Stud in the Stacks

by Pippa Grant

  More, though—Lila’s set. She’s smart, she’s pretty, and she’s got her life in order. She’s not looking for a temporary fling.

  She’s looking to settle down.

  “I’m teasing, Nana.” I pull a tin of honey-roasted almonds out of the cabinet and pop the lid. “She just wants me for my body.”

  “Well, good,” she says. “Dump her. Mary Jean’s granddaughter is in town, and I told her you’d be happy to take her to your mother’s retirement party tonight.”

  I’m only sixty percent sure she’s kidding. “Nana…”

  “What? Is it a sin to want more great-grandchildren before I kick the bucket? You have such good genes. You owe it to the world to pass them on.”

  “With Mary Jean’s granddaughter?”

  “Mary Jean’s daughter-in-law won a Nobel Peace Prize.”

  “A Nobel Peace Prize? Or a Noble Peas Prize?”

  She humphs and takes aim at the ducks again. That’s right. I’ve got her number.

  “I’m not going out with any more of your friends’ granddaughters,” I say sternly. The granddaughters that she’s set me up with the last year or so have all been nice enough, all big readers, all intelligent with great jobs. But all of them—even the ones who just needed a date to an office outing-slash holiday party-slash family reunion, or who were coming off a break-up and needed to feel special again—are getting to an age where they’re starting to see wedding dresses and bridal bouquets. There’s no going out just for fun anymore.

  “I don’t know what you’re being so huffy about. Look what I did for your brother.”

  “Your eyesight was better back then.” I deliver the jab with a grin.

  She answers by shooting two ducks without looking at the screen. Nana’s pretty badass.

  “Do you know what your problem is?” she says.

  “You ate all my Lucky Charms and my peanut butter Cap’n Crunch?”

  “You have irrational expectations of women after reading all those romance novels.”

  “Must be. Don’t know how I’ll ever find a real woman with brains, a love of books, and a sense of humor in a city this small.”

  That’s exactly what I always find—even that time I met a woman when I delivered her lost terrier home—and it’s never made me want to settle down.

  Nana’s walker clicks along the scarred wood floor. “And on top of it, you have a hero complex.”

  “Aw, you think I’m a hero.” I wink and toss a handful of almonds into my mouth and crunch down.

  “I didn’t say that was a good thing.”

  Not hard to see where this is going. “World needs more heroes, Nana.”

  “You can be a hero without dating every last woman you save.”

  “And what’s the fun in that?”

  Yes, I’m goading my grandmother. But she wants me to settle down. I’m barely thirty. Plenty of time for forever.

  Which explains why I haven’t found the one. I’m not ready for her.

  But Nana’s right about one thing.

  I have been pondering playing hero all morning.

  Either that, or I need to toss that program and forget the whole thing.

  “One day, you’re going to look back and realize what you’re missing, and then it’s going to be too late. All the good ones will be gone, and all you’ll have are those books to keep you warm.”

  “And my hero complex,” I remind her.

  She scowls and takes aim at the ducks again, this time getting one of the two without looking.

  “You’re right, Nana. My hero complex will one day be the end of me.” I heave a heavy sigh. “Mary Jean’s granddaughter will be better off without me. At least until I’ve gotten help for my horrible addiction.”

  Before she can realize I’ve just gotten the last laugh, I duck into my bedroom, grab that program, and pull out my phone.

  Am I nuts?

  Probably.

  Do I care?

  Ask me later. It’s still too soon to tell.

  5

  Parker

  Tacos are usually the cure for everything, which is why I’ve called an emergency taco lunch meeting with my three very best friends in the entire world, even though we’re getting together again in another six hours because our band is booked for a private retirement party.

  My friends don’t know I was ever married to Randy Pickle or just how badly I don’t want to go to my reunion alone. Also, they can’t know, since Sia, one of my BFFs, is dating my boss, and he can’t know how badly I don’t want to go to my reunion. Blackmailing him for money to buy a pretty date when he unfortunately knows my more recent dating history is one thing.

  Confessing to him that going to my high school reunion will be more traumatic than being chased by hot cops on horseback and news cameras while riding a greased pig naked through Central Park is another.

  Which is also why I don’t tell my friends that this taco lunch is an emergency meeting, and I start by asking Willow, our lead singer, how wedding plans are coming along. She’s chocolate-chip-cookie sweet and Snow White pretty, recently engaged to her long-time boyfriend.

  Her mom married the widowed king of a small Nordic country a few years back. She’s legit related to royalty, and the king’s insisting she and Martin have a princess wedding in his palace.

  It’s safe to say Martin’s family is more excited than the bride at this point. Heck, I might be more excited than the bride. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t stoked to stay in a castle as the personal guest of royalty during my friend’s wedding. But I do wish it wasn’t so stressful for her.

  Case in point—at the mention of the wedding, her cheeks take on a purplish hue and her jaw goes so tight I can see it popping. “Now Martin’s mother wants the dog to walk down the aisle with the family. She actually got it a pet passport this week. He’s allergic to the dog, and he’s not bringing any of his cats, and I told her the king will have her head if it poops on any of the royal carpets, but she’s still bringing it.”

  “Mm.” Sia, our keyboardist and also my work wife during the day, nods. Yes, it’s slightly awkward that she’s dating the boss, but they’re so twistedly good for each other that it usually doesn’t bother me. She’s mostly shed the nice she got from growing up in Minnesota, and her twin brothers are the biggest dudes to ever play in the NHL. “Want my brothers to take care of that for you?”

  “Oh my god, no!” Willow says.

  “What? They’re not going to eat it. They love dogs. They’d probably get it its own Snapchat account, and they might take it skydiving, but they wouldn’t hurt it.”

  While Willow tries to drown her sorrow in a virgin margarita, I take my chance. “Hey, speaking of your brothers,” I say to Sia in what I hope is a confident, funny tone that I suspect comes off more please please please don’t let me go alone, “what are they doing in two weeks? I’m looking for a date to my reunion.”

  “No fucking way,” she declares without hesitation. “If you took one, you’d have to take them both. Also, Crunchy needs that Pickle Hops deal if we’re going to branch out into organic beer, and I love my brothers, but they can be total dumbasses in public.”

  “But—”

  “Bad idea.” Eloise, who’s our drummer, is a pit bull in a toy poodle package, if the toy poodle had died its fur black, pierced its tongue, and humped everything that moved. “I wouldn’t go to my high school reunion alone either, and I’d totally do both of Sia’s brothers, but I wouldn’t take them out in public.”

  I hate when Eloise has good points.

  Except the part about doing Sia’s brothers. Absolutely not going there.

  “You’re probably right.” I eye my taco and beg it to offer a real solution, but it stays silent, because it’s a taco. “I doubt they can fake their way through conversations about economics or global warming or The Big Bang Theory.”

  “I’d like to talk to them about their big bang theories.” Eloise thrusts her hips in her chair and makes a face that
looks like a chicken having a seizure. Willow whomps her on the back.

  “I’m not choking, you nimwit,” Eloise says. “I’m getting my O on.”

  Willow grabs her virgin margarita again. “I really don’t want to know any more about your dating life.”

  I love these women. They make me feel normal.

  “I don’t suppose the princes are free?” I say to Willow.

  She grimaces. “They might be royalty, but they’re Viking royalty. They’re probably more likely than Sia’s brothers to bash in tables and start a round of mead pong.”

  “Mead pong?”

  “Beer isn’t really a big thing in Stölland.” She shrugs. “They pong mead instead. Or sometimes vodka. And they’d totally think The Big Bang Theory was about sex too.”

  “Our brothers can never meet,” Sia says.

  Willow nods in emphatic agreement.

  I start to ask Eloise about her brother—I know she has one, but I don’t know anything about him—and then I come to my senses.

  But not before she gets an idea of her own.

  “Fuck the men,” Eloise says. “I’ll stand in as your lover.”

  We all pause a moment. Sia recovers first. “Dressed as a man, or are you going to be lesbians?”

  “Lesbians.” Eloise puffs out her chest. Her boobs are the same size as mine, but her ribs are six inches smaller, which means she has cleavage. “I don’t mind if she gropes me in public. She’s got those man-hands with the calluses. I’ll pretend she’s one of your brothers, and we’ll all go home happy.”

  Man-hands? Horrified, I lift my arms and inspect my palms and digits. One more thing to worry about.

  “You don’t have man-hands.” Willow kicks Eloise under the table. “Knock it off.”

  My reunion is obviously getting to me as much as Willow’s wedding is getting to her, because I know better than to take Eloise seriously. I don’t know where she lives, where she works, or where she even came from, but I know the day Eloise is serious is the day the world will end.

  Also, it’s becoming rapidly clear that I probably need to call my brothers.

  I didn’t want to go that route, partially because the oldest of my four brothers is four years younger than I am, which until recently always meant their friends were also significantly younger than me. But more because they’re absolute Neanderthals when it comes to me dating.

  The oldest wasn’t even in high school yet, but they all remember the Randy Pickle incident.

  “Martin’s brother might be free,” Willow says suddenly.

  “Does he have eighteen cats too?” Sia asks.

  Legit question, since Martin does, but Willow waves it away. “No. I can’t remember if he’s dating anyone, but for a reunion stand-in, I’m sure it wouldn’t be a big deal even if he was.”

  My phone dings. Probably my mother, who has mom-radar and always knows when I’m up to no good. Undoubtedly asking how many Hail Marys she needs to say for me today. I grab my phone just to make sure it’s not a somebody died text, and almost fall off my stool.

  Tarzan here. Looking for Ms. P. This her?

  I close my eyes, blow out a slow breath.

  One, if he’s texting me, his date with Lila Valentine probably didn’t produce a second, which makes me happier than I have any right to be.

  Two, I’m not asking the guy to marry me. I’m asking him to be a hot piece of ass to make me look good.

  And three, I’m suddenly worried that my bad taste in men is making an unfortunate appearance again. What man in his right mind would text back a woman who made that proposition last weekend? Am I wrong about his date with the auction winner? Did I leave something behind at the hotel, and he’s just returning it? Or does he actually have some secret fetish that’ll play out wrong in the middle of my class reunion?

  “Who’s that?” Sia demands.

  “Tele-texter,” I lie.

  I ignore the glares from my friends and type a quick reply. Yes, this is Parker.

  Except my phone hates me, and it autocorrects to Trying. This is Parking.

  Thanks, phone.

  Y E S, I type. Damn autocorrect.

  I hit send, and “Ohmygod.”

  “What? What?” My friends all peer around me, and I jump off my stool to keep them from seeing my screen.

  Autocorrect just autocorrected to autocunnilingus.

  I just told Tarzan I’m eating myself. What have I done? Does that count as sexting? I don’t know.

  This is why I can’t have nice things.

  “What?” my friends all shriek again.

  “Old friend,” I lie. “Be right back.”

  He texted me. Oh my god, he texted me.

  Which, let’s be honest, doesn’t really matter. He’s almost certainly not going to be my plus-one at my reunion, and if I think he’s hot, he’s probably a bad idea anyway.

  His response to my autocorrect of all autocorrects pops up.

  You’re a woman of hidden talent. Give me a call when you’re done.

  Ohmygod. I can’t call Tarzan in the middle of Taco Nation. But my fingers are doing just that, navigating to that little phone button to connect live, and now I’m in desperate need of breathing skills and possibly some of those affirmations that my mother’s always suggesting.

  I am smart. I am kind. I am strong. I am totally going to fuck this up.

  No, wait. That’s not right.

  “Ms. P,” he says in that pleasant, rumbly voice of his. One point to Tarzan for not passing my number off to any of his weirdo friends, which I should’ve also suspected sooner.

  “My phone is a total dick,” I blurt. “Please ignore it.”

  “No worries,” Tarzan—Knox—says. “You should’ve heard some of the things Spider-Man was saying backstage last weekend.”

  “Everyone saw what Spider-Man was packing. I don’t think I want to—”

  I cut myself off. I’m not discussing Spider-Man’s wardrobe malfunction with him, because that’ll probably lead to a confession about my other experience with a teeny wienie, and I’m in public. With my three best friends and probably a taco-maker or two straining to listening in.

  “You absolutely don’t,” he confirms with a chuckle.

  My nipples tingle and tighten. And only partially because he gives good chuckle.

  I slip further away from the table. “You thought about my offer?” I force myself to say. If this were about a real date, I’d be choking on my own tongue right now. But this is about business. Business, I can do.

  “I’m thinking a pretty lady like you has probably found someone else already.”

  “I tried. And I don’t want to talk about it. If you can carry on a civil conversation, play the doting fiancé, and not look at my breasts all night long, I’ll double the charitable donation.” Probably. If Chase won’t do it for me, I still know a few secrets about Sia I could use.

  “I don’t want this to be about money.”

  “You…don’t?” That’s it. There’s something wrong with him. He has a secret turkey baster fetish or likes to lick strange women’s toes. Or he wears his loincloth on public outings. Or he’s actually a robot.

  “Unless there’s something weird about this reunion,” he says.

  “I work for Crunchy. The organic grocery store chain. Our mission is cleaner food for a healthier world. One of my old classmates is doing some interesting things with indoor farming, and my boss wants me to make a connection.”

  “That’s not the whole story, is it?”

  My face burns red. I push out the door and into the anonymity of a busy Manhattan street. “Pimple Popper Parker wasn’t enough? I’ve got a few more, but unless you make me say them out loud, I can pretend that hypnosis session worked, and I’d really like to continue living in my cozy little reality where I wasn’t the biggest dweeb of my graduating class.”

  Silence rings through the phone while a taxi honks nearby.

  I rub my forehead and stifle a sigh. I should w
oman up, hold my head high, and march into my high school reunion like I own the whole fucking school. If this were a college reunion, no sweat. Making a connection with someone from grad school, I could handle in my sleep with both hands tied behind my back.

  But every time I think of going back to my high school alone, I start to panic. Sheer terror bubbles up in my veins, ballooning bigger and bigger as it makes its way from my toes to my chest until I can’t breathe.

  I want to march in there and conquer every last one of my bad memories. The name-calling. The bra strap snapping. The notes in my locker, the subtle snubs, the whispered insults just loud enough for me to hear.

  This isn’t even about showing everyone I’ve made something of myself. Could I ask Sia to go with me? Or Eloise or Willow or even Chase, my boss?

  Of course. Everybody gets not wanting to show up at a high school reunion alone.

  But I don’t want any of them to see me the way I was. I don’t want them to know that Parker.

  “Dinner tonight,” he says. “You pick the place. We’ll work out the details.”

  I suck in a surprised breath that’s rapidly followed by reality. “That would be—wait. I can’t. I’m booked tonight.”

  “Trying out other dates?” There’s a teasing note in his voice that makes me like him a little more than I did when he recognized me at the hotel earlier.

  “No, my band’s playing a private party.”

  Another beat of silence. Then— “Rock band? Or marching band?”

  “Pop cover band.”

  “You sing?”

  “I play guitar.”

  “You are a very intriguing woman, Ms. P.”

  A flush covers my body from head to toe. Tarzan thinks I’m intriguing. And his voice—low and sexy and interested—suggests this isn’t a pity date.

  Like maybe he’s hoping to get something out of it too.

  A sweet, teasing heat blossoms low in my core.

  “You free tomorrow?” he asks.

  I was planning to head into the office to catch up on some paperwork and get a head start on the week—my usual Sunday routine—but for one week, for this, I can push it off. I’ll catch up next weekend. “Yes. All day.”