Megan laughed as he quickly shoved it back on the rack and pulled out another outfit, this one a fluorescent green rhinestone-covered bra and a G-string.
“Why bother with the top when there’s no bottom?” he asked.
Megan didn’t respond, because a rack on the other side of the room caught her eye, and she hurried over that way.
“Ooooh.” She sighed, running her hand over a row of brilliantly colored outfits. “These are from Cirque du Soleil,” she told Ben when he came to see what she was ogling. “What I wouldn’t give to get to work on these costumes.”
“You can try it on if you like.” The voice came from a diminutive elderly woman behind the counter, where she was barely visible behind a television.
“Hah. No thanks,” she told her.
“I wasn’t talking about you,” the woman said. “It’s a man’s costume.”
Grinning, Megan turned and held it up to Ben’s torso, as though measuring to see if it might fit him. “Okay…”
“Uh, no.” he said, holding up a hand and stepping back. “I’m not buying today.”
She took a moment to imagine Ben’s big strong body encased in nearly see-through Lycra and waggled her eyebrows at him. “Are you sure?”
His gaze heated right back at her, but he said. “Yeah.”
“Oh well.” She turned and picked up a glittery top hat. “Here, try this on.”
He shook his head, but put the ridiculous hat on.
“Oh, that’s awesome,” she said. “You’re like the tall, dark, and handsome Elton John. Except not.”
“Here.” He handed her an equally crazy cowboy hat covered in sequins and feathers.
“Oh, this is a keeper.” She held up her phone and snapped a selfie of the two of them.
“You’re gonna delete that, right?” he asked.
“Oh no,” she said, tapping her phone. “I’m totally posting this to Facebook and tagging you.”
He shrugged. “It’s not like anyone but my mom and grandma ever—wait. Did you already post that?”
“Yep!” She grinned.
He shook his head. “You think your phone blows up with family calls.”
They spent another half hour browsing through the racks, but once Madame Diva figured out they weren’t buying, she lost interest and turned back to her shows.
Megan’s mind was buzzing with ideas for projects, so she pulled a notebook out of her purse to sketch some notes. Probably, she’d never have a chance to work on most of them, but it was still nice to have the fantasy. When she opened the notebook, one of the wedding chapel business cards fell out on the floor like a big bucket of ice water, reminding her that she and Ben were here to dissolve their marriage, not to waste their time daydreaming.
“I guess we should go to the next wedding place, huh?” she asked, picking up the card and glaring at it.
“Is that what you want?” Ben asked, then scowled. “I mean, we have a few weeks. We can stay here longer.”
Something about the way he said that stopped her. “Why did you say that?”
“What?”
“Why did you change what you were saying from a question to a statement?”
“I just figured you’d had enough people asking for guidance. At first, I thought you were tired of people telling you what to do, but I realized they’re also asking you what to do. That’s a lot of responsibility. I was trying to help you not have to be in charge, but I don’t want to be an ass about it.”
Oh. Megan’s heart skipped a beat and then rushed to catch up.
He got it. He actually understood. Ben was so different from everyone else in her life, it was scary.
He’d known her a few short days and already knew that going to a costume shop was more of a treat than a birthday party in a bar full of presents and cake. And now she really didn’t feel like going to visit wedding chapels. What she really wanted to do was live in this fantasy of being with this guy who, at least for a few weeks, was willing to share the burden of adulting with her.
“You know what I really want to do right now?” she asked.
“What?” His smile was deliciously sexy.
“Well, yeah, that, but I’m not sure if we have time to get home and do that before I have to go to work.”
His smile faded. Okay, so he wasn’t that different from other guys, at least where her job was concerned.
“If we don’t have to visit the wedding place today, can we get ice cream?”
“We don’t have to get pickles, too, do we?”
“Yuck, why?”
“Isn’t that a thing? Pickles and ice cream for pregnant women?”
“Blech. No. No pickles.” She decided not to tell him just yet that, for her, an ice cream craving was usually a midcycle PMS signal.
“Ice cream it is.” He turned to the woman behind the counter. “Thank you.”
And he was polite, too. How was she going to let this guy go at the end of the month?
On the way out, a flyer taped to the door caught Megan’s eye, and she made the mistake of pausing. Mistake, because when she read it, Ben read it, too.
“Bike Nationals Jacket Contest,” he said. “This is cool. They have a fashion show, and the winner gets a contract with this big bike company. You should do this.”
She’d thought about it. Fantasized about it. Dreamed about it. Her cousin Quinn owned a shop, and he’d been suggesting she enter ever since he learned she made the costumes for the Waltzing Wallaces. Working with leather was a lot different than iridescent spandex, but it was something she thought she could do. She even had one at home that she’d messed around with, started two years ago in a fit of ambition that had been quashed by reality. She wouldn’t win, and even if she did, she’d have to quit working with the Waltzing Wallaces to play around making leather jackets. Although she didn’t have to agree to take the job.
“I…I don’t have time,” she said. “There are only a couple of weeks, and there’s so much going on right now…”
He folded his arms over his chest and just looked at her.
“I’m not even sure what I would do.” Yes, she was. She had the perfect idea in mind, and it starred the fabric she’d bought today. She just couldn’t let herself dream.
He raised an eyebrow.
She sighed, but felt a hint of a smile trying to break through. “I’ll think about it.”
Chapter Fourteen
The vibration from the alarm ran through Ben’s entire body, and he jolted awake, gasping. He reached for Megan, but came up with his phone. Which was ringing. It wasn’t a burglar alarm that had his adrenaline spiking. He shoved the novel from his lap and fumbled for the answer button. “Yeah. Hello.”
“Hi. I—did I wake you up?”
Megan.
The remnants of the dream were still swimming around in his brain, and his pulse spiked. “Where are you? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” She sounded puzzled. “I just dropped Mom off to get her brakes fixed.”
He blinked. Megan was running errands. Not hostage to a posse of evil dancing girls holding her and forcing her to bake rainbow cupcakes behind soundproof glass while Ben fought uselessly to send her escape instructions.
“Sorry. I was reading and I guess I dozed off. What time is it?” He found the fuzzy pink clock above the TV. Not even noon.
“Today’s disasters have been narrowly averted, and I wanted to let you know I’d be home for lunch soon. I’m sorry I woke you. I’ll let you get back to sleep.”
“No,” he said, before she could hang up. “I’m awake now. I was having this crazy dream.”
“Really?” Now she sounded interested.
“Yeah, I was out by the pool…”
“Oh.” Interest morphed to disappointment. “I suppose Misty and Frannie were there.”
“Huh?” Ah. The showgirl neighbors. She thought he was having a different kind of dream. Like he’d tell her if it wasn’t about her? He laughed. “Yeah. They were th
ere, but they were running some kind of scam on Jack Reacher…” He couldn’t really tell her about this. “Anyway, it was just weird. I’m glad you woke me.”
“Well, I hope Jack Reacher got what was coming to him for being a slacker.”
Bullshit wasn’t normally his strong point, but he gave it a shot now. “No problem. These dancing girls were holding you hostage, so I did some Chuck Norris stuff, tied them up with my shoelaces, and left them for the authorities.”
“Oh, thank goodness. I’m sure I was terribly grateful.” Her slightly husky voice, lowered and intimate, chased the rest of the nightmare from his mind.
He found he had to adjust his shorts and heard his own voice grow a little raspy as he said, “Yeah. You were…terribly grateful.” Jesus, he was no good at this. He should stop now before he made a fool of himself.
But then she said, “And how do you like your gratitude served up, Mr. Badass?”
His blood flow had been diverted from his brain, and he couldn’t do witty banter. “I think I’d like it anyway you feel like.”
“Hmmm…what about…with extra cheese? I just stopped at Papa Casino’s for a large.”
His stomach growled. Pizza was definitely the next best thing to sexual favors. “I’ll get the drinks ready.”
She laughed. “Great. Then I guess we can try to get to those wedding chapels again.”
She didn’t sound any more enthusiastic than he felt, but they’d managed to avoid it for a few more days, and the clock was ticking. “Sure.”
…
Megan had been a little worried about Ben when she’d called earlier. She had the impression his dream had been a little more than simple testosterone-fueled action-adventure, but he seemed fine by the time she got home with the pizza.
As a matter of fact, he wolfed down his half and half of her half, too.
“Wow,” he said, a little self-consciously. “I guess I was hungry.”
“I guess so,” she said.
“Are you still— I can heat up leftovers from yesterday, if you’re hungry.”
She shook her head, although his lunches this week had been amazing. “No, I’m fine. I’m still mostly only eating for one.” Probably, sort of.
The thought that she might be pregnant made her think maybe they could put off looking for their wedding chapel a little longer. After all, if they were pregnant, they planned to stay together, at least on paper, right? Unless Ben changed his mind. Which he was free to do.
But the last thing she wanted to do was make him feel trapped, so she said, “I guess we should head out, huh?”
“I guess so.”
Their second trip to the World famous Little White Wedding Chapel began as silently as the previous one, but not because of tension. This time, it felt almost like dread.
But then Ben cleared his throat and said, “So, I pulled up the entry form for the Bike Nationals Jacket Contest.”
“You did?”
“You had to sign up by noon today if you wanted to participate.”
“Oh.” She shouldn’t have been disappointed, because she hadn’t planned to enter. She should have been relieved that she’d missed the chance, and now didn’t have to make the decision.
“So I signed you up,” he said.
A burst of heat—shock? Pleasure? Fear? All three?—ran through her.
“I know it’s not my decision,” he went on, “but I really think you should do it. Or not. There’s no obligation.”
“Well,” she confessed, warming to the idea, “I do kind of have a few ideas.”
“Great! That’s great.” He sounded almost as excited as she felt.
“When does it have to be ready?”
“Two and a half weeks,” he almost whispered. “Is that enough time?”
She gulped. “Maybe?”
“I’ll do what I can to help,” he offered.
“I might need you to model for me.”
“Okay, except that,” he said a little too quickly, then offered, “I’m not much for standing in front of crowds.”
“Oh. No,” she said. “I mean to try the thing on and make sure it fits. I can probably get one of my brothers or my brother-in-law to wear it to the actual event. They’re all hams.” Besides, the actual contest was a couple of days beyond their official end date, when Ben had to go back to San Diego.
“I can handle trying things on,” he said.
“Great.” And now she was imagining him in all sorts of crazy leather. This was going to be fun.
They’d arrived at the chapel and pulled into the parking lot. This time, Megan got out without hesitating. She needed to start facing reality. She didn’t even wait for Ben, but marched straight to the door of the place and tried the handle.
It was locked.
A sign taped to the inside read, “On vacation. Back in one week.”
She let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.
“We can move this to the end of the list,” Ben said, making a notation in his phone.
They turned to walk down the street, just as they’d done yesterday. This time, though, Megan stopped in front of the tattoo shop because something caught her eye.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to a poster on an inside wall.
“Looks like a foreign alphabet, but nothing I recognize,” Ben said.
There were a few dozen symbols, with some sort of translation underneath. “It looks even cooler than Chinese characters. Let’s check it out.” Without waiting for an answer, she pulled open the door of the shop and went in. The air-conditioning was up high, and she shivered.
Breathing in the scent of antiseptic, she approached the poster. Under each squiggle were letters and words, but she didn’t quite understand the meaning.
“It’s a phonetic alphabet,” Ben told her, the heat from his body warming her from behind. “See the sign? It’s called Shavian.”
“Huh?”
“Each of those symbols represents a sound. That’s a long E sound,” he explained, pointing to the symbol and the word “feed” below it.
She got it, pointing to the word “egg” and the symbol above it. “And that one would be the E in ‘Ben’ and ‘Meg.’”
“How are you folks doing today?”
A middle-aged man smiled at them. He wore a long-sleeved dress shirt and khaki pants and looked more like her dad, if her dad was a dentist instead of a magician’s assistant, but she noticed some colorful ink under the edges of his sleeves.
“We’re good,” she told him. “I like this alphabet thing.”
“Thanks,” he said. “A bunch of guys decided the English alphabet was dumb, so they made this one. It didn’t catch on, but I like to offer it as an alternative to Chinese characters, which sometimes go horribly wrong.”
Megan laughed and shot Ben a look. “We were talking about that yesterday.”
“Would you like to get something done?”
She took a breath, started to say that no, they had some things they needed to do, but then looked at Ben again. He raised one eyebrow.
For a man who didn’t talk much, he sure did get his points across.
Digging deep, she made a decision and nodded. “I’ll do it, if you’ll do it,” she told him.
“What are you going to get?”
“Let’s get our names,” she said. “I want ‘Meg’ on my back in crazy made-up letters. It’s safe. The other option is to get ‘Summer doesn’t last forever,’ somewhere that will sag in twenty years, just to be ironic, but I don’t think we have time for that.”
“Where?”
“Shoulder,” she said, decisively.
“Okay.”
“Great. She wants ‘Meg,’ and I want ‘Ben,’” he told the man.
“Okay. Read this and sign here.” He handed them each a clipboard. “I’ll do one, and my wife will do the other.”
Chapter Fifteen
Ten minutes later, Ben found himself lying on his stomach on a massage chair, ha
ving his shoulder scrubbed and shaved while Megan underwent the same procedure a few feet away.
She smiled at him and reached her hand out. “I’m a little nervous,” she told him as the female artist, who resembled Kat Von D with blond hair, began to mark her skin.
Ben took her hand and held it, glad he had a high pain tolerance. It would suck to wimp out when the needle started to buzz. He’d seen it happen to friends.
“What do you think about this?” the man asked Ben, handing him a mirror and holding another one behind him so he could see the design he’d drawn with marker.
He shrugged. “Looks good.” The glyphs were arranged in the same place as Megan’s were on the back of her shoulder. Hers would show when she wore a tank top with skinny straps, like she had on today.
He liked this. Liked that she wanted to get a permanent reminder of their temporary relationship. Even if that wasn’t her primary purpose, he was still a little touched by the gesture.
“Okay, here we go,” the woman told Megan, and turned on her needle.
Ben’s hand was soon being crushed, but that was fine—it took his attention from the fire on his own back. This hurt.
In no time, the buzzing stopped, and the artists wiped away the last of the ink and blood from their skin.
“Make sure you follow the instructions on the paper I gave you,” the man told them as they went to the cash register to pay for their art.
“Oh, wait,” the woman said. “I want to take a picture before you leave.”
She lined them up side by side, and Ben pulled his shirt back off. He looked over his shoulder at the mirror behind them, noting how Megan’s tattoo showed up much more on her paler skin, and wondering if he should have asked if he could get white ink so his would show up, too.
“Hang on. I want to put the translation on a card below it.” The woman hastily scribbled “Ben” and “Meg” on index cards, and tore a couple of strips of tape from the dispenser next to the register. But when she came to stick the cards on their backs, she put “Ben” on Megan’s back, and “Meg” on Ben’s back.
“You got them backward,” he said. “I’m Ben, that’s Meg.”
“Right. And you got ‘Meg’ on your back, and she got ‘Ben.’”
Accidentally in Love with the Pilot Page 10
