiana Jones.”
“I once saw a documentary about what happened to the dinosaurs. It was just like this,” she adds, her eyes starting to sparkle with tears from her laughter.
About the time that I’m level with her breasts, and still sinking, I take hold of the plastic table, trying to keep some semblance of manhood in order. “This is a great spot.”
It sends her into uncontrollable giggles. Her laugh is a silent, wonderful, shaking tremor. She crumples up her chin into her throat. She isn’t beautiful anymore.
She’s absolutely fucking perfect.
“You laugh because you’re stationary,” I say, catching the laughter myself, something that hasn’t happened in years. I try to hump myself upwards, and knock some hot sauce off the table.
“I've…never seen…anything…like it.” Her words are all chopped up into her laughter. She sniffs hard and wipes some tears from her eyes. “They say the more you move, the faster you’ll sink. Try to hold still.”
I do, and it doesn’t fucking help. This quicksand is taking me down.
From behind me I hear a kind of shuffling and turn as I descend further into the abyss.
“I’ll getcha a piece of plywood,” a guy’s voice booms. “These goddamned chairs. That’s what I get for being cheap. Sorry, man.” He’s huge, rotund, as bulky as a hippo, and on his arm is a big tattoo that says, LUCKY.
“That’d be great, Lucky. Thanks.” Penny dabs at her cheeks with a paper napkin.
Lucky winks in a way that makes me think he’s probably spent half his adult life being Popeye at kids’ parties, and then puts a steaming basket of something very fishy-smelling on the table.
“Calamari on the house. Margaritas?”
“Yes, please.” Penny spears one of the fried circles with a fork that she plucked from her napkin roll. “Mango for me. Frozen. Sugar rim.”
“And for you, sir?” Lucky asks. “Plywood and…”
“Rocks, salt.”
“Coming right up,” he says.
Either because Lucky’s weight has thrown off the quicksand reaction or because I’ve hit bedrock, I get to an equilibrium. Granted, I have to look up to see her, but at least I’m not sliding anymore.
I glance at the basket, at the steaming, breaded, sliced tentacles.
Jesus.
But I don’t want to be a wimp about it. I don’t want her to think for one fucking second that I’m a picky eater. So I skewer a couple of the suckers on my fork and bite the bullet.
Amazingly, it’s pretty good. Not rubbery, and with a tasty batter. She squirts half a lemon over the basket, and I take another.
“So what brings you to Port Flamingo?” she asks, and puts her elbows on the table.
She really is so fucking beautiful. I’ve known a lot of women, but there is something about her that is so honest, so simple, so pure, and yet also so fucking naughty. Her necklace glints in the sunset, and the lig
ht makes a shadow above her collarbone where the starfish was earlier. “I’m here on a job.”
“Makes you sound like a hitman. Fancy!”
All right, so this is tricky. I don’t want to lie to her, but I can’t exactly flat-out tell her why I’m here. Best to keep it general, vague. “I’m here to…” I say, but before I can go any further, there’s a slight but noticeable…
Tickle in my throat.
And also a weird…
Tightening.
I cough into my hand and reach for the glass of water. I cough again, and she freezes, with a piece of calamari dangling from her fork. “Russ?”
I take a big gulp of water, and cough again. “Just a cough. Probably picked something up on the plane.”
She blinks at me once, and then again. She dips her calamari into the tomato sauce and chews, while studying me carefully, looking concerned. Eyebrows furrowed, sexy lips in a tight, worried line. “You’re sure?”
“Totally. I’m good.” Except, I’m not, because the tickle in my throat is turning into something else. Something itchy, something strange. Like my tongue is too big for my mouth.
I drain my water in a few gulps and then reach for hers.
“Oh, my God.” She sets down her fork, reaching out for my arm. “You’re not allergic to fish, are you?”
“I haven’t eaten it in a long time.”
Her eyes get wide and scared. “How long?”
I cough again. “Thirty years?” And then she starts to get kind of…fuzzy. Far away. And my face starts to itch.
“Oh, fuck,” she says, with her hand to her mouth.
Why does she look so scared? Why is my nose running? Why is my heart racing? Why is everything starting to spin?
And what the fuck are these bumps on my neck?
Everything starts to get blurry, like I’m looking through an out-of-focus lens, but Penny remains crystal clear in the center of the frame. She jumps up, sending her chair flying back into the sand. And then she puts her arm around me and hollers, at the top of her lungs, “Lucky! EpiPen! Right now!”
Just Like That Page 3
