Aroused

by Clover Hart

Nailed it.

  Mandy Burnett, the empress of argument, the princess of putting up a good fight, would react to having this button pushed.

  “I never turn down a dare,” she says.

  She looks at her watch again, writes her number down on a napkin, and thanks me, then goes her way.

  I go mine. My blood is pumping as if I’m about to jump off a cliff. I tuck the napkin into my back jeans pocket and return to the table where Barry is waiting with a shit-eating grin.

  “A dare,” he scoffs. “Goddamn, you’re a stealth slut.”

  I take my own advice and ignore him, even though he might be right.

  Chapter 8

  Mandy

  Can I be blamed for spacing out during every single second of class today?

  Right now I’m at the town’s library on Jamboree Lane. Dusk is peering through the arched windows, painting over the dark wood of the bookshelves and study tables. The comforting smell of old pages perfumes the air, and I’m the only one around besides Mrs. Hoff, the librarian who sits behind her desk with a pencil stuck in her dark hair to keep it in its high bun. She looks ageless, like Audrey Hepburn, but she’s as mean as a wasp to anyone who messes with this beloved sanctuary that’s filled with the books her dearly departed husband left the town.

  In front of me, I’ve got a pile of those books and some papers, one of which has complex chemical structures printed on it. I’m so not in the mood for chemistry — at least not the academic kind — so I’m doodling some flowers at the edges of the sheet.

  All I can think about is what went on between Zach and me today. More arguing, more …. Boy, I don’t even know what was happening after he salvaged my files. Flirting?

  I’m not sure you could call it that anymore, because the end result is that we’re going on a date. Or a dare, as he called it. But don’t they amount to the same thing?

  If so, what the heck am I doing?

  There’s no future with this guy. There’s not even a present, because I’m just not into out-of-towners. Yet there I was in the coffeehouse today, enthralled by everything he was telling me about Full Circle Technologies. It wasn’t the mixed reality stuff that had me hanging on his every word — it was the way he was saying everything.

  Damn, he was a boss. He was practically emanating take-charge attitude, and even as I think back to it now, my heart is beating faster. For that short time in the coffeehouse, I felt myself leaning toward him, pulled like a magnet to his awesomeness. Not only was he the hero who’d saved the files from my computer, but he seemed like a total stud who takes big risks, and that’s hot.

  So hot, and I hate it.

  I put down my pencil and lean my elbow on the table, resting my head on my arm. Maybe Zach fascinated me today because he’s exactly what I’m not. He’s not afraid to try new things, but here I am, scared of stepping out of my comfort zone in so many ways. I love Cherry Valley, and I know I won’t ever leave it for a city. That’s just not me. I’ll always be as blue-collar and country as my parents, even though I’m the first in the family to seek an advanced degree in college. I’m even anxious about taking these classes at school in preparation to be a vet some day. Sure, I enrolled there because I finally decided that I wasn’t happy with my limited options in this depressed town without any higher education, but it took me forever to get to this point. And now that I’ve started those classes, I’m a little intimidated by the long years ahead of me. I’m not even sure I can handle the science requirements, and that frightens me most of all.

  I close my eyes, preferring to think about Zach instead of these life challenges. He’s got his crap together, and I’m not even sure what he might see in me, a lame-ass barista who’s been drifting for years until just recently.

  But … jeez. I’m acting like we’re going on a date or something. Hah.

  I hear someone pulling out the chair across from me, and I open my eyes. When I see my older sister Penny looking down at me, I sit up.

  There goes my studying time.

  I whisper, “You do know why I come to the library when I’m not working at the coffeehouse, right?”

  She whispers back. “Sure. It’s quiet here. But I thought we’d have some quality sister time.”

  Damn. The day has been long, I’m tired, and I need to get this chemistry homework done. With Penny around, that’s not gonna happen. I love her dearly, but I cannot deal with what I suspect she’s here to complain about.

  A chair scrapes the floor as Mrs. Hoff stands up, brushes off her casual little black long-sleeved dress, and begins to stroll toward us. She’s notorious for hating the sound of whispering.

  I widen my eyes at Penny, and she widens hers back. We’re not quite mirror images — her hair is redder than mine and her blue-green eyes are as huge as a Japanese cartoon character’s — but you can tell we’re sisters. People say we’re “sweet,” just like Mom. But Penny always looks like she’s on the edge of cracking a joke, and she’s also louder than I am by a mile. She used to keep me up in our bunkbeds at night, chatting about boys until I would fall asleep to the sound of her voice.

  Mrs. Hoff circles our table, and at our silence, she wanders off. Her heels click on the floor as she moves like a ghost out of the room into the periodicals area.

  “Weird,” Penny whispers, jerking her head toward Mrs. Hoff. “Am I right?”

  “She’s been that way for years and you’d know it if you ever came here to do anything but murder my study habits.” I give Penny an expectant look. “So why did you hunt me down?”

  She huffs and lifts her hands. “Because I’m bored.”

  Right. Actually, Penny has lots to do because she owns the curio shop in town. She makes a modest living selling tacky Cherry Valley artwork and geegaws to tourists. My mom, who raised us kids as a career, and my dad, who still repairs farm equipment, worry about Penny going through men and not settling down. Meanwhile, I’m the dreamer who works in a coffee shop and slowly chases her pie in the sky. I bet they wish they had a third daughter who did everything just right.

  I continue looking at Penny, gradually beginning to suspect that her friends are tired of hearing her bitch about her boyfriend so she’s here to put me through it again.

  “What did Robert do now?” I ask.

  She doesn’t even look at me like I’m psychic. We’re way past that.

  “I swear, Mandy, I think he’s got someone on the side.”

  “Pen,” I whisper calmly. “He’s a grocery delivery man. How many times have I told you everyone knows that he delivers more than one kind of cucumber to his customers?”

  She looks affronted.

  “Okay, then let me put it this way,” I say. “Do you know what a bonobo is?”

  Penny narrows her eyes at me. “I’m about to get one of your animal stories, aren’t I?”

  “I swear it’ll be instructive. I just learned about this and it’s amazing.”

  “I’ll bite. What’s a bonobo and what does it have to do with Robert?”

  I perk up a little. “They’re apes with cool black hair that’s parted down the middle.”

  “Robert has hair like that.”

  And the similarities don’t end there. “You could say bonobos make a lot of special deliveries themselves. They have what seems like casual sex in certain social situations, like when they say hi to each other or when they’re trying to avoid fights.” If they delivered groceries, I’m sure sex might be on their schedule, too. “Their habits seem totally random, but it turns out that the sex defuses tension between them so they can interact with one another and get along.”

  “And what the hell does this have to do with Robert?” she says loudly.

  I shush her by waving my hands, and she shrugs.

  Then I whisper, “I guess all I’m trying to say is that this is just how Robert operates. You can’t stop a bonobo from wandering up to another one and starting to rub its genitals, because that’s nature. And you won’t change Robert and his horny habits for t
he same reason. You knew that when you started to date him. His rep was all over town.”

  Penny’s shoulders slump. “You’re right. Jeez, you’re right every single time.”

  Little sister has been right for years about Penny’s bad taste in boyfriends, but it’s only since I’ve been in college that I’ve started comparing them to the animals they are. She just never learns.

  I hope she’s at least gotten some food for thought tonight, because I really need to get this chemistry homework done.

  “Now,” I say, reaching across the table to pat her hand. “Will you just promise to dump his ass so I can get back to studying?”

  Penny starts to nod, but then she goes still, her gaze latched onto something behind me.

  I look over my shoulder to find Mrs. Hoff, who’s apparently made a circle through the library rooms and ended up in here again. She slowly lifts her finger and places it over her lips.

  Shh.

  I automatically shush myself with the same motion, then a thumbs-up, and as I turn back to Penny, I see that she’s done the same. We exchange a loaded look.

  Sometime after Mr. Hoff died years ago, Mrs. Hoff got creepy, and the whole town knows it, bless her heart.

  Without a word, Penny gets up and leaves me alone so I can finally get back to studying. I look behind me to smile encouragingly at Mrs. Hoff, but she’s already gone.

  A chill wracks me, then I go back to my neglected chemistry, but not for long.

  My phone vibrates next to my books, and annoyed by yet another interruption, I grab it before Mrs. Hoff can materialize at the table.

  Then I see who sent the text and my irritation only grows.

  Zach. It’s as if he knows I’ve wasted most of my time today thinking about our date/dare, and I hate that.

  We neglected to choose a time and day so we can drive to the city and sushi it up.

  I nearly growl in my frustration. How did I get into this situation again? Oh, yeah. I was too hot and bothered by his take-charge attitude to blow off this dare. Him and his business partner brought their overpriced jeans and fancy computers to unspoiled, down-to-earth Cherry Valley, and if it weren’t for my piece-of-shit laptop and the fact that I’m too broke to afford a new one, I wouldn’t be stuck going out with the tech geek and having to eat nasty eels wrapped in rice and seaweed.

  I’m not the squeamish type — I’ll eat anything if I’m hungry enough — but it’s the idea of sushi that bugs me. And the idea of him gloating after I give in to his wishes.

  Testy, I write back.

  What’s wrong with regular cooked meat on a grill?

  His answer flashes back at me.

  Zzzz.

  He’s calling me boring and probably even fussy. Me, the girl who was all business one summer when a dog from one of the farms I worked on barfed up a used condom. That me.

  Hey, dogs will eat anything, so maybe Zach can watch my parents’ Labrador snarf up some sea urchin instead of bringing me along on this dare.

  I sigh. But it’s a dare, and I’m not about to let this city boy show me up, so I text back.

  Saturday night.

  It’s as good a time as any. I won’t have school then, so I won’t have to stress out about getting ready for our date … no, dare … or getting back home to study that night.

  He answers.

  I’ll pick you up at the coffeehouse at 6pm.

  Perfect. My neighbors won’t see him, and we’ll be one and done.

  I text him a thumbs-up emoji and turn off my phone, finally forcing myself to concentrate on chemistry.

  And I don’t mean the kind that keeps threatening to bubble up between me and the nerd.

  Chapter 9

  Zach

  It’s a mild Saturday evening, and I’ve already taken my daily jog around Cherry Valley and then showered and caught another death-defying ride from Dirk the Lyft guy. Now I’m at the car rental office picking up my temporary ride — a BMW 3 Series Sedan. I persuaded Barry to approve the expenditure before he left town to go home. When I made my case that Cherry Valley is more spread out than I expected and the public transportation is balls, he agreed.

  He let me splurge on this one item, but I had to pay for the privilege by listening to him rib me about getting laid tonight. I had to remind him about keeping my dirk in my pants so I wouldn’t give Cherry Valley the wrong impression about our business here.

  Barry still hasn’t changed his mind about this town — we haven’t even found an ideal property for headquarters yet, so he’s still arguing. But his resistance only makes me more determined to prove I was right about bringing FCT here. He even had the cojones to point out that, if this town weren’t so backward, I would’ve been able to rent a BMW 5 Series instead of the “shit can” I ended up with. He almost had me there, because what guy wouldn’t get a hard-on from an infotainment system or gesture controls in his car?

  But this ain’t California, and a BMW 3 will have to do.

  As I get into the car, I try not to think about the real reason I rented a ride — this dare tonight with Mandy. I keep reminding myself that she’s just a distraction or another point I have to prove, and after we grab some sushi, it’s back to all business.

  Absolutely.

  But I have a little bit more business to do before I take off toward Screaming Beans to pick her up, so I put on my Bluetooth headset, preparing to touch base with the one person who’s always helped me straighten my mental files when I need it.

  My mentor, Dawson Crew, answers on the first ring. “Finally — a word from the wilderness. How goes the location scouting?”

  I hear the clink of glasses and the low murmur of sophisticated conversation in the background, and I can only imagine that Dawson is with his latest conquest in the city, wining and dining him as the sun goes down. Dawson’s charming as hell — and what the men he prefers would call a “silver fox.” What I call a fucking stallion for the ages in the romance arena, no matter which way he swings.

  “The scouting is … going,” I say.

  “Well, my ears are open for approximately five minutes. You caught me between a billion dollar deal and an indecent proposal, so let’s touch base.”

  I can almost hear him smiling at his date with killer charisma, then strolling away from their lounge table for a quiet place to talk. Far be it from me to keep him from working his game.

  When he’s apparently in the clear, he asks, “How’s Cherry Valley?”

  “Problematic, yet full of possibility.” It occurs to me that the same could be said of Mandy herself. I get my mind off of her as I add, “I thought making a decision would be easier than this.”

  “Never assume anything is a slam dunk, kid.” He’s only been telling me the same thing since I met him during college when we were matched up for a mentoring program. He also keeps calling me kid, even though I’m launching a big business with Barry.

  “The thing is this,” I tell him, “the town is ready to be brought into the modern age — it’s been slowly creeping toward it for some years — but I’m finding that there’s a complacent attitude, and somewhat of an aggressive complacency from what I’m getting.”

  “Totally normal. They’re happy with the status quo and they don’t need no stinkin’ upstarts to ruin it. I know the sentiment well, but I also know you’ve got skills, Zach. You can read a room, and unlike a lot of techies, you’ve got the human touch. You know what to say to people, and, more importantly, you know how to listen to them.”

  Mandy said something like that yesterday …

  Shit, maybe I should be asking Dawson about how to regain focus instead.

  “Is Barry giving you a lot of flack about Cherry Valley?” Dawson asks.

  “I’m knee-deep in his flack.”

  “Zach.”

  I sit up in my seat at his tone.

  “Listen to your instincts,” he says. “Stick to your guns. As far as the denizens of Cherry Valley go, just remember that people aren’t won over in
a matter of only a few days. Give them an opportunity to trust you. Show them you’re worthy of it. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Then, as Dawson no doubt fixes his gaze on his date again, his tone goes from tough love to sexual healing. “Excellent, Zach. Now I’ve got my own opportunity waiting for me in this lounge. Let’s talk Monday about the properties you’ve seen and why they might or might not work.”

  “Sounds good. And Dawson?” I grin. “Good luck closing the deal tonight.”

  “No luck involved, kid. All skill.”

  I laugh and end the connection, the words close the deal echoing in my head. I can’t help but think about Mandy again.

  Do we have a deal that can possibly be closed? Is she the kind of girl who goes out for sushi and suggests a nightcap at her place and …?

  Nah. This one’s got a streak of innocence that actually throws me off balance. I’m not even sure how to work with it.

  But why should I when this is just a damned dare?

  As I start the car, it absolutely fucking purrs. Not like the BMW 5, but it’s better than hitching another ride from Dirk.

  I program the address for the sushi place I found in Marloe, called Dragon Ass. Based on the name, it has to be amazing. Then I rest my hand on the steering wheel and navigate onto the road that leads away from the airport’s rental location. I seem cool, but nerves are starting to dog me. Or maybe it’s just a sense of anticipation about how far tonight’s dare is going to go …

  All the way to a real date?

  But it’s not a date. Hell no.

  My phone sounds off with Barry’s Peter Gunn ringtone, and I access my Bluetooth again. “Aaronson, don’t tell me that you changed your mind about this rental and you’re making me go back for a Ford Focus.”

  “Don’t give me ideas. I ought to just make you walk everywhere so you can blow off some of that sexual steam that’s probably screaming through you right now.”

  “It’s sushi, not seduction.”

  “Whatever you say, Hamilton. Anyway, I just came back from a casual meeting with Jerry Franklin. He’s on board with us.”