“Yeah. Go! Go!” I said, shooing her off. “We’re fine.”
Even though Teacher Guy had called our names first, he happily sent the Fisks and Goodman off with Driver Instructor Number One while our little group hung around and petrified.
“You know, I’ve driven a bunch of times already. It’s not that hard,” Carla informed me and Lars with authority.
It wasn’t like I didn’t believe her, but let’s just say I was a tad concerned about putting my life in Carla’s hands. After all, how the hell was she going to steer a car with that mountain of a belly between her and the wheel?
“Not me. I’m a virgin,” I said.
Lars grinned. “Yeah, I’m a virgin too,” he said with a chuckle. He leaned over and kissed the ticklish little spot near my collarbone that always gives me the shivers. “Isn’t that right, Flora?”
I didn’t like where this was going. “If you say so,” I muttered. “Not that I’d know.”
“My ex, Eric, let me drive his PT Cruiser all last summer,” Carla explained. “Mostly at night, because, you know, he didn’t want me to get caught without a license.”
But apparently he did want her to get caught with a married man’s baby in her belly? How irrational.
“Well, I’m glad one of us knows what we’re doing,” I said.
“I’ve driven a motorbike,” Lars declared, suddenly defensive, “and a tractor and, oh, an all-terrain vehicle.”
“So you’re not exactly a virgin,” I joked. “You lied to me. Humph. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that.”
The Door of Death opened and in walked a middle-aged dude with a clipboard and a look of resigned determination on his face.
Teacher Guy made the introductions. “Lester will be taking you out today,” he said to me, Carla, and Lars. Then he told Lester, “These are the newbies. Be gentle.”
Lester pushed his delicate wire-rimmed glasses—which had been perched on the end of his nose—into place. “Okay, folks,” he said, leading the charge to the parking lot, “who wants to go first?”
“I nominate Carla,” I volunteered. “Or Lars.” Anyone but me.
Luckily, Carla was in a go-with-the-flow mood. “Sure, I’ll do it,” she agreed easily.
Lester shot her a skeptical glance that settled on her round belly for a few seconds too long, which apparently offended her, big time. “What? I know what I’m doing. Sheesh,” she huffed, pushing past him for the driver’s door.
Did I mention that the driver’s ed car wasn’t actually a car at all? According to the handy-dandy lettering on the tailgate, it was a Ford Explorer—an SUV the size of my bedroom.
“We have to drive this?” I whispered to Lars, as he smushed against me in the backseat.
He locked his strong Nordic fingers on my knee and squeezed. “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine,” he said. “Trust me. You’ll be able to see everything from up here.”
Okay, maybe that made sense. I guess. But given my penchant for downright klutziness and random hapless accidents, I was suffering from a totally justified case of the jitters.
“Seatbelts?” Lester verified.
“Check,” Lars said, like we were preparing to launch the space shuttle.
I just nodded.
“All right, Miss Pearson, what do we need to do before…?” Lester started to ask.
Now I know I should have been listening to the pre-flight instructions so I wouldn’t kill us all, but since we’d buckled up, Lars had developed a serious case of the wandering fingers. What had started out as a little reassuring knee squeeze had turned into an exploratory mission up my thigh—and inches away from…you know. Anyway, apparently when a hot Icelandic prince targets your danger zone, you lose the ability to hear. It’s simple physics.
And since I’d gone deaf, I wasn’t sure if I’d gone mute too. I mean, when you can’t hear, it’s pretty hard to tell if the sounds escaping your lips are real words or just gibberish. But by the disappointed look on Lars’ face when I tried to slow him down, it was safe to say my message had gotten across, even if the actual words had been lost in translation.
Whatever I’d said to Lars, though, hadn’t quite deterred him; it had just redirected him. Because while Carla and Lester concentrated on exiting the strip mall parking lot, Lars concentrated on tattooing a row of hickeys along my jugular vein. How romantic.
I must say, it’s amazing how frisky you can get in the back of a driver’s ed vehicle without the instructor noticing. If Lars and I had wanted to (and if I was some kind of major tramp, which I’m not) I swear we could’ve practically gone all the way without even raising an eyebrow. But as attracted as I was to Lars, I had no intention of letting him deflower me in the back of a driver’s ed vehicle—or anywhere else, for that matter. I was saving that for Mick.
Still…
I could barely breathe from the aggressive way he was devouring me. All at once he was tonguing my tonsils, forcing his fingers inside the waistband of my jeans, and cupping my boob in the palm of his hand. If it were humanly possible, I would have sworn he’d grown a couple of extra arms just to feel me up with. And even if I’d wanted to, I couldn’t have stopped him with my measly set of average appendages. But I didn’t want to. At all. It was the first time since Mick had come back into my life that I knew something for certain about Lars: I knew I wanted him to touch me. I knew I liked it. And I knew I didn’t want him to stop. Ever.
Fifteen
AS nervous as I’d been about my first time behind the wheel, things had actually gone quite marvelous. I’d remembered my blinkers without being reminded like a bazillion times; I’d mastered turns without ending up on the sidewalk or in the oncoming lane; and I’d even navigated the behemoth through an über tricky construction zone without a shred of help. Not to brag or anything, but I was a natural.
What I wasn’t a natural at, however, was double dating with my hot Icelandic boyfriend, my best friend, and my ex. But Jessie had offered, and I had accepted—mostly out of desperation—so I was going to have to suck it up and put on my game face. Who knew, maybe this double date would help me figure some things out. Or kill me. Either way.
Since I didn’t want my parents to know I was dating, much less that I was torn between two certified hotties, I asked Mick to pick me up at the Oglethorpes’. And that’s where I was, sitting anxiously on their front steps, when his Buick rolled up.
Damn. Jessie was already in the passenger seat. And Lars was in the back. I guess I was their last priority. How reassuring.
“Hey, everyone,” I said, as I slid across the cool vinyl and nuzzled up to Lars. “How goes?”
I couldn’t tell if Mick could see me and Lars in the rearview, but he sounded a little agitated anyway. “Fine,” he muttered.
Jessie twisted around. “So do you guys want to go to the movies? Or we can just do dinner.”
“Where?” I asked. Honestly, a dinner date seemed less risky than a dark movie theater.
“I don’t know…pizza? At Regina’s?” Jessie pondered. “Or we could do Panda Palace.” She turned to Mick. “Do you like Chinese?”
It’s weird how sometimes it’s the little things that really piss you off. I mean, I probably should have been upset about the slap-in-the-face fact that my best friend was unabashedly pursuing the love of my life. But instead, I was ticked that Jessie was asking Mick a question I’d never gotten the chance to ask him. If this kept up, pretty soon she’d know him better than I did.
“Lars loves Chinese,” I cut in, before Mick could respond. “Don’t you, honey?”
I swear, I saw Mick shake his head at my fawning, which meant maybe he wasn’t as over me as he pretended to be.
“Uh…yes. I do,” Lars agreed, clearly shell-shocked by my sudden attitude adjustment. “If that’s what you want, honey.”
Okay, so it sounded a lot sicker coming back in my direction, but it was the price I had to pay to get what I wanted.
“So do you mind Chinese?” Jessie
asked Mick again, with a cute little naïve smile.
I choked back the urge to hurl.
“Chinese is fine,” Mick said. “Is the restaurant near the movie theater? I’m still getting familiar with the lay of the land around here, and I don’t remember seeing the Panda Palace anywhere.”
I wasn’t surprised it was taking Mick a while to figure out how to get around in Sticksville, PA. “It’s on the way,” I said. “If you take Route 119.”
“Thanks,” Mick said.
Maybe it was just me hearing what I wanted to hear, but I swear there was tenderness in that one little word. Tenderness and love.
“Sure. Anything for you,” I replied, pushing the bounds of acceptable double date behavior.
Jessie stared daggers at me, but Lars was so busy creeping his fingers up my thigh that he didn’t notice a thing. Typical.
“So how do you like working on the farm?” Jessie asked Mick, wiggling toward him a smidge at a time. “Have you done that sort of thing before?”
“He worked in a bakery in Oregon,” I snapped. “Not on a farm.”
Duh.
Before I could catch him, Lars actually got his hand between my legs, which I promptly ejected with a slap to the forearm.
“Ow. What the…?” he mumbled.
Apparently I’d hit him harder than I realized. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
Mick caught my gaze in the rearview. “Actually I did work on my mother’s cousin’s farm,” he contradicted me, “over the summer. It’s hard work, but I enjoy it. There’s something very natural about physical labor. It’s humbling and creative, and it connects me to something bigger.”
Jessie’s eyes widened in lustful awe.
Great. Just what I needed. Mick was getting all sensitive and philosophical. Didn’t he know girls ate that shit for breakfast? I mean, that’s how he’d hooked me after all.
“I worked on a farm too,” Lars chimed in. “Two years ago.”
Give me a break. I doubt they even have farms in Iceland, since the sun goes MIA for like half the year. How pathetic. “Uh-huh,” I said. “That’s nice.”
It suddenly struck me that if I’d steered Lars toward Jessie, like I should have in the first place, she’d be snuggled up to the Icelandic prince, and I’d be riding shotgun beside the love of my life. Where did I put that time machine again?
“Did you know Flora and I used to date?” Mick asked Lars out of the blue.
I half expected Jessie to object or change the subject, but she let the awkward man-challenge slide. I guess she was playing the I’m-so-confident-I-don’t-mind-my-man-talking-about-other-women card.
“Yeah, I heard that,” Lars said, without a hint of jealousy or concern.
“We were very close,” Mick continued. “It’s why I came here to Punxsutawney.”
“Oh, really?” Lars said, still emotionless.
Inexplicably, Mick dragged me into the mix. “Yes, of course. Isn’t that right, Flora?”
Honestly, I didn’t know what to say. Was Mick trying to break me and Lars up on the spot after he’d specifically outlawed such a move? Or was he just acting out of emotion, like I would’ve been if anyone but Jessie was sitting in front of me?
I sighed. “Well, technically I guess he did come here for me,” I said to Lars, “but I wasn’t expecting it. I thought he’d changed his mind. And that was all before you asked me out, so…”
From what I could see of Mick’s face in the mirror, he looked sad, which shot one of those guilty, heart-achy pangs fluttering through my chest.
“You don’t have to explain,” Lars said, closing in for an ill-timed kiss. “That’s all in the past now.”
On that unbelievably inaccurate note, Mick jerked the wheel, causing the Buick to kick up a wild pebble storm on the shoulder of the road.
“Oh my God! What was that?!” Jessie squeaked.
I looked back expecting to see a trail of road kill in our wake, but as far as my pathetic eyes could tell, Mick must have seen a ghost.
“Pothole,” Mick said flatly.
Jessie squinted. “You mean we hit one?”
“We almost hit it,” Mick said, smiling.
“I didn’t see a pothole,” I said.
Mick sighed and shook his head. “What can I say? You were preoccupied.”
Ouch. I didn’t get why Mick was acting so snippy, especially since he’d forbidden me from dumping Lars. I mean, honestly, he had brought this ridiculous situation on himself and the rest of us, which was putting everyone on edge. Everyone but Lars. He was mellow. Not even Mick’s passive-aggressive baiting had rattled him.
Mick tripped the blinker and coasted into the narrow lot behind the restaurant. And just our luck, the only spot left was smack up against a filthy, wretched dumpster.
“I don’t know if…” I said, opening my door a few inches to see if I could sneak by without inheriting a shiny new coat of dumpster ooze. Meanwhile, Mick came to Jessie’s rescue, wrapping his arm around her and guiding her through the dumpster alley unscathed.
But I had my own Icelandic Prince Charming. “Here,” Lars said, “just put your arms around my neck, and I’ll pull you out this way.”
At this point, I should probably issue a disclaimer: Let the record show that I am not a damsel in distress, despite how it might have looked when Lars carried me out of Mick’s backseat like I was his caveman conquest. As any self-respecting girl would, I strenuously object to such a characterization. That’s right. Strenuously.
When Lars and I caught up with Mick and Jessie inside the restaurant, I couldn’t help noticing two things: First, Mick was way taller than Lars, which I never quite appreciated until I saw them side by side. And second, Mick was staring at me. In fact, his steely blues were still locked onto me when our little quartet piled into a corner booth and began poring over the menus.
“We have to get the sesame chicken,” Jessie declared, before I’d even gotten past the appetizers. “It’s divine.”
Okay, wasn’t she laying it on a little thick? I mean, did she really think Mick would suddenly flip his lid for her just because she could read a menu? Puh-lease.
“I like the crab Rangoon,” I said, adding my two cents. “And the chicken teriyaki.”
You could probably hear the sucking sound a mile away when Lars said, “I totally agree. That sounds delicious.” He shut his menu and slid it under mine.
“Mick, what about you?” Jessie asked. “What do you like?”
Mick was still gawking at me, which made me wonder if there was a huge gob of spinach stuck between my teeth (hey, it could happen). Or maybe one of my boobs was dangerously close to popping out of my scoop-neck tee.
In an attempt to trace the exact line of Mick’s gaze to whatever ogle-worthy body part he was fixated on, I stared back. And, moronic me, somehow I hadn’t thought of it before: It must be my neck. The hickeys on my neck, to be precise. The ones Lars had bestowed upon me in the back of the driver’s ed vehicle. I guess Mick had just noticed them.
With a gentle smile and my best I’m-sorry-if-I-hurt-you eyes, I said to Mick, “Yeah, you should pick something.” I scanned the menu. “How about the wontons? I bet you’d like those. The dipping sauce is so sweet and yummy.”
Mick took his eyes off me to glare at Lars. “The wontons are fine,” he said. “Although I’m not very hungry.”
“What’s the matter?” Jessie asked.
“Nothing. It’s just kind of claustrophobic in here,” Mick said. “I could use some fresh air.”
As if I didn’t feel guilty enough already, now I had to watch my sweetheart writhe around in pain right in front of me? How sadistic. “Maybe I can get the waitress to open this window,” I said, kneeling on the springy seat cushion and reaching over Jessie’s head.
“I’ll get it,” Lars offered. “Just let me…”
Mick leaned across Jessie’s lap and shoved the thing open with one hand. “Thanks anyway, Lars, but I think I can handle it.”
<
br /> Jessie cocked her head and pursed her lips, like she was winding up to bash us all for acting so immature. But then, luckily, the waitress materialized to take our order—and save us from Jessie’s wrath.
“So a large crab Rangoon, a large pork lo mein, an order of sesame chicken, a subgum wonton, and four Cokes?” the waitress repeated, once I’d dutifully pointed out each item on the menu.
“Yup. Thanks,” I said.
“And tea?” she offered.
Mick nodded. “Please.”
Thank God the tea arrived before we could settle on who would take what underhanded jab at whom next. Carefully, Mick filled three tiny teacups from the old metal pot.
“Thanks,” Jessie said, taking a slow sip. “It’s good.”
When Mick pushed a cup across the table to me, his fingers lingered on mine. And that simple touch, as brief as it was, erased the distance between us.
My eyes welled up. To clear my throat, I took a warm, bitter swallow. “So, Jess, how’s the driving going?” I asked. “Kill anyone yet?”
Out of nowhere, crackpot Lars started howling like I’d just delivered a side-splitting one-liner. I guess it was a good thing Mick hadn’t poured the Icelandic prince his own cup, or we all would’ve ended up soaked in tea-spit.
“Ha-ha. Very funny,” Jessie said. “It’s okay, I guess. But the teacher’s a real pain in my ass. He keeps stomping on the brake and yanking the wheel out of my hand every three seconds. And I’m not even that bad either. Honest,” she said, raising her hand like she was swearing on a stack of bibles.
“Flora’s a great driver,” Lars enthused, pausing to peck me softly on the cheek. “She’s great at lots of things.”
The last thing I wanted was for Mick to read anything sexual into Lars’ suggestive comments, so I was just about to say something clever to convince him—once and for all—that Lars was nothing more than a temporary distraction, when Jessie made a blatant move on the love of my life right in front of me.
“Boy, you seem tense,” she said, wiggling closer to Mick and resting her hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you let me loosen you up?”
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