Starfire (Erotic Romance) (Peaches Monroe) (27 page)

“Please, Mom. Tell me you haven’t watched any of his father’s porno movies. Or his mother’s.” I made a gagging face.

She rolled her eyes and feigned innocence. “I wouldn’t even know where to look for such a thing.”

“When you meet him, don’t ask about porno stuff.”

“What if the wrong words slip out of my mouth? Like I try to compliment him on his pants, and instead, I say he has a nice penis.”

I smirked. “Easy. Just avoid all P-words.”

“What about C-words? Hey there, nice to meet you. That’s a nice cock you drove up here. How’s the mileage on that cock?”

“You know what, Mom? Maybe just pull him aside immediately and get all that out of the way. Tell him how much you enjoy getting rogered.”

She nodded along, oblivious to my sarcasm. “Perhaps he could give your father some tips.”

“Yes, Mom. Definitely ask my future father-in-law for porno sex tips on behalf of Dad.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I wouldn’t want him to think I was weird.”

I swirled my straw in my drink and took another sip, patiently waiting for her to move on to other topics.

CHAPTER 25

Wednesday through Friday, I could hardly work up the effort to worry about the weekend, due to all the work setting up the bookstore’s new location.

We weren’t going to be open to the public until Saturday, and three days had seemed like plenty of time to get set up when we were planning, but reality is nothing like a spreadsheet.

Adrian and I worked non-stop, more worried about getting things ready on time than about unpaid overtime.

On Wednesday, while we were setting up shelves and trying to come up with categories and organization that would make sense to the customers, he started telling me the silliest, corniest jokes. They weren’t funny.

We stayed until midnight, and I knew I had to get home to rest when the jokes started to be funny.

Thursday, he brought me in an extra one of his Led Zeppelin shirts from high school. I thought he was making a joke, but he insisted I wear the shirt, because he was wearing one, and it was Led Zeppelin Day. I checked that the brown paper was covering the windows, then pulled off my shirt and squeezed into the black Led Zeppelin T-shirt, my peaches distorting the logo. Adrian nodded his approval, then clicked the button for the stereo. Led Zeppelin blasted from the speakers, and we got to work.

When the playlist circled around to
Whole Lotta Love
, we stopped what we were doing and sang along, playing air guitar and drums, screaming the lyrics as loud as we could. (Have you listened to the lyrics? That is a sex song if I’ve ever heard one. And the drum solo is fucking awesome.)

~

On Friday morning when I arrived, the store seemed almost ready. It looked like it was one hour of hard work away from being ready to open. Curse my optimism! We were still troubleshooting the computer system late that night, at ten o’clock.

“Get going, you still have to pack,” Adrian said.

“I’m only gone for the weekend. Just one night.”

“Don’t get married this weekend, okay? I still want at least one more date with you before it turns into adultery.”

“Ugh.”

He said, “If you don’t have the stomach for adultery, I understand. We had a good run.”

I turned my head to give him a sidelong look. “Are you breaking up with me?”

“Am I?” He rubbed his facial hair, looking tired but still sexy. He hadn’t shaved since the weekend, and had the golden-brown beginning of a beard. “My body hurts and I can’t think straight.” He rubbed his stomach. “When was our last decent meal?”

I checked my watch. “We had candy necklaces at six, which was four hours ago.”

He frowned. “Candy necklaces are not a meal.”

“I’ll stick around and order us some pizza.”

“No, you should go. Pack your bag and fly off in your private jet to meet porn stars.”

The contempt in his voice irritated me. Especially him calling the tiny plane a private jet.

“I’ll go. Have a nice weekend fucking your other girlfriend.”

He pushed aside the computer keyboard in irritation. “Have a nice weekend fucking Mr. Porn Dick.”

“Oh, I will. And I’m going to tag team him and his dad.”

As soon as I said the words, I regretted it.

We stared at each other for an eternity, then Adrian cracked up.

“You are just all kinds of wrong, Peaches Monroe. That must be why I love ya so much.”

In the silence that followed, I swear I could hear the sound of his eyelids clapping as he blinked.

“You love me?”

“Who wouldn’t love a girl who nails the drum solo for
Whole Lotta Love
?”

“Do you mean you love me as a friend?”

He looked irritated. “I’m not asking you to marry me, am I?”

I picked up my purse and started for the door.

He ran out from behind the counter and caught me in his arms.

“What I feel for you is real,” he said. “You’re my friend. You’re the smartest, coolest chick I know. And I love everything about you.”

I turned slowly to face him, looking up into those eyes so cool and blue they made me shiver.

“Adrian…”

“Go have a great weekend. Don’t give me another thought. Get me all the way out of your head, and if I make it back in there, into your head, let me know.”

“Kiss me. I won’t go until you kiss me.”

He bent down and kissed me, his beard scratching my upper lip and chin. The kiss traveled through my body with a buzzing ball of energy.

He pulled away, opened the door, and shoved me out.

I knocked on the door, leaning over to peer through the tiniest crack in the brown paper on the window.

He didn’t answer the door, so I knocked again and yelled at the glass, “I dropped my purse on the floor!”

A few seconds later, the door opened. Adrian had my purse in his hand.

We stared at each other for a moment, then he stepped outside the store, dropped my purse on the sidewalk and grabbed me in his arms. He turned me and roughly pushed me up against the storefront, mashing his lips into mine as he clutched my buttocks, lifting me up so my feet weren’t even touching the ground, pinning me to the wall.

Except… that last bit didn’t actually happen.

I’m sorry for lying, but Adrian didn’t step out of the store.

If something like that had happened, things over the next few days would have been much different.

What actually happened was I stepped outside the door and it locked behind me.

Finding myself in the dark, as well as in a different part of town from where my bookstore usually was, I felt like I was forgetting something. It must have been the surroundings, though, because my purse was right on my shoulder, where I’d put it.

I hadn’t dropped my purse when he’d kissed me.

I spotted a bus off in the distance and smiled at my good timing. I hustled across the street and got out my change for the short ride to my neighborhood.

As soon as I got home, I took off the Led Zeppelin shirt, hung it at the back of my walk-in closet, and put Adrian out of my mind while I packed for the next morning’s plane ride.

~

We hadn’t even boarded the airplane, and I was already regretting inviting my parents.

They didn’t bring Kyle, because he was congested with a summer cold. The doctor had warned against flying, because of Kyle’s history of ear infections, so he was staying behind at a friend’s. Also, and more importantly, Kyle was a seven-year-old kid, and (I suspected) my mother thought he might get in the way of all her wine drinking and vacation enjoying, plus the
many
porn-star questions she had in mind for Dalton’s father.

My father had a lot of questions about the plane, which Vern was happy to answer, but only to a point. I suppose that because of my father’s line of work—selling model helicopters—he felt he was an expert in all things aviation. He didn’t ask Vern questions just to hear the answers, but to show off his knowledge of aviation terms.

We stood on the dock next to the plane, and my father said, “What would you say is the absolute ceiling on this old girl?”

Then, I kid you not, he kicked the metal leg connecting the floats to the plane.

“Dad, don’t kick the tires,” I admonished.

Vern dodged the question with aplomb. “Don’t you worry about the maximum altitude we can reach under normal operating conditions. You just keep your eyes on the fluffy white clouds, and I’ll get you to wine country.”

“Are you wearing your magical socks?” I asked Vern.

“Of course I am.” Vern winked at me and ushered the three of us into the little plane.

Dad sat in the front on the left, as I’d expected, and my mother took the right. The first thing she did was pull out the paper airsickness bag and say, “Good thing we had a light breakfast. These barf bags are tiny.”

“Add that to your review,” my father said.

“You know I only formally review the showers,” she said.

“You’ll like the resort,” I promised them. Under my breath, I muttered, “It’s everything else I’m not so sure about.”

Vern did his safety spiel, asking my father to hold his questions until the end, and we were off.

During the flight, my mother read wedding magazines, occasionally handing me back torn pages of things she thought would be perfect for the wedding.

“I already have a dress,” I said for the tenth time as she handed me another gown.

“That style would also look good on Shayla. I’m worried about that girl. Her mother says she’s taken up smoking again.”

“That’s not the only filthy habit she’s got.”

My mother unbuckled her seatbelt and switched to the seat beside me. “What do you mean?”

I would have asked her to promise not to tell, but I don’t like making my mother lie to my face. Without getting into any specifics, like names, I told her Shayla had a history of dating inaccessible men, and she was seeing someone younger who was leaving for college.

“She must be so heartbroken,” my mother said. “I’m so glad my days of dating are behind me. I do enjoy looking back on the more pleasant memories, but there was also a lot of pain.”

I glanced up at my father, who seemed to be engrossed in his thriller novel, turning a page as I watched.

“Mom, this marriage to Dalton might not work out. Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Don’t get married if you’re not sure. And be honest. Why the rush? Is there a baby?”

I patted my stomach. “I’m only pregnant with a cinnamon bun or two. Actually, I went to the doctor yesterday and got myself hooked up with birth control.”

“You’re on it now?”

“My uterus is closed for baby business. Sorry to disappoint, but you won’t have anyone calling you grandma for a while.”

“I’m too young to be a grandma, never mind what that yummy mommy at Kyle’s summer camp thinks. Silly woman in her yoga pants and her high-heeled sandals.” She patted her cheeks. “Look at this face. No soap. Just warm water.”

“Yes, Mom. By the way, Mr. DeNirro asked about
my sister
, as usual.”

She gave me a knowing look. “That man is always undressing me with his eyes, which is why I’m careful to wear my best underwear whenever we go out to dinner.”

My father closed his book and turned around to give us a stern look. “I’m right here,” he said.

My mother leaned forward and patted his shoulder. “Don’t you worry, Mr. Monroe. We’ve got a king-sized bed, and they’re putting us in the honeymoon suite. You won’t have
anything
to complain about this weekend.”

I opened my own paperback and tried to climb into the pages, rather than imagining my parents in the honeymoon suite.

The rest of the flight was smooth and beautiful. We nudged down into the fluffy clouds and began our descent to the winery.

Vern spoke over the intercom rather than turning around in his seat to address us: “If you spot a lake down there, let me know, because there’s no runway at the resort. Heh heh. Just a little pilot humor. Don’t you folks worry, I know where the lake is. It’s that blue thing, right? Hey, what does this red Ejection Seat button do? You folks have your parachutes on, right? Heh heh.”

Despite Vern’s terrible comedy routine, we landed on the water and emerged safely on the dock.

A young man in a white shirt and red vest drove up in a golf cart to transport us up the hill to the resort.

Vern sent us on ahead, saying he would make the next trip with all the luggage, so we wouldn’t have to crowd into the cart.

My father took the front seat, next to the resort employee, and immediately asked him what kind of gas mileage the cart got. It turned out the vehicle was electric, so my father had a dozen more questions about where it plugged in and how long the battery took to charge.

My mother grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “Are you nervous?”

The golf cart putt-putted up the trail. Technically, it whirred, not
putted
, but the speed was putt-putt speed, if you know what I mean. Like, we could have gotten out and walked faster.

“I wasn’t nervous until you asked.” Indeed my palms were beginning to sweat in the dry heat, with the eleven o’clock sun high overhead. The golf cart had a canopy, but the sun on my one exposed arm was sizzling through my light application of sunscreen.

We crested the hill, and the driver stopped the cart for a moment as we took in the view. “Welcome to the winery,” he said.

The rolling hills and grape fields looked surprisingly Italian, for American soil. The square fields were bordered by fences of green trees with impossibly round, perfect silhouettes.

“Stunning,” said my mother.

“I’m all turned around,” said my father. “Which way is north?”

My mother answered, “Your phone has that compass thing.”

“I’m sure this young man knows where north is. Sometimes it’s nice to talk to a human being rather than pointing your nose at your phone all the time.”

My mother shot me a look, then mimed the motion of zipping her lips shut. The resort employee didn’t know which way was north, but eventually the two of them figured it out.

We pulled up to the resort, which had a grand entryway with tall wood pillars on either side of glass doors. The building itself looked like a golf club in
Architectural Digest
, with rich honey wood mixed with modern steel and glass. Inside, it smelled like wine—so much like wine, that I wondered if they brewed and stored the stuff right in the same building.