by Clover Hart
Zach waits for the bartender, who’s already assured us that he’s not a mixologist, and I lean my head in my hand to watch the guy I came here with.
Zach. Under that field jacket, tee, and jeans, he’s been hiding something from me. He’s lean but built, with broad shoulders and a cut torso. He told me that he runs every day and I believe it.
When he turns away from the bar with our drinks, I sit up in my chair as if I haven’t been checking him out, still wondering how the hell I got together with the tech guy who strolled into town, fast-talking his way into Cherry Valley’s good graces. And mine.
He slides two cocktails onto the tiled table — one as red as sin in a martini glass, the other mellow yellow in a square glass.
As he takes his seat across from me, I get distracted by him again. When I saw him without his glasses, it was the most intimate thing ever, and not only because he was doing intimate things to me. Those glasses seemed like the last barrier between us, and after he took them off and I panicked ever so slightly, he temporarily made me forget about my hang-ups.
My neighbors probably even know that, because I was loud enough about it.
I feel my face getting as red as the cocktail, so I pull the sleeves of my sweater down over my hands and concentrate on the drink. “What did you bring me?”
“It’s called Autumn Thyme, and that’s thyme with a y.”
“Such a clever play on words.” The perfect drink for two people who’ve used plenty of words to get where they got today. “This should relax me. Believe me, I need that so I can rise and shine early for work and school tomorrow.”
I’m warning him that our day might be done after these drinks. I still need to think, even though my bod is yelling at me to just do with Zach, then do some more.
He smiles, as if to himself. Hah — is he confident that he’s going to get me to spend the whole night with him? Boy, that smile sure makes me want to.
Flummoxed, I nod to my drink. “What’s in it?”
“Vodka, lime juice, raspberries, thyme, some peach bitters.”
“And what did you get for yourself?”
“A maple old-fashioned.”
“So you like the sweet stuff.”
His gaze is heated behind his glasses. “You should already know that.”
My body temp spikes, because the look he’s giving me is a reminder that he was between my legs not too long ago, getting a bunch of simple syrup.
When he leans back in his chair and rests his big, talented … oh, God, his hands on the table, I sigh. I like everything he does, even if he doesn’t know he’s doing it.
“So,” I say, leaning back, too, realizing that I’m aping him, but so what? “We can finally talk about that movie.”
He adjusts his glasses, Professor Adorable at my service.
I smile. “If I’m being honest, I’m not even sure what the film is about.”
“Giving into arousal and the ups and downs of doing so?”
“Jeez, it’s refreshing for you to come straight out with an answer.” I stir my drink. “Usually the guys in this town ask me what I think instead of giving their opinion and taking the chance that I might disagree with them. It’s polite but …” I shrug. “Well, you’re polite, too. Just in a different way.”
He raises an eyebrow in acknowledgement, then says, “So what do you think?”
I reflect a moment, sipping at my drink. The bitter and sweet taste definitely relaxes me. “There had to be a reason for three different stories with the same actor and actress in them,” I say. “They all mirrored one another.”
“And the voyeurism/exhibitionism in the first part of the film made us look at our own reflections in return.”
“Nice one.” I’m impressed.
“Ready for more earth-shattering insights? I think that the first vignette featured the attractor type — a person who gets off on seeing and being seen.”
I shift in my seat, remembering how we actually started this discussion in my condo when I went to close the curtains at the sliding glass door and …
Oh my God, I had sex with this guy and here we are acting like it happened but didn’t happen.
At my minor freak out, Zach’s expression turns questioning. Why not tell him what’s on my mind? I mean, he’s been inside me, and you don’t get closer to another person than that.
I toy with the cocktail napkin. “Here I am, sitting across from the guy I did it with and we’re having a normal conversation. It’s just surreal.”
“It is?”
I laugh. “To you city guys, it’s probably no big deal. I’m sure you’re used to taking your cosmopolitan ladies out to drinks after you … you know … get together with them. Or maybe you just cook them breakfast afterward.”
I can see Zach doing something like that: making fancy eggs with state-of-the-art kitchen equipment from a trendy urban boutique, then pouring mimosas for his dates as they discuss art films.
He doesn’t deny it, and something like jealousy rattles me.
“Mandy,” he finally says. “I can’t say I have our kind of conversations with anyone else. And that’s a good thing.”
His words warm me up, and I find myself talking some more. “Well, the only ‘relationship’ I ever had was with a guy named Matthew who would subtly suggest that I get out of his motel room so he could get up early the next day to hike in the mountains or do tourist stuff around Cherry Valley. Or haven’t you heard about the adventures of Left-in-the-Lurch Mandy?”
“No, I haven’t heard.”
“I’m surprised some of the townspeople you’ve been talking to about jobs haven’t said anything.”
“Has it occurred to you that they kind of like you around here and they wouldn’t speak badly about you to a near stranger?” He smiles. “Or maybe they’ve let the story go.”
Is he saying that he knows I haven’t?
“It doesn’t matter what they do or don’t say, I guess,” I say. “Matthew was just a tourist who stayed around for a few months, a post-grad collecting soil and rock samples for his I’m-Such-a-Cool-Geologist doctorate.”
“So he was an out-of-towner,” Zach says.
I think he’s caught on to something about my issues with the two of us, and that’s a little too much, so I swing back to the original discussion. “We were talking about the movie?”
Is there something like disappointment in his gaze? “Yeah.”
I’m going to skip right over the voyeurism, exhibitionism, and attractor type and move on. Lord knows we need to do that.
“The second part, with the wife who read the steamy books that her husband wrote …”
He seems fine with dropping the Matthew story. “My guess is that it was about a different kind of arousal — the cognitive type. Someone who fantasizes and has a healthy sex life in his or her head.”
“Wow, you know a lot about this stuff.”
He smugly grins, then says, “I googled different kinds of arousal during the film.”
“Cheater!”
“I was only curious.” He grins again.
“And here I was going to admit that I have no idea what the first two parts of the film had to do with the third. You probably already know.”
“You’re talking about the mean countess who drives her devoted servant to choke himself while he’s masturbating? Shit, I have no clue about that.”
Everyone around us in the bar isn’t listening, so I don’t even flinch at the straight talk. “I don’t know what type of arousal that is either, but remember how the film kept showing the potted plant and the roots beneath it choking one another? I think every story in Aroused is about how we wrap around one another and hold too tight, eventually harming the person we’re with after that first arousal.”
“And here I thought the wrapped roots symbolized something confusing below the surface working its way up to become something that blooms.”
Whoa. “But every character in that film teased their partner, only
to hurt them. That’s pretty dark.”
“But didn’t you see that every couple was happy in the end? Even the choked servant guy looked euphoric, and the countess ended up going about her merry way with her count. They were like the potted plant on the surface, each branch going its separate direction.”
Tomato, tomahto. Dare, date.
I take a big drink. I barely taste it this time as Zach drinks, too. Everything is hitting a little too close to home now.
When I’m done drinking, I sigh. “Jeez, animals seem so simple compared to humans. At least they don’t make films about how screwed up they are.”
Zach drains his drink all the way, and he thumps his glass on the tiled table. “Maybe animals have the right idea.”
It’s as if he wants to get past the seriousness, as if this conversation pointed out something about us that’s better off left unsaid. And as I read what’s slowly coming into his gaze — the want and need that I always grab right onto — confusion knocks me for a loop. He obviously wants to get me back to my place, and as the seconds thud by, I know I’m going to let him take me there, even if it’s clear that neither of us has any clue what to expect now that we’ve broken something open between us. I don’t know what that something is, but I’m beyond denying that I want more of it.
He’s out of his chair before I am, my body obeying every animal instinct imaginable.
Chapter 21
Zach
A crazy couple of days pass, and I haven’t gotten shit done for work. That’s because whenever Mandy isn’t at the coffeehouse or at school, I’m at her place, addicted to the feel of her and the way I don’t want to leave her even after I force myself to go.
I’ve already extended this trip well beyond what I’d originally planned, and Barry is on my ass about it. I know he’s not bullshitting me about the importance of returning to the city so I can drink designer cocktails with our investors, and I can’t stay here forever. If FCT is going to make this move to Cherry Valley, there’s a hell of a lot to get done outside this town.
But in the meantime, there’s Mandy.
When the weekend rolls around, she suggests we go up to the mountains to do something I never in my life thought I’d do — apple picking. These days, I’m letting her talk me into anything she wants, and I don’t mind letting her lead the way.
As we walk around with our cloth bags, snatching fruit from the trees, Mandy bumps into me every once in a while. I tickle her in retaliation, and she laughs. She’s been letting her guard down a little more lately, and that’s what I wanted. But what the hell is that going to mean once FCT sets up base here?
I told her I’m not a guy who takes off after I’m with a girl, but I never expected something serious with her.
After we pay for the apples and buy some lunch from the gift store/café by the shimmering lake, she takes our food to a picnic table. At this altitude, the fireplace-smoked air has enough snap in it that the cute knit hat Mandy wears isn’t merely a fashion statement. She’s also huddled under her flannel jacket, so I go to the BMW and grab a blanket I put in the trunk, plus a little something extra I bought for her.
It was her idea to bring the BMW. She even drove it up here.
She’s already spread out our food: apple cider, apple tarts, a hearty butternut squash and apple soup with thick, fresh bread whose homemade aroma filled the gift store and café.
I come up behind Mandy and reach over her shoulders, laying the blanket over her legs. She grabs my arms, resting her head against one of them in a sweet thank you.
I seriously have to pull myself away before I do something inappropriate in front of the families who’re also picnicking out here, and when I sit across from Mandy on my bench, I take another look around at the apple trees and the tractors driving with wagons in tow, giving kids hayrides.
Some of the drivers look like Dirk. Lyft Dirk, the scourge of the roads. The men — and even the women — are as scruffy as he was, but at least they’re lucid enough to refrain from tearing around the orchard in hyperdrive.
I undo the lid on Mandy’s soup, then mine. “I never did tell you about the ride Barry and I took into town from the airport. Some guy named Dirk. He said he came from these mountains.”
“Yeah. Dirk Molony of the mountain Molonys. Everyone knows him, but I haven’t seen him around in a while. He likes to go to my sister Penny’s curio shop to buy things for his kids. He’s a total character.”
I recall the humping monkey on his dashboard. “Is he closely related to anyone who runs this orchard, or is everyone so inbred that you can’t tell the difference anymore?”
“Ha-ha. Cherry Valley humor. How Deliverance of you.”
She saw Deliverance. Not bad. Then again, I know she has a late-night movie habit. I’ve gotten to know that pretty damned well.
She grins as she hands me spoons for our soup. “Dirk might have a cousin or two around here, good old farm people. But he’s from a branch that mostly makes moonshine.”
“So he wasn’t kidding Barry and me about that?”
“No way.” She opens up the bottled cider — one for me, one for her. “These are the mountains, Zach. The town has wineries, the mountains have rotgut. In between, down where the mountain road meets the town, they have cherry beer. It’s true that some townies come up here to work the lumber trade then return home on weekends, but most of the woodsmen live up here and don’t like to take the road down to CV. Real mountainers mostly keep to themselves, except for Dirk. He enjoys town, even though he sees most of it from the window of the jail.”
“I assume that’s because he drives like hell is on his tail.”
“It’s usually that or the cops.”
She pulls off a hunk of bread, butters it, puts it onto a plastic plate, then slides it over to me. When I drink the cider, it warms me. Or maybe I just like the way Mandy is taking care of me like a …
Shit, like a girlfriend.
After I hesitate, I say to hell with it, then pick up the cloth bag I brought from the car. As I put it on the table, Mandy stops chewing on her bread and gives me a quizzical look. She’s so fucking cute in that hat, and I push the bag closer to her.
She doesn’t move.
Jesus, does she think that bag contains the world’s biggest diamond ring or something?
When I take a box out of the bag, she stays silent. I set the new laptop computer on the table next to the apple tarts and then act casual, going back to stirring my soup. “I got a good deal on it,” I say.
There’s no damned way she’ll accept the computer unless I phrase it that way. I know she’s been using one of her sister’s castoffs, and that’s got to suck.
At first, I think her hackles are rising, and that puts me right back to square one with the fierce virtual warrior who wears all that armor. But then she lightly touches the box. Her eyes sparkle as she glances at me.
“Wow,” she whispers. “Wow.”
“It’s not like you to be this semi-speechless.”
“I …” She shakes her head and stares at the box. Screw the diamond ring — it’s almost as if I’ve bought her a house or something of that magnitude.
Don’t give it back to me, I think. Because if she does, it’ll be a statement. She won’t be refusing just a laptop from me.
And … she’s still looking at it. I’m still waiting, still hoping she’ll let this be my idea, not hers. I don’t want to talk her into accepting this either, especially since she needs it. And now that I think about it, I have one more ulterior motive — I actually want her to forget about that guy Matthew she mentioned over drinks the other day, the out-of-towner who obviously made her feel like such a loser that she formed a shell around herself that I’ve only just started to get through.
Finally, her smile wobbles, and she pulls the laptop closer. Then she swallows heavily. “Thank you, Zach.”
Her response is so simple, so perfect, that I have to be cool about it. “You’re welcome.”
; But then her smile fades, and so does my optimism.
She plays with the side of the box. “So when are you going back home?”
She’s testing me, wondering why I’d give her something like this if I weren’t serious about us being together. I have no answer for that, even though I have a response for her other question.
“I have to leave two days from now.”
“Two days.” Her voice is barely there.
I keep stirring my soup. “I’ve wrapped up my business here for the time being, and I have to head back to the city to put my head together with Barry’s about the information I gathered here.”
“I see.”
I want to say a lot more, but the words stick in my throat. I want to tell her that I’m as unhappy to leave as she seems to be. I like her. I also like Cherry Valley way more than I thought I would.
And here I thought all this would be so simple, dotting all my I’s and checking this town right off my list and getting on with business as usual. But that’s not what happened.
“Well, it was great knowing you,” she says, avoiding my gaze as she stirs her soup just as I’m doing. “You’re still pretentious as all get out, but not as bad as I thought. And maybe I learned a thing or two while you were here.”
Shields up, Captain.
“Mandy,” I say. “Remember — it’s looking good for me to come back.”
When she turns those big light-brown eyes on me, I reach over the table, resting my fingertips on top of her hand. She’s still watching me, wary.
“I told you that I’m not the kind of guy who starts something up with a girl and then leaves,” I say, “especially when I …”
Oh, man, are you really going to say it?
Fuck it. “Especially when I don’t want to go anywhere.”
Her eyes are starting to shine.
Dammit, I don’t want her to get leaky, and it’s the last thing she obviously wants, so I lighten things up. “What can I say, Burnett? You grew on me.”
