Just Like That - Nicola Rendell

JUST LIKE THAT

NICOLA RENDELL

© 2017 by Nicola Rendell All rights reserved. Cover photo: Getty Images Cover Design: Najla Qambar Designs Editing: Aquila Editing; Librum Artis Editorial Services Proofreading: Karin Enders; Keyanna Butler/The Indie Author’s Apprentice; Mila Grayson Publicity: Ardent Prose PR

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For D. You’re so modern.

“Have a heart that never hardens.” - Dickens

1 RUSS

I step off the escalator, and there she is. She’s looking down, doing something with her phone. Air conditioning blows on her from above, making the hem of her purple dress flutter against her leg. And fuck, look at those legs. Look at that body. Look at that woman. Underneath the dress, instead of a bra, she’s wearing the top half of a pink bikini, tied at the nape of her neck in a bow. Welcome to Florida. God bless the Sunshine State. The place is dismal, except for her. On the walls are 1980s tourism posters, rippling with the humidity. All the guys have Magnum, P.I. mustaches, and all the women look like extras from Baywatch. She’s a vision in the middle of all of it, an oasis at the goddamned baggage claim. I circle the clumps of old people running into each other with walkers, like slow-motion bumper cars. As I get closer, I see her face. Her freckles, her slightly shiny pink lips. Her breasts, which are fucking beautiful. But her expression, it isn’t beautiful. It’s seriously pissed. Nostrils flared, teeth set, jaw clenched. In her hands is a whole big tangle of earbuds, and maybe a phone charger. A big knot of cords, like a wad of cold pasta. I get closer. Not too close, because I don’t want to be that guy, but close enough to see the small starfish necklace dangling from her neck, and close enough to smell something warm, and sweet. Familiar. Vanilla, maybe. Whatever it is, it’s fucking delicious. On the wall behind her is a big banner. It’s got a faded old cartoon flamingo, flapping his wings and grinning. Underneath is the caption: WELCOME TO PORT FLAMINGO! HOME OF THE FIRST AIR CONDITIONER! No shit. Because it’s hot, and I don’t mean like ordinary summertime hot. I mean hot like the time the sauna malfunctioned at my gym and turned all the drywall in the locker room into oatmeal. She doesn’t look hot at all, though. She looks cool, and soft, and beautiful. Just the thing I need. Like a vodka soda after a long fucking day.

I set my briefcase shoulder bag at my feet and take off my suit jacket. Her braid comes down over one shoulder; the curl at the bottom nestles into her cleavage. I roll up my sleeves. “I bet I can untangle you.” She looks up at me. Her eyes are deep blue and sparkling. A smile starts to pinch her cheeks. The end of the charger swings between us. “I’m okay. Got myself into this mess, got to get myself out of it.” “Sometimes two is better than one.” She smacks her lips at the cords. “Sometimes.” She pulls hard on the plug end, making the wires tighten even more. “You’d think I’d learn to keep that little plastic box that comes with these, but oh no, every—” She tugs. “—single.” Tugs again. “—time.” Granted, she’s not exactly in need of rescue from a burning building, but no way am I going to stand here and watch her struggle, no fucking way. Without another word, I start undoing the end of the tangle that’s nearest me, and I watch that smile of hers gets bigger. She doesn’t look at me, but I see a dimple, and she bites her lip. Still focused on the knot, she says, “Let me guess. You’re not from around here, are you?” Can’t imagine what gave me away. Maybe the fact that I’m the only guy in the building wearing dress pants and actual shoes. “Here on business.” She looks me up and down. “What kind of business? FBI?” Fuck. Not the first conversation I want to have, definitely not. Also, I don’t know a single fed who wears pants this nice. “Private business.” “Hmmm.” She eyes me more mischievously. “Tall, dark, and a military haircut. Something tells me you’re not here to do some competitive bass fishing. “ Oh, man. Cute. Really cute. “No, I’m not.” Slowly, the tangle comes undone, until we’re in the middle together. Reminds me of that scene in Lady and the Tramp. But before I can say anything more—like, for instance, I’m down for 20 questions, as long as it’s over a drink—the buzzer on the carousel roars to life, as loud as a tornado siren. The crush of people starts to tighten around the conveyor. She winds the three sets of earbuds and the cord around her palm. From the pocket of my bag, I take out the plastic case that came with my earbuds and hand it over. “There.” She laughs through her nose. “I’ll be okay.” “I insist.” I press it into her hand, and her eyes meet mine. “I’ll bet you do.” She looks away as a blush covers her cheeks. The bags start to rumble off the conveyor. For one long second, she watches me, smiling. Sizing me up. The little curls around her face tremble in the air

conditioning, and I’m about to say you, me, a pitcher of margaritas, tonight when she looks away and hoists her purse up on her shoulder. “That’s my bag,” she says. “I should get going. Thanks for…untangling me.” She steps away and threads herself between a handful of old ladies in walkers. I know I should help her; I should grab her bag, but holy fuck, look at that body. She grabs her suitcase herself and flips up the handle. “Give me your number. Let me take you out for dinner.” Her smile dissolves into a scowl. “You married?” I shake my head slowly. “I’m a lot of things, but married definitely isn’t one of them.” “Separated?” I shake my head again. “Nope.” She takes her starfish charm between thumb and forefinger and loops the chain over her lip. “Under any restraining orders? Involved in a complicated love triangle that your Match.com profile describes as an open marriage? Divorced five times and counting? Polyamorous?” Whoa. This girl’s got to find a new dating pool, stat. “Promise. I’m Russ, and what you see is what you get.” Zip-zip-zip goes her necklace. “Just a drink.” I lift my hands out between us, to say C’mon. “Maybe dinner, if I make the cut.” She blinks hard a few times, and she drops her necklace charm. “I’m sorry. You’re sweet, but I can’t.” Well, fuck it. The first time I try to get back in the saddle in ages, and the goddamn thing slides right down onto the ground again. I respect it, though. I don’t want to overdo this, so I give her a final nod and clear my throat. “Had to try.” She swallows hard. “I’m glad you did.” Fuck. And she’s gone. As she goes, her hips sway with her dress. She works that sashay, as my aunt says, like a fucking pro. She looks back over her shoulder, only once, as she walks through the sliding doors. I give her a wink. And she fucking winks back. Jesus Christ. She takes a left out of the door, which means she isn’t gone yet. Not by a long shot. The architecture does me a favor, and I get to watch her sashay right past the floor-to-ceiling windows. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her, not even if I wanted to. She smiles at the sidewalk without looking up, and laughs a little. Like she knows I’m watching her and is feeling pretty good about it.

God, what a cutie. And what a bummer. She was fucking sexy; she seemed sweet, and there was something about her that was up to no good—something right between the bikini top and I’m glad you did. But the spark wasn’t all we had in common, I realize, as she finally disappears from view. She also has a bag that looks just like mine. Medium-sized black Samsonite. Sensible, dependable. Number One Amazon Bestseller in Luggage. That couldn’t be my bag, I think to myself as I turn back toward the conveyor. Couldn’t be.

It was. Twenty minutes later, I’m the only guy standing by the carousel, and there’s a single black bag going around and around in front of me. It’s exactly the same as mine, except its overstuffed and has a pink puff of yarn tied to the handle. Same color as her bikini top and literally hanging by a thread. It slides to a stop, and the yarn ball swings off the side of the carousel. Ticktock, tick-tock. A rattle from the center of the conveyor sounds promising—I was early connecting through Atlanta, so my bag had to be the first one on—but no dice. What comes off the conveyor isn’t a bag at all, but instead one of the baggage guys in a big set of protective ear muffs and a reflective vest. He crawls up through the flap and pokes his head out. He wipes his forehead on his bare, leathery shoulder and then looks from me to the bag and back again. “Nice pom-pom, man,” he says and vanishes back down the hole. I glance around for some airport help on this, but all I see is a handwritten sign at the baggage claim desk. Will Return On Monday! It’s Thursday. Christ. As I take hold of the bag, I notice it’s got not one but three “LIFT WITH CAUTION” tags: the first one new, the second one beat up, and the third one halfway shredded, all together the way people keep lift tickets from ski areas. I give it a hoist. The thing is so heavy it makes me grunt like I’m doing a dead lift. With a two-handed lug, I yank it off the conveyor and set it on the ground, wheels down. Squeezing the roller handle, I pull it up…and it snaps right off in my hand. The arms stick up from the suitcase like tines of a fork. I clench my eyes shut and think back to “the most helpful critical review” from Amazon. “Looks like every other bag on the planet. Sh**ty handle.” Touché. But it is what it is. Which is her bag, hopefully. I wheel it along to a bank of benches, by some old, beat-up phone booths lining

the far wall. I open up the ID pouch and read: PENELOPE DARLING 125 E. BEACH POINT DRIVE PORT FLAMINGO, FL 34102 I bite down on my gum and groan. How cute is that name? Jesus Christ, come on. Penny Darling. What’s more, it’s not a business card or typed up like mine, but written by hand. Her writing is sweet, pretty, and feminine, with big plump letters in bright pink marker that’s bled into the plastic cover, so they’ve got a haze around them like neon lights. And there, at the bottom. Her number. Jackpot. It might not be my smoothest move, but I’ll take it. I pull my phone from my pocket and give her a call. As I wait for the ringtone, I decide to hell with suave and understated. I want her, and I need her to know it. But then in my ear I hear, “Mobile Network Temporarily Unavailable.” Goddamned Verizon, jamming up my plans. So I try to text her instead.

This is Russ. From the airport. I've got your bag, and I think you’ve got mine. How about that drink?

I hit send, and I’m answered immediately with a row of red exclamation points and four repetitions of NOT DELIVERED. What. The. Fuck. Then I notice my cell service flips over from one bar, to Roaming, to Searching for Service… I pull my hot pack of gum from my sweaty pocket and take out a second piece. The gum is weirdly melted even before I put it in my mouth. The options now are pretty simple: I could touch base with the guy who hired me to come down here to the land that Verizon forgot or… I think about those tan lines, the curve of her hips. That bikini. The glisten on her rosy lips. The way she wrinkled her nose when she smiled. Why is this even a goddamned question? It’s four in the afternoon. A beautiful

woman is on East Beach Point Drive with all my stuff. And somewhere in this town, I’ll bet there’s a beachside bar with a pitcher of margaritas with our names on it.

2 PENNY

The parking shuttle drops me at the wrong end of the Super Saver Economy Lot, leaving me in a cloud of biodiesel that smells like very old, very overcooked french fries, but I don’t mind. I don’t even mind that I’ve lost my pom-pom, or that my hair has gotten tangled in the nose pad of my sunglasses when I flipped them up on my head, or that my flip-flops stick to the sizzling asphalt with every step. None of it bothers me a bit because I’m still swimming in him, absolutely swimming. With his dreamy eyes and his pastel pink shirt and his forearms. His sideburns. His biceps. His buns. The dress pants. Those were especially nice. They were charcoal gray and wool. Normally, wool would make me think about an impending case of heat rash, but not on him. On him, they made me think about sex on office desks, file folders flying and staplers crashing to the ground. I wonder if he was wearing boxers or briefs under there. Or maybe even boxer briefs. My favorite. I lug my suitcase along and steer around a seagull assaulting a chocolate cupcake. I think about how his hand brushed against mine, how he came on strong but not too strong. A bit aggressive, a bit cocky, but not too much. Just right. But as yummy as he was, I stayed strong. I stuck to the plan. I prevailed. I pull out my phone from my bra and flip open my calendar. NO MAN DIET. DAY 27 of 60. The whole idea is Cosmo’s fault, but after the year I’ve had, it’s a necessary detox. I’m not sure what happened to me when I got into my thirties, but it’s like I’m suffering from some kind of condition. It used to be that after one conversation with a man I’d know if he was dateable or not, just like you know if the container of half-and-half has gone sour by sticking your nose in it. I used to have the same kind of common sense about men. Dateable, undateable. Good news. Bad news. Clingy. Small tipper. But then my biological clock started chiming and boom! Goodbye man-sense. But that Russ, with his hint of cologne and his stubble, and his jawline. And his

untangling me. Curse this No Man Diet. Curse it. I plunge my hand into my black hole of a purse to dig for my keys. The first thing I grab is the earbud holder, his earbud holder, which was tucked into his bag, probably right next to a stack of heavyweight business cards with some sort of manly font. Private Security Consultant, maybe. Russell Whatever (Insert Branch of Military). A soldier! Pennnnnnnny. I hoist my suitcase into the trunk of my Bronco, balancing it on the tailgate before giving it a good shove from underneath to get it to tumble inside. I slam the back door and get in the driver’s seat. The pleather seat sears the backs of my thighs, making me feel like a cold chicken breast hitting a hot pan. I love this place, I do. It’s home, it’s everything I know. But certain things—like the fact that you’ll cook yourself alive in a parked car and yet you can’t take cover under any shade-casting object unless you want to spend the next week scraping seagull shit off your paint job—take the romance right out of paradise. Except I’m feeling much hotter than usual. I grab the front of my dress and flap it to get some airflow. I bet I can untangle you. Two is better than one. I plunge my hand into my purse again and grab my refreshing cucumber water. I shut my eyes and give myself a half dozen rapid spritzes. But it doesn’t help, because this isn’t Gulf Coast hot. This is hot-mess hot. And it’s all his fault.

All my attempts to distract myself from him—driving too fast, listening to Adele too loud, stopping for an extra-large root beer float with extra whipped cream and not one, not two, but three cherries—fail miserably. I can’t stop thinking about him, and I really want to see those buns again. The fact that he’s here on business limits the places he could be staying. He’s either planning to chance it in an RV at the KOA campground—can’t imagine him grilling steaks outside a double wide, but if he’s in swim trunks I don’t mind trying—or he’s staying at the Residence Inn. I mean, I could always use the earbud holder as an excuse. Freshen up my hair, give myself a few more cucumber spritzes, and mosey on over there to have a look-see… The No Man Diet doesn’t specify anything against a mosey or a look-see. But as I pull into my driveway, I have to hit pause on my fantasy. Because there’s something happening outside.

And it doesn’t sound right. I cut the engine and listen. The noise, whatever it is, roars out over the top of the squeals of little kids playing on the beach, over the constant husshhhhhh of the palm trees and the cackling of the gulls. As I try to place it—is that mechanical? human? demonic?—I wind my earbuds up in the holder. I do it carefully, savoring every loop. But oh my God, that sound. I drive a late-model Bronco with a very serious issue with its brakes. I’m no stranger to worrying noises. This one, though? This one takes the cake. “What on earth?” I mutter, and slide from the driver’s seat. It sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before in my life. It sounds like a scratched CD of the Cookie Monster Sings Death Metal. On full volume. And it’s coming from my best friend’s house, right next door to mine. Bracing myself for literally anything, from seagulls stuck in her bathroom to the end result of her absolute unwillingness to understand that you cannot flush cotton balls from manicures down the toilet, I walk down the path between our houses. Her place is the mirror image of mine, but whereas mine is white, hers is a shade of pink that makes Pepto-Bismol look faded. The noise gets louder as I make my way down the path and I have to plug my ears as I get closer to the source of whatever it is. I unplug one of them briefly, to open the back gate, and it’s enough to make me feel like my equilibrium has gone right out of whack. I step through the gate and onto what Maisie calls “the lanai,” in the grand tradition of the Golden Girls, but what everybody else in the world would call “the patio.” She’s standing on one foot in a very wobbly tree pose. On her yoga mat is a jar with her usual 4:30 rum and Coke—so heavy on the rum it looks like half the ice has melted already—with a piece of red licorice instead of a straw. I grab her phone, plugged into her speakers, and hit pause. The noise, mercifully, dies away, and on the screen, I see the album cover of Joys of Tibetan Throat Singing, Volume 1. “Jesus,” she says, toppling out of tree pose, “Namaste to you, too. Have a little respect for happy hour yoga, won’t you?” “‘Welcome home, Penny! Oh, thanks! How was your trip? How’s your grandpa? He’s just great, but on the way home I had to sit next to a lady who smelled like mushroom soup and kept asking me to help her with her Sudoku puzzles. Oh, I’m so sorry. I know that Sudoku makes your eyeballs cross. Other than that, perfect!’” Maisie glares at me. “Never mind, never mind. How’s the diet?” I had to try. “Day twenty-seven and the wagon is still rolling.” She leans in and sniffs. The woman has supernatural man-sense. “Do I smell

cologne?” “Not unless you spiked my cucumber spray.” From the floor I collect a defaced stuffed armadillo and a mostly unstuffed turkey, along with a tennis ball missing half its felt. I gather them all up in the dog bed and pin it between my arm and my hip, like a giant foam taco. “Oh,” Maisie says, raising her arms up to moon pose. “By the way, that guy— what’s his name…” In that instant, my heart makes an irrational gallop through my chest. I clutch the dog bed to me even tighter, sending a spray of tiny dog hairs into the rays from the setting sun. “Russ?” It’s the first time I’ve said his name aloud. It’s one of those incredibly manly names, like Jack or Nick, but even better, because it’s kind of growly sounding. Rrrrrussss. Like wrestle or rustle, like wrestling in the rustling sheets. Lord. I might be in real trouble here. Maisie takes a very respectable swig of her Cuba Libre, the sort of move Hemingway would’ve offered to take her shooting after. “No, Tom, or Dan, you know. The guy who works for State Farm? Who we saw line dancing…” Her fingers shoot up in air quotes. “…with his sister.” Every word gets a dramatic wiggle. All hail the queen of the scare quotes. To my credit, there’s only one guy she could be talking about, but I’d rather not. “I have no idea who you mean.” “He stopped by,” she says, folding herself into a downward dog. “Steve, or Chad. Dickwad. Whatever. Whatever the last one was called.” Like I said, the No Man Diet is a necessary evil. “Please don’t tell me you tried the sugar-in-the-gas-tank routine again. Did you not look at the YouTube video I sent you? It’s dangerous, Maisie. Dangerous.” She shakes her head, like I’m so, so cute. “I told him to take his comprehensive umbrella policy and shove it, and that if I ever saw his clean-shaven, two-timing face around here ever again I was going to…” There is such a thing as too much information, so I hit play and the house fills with bone-rattling chants again. “Where’s Guppy?” I holler. “Bedroom!” she screams back, and then lunges into a totally haphazard triangle, balancing her elbow on her knee so she can keep on sipping her drink through her Twizzler straw. But as I turn to go she screams, “Penny, darling. I really do think there’s a man a-coming. I can feel it in the air.” It’s like having a schooner captain for a best friend, on the high seas of the World’s Worst Dating Pool. I’m almost certain that there is no man coming. And even if there is, I will resist him like the last cookie in the jar.

Anyway, a man a-coming. Pfffft. “Probably just Norm from UPS,” I scream back, and then head down the hall to get Guppy.

3 RUSS

Port Flamingo might be home to the first air conditioner, but it is also, apparently, the only place in the contiguous 48 states where Google Maps doesn’t work for shit. So, after a pretty lengthy and very complicated detour to what ended up being an abandoned mannequin factory—I now understand exactly what people mean when they say “I’ll never be able to unsee that”—I finally turn onto East Beach Point Drive and follow the mailboxes from 101 upwards. I’m used to gray walls and even grayer skies, modern lofts with awkwardly small balconies, and people who avoid small talk with strangers like the plague. This place couldn’t be more different. In one yard, two kids are spraying each other with squirt guns. A dog pounces on a sprinkler, trying to stop it with his mouth. One yard over, an old couple sits together on a swing hanging from their porch. The old man waves to me as his wife clutches his arm and presses her cheek to the plaid sleeve of his shirt. It’s like a different universe. The light is different. The pace is different. The colors are different. The people are different. And so, holy shit, are the mailboxes. It’s not the mailboxes themselves that catch my attention, but the flamingos attached to damn near every one of them. Some of them are staked to the ground but some of them are bolted to the posts, with big deck screws right through their plastic throats. I roll past 121, 123, and slow to a stop in front of 125. It’s a small, neat, white ranch house set back from the street. Next to it is one painted a fucking seizureinducing pink, so I don’t focus on that. I keep my attention on Penny’s place, where there’s not a fake flamingo to be seen. Or a dude’s SUV with a kayak strapped to the top. Bonus. In the sandy driveway, I pull up next to an old baby-blue Bronco, maybe late eighties, early nineties. I double-check that I don’t have any parsley in my teeth and open my door. As I do, I take a look inside her Bronco. There’s a plastic Hawaiian lei dangling from the rearview, and a hula dancer on the dash. The car is

messy, but not dirty. Just total chaos. But there, in the middle of it, in the cup holder, is my earbud holder, with one of the pairs we unwound tied up neatly, with the cover on. I open up the back of my rental. I don’t know what the fuck that noise is—a gravel factory?—but I ignore it. I've got a mission, and not even that horrendous fucking sound is going to distract me from getting what I want. I stick the plastic telescoping handle in my pocket and pull the bag from the seat, using the fabric handle on the side. As I round the corner and head down her walkway, I do my damnedest not to let my body language scream Holy fuck this bag is so heavy, and walk as suavely as I can to the front step. The gravel-grinding sounds from next door suddenly stop; the neighbor’s horizontal blinds part in the middle, and a curious eye appears. I give the nosy neighbor a friendly smile, and the gap in the blinds snaps shut. I step behind the hedges onto Penny’s porch. There in the shade, I put the bag wheels down next to the door. Then I straighten my collar and press on the doorbell. It rings back at me, lighting up under my finger. There’s a galloping sound, followed by a snort and a snuffle from under the door. Definitely a dog. It inhales long and slow, and then blows out a big grunt, so strong that it makes a puff of dust shoot up from the threshold. Penny whistles from somewhere in the house, and the dog thunders off toward her. And then I hear her footsteps. Coming for me. I clear my throat. I try to get my game on semi-strong. Not too strong. Not cocky bastard strong, but strong enough that she’ll know exactly what I want. Which is her. Definitely her. But then she opens the door, and my strong-to-very-strong game crumbles. I’m fucking speechless. She’s not only in the bikini top now, but the whole shebang. Bright pink on top, bright pink on the bottom, tanned and naked everywhere else. Beautiful curves, soft stomach, gorgeous cleavage. No tattoos that I can see. Yet. “Oh my God,” she says when she sees me, and claps her palm and forearm across her breasts. She steps back behind the door to hide her bare skin. “What are you doing here?” “I tried to call. And text.” She looks utterly confused. I can almost see the thoughts streaming through her head. How in the ever-loving… “This is yours.” I glance at her bag. “Got your address from the insert.” Her eyes lock onto the pom-pom. “Oh, my God. Not again.” “Repeat offender?” “Why did I buy that bag?” She presses her fingers to her temples, but she’s

smiling, like she’s pissed off but also tickled. “Tomorrow I’m going to take myself to T.J. Maxx and get one of those horrible pink ones with the hard sides. I’m so sorry.” “Number one bestseller on Amazon. You, me, and the rest of America had the same idea.” She snorts. “I seem to remember some pretty scathing reviews too though…” “Speaking of which, we had a casualty.” I give her the handle. Her fingers brush against mine as she takes it. She turns it over her palm and then gives me the old up-and-down, as she shakes her head and makes a tsk-tsk noise. “Broke my bag and followed me home. I don’t know about you.” But her eyes, they say she knows exactly. Fuck, yes. “On the upside, I got your number.” I run my eyes over the curve of her bellybutton. “I didn’t tell you this earlier, but I always get what I want. One way or another.” “Always?” The tone of her voice, it says it’s a challenge. “Fucking always.” She taps her lips with two fingers, sizing me up. And then she inches out from behind the door, the curve of her body catching the sunset from behind. Always. “I'll get your bag. Come on in.” Her short pink fingernails grip the door as she opens it wider so I can see even more of her. Fucking A, that body. I need to get my hands on that body. “I don’t want to put you out.” “It’s the least I can do for stealing your stuff.” “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Steal is a pretty strong word.” She puts her hand on her hip. “The pom-pom? The heavy tags? What else would you call it?” “Don’t know. Maybe you were…” I drag my gaze up and down her body one more time. “Distracted.” She smiles and laughs, and zips her necklace again, like she did at the baggage claim. “Maybe. Can’t imagine why.” “Exactly. So how about dinner?” The starfish stops, and she presses its small silver arms into her fingertips. “Tonight?” “Unless you’ve got plans, or some other guy hanging around to untangle your earbuds.” She looks away and blows out a breath. Then she regroups and looks at me

again. “Actually, I don’t have plans. And no, nobody else is here to untangle my earbuds...” Hell, yeah. “…Or me.” Christ. Except then she waves me off, like she just remembered something important. “No, no, no. I really can’t. I’m on the No Man Diet. Sorry.” “I don’t care what you’re on,” I say, because there’s a sparkle in her expression. Her words are pushing me away, but everything else is pulling me closer—her body language, her cleavage, everything. So I decide to go straight for it. “I’m not leaving without a yes.” I roll the bag back closer to me. “Have dinner with me, get your stuff back.” Her eyebrow shoots up, and she opens the door even wider, pushing her shoulders back and looking indignant. As a bonus, I get the full view. The bows on the bikini bottoms match the one at her neck. Man, oh man, oh man. “Sorry, are you holding my stuff hostage?” I rest my forearm on the door frame and move in closer. I turn my gum over between my front teeth. The closer I get to her, the closer she gets to me, until we’re squared up with hardly a hand’s width between us. “All I’m doing is negotiating. You’ve got something I want, and I plan to get it…Penny Darling.” But I don’t say it like a name. I say it like I mean it. Penny, darling. She leans away and turns her cheek to me. “God, you know, I’ve never heard that before. Never in my life.” Man, I love that sass…and that ass, which is now highlighted by the sunset even more. Sexy, soft, curvy thighs. “Figured that’d be a first. But what do you have to lose? I’m paying, and I won’t bite. Unless you want me to.” Her mouth drops open. “Well, you don’t waste any time.” “Never.” We stay like that, in an unblinking game of chicken. Fucking intense, fucking fantastic. Finally, she folds, cutting the tension with a slow, sexy blink. “All right, fine. You like seafood?” I’d prefer a burger, but fuck it. “Add some margaritas and you’re on.” She opens the door wider, not quite so sassy now. “Come on in. I’ll get changed.” She turns and walks away from me, the material of her bikini bunching up in the most amazing fucking way along the line of her ass. Then she looks back at me over her shoulder and adds, “You should probably have a seat.” “I’m good.” I come inside and pretend to be more interested in her kitchen than

her body. The kitchen is, like her, bright and cute. There are multi-colored dishes stacked in the cabinets behind frosted glass. Messy, sure, but like a real home. Well loved, well cared for. There are pictures stuck with magnets on every inch of the fridge, showing off a happy, full life—so fucking different from mine. “No, you really should sit,” she says as she moves to open a closed door, “because I’m going to let the dog out.”

When the dog trots into the room, the only thing I can think is, Holy shit, that’s a polar bear. She gives him a couple of big pats on the back. The way people do with, you know, horses. “This is Guppy.” “Hey, man.” I extend my hand so he can take a sniff. His haunches are even with her waist and his bobbed tail is as thick as a baseball bat. His eyes are droopy, red underneath. I think back to that mention of the No Man Diet, and her giving me the third degree about if I was married, separated, or in some complicated clusterfuck of a relationship. Guppy blinks, like he’s had about enough of this meeting-undateable-men shit. He takes a few steps toward me, and a stream of drool swings from his left jowl like candle wax. She tosses something through the air, and it lands on my leg. As I pick it up, I realize it’s a dishtowel. “What’s this for?” “You’ll need it for your pants because he drools. A lot. Be right back.” And then she hustles off down the hallway, her feet pitter-pattering away, as Guppy chases after her, making the house shake like it’s about to get flattened in a stampede. A door creaks and then closes. Then I think I hear a window opening, and I’m almost positive I hear her say, “I know it’s a man! Shhhh!” I look around the room. She’s got Christmas lights decorating the top of a bookshelf, and I see the wires under her cable box are an absolute disaster, which makes me smile. The books, though, are neatly arranged. There are lots of cookbooks and different paperbacks with busted spines, but on the top shelf I see a row of matching leather-bound volumes. I lean in and squint. I'll be goddamned. It’s a full set of Dickens. I stand up from the sofa and take a look, sliding the green volumes out one at a time. Bleak House is dog-eared. The Pickwick Papers is marked with Post-it flags. There’s a heart in the margin of Little Dorrit, next to the passage about circumlocution. A body like that and she likes Dickens. Fuck, yes. I take a seat back on the sofa again, slinging one of my arms over the cushion

next to me. I let my head fall back and watch the ceiling fan spinning above, with its chain making a soft snap, snap, snap. But then I hear the noise of huge, prehistoric claws clacking along the wooden floor. Guppy comes around the corner. And then he stares. And stares. And stares. And stares. It’s the deadpan stare I’ve seen from mob bosses on crime shows. Like a Tony Soprano, slow-eyed, give-me-the-fucking-money-or-else type stare. “Hey…man,” I say, holding out my hand to him. He blinks, very, very slowly and then takes a few steps toward me, until his enormous head is right above my knee, and his eyes are damn near level with my own. Around his neck is a big leather collar, as thick as my belt, studded with six silver stars, like Wild West sheriff’s badges. A glop of drool falls from his right cheek, and it lands with a slap on my pants. I ball up the dishtowel and start to dab at his mouth, like managers do with boxers. He answers this with a growl that emanates from deep in his hulking body. It sounds almost like a garbage truck approaching from down the street. I stop cold with the dishtowel just about to touch his cheek. Man, I know a thing or two about flight or fight, and a hundred-thousand years of human evolution is telling me, You better stand up, Macklin. Right now. So I try. But as soon as I plant my hands on the couch, the growl gets louder. The garbage truck gets closer. I stop, mid-rise, my ass halfway off the cushions. He puckers his massive lips, every whisker at attention. And I lower myself back down. The growling stops. “All right,” I say. “We’re totally good. Whatever you want.” His eyes are massive, and an eerie blue. And there are thoughts in that head, no fucking doubt about that. Big thoughts. Philosophical thoughts. Home security thoughts. Thoughts like, What the fuck are you doing in our house? “I’m taking her out to dinner,” I explain. “Just dinner.” As I say the word, he licks his lips, his gigantic pink tongue rippling across his mouth, over his nose, and back inside again. I get a glimpse of his teeth, and I flash back to childhood visits to the Natural History Museum, to the display of Ice Age Predators and Carnivores. Then he gives me a big, manly burp, which fills the air with a smell that’s like soggy Cheerios. A door opens with a squeak. Guppy glares at me once more—I’m watching you, buddy—and then drops down onto the floor, nuzzling my shoe with his huge snout. He claps his eyes shut and rolls onto his side, thumping the floor with his tree-

trunk tail. He shows me his speckled belly, and his tongue lolls out happily, like this whole time we’ve been doing nothing but tummy rubs. Then he positions his head so it’s facing the hallway. And he waits for Penny to appear. The dog is a fucking genius. Her face lights up in the most gorgeous way when she sees him there at my feet. If I thought she was pretty earlier, now she’s absolutely out of this goddamned world. She’s changed into little white shorts, a black, low-cut tank top, and a long gold necklace that nestles between her breasts. Her makeup is darker and naughtier, and something slightly sparkly makes her cheekbones glisten. Fuuuuuuck. “Was he okay?” she whispers. She cups her hand to her mouth, and lowers her voice even further, leaning into me confidentially. “Any growling?” Guppy’s bloodshot eyes connect with mine. Two words: Protection racket. “Nope, totally great.” I smile back at her and dab at the tablespoon of drool on my leg. Guppy scratches his back on the rug again, and Penny gives him a pat. She grabs a handful of treats from a jar and drops them into a huge bed in the corner of the living room, which features a stuffed armadillo with no face, soaked in drool, and a decapitated stuffed bird, missing a wing. Guppy lumbers over and eats the handful of treats in one pass, sliming the fleece bottom of his bed. Then he sits up, chewing and watching her every last move. As she turns away from him, his gaze lands back on me. I'll piss in your shoes if you don’t treat her right. “Shall we?” I ask, and stand to go. Guppy burps in my general direction again. Penny picks up the remote from the coffee table, giving me an absolutely fucking perfect look down her tank top and showing me a little white bra with daisies. Fuck. I’m not sure if she knows I’m looking—who’s drooling now?—but she gently places her hand to her shirt to close the gap. Ladylike, yes. But also fucking tragic. She turns on the television, and a nature show fills the screen. It’s a documentary about warring walruses, and she turns up the volume to 4, 5, 6. Guppy settles in, putting his massive head on the side of his bed, compressing the foam down onto the floor. “Alpha male walruses battle for mates each spring, defending their rights to mate with their harem.” Guppy’s ears go down, and in profile I watch his eyebrow area furrow, like he’s thinking, A harem, how interesting. Genius, total fucking genius. “All set?” she asks.

I offer her my arm, and she takes it. She smells like vanilla and she looks like heaven. This trip went from business to pleasure in one second flat. Even with the dog drool seeping into my pants.

4 PENNY

The nicest place in town, if you don’t count the taco truck that parks behind Ace Hardware on Mondays and Wednesdays, is Lucky’s Seafood Shack, off the Old Pier. I give Russ shotgun directions to the end of the Point—I manage somehow to keep myself from snorting when he mentions, “Do you know that Google Maps doesn’t work here?”—and direct him to the beach parking area. It isn’t far at all, and I figure if we really get into the margaritas, we can walk back. Preferably hand in hand, into the breeze, as the sun sets, casting long shadows into our rows of footprints, like something from a Valentine’s Day greeting card. Groan. From my purse my phone buzzes. I glance down to see a series of texts from Maisie streaming across the screen. Words like diet and man and jawline populate the notifications, as well as, I’m not going to lie, he looks really good in pink. She’s 100% right about that. I adjust my sunglasses and ease myself back into the big luxurious leather bucket seat. I happen to be a real fan of pink, and he’s pulling it off like only a real man can. “A left at the stop sign, and we’re there.” He waits for a golf cart to pass, going the opposite direction, his hand tight on the top of the wheel. He’s not even doing anything, he’s just driving—but I’m fizzing for him already. As he makes the left turn, his forearms ripple and flex. Adele, are you there? It’s me. He pulls into a parking space, nosing the front end of his Suburban against some pampas grass. He straightens up in his seat and looks out at the ocean. “Old being the operative word in Old Pier?” It’s true. “Large, rusting posts sticking out of the ocean doesn’t quite have the same romance, does it?” He rubs his jaw with his massive hand, making a scraping noise as his palm passes against the stubble. I want to know how that feels. Along my throat. Down my stomach. Between my legs. Everywhere. But then he turns to me. “Is this where that awful shit happened with the

jellyfish?” Uh-oh. Not the jellyfish. No more with the jellyfish. “I haven’t the faintest…” But he’s on the trail. He might look like he moonlights posing for book covers, but he’s clearly nobody’s dummy. He turns off the engine. “That was it, right? Jellyfish? I’ve got an aunt down here and she used to send me pictures. Fuck. What was that all about?” I can, of course, tell him exactly what it was all about, and yet Wikipedia can do a better job at this than I can. I should know, because I wrote the damned article. And it’s not a story I’m particularly keen on telling. Not again. So I go ahead and pull my phone from my purse. Miraculously, I have one bar, and don’t miss my chance to ask, “Siri. What does Wikipedia say about Port Flamingo, Florida?” The thinking pulse line shimmers along the bottom of the screen, and she returns with: “Port Flamingo, Florida, has a population of 21,154. Its elevation is one foot above sea level at its highest point and more than ten feet below sea level at the Great Soda Lake State Park, the only federally protected wildlife park that was the result of a man-made disaster.” Russ makes a worried grumble. I hold up a finger. “The town itself was founded in 1853 by shipwrecked sailors, who later died of thirst and starvation. It is known as the home of the first air conditioner, though historians have disputed this claim as having quote no factual foundations whatsoever end quote…” Of course, I know all this stuff, but he listens with rapt attention, blinking occasionally, as his thick eyelashes sweep along his beautiful cheeks. But then Siri gets down to business. Bad business. “In 2012, Port Flamingo was home to the largest red tide in the history of the Gulf Coast region, caused by a red algae bloom, which then triggered a massive krill bloom, and finally an influx of the rare and lethal Pinprick Laotian jellyfish. Known commonly as cyanide jellyfish, they are the most lethal invertebrate in the ocean. For four months, they swarmed along the coast of Port Flamingo, paralyzing the port completely, closing the beaches, and forcing all tourist fishing operations to move to friendlier waters. Though the jellyfish left later that summer, the economic and ecological damage to the county continues. The total population of the city plummeted from nearly fifty thousand to barely twenty. Unfortunately, just as conditions began to improve, two sharks were accidentally freed from the Tampa Bay Aquarium and swam south to Port Flamingo. On June 9, 2013, a fisherman lost his…” “Oh shit,” Russ says into his fist.

I silence Siri. I can see he’s got the gist, which is good. If he thinks the situation with those stupid jellyfish is bad, the description of the shark attack and the story of the Great Soda Lake would make him get right back on a return flight to wherever he came from so fast, he’d be nothing but a fuzzy blur of pink and gray. I drop my phone in my purse. “Let’s go show those margaritas who’s boss.”

5 RUSS

The place is an old shipping container, wedged into the sand, with bare bulbs on wires over the tables. On the side of the container is the word LUCKY’S, but someone has added an “UN” in graffiti in front of it. “Unfortunate, isn’t it?” she says. I turn to her, and she’s got this look on her face like she’s just lobbed me a ball and is waiting to see if I can smash it back. “Undoubtedly.” “Heyooo!” She makes the noise of a bass drum, ba-dun-dun. “We’ll be here all week.” Joking and adorable sense of humor aside, the graffiti isn’t the worrying part, not from where I’m sitting. The really worrying part is that even from the parking lot I can see that I wouldn’t be able to find a burger here if my life depended on it. On the big chalkboard I see Jumbo Gulf Prawns (breaded or garlic butter) and Red Snapper (catch of the day) and Blue Lip Oysters (choice of sauce). Christ. But she’s so damned pretty, it doesn’t matter. Fuck dinner—it’s her I’m hungry for. She pulls down the visor and checks her lipstick in the mirror, pouting a little in a way that fucking kills me, and then moves to open her door. “No, you don’t.” I snap into action and walk around the back of the Suburban. I open the door for her, and she gapes at me, smiling. “Well, isn’t this nice?” “Madam.” I offer my hand, the way guys do for women crossing puddles in old movies. She not only gives me her hand, but leaves it there. For about three seconds we’re holding hands, gazing into each other’s eyes, while the door dings to tell me I’ve left the keys in the ignition. She keeps her hand in mine, turns, and leans into the Suburban. As she reaches for the keys, she gives me the most balltightening view of her whole body, her whole hourglass. Her ass is right there, within pinching distance. I want to pinch it—and a fuckload more than that—but I resist. She puts my

keys in my hand, and I slide them into my pocket. We head from the parking lot onto the beach, and she kicks off her sandals. Her bare toes slip into the sand, and she smiles up at me. “Don’t get me wrong; you look really good in those pants. But aren’t you hot?” Hot. “These socks are cashmere. Hot was hours ago.” She smooths her braid, and the sunset makes her cleavage shimmer. “Take off your shoes then, live a little.” I look down at my dress shoes. “And what, walk around in my business socks?” She snickers, but then gets serious. “Business time, business socks.” A Flight of the Conchords reference, and a not-so-subtle innuendo about what the plans are after dinner, which have been coming together in my head since the instant I stepped off the escalator and saw her. I like this girl. A lot. And so I kick off my dress shoes and peel off my socks. She blinks a little and stifles a full-on giggle. “Spend a lot of time indoors?” She’s ruthless, and I don’t mind it. “Are you calling me pasty?” She puts her sunglasses back on her head, and they get all tangled up in her hair. She makes some half-hearted moves to free them, but then gives up and shields her eyes from the sand. “It’s blinding!” “Quiet. We can’t all be sun-kissed and drop-dead gorgeous.” She clamps her lips together, like I just surprised the shit out of her. Which I totally dig. Together we walk through the sand, and she picks out a table nearest the waves. I pull her plastic chair out for her, and she sits down, looking up over her shoulder at me as she nestles her purse into the sand at her feet. I take the chair opposite her and have a seat myself. But as my ass hits the chair, I start sinking. And sinking. And sinking. Every time I try to gain some ground—a damned awkward move that involves yanking up on my seat while I try to lift myself with my legs as my feet slip downward into the sand too—I sink even further. It’s like my weight and the table legs are sucking me right down into the beach. “This is like something out of Indiana Jones.” “I once saw a documentary about what happened to the dinosaurs. It was just like this,” she adds, her eyes starting to sparkle with tears from her laughter. About the time that I’m level with her breasts, and still sinking, I take hold of the plastic table, trying to keep some semblance of manhood in order. “This is a great spot.”

It sends her into uncontrollable giggles. Her laugh is a silent, wonderful, shaking tremor. She crumples up her chin into her throat. She isn’t beautiful anymore. She’s absolutely fucking perfect. “You laugh because you’re stationary,” I say, catching the laughter myself, something that hasn’t happened in years. I try to hump myself upwards, and knock some hot sauce off the table. “I've…never seen…anything…like it.” Her words are all chopped up into her laughter. She sniffs hard and wipes some tears from her eyes. “They say the more you move, the faster you’ll sink. Try to hold still.” I do, and it doesn’t fucking help. This quicksand is taking me down. From behind me I hear a kind of shuffling and turn as I descend further into the abyss. “I’ll getcha a piece of plywood,” a guy’s voice booms. “These goddamned chairs. That’s what I get for being cheap. Sorry, man.” He’s huge, rotund, as bulky as a hippo, and on his arm is a big tattoo that says, LUCKY. “That’d be great, Lucky. Thanks.” Penny dabs at her cheeks with a paper napkin. Lucky winks in a way that makes me think he’s probably spent half his adult life being Popeye at kids’ parties, and then puts a steaming basket of something very fishy-smelling on the table. “Calamari on the house. Margaritas?” “Yes, please.” Penny spears one of the fried circles with a fork that she plucked from her napkin roll. “Mango for me. Frozen. Sugar rim.” “And for you, sir?” Lucky asks. “Plywood and…” “Rocks, salt.” “Coming right up,” he says. Either because Lucky’s weight has thrown off the quicksand reaction or because I’ve hit bedrock, I get to an equilibrium. Granted, I have to look up to see her, but at least I’m not sliding anymore. I glance at the basket, at the steaming, breaded, sliced tentacles. Jesus. But I don’t want to be a wimp about it. I don’t want her to think for one fucking second that I’m a picky eater. So I skewer a couple of the suckers on my fork and bite the bullet. Amazingly, it’s pretty good. Not rubbery, and with a tasty batter. She squirts half a lemon over the basket, and I take another. “So what brings you to Port Flamingo?” she asks, and puts her elbows on the table.

She really is so fucking beautiful. I’ve known a lot of women, but there is something about her that is so honest, so simple, so pure, and yet also so fucking naughty. Her necklace glints in the sunset, and the light makes a shadow above her collarbone where the starfish was earlier. “I’m here on a job.” “Makes you sound like a hitman. Fancy!” All right, so this is tricky. I don’t want to lie to her, but I can’t exactly flat-out tell her why I’m here. Best to keep it general, vague. “I’m here to…” I say, but before I can go any further, there’s a slight but noticeable… Tickle in my throat. And also a weird… Tightening. I cough into my hand and reach for the glass of water. I cough again, and she freezes, with a piece of calamari dangling from her fork. “Russ?” I take a big gulp of water, and cough again. “Just a cough. Probably picked something up on the plane.” She blinks at me once, and then again. She dips her calamari into the tomato sauce and chews, while studying me carefully, looking concerned. Eyebrows furrowed, sexy lips in a tight, worried line. “You’re sure?” “Totally. I’m good.” Except, I’m not, because the tickle in my throat is turning into something else. Something itchy, something strange. Like my tongue is too big for my mouth. I drain my water in a few gulps and then reach for hers. “Oh, my God.” She sets down her fork, reaching out for my arm. “You’re not allergic to fish, are you?” “I haven’t eaten it in a long time.” Her eyes get wide and scared. “How long?” I cough again. “Thirty years?” And then she starts to get kind of…fuzzy. Far away. And my face starts to itch. “Oh, fuck,” she says, with her hand to her mouth. Why does she look so scared? Why is my nose running? Why is my heart racing? Why is everything starting to spin? And what the fuck are these bumps on my neck? Everything starts to get blurry, like I’m looking through an out-of-focus lens, but Penny remains crystal clear in the center of the frame. She jumps up, sending her chair flying back into the sand. And then she puts her arm around me and hollers, at the top of her lungs, “Lucky! EpiPen! Right now!”

6 PENNY

I snap Lucky’s complimentary EpiPen into Russ’ rock-solid thigh and then overturn the entire contents of my purse onto the sand. I drop to my knees at his feet, searching through the heap of scratched sunglasses, shriveled apples, weirdly hard tangerines, and battered travel-size tampons, until I find the tiny plastic bag that contains my emergency medicines. Inside the bag are a few beat-up old halves of Xanax, a few Advil, lactose pills for Maisie—hell hath no fury like that woman after she’s encountered a dairy product. I pinch through the pills, but I don’t see any Benadryl. I won’t give up that easily though, and I bite down on half the flap with my teeth to open it up. As I do I realize he’s been watching me the entire time, and now he’s smiling this cocky hey-baby smile. The man is unbelievable. Not even a brush with sudden death can shake his mojo. I get the bag open, but there’s not a pink oval to be seen. “Lucky. Benadryl. Stat.” “Penny, what do I look like? A pharmacy?” He picks up the spent EpiPen and tucks it into his cargo shorts. He hovers above us, nose whistling as he breathes and watches. I happen to know he’s a retired prison guard, and right now he’s showing his tiger stripes. He takes a glass of ice water from the table and hands it to Russ, while with the other hand he takes a sip of my mango margarita. I glare at him, and he starts picking his teeth with the end of my cocktail umbrella. The guy’s a regular Susan B. Anthony. In lieu of Benadryl, I place two Advil in Russ’ palm. He gets them down on the first gulp and then drains my glass of water. I watch him carefully, mesmerized by one sexy swallow after another. Which means his throat isn’t closing up, thank goodness. What a throat, though. Just look at that Adam’s apple. Penny! I scooch forward between Russ’ legs so I’m brushing up against his pants on either side. The way the sunset hits him, and the angle of his legs, gives me a

perfect look at his absolutely to-die-for bulge. “Better?” He sniffles and wipes his nose with his knuckles, and then blinks a few times, nice and hard, the way people do when they get too much wasabi on their sushi. “Totally good. Totally.” I get up further on my knees and put my fingers to his jugular and count the beats of his strong, solid, heartbeat. “Do you feel wheezy? Itchy? Heart palpitations?” “Spend a lot of time on WebMD?” I don’t, but Maisie does. The last time I had a minor case of post-nasal drip she diagnosed me straight into throat cancer. “Impending sense of doom?” He laughs a little. “I’m good, Penny. Promise.” It’s good news, but we’re not out of the woods yet. I’ve lived in Port Flamingo all my life. I’m no stranger to the phrase I didn’t know I was allergic to…! “You had no idea you were allergic?” Russ crunches a few pieces of ice in his perfectly white teeth. “None. I’m not a huge fan of fish, is all.” “Not a huge fan!” I give him a shove. “Why didn’t you say? We could have gone to the A&W for burgers. I’m not picky.” He lifts one rugged eyebrow. I notice it has a hairline scar through it, and I flash to some scene from his past in which he was defending the honor of a nowforgotten girlfriend, fighting some brute by a dumpster while he roared things like, “You better learn some respect for women, you asshole.” “Didn’t want to disappoint you, darling.” Gulp. But the romance is broken up by Lucky, who has about as much sense of the moment as a wrecking ball. He trundles out toward the water, holding his cell phone up to the sky, tilting it back and forth trying to get a signal. “This goddamned town. The rest of the country is streaming Real Housewives all goddamned day, but us poor fools have to dick around holding our phones up in the air like we’re trying to catch a passing plane with a mirror. Fuckers.” “He doesn’t say much,” I explain to Russ, “But when he does, he’s on point.” “I’ll say.” Russ crunches on some more ice cubes, watching Lucky waddle down the beach. “I’m getting bupkis, Penny! Bupkis!” Lucky hollers. A handful of tiny crabs scatter in every direction, hurling themselves into the wet sand for cover. Lucky signals for the plane a few times, but I know when we’re beat. They don’t call Port Flamingo a “cellular Bermuda triangle” for nothing. I scoop everything into my purse, including Russ’ shoes and socks and about half a pound of sand, and

I struggle to my feet. “Going somewhere?” Russ asks, his voice all gritty and dark. “I’m taking you to Urgent Care, no arguments.” I wrap my arm around him—all muscle, no fat—and dig my fingers into him to get him to stand up along with me. This he does, but only by planting his hand on the table and sending everything on it flying. “I’m good. Seriously. Don’t worry about me.” “Shush. I almost killed you. I need to clear my conscience.” I crouch down to pick up the bottles of Cholula and Tabasco, and then raise my eyes to him. “Fine,” he says, offering me his hand. “But only if you wait with me. No fucking way am I hanging out at Urgent Care when I could be getting to know you, too.” Meep! “Deal.” Lucky trundles back, still with his phone out in front of him, pointing at contrails in the sky. He stares at me and scratches his shaved head, which makes a noise like he’s using a cheese grater on a block of Parmesan. “You sure about Urgent Care, Penny? You’re sure?” Yes, I’m sure, but I know what he’s thinking, which is pretty much the same thing I’m thinking, too: The hospital is only three hours away if you don’t hit traffic and keep the cruise control at 85. And, I’m sure we could find some other way to expose ourselves to every infectious disease known to man and some only known to marine biologists. And, Don’t I have a better way to spend the next four hours than on stained waiting room chairs with 20-year-old National Geographics to read? Still, it’s the best worst option. Sunshine State Urgent Care, which used to be a Domino’s, and then a Pizza Hut, and then a Papa John’s. But it’s close, it’s cheap, and I don’t think they’ve killed anybody. Probably. Russ leans into me, pulling me close, and presses his nose into my hair to take a deep, savoring breath. He tightens his hold on me as we make our way across the beach. When we get to the sandy asphalt path, I slide my hand into his pocket. “Whoa, tiger,” he says. Under my fingertips, I feel them. Not the keys, no, and not the crown jewels either… but the boxer briefs. “Keys! Where are your keys?” He reaches into his other pocket and hangs them out in front of me, the keychain looped over his girthy finger. “Don’t let me stop you, though,” he says gruffly, near my ear. “Might be something in there that could use your hand.” He looks down at me. I look up at him. Everything gets a tiny bit shimmery, and all the noise of the beach goes quiet—the seagulls, the honking barges on the Port, everything. It’s only me and him, barefoot in a municipal beach parking lot next to

a trashcan being scavenged by seagulls. But the way he’s making me feel, we might as well be on a dance floor in the Bahamas. “You sure you’re okay?” He steps into me, pressing me against the Suburban. “Want me to prove it?” I once read an article in Cosmo entitled, “It’s Actually Chemistry: Why Some Couples Have Sparks That Could Literally Set the World on Fire.” Exactly, Cosmo. Exactly. “Get in the car, handsome. Let’s get you checked out.”

7 RUSS

On the front window of the Urgent Care, I can see the outline of now-removed vinyl letters: FREE DELIVERY $15 MINIMUM. She lurches wildly into a parking spot, marked with a sign for Delivery Drivers Patients Only. I take my shoes and socks from her purse. The socks, though, they’re loaded with sand. The most logical thing would be to toss them in the back seat, but I just met her. I don’t want to be that douchebag who wears loafers with no socks. So I shake them out and put them on. She puts the Suburban in park. She never moved the seat, and she’s perched on the edge of it like she’s driving something way too big for her—a Caterpillar or a Mack truck. She unlatches the door and thrusts herself against it, flinging herself outside. I make a move to open my door, but she stops me. “No, you don’t!” And then she hustles around to my side with such fury I can hear her flip-flops slapping right through the shut windows. She starts to point at me, looking stern. So I let her have a taste of her own medicine and point right back at her, because goddamn it, opening doors is my job. She gives me a sassy shoulder lift and a finger wag. But by the time she’s come around to open my door, she’s giving me that great big All-American sweet smile. I rock my feet back and forth to get them into my shoes and tell her, “You’re cute when you’re trying to be bossy.” Her hand moves almost automatically to her cheek, covering a spreading blush, like a sudden sunburn. Hell, yes. “You’re insatiable.” “I haven’t even gotten started.” She takes her place beside me and wraps her arms around me again. It’s not like I’ve got a broken leg—I can totally walk. But she feels so fucking good like this, I’m not about to complain. We get to the front door of the clinic, and I beat her to opening it, my reach much longer than hers, and her arms all wrapped around me like they are. She slips inside in front of me. At first, I’m hit with a wave of pizza smells, but

that’s followed by an overpowering wave of something synthetic and sweet. I notice every single damned outlet has one of those air freshener things sticking from it, and on every flat surface is a paper bowl filled with dusty handfuls of potpourri. On the far end of the waiting room is a big guy in a John Deere hat, checking his rash against a poster that says, “DOES YOUR RASH LOOK LIKE THIS?” On the other side, a little boy is sitting next to his mom. She’s scrolling half-heartedly through her phone, and I notice a paperclip hanging from his nostril. And I now understand what Lucky meant when he asked, “You sure about Urgent Care, Penny? You sure?” “How far did you say the hospital was?” I whisper into her ear. She answers with a strangled, tickled laugh, but then gives me a stare, like she’s warning me to behave myself. At the check-in desk, the footprint of an old register is still totally obvious on the Formica, sliced in half with a thick panel of bulletproof glass. The lady behind the counter is dressed in scrubs decorated with ladybugs. Her mascara is so thick that her eyelashes form five big clumps over each eye. She looks up from the computer screen, and her bifocals slide down her nose. “Help you?” “Yes, hi,” Penny says, leaning into the glass, making the counter press against her stomach. Christ. “He ate some calamari, and I had to inject him with an EpiPen,” she explains, totally matter-of-fact, like this shit happens all the time. “His mouth started to feel funny, and he got short of breath, and…” She raises her eyes to me and trails off as I pull her closer. I watch the heaving of her chest and slide my fingers into her back pocket. She blinks once, and then twice, and tips forward on her toes into me. We aren’t standing like strangers. There’s no distance between our hips; there’s no polite bubble anymore. “Going to finish that sentence or…” asks the nurse. “What was I saying?” Penny replies, a little flustered. “Hives,” I tell her. “Oh, right.” She huffs and turns away, like she can’t look at me and speak at the same time. “And he had hives around his neck.” She caresses her neck with her fingertips. As she does, it’s like some primal desire kicks on inside me. I want my mouth on that throat. “Here,” she says. There. “And here,” she adds. There, too. The nurse doesn’t give two shits about our unspoken double entendres, though. “Can he speak for himself, honey, or are we gonna keep playing telephone?”

We both turn to face her as she slides her glasses back up her nose with one finger, making the tarantula legs look even bigger. “Are you having trouble breathing now?” she asks me. “Itchy skin, dizziness, fainting, an impending feeling of doom?” Penny snickers next to me and glances up at me to say, Told you! I shake my head. “I’m good.” Then I lean into her ear and whisper. “But I’d be better if I were kissing you. Got it?” Penny hangs on to the check-in counter, like her knees just gave out. “Got it?” I ask her, full volume. “Oh, yes,” she says, half-breathless. “I do.” The nurse makes some notes on a clipboard. “Have a seat. We’ve only got one doctor on tonight, and he’s dealing with a bit of a…” She pauses and looks up at the ceiling. “…situation, so it could be a while.” “That’s fine with us.” I let Penny take a little more of my weight on her shoulders, showing her how small I want to make her feel. The nurse slips the clipboard through the slot in the bulletproof glass. I write down my name and slide it back through. And then I pull Penny close, hand to her hip, and we head for a bank of chairs in the corner of the waiting room.

Her concern about me is totally fucking adorable. I’m not used to this sort of thing, but I could sure as fuck get used to it. After getting me a paper cone cup of water from the cooler, she sits down and turns to me, pivoting in her seat, bare thighs on the upholstery. “Want anything from the vending machine?” she asks, taking my cup from my hand and placing it inside hers. I glance over at it. Surprisingly, because I’m pretty much sure every goddamned thing in this room was made when Reagan was still in office, the vending machine looks pretty new, and so does everything inside it. I pull my wallet out of my back pocket and give her a twenty. “My treat. Told you I was taking you out.” She shifts her lips off to one side and glances at the cash. “I can buy us Jujubes, Russ. It’s the least I can do.” “Nope. I won’t tell you what I want until you take this, so…” I take her hand and open it, pressing the bill into her palm. “Now who’s bossy?” Just wait until I get you in bed. “If I don’t tell you what I want, we could have a repeat of earlier. You might feed me Nutter Butters, discover I didn’t know I was allergic to peanuts either, and we’ll have to go through the whole dog and pony

show again.” She gives me a soft punch in the arm. “Sorry.” “Will you stop it?” I pull her closer, crowding her space. “I’m kidding.” “You could have died.” “I feel like a million bucks.” “Big man on campus.” “Get used to it.” Nostril flare, lip bite, drags her eyes away. Shiiiiit. I nestle my hand at the small of her back as she stands up, feeling the warmth of her skin under her tank top. I catch sight of her panties, barely visible under the fabric of her shorts. She’s in a white thong under there. Christ. “All right,” she says, relenting and finally taking my money. “So what do you want?” “Guess.” You. I want you. So fucking badly. She groans and steadies herself on the chair. “You like salty or sweet?” “Can’t a guy like both?” And I swear to God, I hear her whimper as she turns to go. I can’t stop looking at her. Every fucking inch of her is better than the last. The line of her ass, the curve of her hips, the soft skin of her arms and legs. Before she can turn to catch me staring, though, I pick up the nearest thing at hand—a copy of Better Homes and Gardens with the address info cut out. “Grow Your Best Hydrangeas This Spring.” Dated 1998. A few minutes later, she returns with two bottles of water and her arms full of stuff. Dots. Oreos. Sour cream and onion potato chips. A granola bar. Cheddar popcorn. Cracker Jacks. “I like a girl who likes her snacks.” “Snacks are my religion.” She opens up the Dots. She puts a red one in her mouth and watches me. I take a yellow one. “You like the lemon ones?” “Hell, yes, I do. Lemon, then orange.” “I like the pink ones, then the red.” “The lime are gross, though,” she adds. I nod. “Completely fucking inedible.” She wrinkles her nose as she laughs, and eases back into the stained old seat. “So, picking up where we left off, before you almost died… What brings you to Port Flamingo?” Right, back to it. The job question. I can tackle this one of two ways. I can go straight at it and tell her the truth: I’m here find dirt on your mayor because I’ve

got a guy who wants to turn this place into the next Pebble Beach, or I can go a little softer. “I’ve got some business with a guy who’s got some real estate plans. But the real reason is that my aunt lives here. I haven’t been down to visit since I was a kid.” “Oh, really!” she says, beaming. “Who’s your aunt?” “Sharon Baytree.” I rip open the bag of Cracker Jack and offer her some. Her mouth drops open. “Shut the front door.” “Know her?” “Know her? She wears linen, smokes weed, grows lewd vegetables. I want to be her. She’s awesome!” She shovels a respectable handful of caramel corn into her mouth, making her cheeks puff out. “That’s her. But what about you?” I ask. “Obviously, you live here. But what do you do for a living?” She wipes her hands on her thighs, and flecks of caramel tumble off her skin. “I work for Visit Port Flamingo. Tourism, PR, advertising. Answering rude comments on the internet. That kind of thing.” I glance out at the swaying palm trees at the far edge of the parking lot. “What’s the marketing strategy for paradise?” “You can’t even imagine.” She tucks one foot up underneath her and leans against me, letting me feel the curve of her body against mine. I don’t miss the chance, and casually extend my arm. It might be straight out of high school, but it’s a solid play. Her back nestles against my forearm, and I cup my hand to her shoulder. She stiffens, but doesn’t pull away. Her expression is full of heat and mischief. “Are you putting the moves on me? At the Urgent Care?” You haven’t seen anything yet. “Got a problem with that?” She clutches her box of Dots so hard that the corners crumple. And then she flashes that adorable smile again. “None at all.”

While we wait, I cover the basics. “Favorite color?” I ask her. “Pink.” Her fingers move to her tan line, where the bikini was earlier. Fuck. “The brighter the better. You?” “Navy. Favorite food?” She pauses with a chip halfway to her mouth. “Are we talking about like if I could eat anything, what would I eat? Or are we talking about that awful question If you were stuck on a desert island with one only food for the rest of your life, blah, blah, blah?”

“Both.” She breaks off half the chip with her teeth and chews thoughtfully. “You first.” I’m halfway tempted to give her the canned bro response. A rib-eye steak and a good bottle of red wine. But maybe it’s the epinephrine, maybe it’s her curve of her cleavage, or maybe it’s the fact that I think we’re all being slowly drugged by whatever is in those air fresheners, but I want to be honest with her. Really honest. No pretense. “A Philly cheese steak with extra cheese and a really cold beer.” “Nice,” she says. “Yeah, that’s solid.” She sniffs, and chews a while longer, and then finally answers, “I’d say my desert island pick is salt and vinegar potato chips. And a box of wine. And some tea.” “That’s some island.” She puts three chips in a stack. “I really love to eat. It’s a hard question.” She straightens the chips, like a poker player deciding on his bet. “But my all-time pick, that’s easy. Grocery store birthday cake. Doesn’t matter what kind, as long as it’s got plenty of frosting,” she says, and jams the chips into her mouth, as a little dusting of crumbs falls down onto her tank. She loves to eat, she’s got a shelf full of Dickens, and she isn’t afraid to stab a man in the leg to save his life. That’s that. “I’m just going to say it, Penny. I like you. A lot.”

8 PENNY

The man with the rash sidles up to us and asks, “Would you say this is scaly?” He contorts his neck to get a better look at the back of his plump forearm. “Or just dry?” Russ’ eyes snag mine. I see a pained laugh coming up and coming up fast. From what I’ve gathered, he’s incredibly cool, calm, and collected, but everybody’s got their limit. Clearly, his limit is discussing mysterious rashes with strangers. Conveniently, that’s also my limit. There’s an impending church-and-funeral laugh coming up inside me, too. Russ grips my shoulder a little more tightly, and with his other hand dusts some granola off his suit pants. “Umm.” I glance at the big guy’s tricep but try really, really hard not to stare. “Just dry, I think?” He bends his body to get a better look at whatever’s happening on his arm and seems vaguely disappointed at my diagnosis. “Looks like scales to me.” “I’m no expert,” I reply, and jam way too many Dots in my mouth, including a lot of green ones, mostly to prevent myself from blurting out something I might regret, such as, Do you think you should maybe have that wrapped in gauze or something? “Seem like more of a purply pink or more of a pinkish purple?” He tugs at his John Deere T-shirt. “That poster says something about mauve. This mauve, would you say?” Russ busies himself with the granola bar. “I’d leave that to the professionals, man. I’m sure they’ll know exactly what to do.” Sure. Like, you know, amputation? Quarantine? Call the CDC? “Suppose you’re right,” he says, and shuffles off. He slumps down in a chair that’s too small for him and picks up a copy of Southern Living, with what looks like one of the ladies from Designing Women on the front. “Jesus,” Russ mutters, and then clears his throat. He turns to me again, but this time without the impending laugh. More serious, more interested.

In me. Hello again. Still me. Russ offers me the second half of the granola bar. “So, tell me about Guppy.” It’s like I just slipped into a warm bath. I don’t think he could have said anything better, not if he’d known me all my life. I resist the urge to pull out my phone and thumb through the ten thousand blurry photos I have of Guppy doing things like staring at the wall and napping with his head next to the bathroom sink. To say I have a soft spot for that dog would be like saying Port Flamingo has a small mosquito problem. Understatement of the year. “He’s a Dogo Argentino mix, I think. I don’t know for sure. He’s a rescue.” The memories of the day flood back at me in fits and starts, each one more heartbreaking than the last. “He was found in a garbage bag, on the side of the road.” Russ swallows hard. “Holy shit.” “I know.” I push the memory back down. “But he recovered. The only problem is now, garbage day is sort of…” I try to think of the word. Nightmarish? Terrifying? Out of control? “…upsetting. I usually take him next door. No need to make things difficult.” “The poor guy,” Russ says, in a soft, caring way. “But he lucked out, though. Landed on his feet with you as his mom.” His words turn me to a mushy mess inside. With my record, I think I’m fated to be a dog mom, and only a dog mom, which is totally okay with me. It’s the best compliment he could ever have given me. “I hope so. He’s still afraid of a lot of things, but we’re getting there.” “And what about that name?” Russ asks. I decide to go with the party line, for convenience’s sake. Nobody ever gets the real reason. I’ve learned my lesson on that one. Whenever I explain it I’m met with a sort of dead-inside stare because obscure references to minor characters from classic British literature aren’t exactly the thing around here. “It’s because he’s so big, you know? Like when skinny guys are called Fats. Or when big guys are called Slim.” Russ sniffs and tilts his head, just enough to show me the columns of muscles coming up from his traps. “Yeah? I thought it might be a Dickens reference.” I hear that dun-dun noise like between scenes on Law and Order in my head. No way. I stare at him, absolutely astonished. “Sorry?” It comes out as a moan from behind the Cracker Jacks. I try hard to swallow, but I’ve gotten into the caramel corn, and I’ve gotten in deep. Except, he seems to have heard me, because then he says, “I saw your bookshelf,

and I thought maybe he was named after Guppy, from Bleak House.” I grip his massive forearm and choke down what I haven’t yet chewed, the jagged kernels scratching painfully as they slide along my throat. Doesn’t matter. I need to get this cleared up. Urgent situation at hand. Urgent. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” “I’m right, aren’t I?” He lifts his chin again. How do you like me now? I press the bag of popcorn to my chest. I can’t believe this is happening to me. Nobody has ever gotten it, ever. “You know Bleak House?” If he quotes Dickens now, I’m going to die. Absolutely die. He flicks his chin at me, and says, “Shake me up, Judy.” Dead!

We’re now two spots further back in the waiting line. First came a guy with a fishing hook protruding from his lip, and who is now reading a coffee table copy of Far Side cartoons. After that hobbled in a woman who dropped a knife into her foot while cutting a frozen pizza, who’s got her big toe wrapped up in a quickly reddening dishtowel and who will not stop looking at the cut, so help me God. I ball up our trash and make my way to the waiting desk, where the nurse is halfway through peeling an orange and clearly not too thrilled about all these medical complaints. “How much longer do you think?” She snaps open the sliding window. “Could be three hours, ma’am.” I look up at the clock on the wall. It’ll be midnight before we get out of here. The epinephrine will have worn off and he’ll have fallen asleep in my lap. Is that bad? That’s bad. That should be bad. That doesn’t feel bad. But then I turn to face him, pivoting on my sandal. He barely fits in the little waiting chair as it is, and the logistics of getting him to lie in my lap are one word: awkward. “Three hours,” I mouth at him. He lets his head fall back against at WASH YOUR HANDS THOROUGHLY poster. His hives are gone, and he hasn’t started coughing again—I’m pretty much certain we’re in the clear. He rakes his hand through his hair and laughs. “What do you think?” he mouths to me. I turn back to Linda of the ladybugs. “Can we leave?” “You’re not paid by the hour to be here, are you, hon?” She throws a little strip of orange skin in the trash with a vengeance. I thread my fingers through the bulletproof slot and slide the clipboard back through the opening. I put a line through his name, admiring his strong, confident writing as I do. Russ Stevenson.

I walk back across the waiting room, watching him watching me. I fluff my hair, Herbal Essences forever, and sway my hips maybe a little more than is totally necessary. “You’re free, prisoner,” I tell him, and pick up my purse. I pout, as if I were going to tell him something dirty, but instead I say, “How about some jumbo shrimp?” He deadpans me right back. “Clam chowder.” “Mmm-hmm,” I run my tongue over my lips. “Oysters on the half shell.” He breaks into a smile first and puts his hand on my back, where it was before. “I like the way you think.” Outside, it’s gotten dark, and the sea breeze catches my hair. I wind it into a long twist off to one side and then plunge my hand back into my purse vortex to look for the keys. “I hate this bag,” I mutter as I plumb the depths. “It’s as heavy as a feedbag, and I can never find anything ever.” But as I’m distracted, he takes the opportunity to step into me, walking me against the plate-glass window. He produces the keys from his pocket and jingles them in front of me. I try to snatch them up, but before I can take them from him he grabs my hand and pins it against the window, the keys between our palms. My purse slides from my shoulder and thumps onto the pavement. He looks greedy and all full of desire, like now that we’re out here in the open, he’s calling the shots Over me. Yes, please. He cages me in more and more, until I’m flat against the window pane, until his hips are pressing into my stomach, until I feel his cold belt buckle through my tank. He says, “I've been dying to do this for hours. So hang on tight.” As he brings his lips to mine, he finally scratches me with that stubble and slips his tongue deeply into my mouth. This kiss is aggressive and confident, and so overwhelming I find that I really do have to hang on tight, clasping my free hand around one rippling forearm. He is hard against me, and the smell of his cologne is intoxicating. I let go of his forearm and tug on his shirt, two buttons in my fist. He moves one arm around behind me and yanks me into him. I try to keep up with the kiss, giving as good as I get, but I can’t. He’s too powerful, too good, too delicious, and I finally just let myself be taken away. Transported. Shot in a cannon right over the moon. The way he kisses tells me more than anything else I’ve learned about him yet. He’s dominant, knows what he wants, and is damned well going to take it.

Take me. Take me. His hand kneads my ass as his teeth grate against mine. It isn’t sweet or tentative; it’s pent-up and furious. He inhales hard, but doesn’t exhale, and then he ups the ante by parting my thighs with his knee. Knock-knock-knock. I force my eyes open, but his eyes are still closed and it seems he’s totally unaware of anything outside the two of us. He lets go of my pinned wrist and the keys fall to the ground. He brings his palm to my jaw, pressing into my cheek with his thumb as the kiss gets deeper and deeper. In my periphery is the nurse with the ladybug scrubs. She looks furious and is making a shooing motion with her hand. Still though, Russ pays no attention, and cups my ass with his palm. Whap-whap-whap. She is mere inches away from me, and one Band-Aidwrapped finger points at my face. Linda of the ladybugs means business. It takes all my strength, but I do manage to push him away, but no more than an inch. “We’ve got an audience,” I whisper. He looks almost angry at me for interrupting him. But that fury gives way to a new determination. He plants his palm on the glass and pulls me to him even tighter. “I need you horizontal, Penny. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

9 RUSS

The drive back to her place takes ten minutes, and I don’t move my hand from her thigh, not once. The ride feels like it takes an hour, every minute an eternity. Every passing second is one I should be spending mapping her body with my mouth. At a stoplight, I inch my palm up her thigh, putting my fingers under her shorts. She grips the door handle so hard that I watch her knuckles go white. Tension, desire. Need. On a left turn, gravity is against me, and my grip loosens. She puts her hand over mine, all her fingers saying, Don’t go, please don’t go. So I don’t. I stay there, grip her harder, turns be damned. I move my fingers up higher, and higher, until I brush the edge of her panties with my fingertips. That’s where I stop, because if I get inside her now, there’s no fucking way we’re going to get to where we need to be. As I stop, she growls, fucking growls, and stomps her feet on the sandy floor. “No fucking way am I taking you for the first time in the back of this Suburban, got it?” She plants her hands on the seat, and on the long inhalation she whispers a desperate, needy, “Jesus.” Once we arrive at her place, I go around to open her door for her and take her by the hand. She’s got her keys ready before we even get to the front stoop, and we’re inside in an instant. I slam the door shut behind me and take her in my arms, letting the doorknob grind into her ass. I kiss her again, and she flattens her palms against me, like her knees would go right out from under her if she didn’t have me to keep her steady. Makes me fucking insane to know what she’ll do when I finally get inside her. Still kissing her, I undo her shorts and let my hand move along the outside of her panties. I can tell she’s wet already, damn near soaked. But then I feel something pushing into my ass. Something wet, and large, and… The dog.

“Guppy,” she whispers, snapping for his attention, but also pulling me closer with her other hand. Two of her fingers slide between my shirt buttons and touch my chest. An enormous paw rakes down my calf. It feels like someone’s trying to get my attention with a gardening trowel. He inhales hard against my pocket, and then blows out a wet sneeze. “Guppy!” she bark-whispers again. “Bedtime.” A long puff of hot air from his nose steams my thigh. “Guppy,” she says, “I’m serious. Bedtime. Mama’s busy.” His nose wedges into my ass a little harder. I hold my eyes right on hers. She looks dead serious, her eyebrows furrowed. “Bed. Time,” she says, snapping with each word. She sounds official and stern, like it’s another way to say, Mama doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. She wins, because then he sighs a totally human sigh and trundles off toward the family room. The floorboards creak under his weight, and the wicker couch protests when he jumps onto it. He blows out a breath like a horse, his huge jowls flapping. Back to business. Keeping my hand down her shorts, I guide her backward into the kitchen. She drops her purse and kicks off her sandals. When I’ve got her up against the island, I slide one finger past the lace trim and work my way inside her pussy. She’s hot, tight, and ready. She crumples backward, slapping her hand on the butcher block for balance. “Jesus,” I groan into her ear. “You always this wet?” “For you, I think so.” I spin her around and hoist her up onto the countertop, making a nearby teakettle clatter and slosh. She loops her arms around my neck, and I kiss her again, pressing her head up against the cabinets. I add another finger, feeling just how fucking tight she really is. I compress her clit and she rolls her pelvis into my palm. That tiny movement, the shifting of her pussy, her body saying yes, it sets off something inside me, as powerful as a fucking starting pistol, and I smack the wooden door behind her head, making dishware rattle and ding. Her hands make their way down to my belt. I pull back from the kiss and watch her, her delicate hands working the leather, unthreading the end from the loops. With my thumb, I press into the edge of her clit, which makes her freeze, buckle clasped in her hand. Her eyes flutter shut, and she goes slack in my arms. I take over and pull my belt off. “So, listen,” I say, keeping my tone serious and dark. “I want you to tell me exactly what you want. You get that?”

“This is what I want,” she gasps, feeling me through my briefs. “Oh my God, you’re huge.” “Think you can handle me?” “If you teach me.” Shit, how sexy is that? I tip her chin up toward my face. “Yeah, I’ll teach you. But I want you to be fucking explicit.” “About what…” She trails off as I lick a line up her throat. “About what you like and how you like it. I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, and I don’t want to fuck around.” I drag my tongue along the shell of her ear. “Be dirty, be rude. Tell me what you want and don’t hold back.” Her neck arches, and her pussy clamps down around my fingers. So I give her a third. She pauses with her hands inside my waistband, her fingers inches from my cock. “What do you want? Tell me, right now.” She stares hard at me, like she’s trying to call my bluff. Like she thinks it doesn’t matter what she wants, not really. But how fucking wrong she is. What she wants, that’s everything. Still though, she doesn’t answer. She gets to work on my buttons again, her small fingers undoing one after another until she’s got her hands on my bare chest. Time to be even clearer with her, so I pin her head back and get right up in her face. “I can fuck you all night, Penny. I can fuck you until you beg for mercy. Or I can go slow and be sweet.” I pull off her shorts, working them down her legs, and drop them on the kitchen floor. She runs her fingertips down my abs. “Can’t we do everything?” Goddamn it, yes. “Everything and more.” The way she is, the way she walks the line between sweet and dirty, makes me want to get inside her right now, on this kitchen counter. I want to fuck her until we break the toaster and knock over the blender. I want to take her reckless, I want to take her wild. But I also want it to be exactly fucking right, down to the last fucking detail, down to every last thrust and moan. I cannot fuck this woman like I need to on a kitchen counter. So I scoop her perfect ass in my palms, digging my fingers into her flesh. “Bedroom. Where is it?” She hangs on tight and leans back, like I’m dipping her in a tango. She kicks her legs a little, and her long hair brushes along my forearm. Her eyes twinkle up at me, and her thighs grip me tighter. “First door on the right.”

I kick the door shut behind us, just in case the dog gets any ideas, and let her slide

down to standing. I pull her tank over her head and toss it aside, and let her take my shirt off finally. When I’m shirtless, I go to my knees at her feet. I look up the length of her body, kissing the creamy white triangle over her right hip, along her bikini line. She runs her hand up my bicep. “You are ridiculously sexy, Russ.” Jesus Christ, she doesn’t know the half of it. “You can’t see what I’m seeing. You’ve got me by miles and miles.” She drags her top lip into her mouth with her bottom teeth. Without even waiting for me to tell her, she reaches back behind her and unhooks her bra. She sends it flying like a Frisbee. Hell to the motherfucking yes. The bikini line is doing me all kinds of favors, because while her body is a golden tan, all the parts I want in my mouth are a pure, delicate white. Two triangles highlight her nipples, and the bow-shaped tan line between them is making me absolutely fucking insane. With my tongue, I move her panties aside and taste her. That taste, Christ. It’s salty, sweet, and all mixed up with her lotion or whatever it is. A smell and taste that is very distinctly hers and totally intoxicating. I open her up slightly, making a widening V with my fingers to push her lips aside. As soon as I put my tongue to her clit, her eyes close and she lets her head fall back, steadying herself on my shoulder. I warm her up with the widest part of my tongue, which lets me taste the wetness pouring from her too. Her hand moves to her left breast, and then her nipple. At first, she pinches herself lightly, but the more I work on her, the harder she pinches. She rocks back onto her heels, but I keep her steady, with one hand planted on her ass. I suck her clit into my mouth, getting to know every ripple and curve. As I tease the top edge, she pinches herself even harder, digging into herself with her nail. I let go of her pussy with a pop. “That’s so fucking hot,” I say, and go right back into her. Her eyes open up, like I shook her awake from a dream. I try it again, giving her more pressure, and the pinch starts all over. “That?” she asks, rolling her nipple up and then down. I nod into her pussy. That. Fucking magic, the way she responds like that. And so I play with her a bit, easing up and giving her more, sliding one finger along her slit, and then going inside her. Her moans get needier and ruder. Her grip on my shoulder tightens, and her nails dig into my skin, same as she’s digging into her own. Reaching up, I put my hand to her chest and push her, hard, back onto the bed. I’m not gentle about it. I don’t want to be gentle with this woman. I want to fucking dismantle her, until she’s at her most vulnerable.

Fuck it, that’s not what I want. That’s what I need. The mattress squeaks as she crumples back on the bed. Her ass is just off the edge, and I part her legs, pressing my tongue into her opening. “Yessssss,” she hisses, hitching up her hips. I dig in deeper, letting the soft flesh of her pussy get to know the grit of my stubble. Sand against silk. Still with my tongue on her clit, I hook my fingers up into her to find her G-spot. It’s a first-try bullseye, and her body responds so powerfully that her hips pop. After I get a few more good tastes of her, feeling her wetness thicken, getting lost in that internal map of hers, the texture of the magic spot slightly rougher than everything else, I pull back and wipe my face on the delicate skin of her inner thigh. My stubble leaves a red streak. I put a kiss to the faint scratch, and she watches me do it. “I like your cheeks when you blush,” I tell her, “But I like this even better.” With my eyes locked on hers, I tease that soft skin into my mouth, adding a hickey to the bargain. Her toes curl, and she gasps up at the ceiling. But as much as I want to stay here on my knees and taste her all fucking night, what I really need is to get inside her, to make her know how I want her, to make her feel it. Maybe I’ve only known her a handful of hours, but shit like this is simple. Primal. Basic. I come up to standing, kicking off my shoes and pulling off my socks. I don’t believe in much, but I do believe that guys who fuck with their socks on should be taken out back and punched in the face. She comes up on her elbows and then rolls up to sitting. Greedy and fast, she pulls down my pants, and my cock springs free. As it does, her mouth drops open. “Oh, fuck.” I run my thumb over her lips, the sharp edge of her jaw perched on my fingertip. “I told you I’d teach you to take it, beautiful. Don’t you fucking worry about that.” I place my hands on her hips and position her more fully onto the bed. I get on top of her, knees on either side of her body, my cock resting on the milk-white skin above her pussy. One shift of my hips, and I’d be inside her. I’m that close to knowing her from the inside out; I’m that close to losing all my fucking reason. “I’m not going to lie to you, Penny. I need inside you just like this,” I pump my cock, the head right at her opening. “No condom.” She tenses up. “Seriously?” I let her feel my hardness against her thigh. “That feel serious enough for you?” I can almost hear the wheels spinning in her head. All the good-girl logic, all the common sense, all the rules. “But I don’t want to push you.” Not unless you want me to. She’s smart and sensible, I know that. I mean, she ties a goddamned pom-pom

to her suitcase. I’m sure she’s not someone who throws caution to the fucking wind very often. Unless I can convince her it’s what needs to happen. “Are you clean?” she asks. “You think I’d hurt your body? You think I’d put you in danger like that?” She swallows hard and plants her hands on the mattress. “You hardly know me.” “I know enough. I’d never hurt you, never.” It takes everything I’ve got to stay where I am, inches from pressing into her, from ravaging her exactly like this. “You’re just lucky I’ve got enough self-control to stop myself.” I grip my cock to show her I’m ready to go if she says the word. I nudge the gap between the lips of her pussy and the soft skin of her inner thigh with my hard-on. Ready and fucking waiting. But I don’t want to scare her. I don’t want to be an asshole, so I ease up. “We’ll wait until you’re ready. You can trust me, but I don’t expect you to believe that.” “Should I? Trust you?” “The way I want to fuck you?” I shake my head at her. “I think that’s up for debate.” She moans again, a close-lipped gasp, and watches me work my cock. I press the head into her tan line, letting my balls brush up against her lips. I can take a hint, and that’s totally good. “Condom, right now.” I glance over at her bedside table. Two alarm clocks, a stack of books, and a basket of ear plugs. No discreet box where they might be. I open up the top drawer, but there’s none there and no toys either. Makes me wonder where she’s got her vibrators—it makes me wonder if she has any at all. “If you don’t have any toys in this house, we better do something about that.” She giggles a little, but her laugh is stopped short by a nervous swallow. I look back at her glistening eyes. She hesitates, and her tongue peeks out between her lips. But then finally, she says, “Oh, to hell with it. Get inside me. Just like you are.” The words send a bolt down my cock, right through my balls. “Fuck, yeah. You’re sure?” She nods slowly, almost tentatively. But then her legs link back together around me, pulling me into her. “I’m sure.” “You better be 100 percent, Penny. Once I start, I’m not stopping.” This time, she’s the one to kiss me. It’s not sweet. It’s rude, and needy. She breaks the kiss to tell me, “150 percent.” Fuck. Me. Using her wetness to lube up, I lean down into her, taking her nipple between

my teeth. One of her hands joins mine on my cock, her cool fingers teasing my balls. Enough foreplay. Time to do this thing for real. “You ready?” For a second, she looks almost scared. But then what does she do? Repositions the fucking pillow behind her head, and reaches up behind her to hang onto the headboard. “Go slow.” “I won’t hurt you until you tell me I can.” She gasps into her arm. “Where did you learn to talk like that?” “Not learned. It’s part of the package.” “I like the package,” she says, as I position myself at her opening. “You don’t know the package.” She pouts and watches me. “Not yet.” I grip the base of my cock hard and push into her, a half-inch at a time, checking for any sign that I’m hurting her. She shifts her hips slightly, and before I’m even a quarter of the way in, she paws for my hand. I grip it hard, to show her I really do have her. All the fucking way. “You okay?” “Yes,” she says, watching me press into her like she’s mesmerized, so beautifully innocent. “Keep going.” Every inch I give her makes me feel even greedier for her. She’s not just tight but ball-busting; she’s not just hot, but on fucking fire. As I get halfway in, I position her knees at my shoulders. Her back arches, and she grips the sheet in one fist. “Shiiiiiit.” I press my mouth to her calf and let my eyes close, for one single second. “You feel so fucking amazing.” She doesn’t answer, but squeezes my hand tighter, and I watch her get lost in a lip-biting roll of pleasure. “Oh, God,” she says, as my balls brush against her ass. “How can anything feel this good?” I go slowly at first, because I don’t want to hurt her. She feels so fucking good that I want to punish her for it, almost, but I don’t. Because I want to make her squirm, yeah. I want to make her beg, yeah. But I want her to get used to me first. I want her to need my cock inside her, and to miss it when it’s gone.

10 PENNY

As he drives into me, I start to lose myself to him…from the inside out. At first, I don’t believe it’s happening. I don’t believe it’s even possible. I see a longforgotten Cosmo article that I once saw a woman reading at the gym. The image of it filters up through my consciousness like an image from an overhead projector. The headline was, “Stop Trying to Make Vaginal Orgasms Happen; They’re Not Going to Happen.” I remember reading that, thinking, Of course they don’t happen. Silly ladies. Real life isn’t like porn, and went back to my low-impact elliptical and my Barefoot Contessa. But right now, something is happening. Something is definitely happening. Inside me. “Russ,” I say, growling it into his ear. “What are you doing to me?” He raises himself up into a pushup over me. He looks understandably smug. But instantly, the magical sensation declines. It still feels good—it still feels amazing— but it doesn’t quite feel like I’m in a room full of strobe lights anymore. So I yank him back down on top of me, keeping my face turned to him, which lets me watch him grin into the pillow. “I like your style, you know that?” He sounds gruff and hoarse. “You know what you want and you take it.” “You told me to be explicit.” I squeeze his buns. “But I agree with Elvis. A little less conversation…” He drives into me hard. “And a little more action.” Yes. Oh, yes. But the thing is, I haven’t told him what I want, because I don’t know. My sex life, until now, has been more like a votive candle than the fireworks store where Russ is taking me. What I know is pretty simple: All my orgasms belong either to my fingers or my Hitachi. But I also know something else: I’ve never in my life been with a man like this. There’s no negotiation, no ridiculous games, no preening, tentative questions,

like, Is that too hard? It’s never too hard, never. Or, Is that the right spot? If you’re asking, honey, the answer is a great big no. He asks no questions, except for when he checks on me. He takes me with no nonsense at all. Total, encompassing self-confidence and touchable masculinity. He knows what he’s doing, he knows how to do it, and he goes for it. Like a falcon going in for the kill. I’ll be this guy’s mouse any old day. “Keep doing…Exactly like…” “That’s right. Give me your half-sentences.” He laughs this cocky laugh that makes me tingle all over. “You’re mine already. Just roll with it.” On and on he goes, until I can’t see straight, until every thrust makes my whole body pulse. I grip his magnificent ass with my hands and keep him close, and then…it starts…to happen. He isn’t even touching my clit. Not with his fingers, not with his mouth, and neither am I. I grip his face, bring his forehead down until it presses against mine. “Holy shit.” “I told you to hang on tight.” “Russ.” “Penny.” “Russsssss.” He smiles, and that stubble scratches me again. “That’s the only word you need.” Russ. Russsss. Russsssssssss. Over and over again, his pelvis grinds against mine as he fucks me harder, and deeper, and with more confidence than any man ever has. The world starts to shiver, and my body begins to shake. I tighten my grip on his hips with my thighs. Every single damned thing I’ve ever known about sex, about coming, about myself in bed goes flying right out the window, zipping through the gaps in the air conditioning intake vents. Whoosh. “You’re going to make me come…” I press my head back hard into the pillows, and he goes at me again and again. “That’s the idea.” He pounds into me once more. “Give me what I want, and give it to me now.” “What do you want?” “You, shattering into a million fucking pieces because of what I’m doing to you.”

That is what is happening. Word-for-word. Right here and right now. I feel like I’m being pushed backward into a pool, with all my clothes on. I’m not ready for this. I have never been ready for this. His expression softens, gentler and less ruthless. “You okay?” “Yes.” “So let go.” “I don’t know how.” “Let me take what’s mine, Penny. Give it to me.” The emotions are sudden and intense. I've always had sole, exclusive power over my own orgasms. I could make them happen, but nobody else. I had the map to the treasure, and no man ever learned the way. Until now. “Come for me.” “Russ…” I say it like I’m warning him, without even really meaning to. As my body starts to dissolve for him, so does my heart. He’s doing this to me. It’s him. Not me. Whatever happens next is his. But he just smiles. “Trust me. I've got you.” He drives into me again, and I feel the waves start to spiral out from my clit. As he unleashes even more, I cling to him like I’m drowning. I hang onto him for dear life. And then I press my forehead into his shoulder and just… Let go. I’m deep in the pleasure blackout, but he keeps me close, talking to me the whole way through. “Keep going. Don’t stop.” Cosmo, you sweet bitches. You were so wrong. You never met a man like this one. You’ve never had sex like this.

11 RUSS

It’s a good, hard, primal fuck, but her orgasm is transcendent. I stay right with her all the way through her epic explosion and back again. She’s ferociously strong, and her contractions try to push me out, but I don’t let that happen. With every drive, I make sure to hit her pelvis with mine, grinding my hips into hers, making sure every single thrust also compresses her clit. She doesn’t just come with her pussy or with her screams; she comes with her whole fucking body, lost in a different world. I try to stave off my orgasm with boring, menial shit. My W2 form. The job waiting for me when I get back to Boston. Whether or not I paid my car insurance. None of it works, not one fucking bit, because she’s a fog, and I’m lost in her. My thoughts get eclipsed by the warmth of her skin, the coolness of her hair, the way Russ turns into yes, which turns into thank you. But lost or not, I’m not coming until she’s back with me. I won’t let go until I’m sure she’s had all she can take. Eventually, her eyes open up again, a little glazed. “Oh, my God.” She pulls me into her, looping her legs together around my ass and holding onto me in a full body embrace. I give myself a break, still deep inside her, holding off on the thrusts for a minute. I fluff the pillow behind her head, and push aside her hair from her ear. I make sure she’s safe and comfortable. “I told you I’d untangle you.” Her legs tighten, and I feel her smile. “Are you back with me?” The flutters from her walls start to slow. She strokes her fingers through my hair. “I think so. I don’t know. I’ve never been a part of anything like that. It was like I was in a kaleidoscope.” I get up on my elbows so I can watch her. “It’s not always like that?” She shakes her head, and the small shifts of her body echo back as a pulse in my balls. “I've always been the one to…” She glances down at me inside her.

“You’re fucking kidding.” “No, I’m not.” Now her glazed eyes get almost tearful. She blinks a handful of times and sniffs hard. I nudge her cheek with my nose. I don’t want to make a big fucking thing of it, but holy shit that’s awesome. “Never?” “Not once.” “So that kaleidoscope belongs to me. Don’t you forget it.” She sniffles again, and smiles. She brushes a tear away from her cheek on the pillow case, and then she turns to face me again. “All yours. Totally yours.” Fuck, yes. I double down, driving into her now a little more forcefully, but not fucking her so hard that the bed sounds like it’s going to break like it did before. Her wetness is thicker now that she’s come so hard, as thick as honey spilling out onto my balls. I stay right there with her, in the moment—the two of us linked up into one. I grip her ass with both hands, angling her hips until they’re exactly fucking right. It’s like I can’t get close enough to her, like I want to cover her with my whole body, not leave a single inch of her exposed. I let my face fall into the cool space between her tangled hair and the headboard, pressing my forehead into the pillow. “Holy shit,” she says, and her body echoes that with another squeeze. “You going to come again?” I ask her. “I don’t even know. I don’t know what you’re doing to me.” I know what I’m doing to her, though. I’m fucking her like I haven’t fucked a woman in years, with every ounce of passion I’ve got. Every drive gets me closer. Fuck the W2, and fuck the new job. This isn’t the last time I’m going to come tonight, and I know it. So I drive into her harder, and she rolls on into a new wave of Russ-into-yes. I have every intention of pulling out, but as I’m heading down into it, she digs her hands into my ass. “Please. Now. Inside me.” Holy fuck. “Penny…” “Russ. Don’t argue with me,” she growls. “I know what we’re supposed to do, and I don’t want to do it.” We stare each other down again and suddenly, I don’t give a fuck if it’s safe. Or if it’s sensible. It has to happen. I need to claim her, and it needs to happen now. I feel a wave of precum spill out into her. “You better be really goddamned sure,” I tell her. “I’m not kidding around.” “I’m sure,” she says, without any fucking hesitation. “I really, really am.” “And if you let me do this once…” “Do it. Right now. Put your cum inside me. Don’t you dare try to change my

mind.” And just like that, it turns into the most primal fuck of all.

12 RUSS

I wake up in that weird state of travel disorientation. Where the hell am I? What’s going on here? And what in the ever-loving fuck is that smell? In an instant, I realize that I’m with her, in her bedroom, with her curled up next to me. She’s naked, the curve of her hips and back an elegant sideways S on the sheets. I get up on my elbow and study her. The light from the clock radio shines on her as she sleeps, peaceful and sweet. Almost too pretty to believe. I pull the sheets up around her as the air conditioning unit kicks on higher. When I touch her, she moans and curls up into a more compact ball. I shift her bangs aside. She really is so fucking… Lovely. It’s the only word. But Christ, that smell. I inhale hard and feel the sting behind my eyes. I’m no stranger to tear gas, and this isn’t too far off. Except everything outside is silent. No lights, no sirens. No riot police. No guy with a bullhorn. There’s only the tick-tock of one of her alarm clocks and the whir of the AC in the window. And then a low grumble followed by the quiet squeak of a closed-mouthed bark. Guppy. I roll over and look down. He’s on his side next to the bed, sprawled out like a sleeping pony on the floor. His massive barrel chest expands with a deep breath, and then he makes a marf-marf, muted and high-pitched. His ears flicker, and his paws make very slight walking movements. But the more I watch him, the more panicked I realize he seems. Something in his nightmare startles him, and his whole body jolts. His ears perk up, and the marfs sound more worried. I reach down and give him a pat on his flank. As I do, a sudden and very human snore gets stuck in his nose. His mouth drops open, and I see the row of teeth on his bottom jaw, glistening from the light of a paw-shaped nightlight. His tongue slides from his mouth, dangling toward the floor, and his snores become soft and peaceful.

The faint pfffffft of a dog fart fills the air. It’s semi-silent but totally deadly. The guys at the Department of Defense should really look into bottling it, as soon as fucking possible. He unleashes another one, and then his paws wiggle like he’s digging for something. Judging from the smell, it’s buried, fermented cabbage. I rub my face and sit up in bed. Breathing only through my mouth, I untangle myself from the sheets and step over him—it’s like stepping over a body on a crime show, no shit. I head to the bathroom, where I take a tentative sniff. Amazingly, the smell hasn’t wafted in here yet, and so I shut the door behind me and flip up the toilet seat. A rippling light streams in from the street lamps outside, through the window in her shower and through the shower curtain printed with seashells. It’s enough light to show me that on the counter are all sorts of perfumes, makeup, and lotions. Fluffy white towels are folded up neatly on the racks. I peek behind the shower curtain, and I groan. In the tub is a drying rack, covered with her bras and panties, each one pinned with a clothespin. Some are lacy, some are sporty. A few are nude, one is bright red. In the middle, there’s a strapless black one that’s lit up by a shaft of light, each cup a perfect half-circle, made of some kind of shiny, soft fabric. Goddamn it. I close the curtain again, careful not to let the hooks clatter on the rod, and take my half-hard cock in hand, making sure my aim for the bowl is solid. My mind drifts back to the way she whimpered, the way she roared. I know I shouldn’t like her this much already, but sometimes it’s that fucking simple. Sometimes two people just click. Nothing to be done about it, no way to stop it happening. Penny. Russ. Click. I shake myself off and flush, setting down the seat like I found it, because leaving up toilet seats is for guys who have sex with their socks on. I rinse my hands and cup my palm to take a drink from the sink. I notice her toothbrush, plugged into the wall. A bottle of lotion catches my eye, and I pick it up, squinting in the moonlight. Tahitian Vanilla body butter. I unscrew the lid and take a whiff. Fuck, yes. I take it all in, her little touches everywhere. My bathroom in Boston looks like a dude bathroom. I’ve got minimal shit that all fits in the drawers, but hers is that same brand of Penny chaos that I see everywhere in her house, and that I saw in her car too. She lives life right to the brim, with some overflow—like champagne spilling over the top of a glass. Quietly, I open the bathroom door to head back to where I need to be. From a distance, she’s almost more captivating, between the moonlight and the clock light. The curve of her hip is accentuated by the rumpled sheets. Her bare back is

traced by the faint outline of her bikini straps. Her hair is all messy and sexy on the pillow behind her. But then there, next to her, where I was… Guppy. He’s lying exactly like a human being, right on the warm spot I left behind, with his head to the pillows and flat on his back. I walk over to my side of the bed. The smell has dissipated on the thousands of BTUs from the AC, thank God. “Hey, buddy,” I whisper, giving him a shake. A very human snore. Another shake. “Marf.” “Guppy,” I say in a stern whisper. When he hears his name, he shudders awake, like drunk guys do when you slap them out of a stupor. His big eyes go straight to mine, and there’s a low rumble. Yet somehow, I know he’s not going to bite me, warning growl or no, so I try to shift him. It’s fucking impossible. He’s got to weigh a hundred and fifty pounds, and right now he’s practicing the time-honored art of Being Dead Weight. I tug on his sheriff’s collar. In response, he lets loose a small airy fart with about as much total destructive force as a cluster bomb. “Christ,” I mutter in my hand. He blinks again, watching me. Bed. Time. He doesn’t get it. Sleeping next to her, that’s the only thing that matters right now. Me, in that bed, next to that perfect fucking body, holding her close. But then he nuzzles his huge face up beside her shoulder and gives his short tail a few thumps on the mattress. Yeah, he totally gets it. It’s the best spot in the house. And it’s official. My human ass just got demoted to the couch.

13 PENNY

I wake up to the thoroughly unpleasant sound of our mayor, singing both Sonny and Cher’s parts of I Got You Babe from my bedside radio. I jam my face into the pillow and groan, as the voice on the radio says, “Rise and shine, Port Flamingo! This is Mayor Jeffers coming at you from KPFF. It’s gonna be a hot one!” Cue canned sizzling bacon sound effect. Mayor Jeffers. He looks like Sonny Bono, talks like Sonny Bono, pops his collars like Phil Collins while claiming it’s like Sonny Bono, and knows every single song the guy ever sang by heart. And he’s no stranger to Simon and Garfunkel either. He’s on the radio every weekday from 6-8 a.m. His show feels like a combination of some very low-budget version NPR, a karaoke bar, and Good Morning, Vietnam. Guppy puts his drooly face on my bare arm, and I give him a pat. My second alarm clock goes off, the old bell clanging. I slap both clocks into silence like I’m playing Whac-a-Mole and then pull the cool sheet up over both Guppy and me. My whole body has that sort of sore, pleasantly exhausted feeling of a night of really, really good sex. More than that, though. I run back through it in my mind. Hands down, no contest: That was the best sex ever. Except then I realize this whole picture is missing something very important. Russ. I flail my way out of the sheets and spring up to sitting. Where on earth is Russ? Turning, I notice that Guppy has left a space of roughly five inches between him and the side of the mattress. “Guppppyyyy.” I give him a two-handed shove. “You have no sense of romance at all.” He adjusts his mouth and nestles in deeper to Russ’ pillow. Hoping against hope that Guppy only recently evicted him, I listen for any noises in the bathroom. Nothing. I spring out of bed and grab my robe from the hook on the door. I tie it around my waist as I hustle down the hallway. I check the couch. Not there. I check the reclining chair in the corner. Not there either. It occurs to me that because my dog doesn’t understand the concept of sharing, the sexiest man I’ve ever met in my

life—and the only man to give me an orgasm on his own—might have been forced to leave my house in the middle of the night. I’m really winning this. Totally. My tummy turns over with the early stages of regret, but then I see his suitcase is right where he left it, by the front door. That’s when I see him, on my patio, sound asleep on one of my old chaise lounges. He’s so big that the little plastic straps bow under his body, particularly under the muscles of his sexy tush. His shoulders are so broad that he spills over the sides of the chaise, but in spite of all of it, he looks amazingly comfortable. He’s tilted the seat back to the bottom rung, and his hands are clasped over his rippling abs. And he’s in the boxer briefs. Bless him. There’s a thump and clatter from the bedroom, and before long Guppy is nudging my hip with his stuffed armadillo, our signal for Brekkie, please. I leave my boxer-briefs dream land and return to reality. I grab a can of dog food from the cupboard, and the can opener from the drawer. As I turn the crank on the can opener, I look out at the beach from my kitchen window. And out there on the shoreline, a familiar face catches my eye. It’s Mrs. Mankowitz, shuffling along the sand. She walks the shoreline every single morning, like an ancient, beach-combing Zamboni. She carries a little grabber arm so she can pick up things like shells, and water bottles, and the odd body part from the old mannequin factory. I watch her bend down, bird-like, inspecting something in front of her. She picks up a plastic foot, but as she turns to drop it into her shopping basket, lined with a garbage bag, she freezes. The mechanical arm pops open and so does Mrs. Mankowitz’s mouth. I can’t blame her. What she’s seeing is as rare as a frost in Port Flamingo: a gorgeous hunk of man on Penny Darling’s porch. Guppy noses my bare leg and thumps his tail on the corner of the island. “Sorry,” I say, scooping out half the can and measuring out enough kibble for ten Chihuahuas to eat for a month. “Sit. Stay.” He pretends to have no idea what I’m talking about and snaps at a non-existent passing fly. “Guppy. Sit.” I give his kibble a shake. He drops his huge rear end onto the ground finally, splaying out his huge back legs behind him like a stuffed teddy bear. “Stay.” I put his food on the floor. I count to five Mississippis, and then give him the allclear. “Free!” And he’s off to the races. From my purse, my phone buzzes. I don’t even need to see what it says to know it’s from Maisie. She’s the queen of the rapid-fire text, and my phone hiccups and

jerks with alerts stacking up on top of each other. I pull it out and have a look. Are you awake? Are we walking the dog? Do you want protein in your smoothie? Also Mrs. Mankowitz and I have noticed that… THERE IS A MAN ON YOUR LANAI

After feeding Guppy breakfast—which takes about six seconds and is more like inhaling than eating—I put on a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt and creep out to the patio. Russ is still sound asleep, his broad, sexy chest rising and falling with each breath. Out here in the light, I get a better look at the tattoo on his shoulder. I don’t know what it means, but it’s some kind of official crest. Military. Definitely. And I can imagine it, him in some sort of daring situation. Saving civilians from danger. Maybe even wearing fatigues. Fatigues! Part of me wants to climb on top of him right here and now, Mrs. Mankowitz be damned. Part of me wants to tell him he can move to the bed, to apologize for having a dog as big as the Yeti. I want to whisper in his ear, Let’s go for a fourth round. What do you say, soldier? But my fear is that if I do wake him up, I run the risk of his doing what most men do the morning after: grab his stuff, say something about a real nice time, and hustle for the door. But if I play my cards right, if I time it right, there’s also a chance I can stand around and watch him eat marmalade and drink coffee in his boxer briefs. So I scribble a note on my to-do list for him.

Russ – Just walking Guppy. There’s fresh coffee, and banana bread and marmalade in the fridge. Help yourself and don’t go anywhere! Penny I pick up his arm, ever-so-gently, and tuck the note between his pec and his bicep so it doesn’t fly away in the breeze. Then I grab Guppy’s skinned tennis ball from his bed and we head out the wooden side gate. As I undo the latch, I hear a long “Owwwww,” and I open it to find Maisie

rubbing her nose with her palm. “Were you spying on me?” “No, just trying to place his face,” she says. “I’m almost sure I’ve seen him somewhere.” “If you say ‘on the FBI’s Most Wanted List,’ I’m never speaking to you again,” I half-whisper as I latch the gate closed and toss the tennis ball out onto the beach. Guppy takes off after it, galloping through a sandcastle left over from yesterday, colliding spectacularly with a tide-battered turret that explodes as he hits it. Maisie disappears onto her patio for a second and then reappears, holding two big plastic cups. She hands one to me. The smoothie inside is bright green and smells like horse feed. “Why can’t we have strawberry? Or mango?” I give it a sniff. “Or peach? There are so many fruits, Maisie. So many.” “Because kale is the superfood of superfoods. Blueberries? Please. Now, enough small talk.” She slurps up a big gulp of smoothie through the wide bubble-tea straw. “Did you get injured when you fell off the Man Wagon? Because I could hear you from my house. Through my earplugs...” I get up on my tiptoes and study him over my patio wall. The bulge in his boxer briefs, his abs. His face. “…Annnnd the pillow over my head...” It started with an accidental theft, moved to an accidental poisoning, and ended with him sleeping on my porch. And yet, it was absolutely perfect from strange start to even stranger finish. I had a Cosmo-debunking orgasm, and I haven’t laughed so hard on a date…ever. “…Annnnd my white noise machine.” Coming back down onto the soles of my feet, I look her in the eye and take a long, grassy-tasting gulp. “Annnnnd hashtag sorry-not-sorry.”

14 RUSS

I wake up to find a note tucked under my arm. Judging from the edits, it’s a modification of an earlier version:

Russ – Had to go to work! Just walking Guppy. There’s fresh coffee, and banana bread and marmalade in the fridge. Help yourself and don’t go anywhere! Call me (landline or Skype)! Penny PS: Wi-Fi info on the fridge! Followed by her number and her Skype name. My first reaction is goddamn it I missed her, but my second thought is that she really is incredibly sweet. Kind, thoughtful, and caring. I unfold myself from the chaise lounge with a stretch and a yawn. There’s a sort of rustling over my shoulder, and I turn to look. A big flower on a vine sways, along with some leaves from a planter on top of the wall. “Hello?” I ask. But there’s no answer. Inside the house, Guppy is tucked up into a huge ball in his bed, his feet jammed under his body. I decide not to wake him—only idiots wake sleeping bears—and I make my way into the kitchen. There’s warm coffee in the pot, like she said. I open up the fridge and see she’s left me two thick slices of banana bread, covered in plastic wrap. Next to that is a small jar labeled “Grandpa’s Marmalade,” and dated this month. I take it all out and put it on the counter. From the cabinet I take a mug, which looks almost handmade, and pour myself a cup of coffee. On the fridge, I see a Post-it with the Wi-Fi address MaisieIsAwesome and the password SeriouslyAwesome1.

As I take the plastic wrap off the banana bread, Guppy makes his entrance. His head is even with the countertops, and he blocks off the whole corner cabinet when he sits down. He eyes the bread and the marmalade. His weirdly human eyebrow area goes up and stays there. “Dude, no, sorry,” I say. “But here.” I give him a treat from a glass jar. He sniffs it suspiciously, like I’m trying to poison him. So I try a different colored cookie, and a third. Finally, when I get to the dark brown one, he takes it but he looks pretty disappointed about it. You get banana bread. I get a cardboard-flavored treat. Ass. I open up her marmalade and take a knife from the drawer. Normally, I like my toast plain, my coffee black, my eggs over easy. But it’s cute, and nice, and sure, I’ll try her marmalade. On her banana bread. So I do. And holy shit. Guppy grumbles, kneading the rug with his polar bear claws, and I watch a stream of drool slide down to the floor while he watches me with his droopy, bloodshot eyes. The banana bread is moist but slightly crunchy with walnuts, or maybe pecans. Grandpa’s Orange Marmalade is tart, and sweet, and silky, and together they’re so fucking good. I brace myself on the island, like I’ve had the wind knocked out of me. Guppy flops down sadly on the ground, mashing his face into the gap between the cabinets and the tile. He flattens his ears and sighs. I cram as much of the bread into my mouth as I can, folding up a corner with my finger. Onto the second piece, which is even better because I double up the marmalade. Guppy gives me his Tony Soprano stare. When he seems reasonably resigned to the fact that the banana bread isn’t going to drop right down onto the rug, he trots over to his bed and picks up his turkey, then resumes his watch while gnawing on one of its stuffed legs. I notice that the little stars on his collar all say THERE’S A NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN. ME. As I finish off the second piece, I open the fridge again and spot the whole loaf, sitting by the eggs. But next to that is a plastic bag full of cookies, marked on the label Oatmeal Raisin. Christ. This woman totally has my number. I pull one from the bag and take a bite. “Oh, fuck.” The words I could get used to this cross my mind. I let myself think them, but I don’t let myself feel them, as much as I want to. I’m here on business. Business.

I’m not here to fall for a girl who has the most delicious banana bread I’ve ever had, or who keeps a reserve stash of kryptonite in her fridge. I’m not here to get involved with a woman who gave me the best sex of my life, and who’s my every fantasy made real. Who has the same suitcase as I do, and who named her dog after a Dickens character. No. I’m here to do a job. So I finish the cookie and unzip my bag. I pull out a fresh shirt and pants, and grab my Dopp kit. In the bathroom, her drying rack is out of the tub now, pushed up against the wall. I turn on the hot water, and as the steam fills the room I see she’s left me a note on the mirror, written with her fingertip on the glass. Good morning, handsome! On the bathmat are her wet footprints. I put my feet over them and they disappear completely. I’m not here to stay. I’m not.

15 RUSS

After going half an hour north on the highway, I arrive at a nondescript office park, the sort of place that looks like it could be home to a cut-rate insurance company, or a shady pharmaceuticals firm. In the first parking space is an ’80s Cadillac, with a small crack in the windshield. It’s white with a tan fake convertible roof. Caught in shitty car limbo forever, it’s too common to be a collector’s item and too ugly to be collectible anyway. The worst. Over the revolving doors to the building are the words A. R. DICKERSON GOLF INTERNATIONAL. Inside the letters, about half a dozen seagulls have built nests out of plastic bags and fishing nets, and under each bolt is a splotch of rust, like bloodstains. The place inside is equally grim, with dusty fake office plants and sun-faded tropical wallpaper. A security guard doesn’t look up from his game of Bejeweled on his phone. I get into the elevator and press the button for the top floor. I take a left out of the elevator and head down the hallway, toward a set of glass doors that are smudged with Windex streaks from a half-interested janitor. There’s a secretary behind the desk saying, “I understand that, yes, but we won’t reimburse you for balls lost in water hazards. That’s not how golf works.” She lets her face fall into her open hand. “Sir! It’s not a scam!” Tugging on her jaw with her palm, she looks up at me blankly, and I flash my business card. She squints and pulls her head back, nearsighted by a mile. “He’s in there,” she mouths, and points toward the back of the office. I make my way past the veneered cubicles toward the corner office. I’ve been in a thousand places like this one. Places like this are my meat and potatoes. Places like this have made my career. But fuck me if they aren’t the most depressing places on the planet. The corner office has its door shut, and so I knock on the nameplate that says, ADOLF RICHARD “DICK” DICKERSON. CEO, CFO, COO, OWNER. With a name like that, no wonder he goes by Dick. “Come in!” booms a voice from behind the door, and then even louder, “Son of a

bitch! In the ass again! You bastard!” Christ. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this job, it’s that you don’t believe anything you hear from behind a closed door. So I brace myself for anything and open it. Dickerson’s office looks like a preserved set from Miami Vice. It’s like a fucking time warp. Everything—from the black leather furniture to the tan carpet—is vintage. There’s a calculator with a roll of paper tape on the desk, and on the wall is a big, yellowed plaque proclaiming A.R. Dickerson, Man of the Year, South Florida Better Business Bureau, 1986. But Dickerson himself, most of all, is straight out of the ’80s. A feathery mullet with a comb-over, and a handlebar mustache. He’s holding a putter, and standing on a fake putting green in front of a large cherry desk. He rubs his ass and glares at a man kneeled on the floor beside him. “Sorry, sir, but if you’d just hold still…” says the guy on the ground. He kneewalks along on the Astroturf, trying to mark a line on a Dickerson’s brown polyester pants. Around his neck like a scarf is a tape measure, and in place of a watch he wears a pincushion. Dickerson blows out a breath and scratches his nose, which is red and bulbous. It’s a drinker’s nose, veined and too big. “Who the hell are you?” Dickerson asks me, gripping his putter a little more aggressively, using both hands to hold it halfway down the shaft. “Russ Macklin.” “Well it’s about goddamned time.” Dickerson strides off the raised platform as the tailor flails around, trying to mark the hem. “I was expecting you yesterday afternoon. What the hell happened? And don’t tell me it was a woman.” He swings his putter through the air like a baseball bat. “Nothing but trouble, women.” A woman. Not just a woman. The woman. “Had a little trouble with my luggage.” “Mmmm,” Dickerson says, rubbing his huge nose with his plump hand, making it even redder on the end. He props his putter against his desk. “Have a seat.” He points to an uncomfortable-looking chair in front of his desk. This guy might be king of his own little golf empire, but no way am I letting him tell me where to sit. So I take a seat in a different chair and open up my bag. He’s about to sit down himself—knees bent, one second away from flopping back in the ancient office chair—when the tailor gasps, “Sir! The pins!” “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Dickerson roars, coming back up to standing and sending his office chair spiraling. “Take your measurements and skedaddle. Mr. Macklin and I have secret shit to discuss.”

Once we’re alone in the office—and after Dickerson has changed from his unhemmed brown polyesters into a pair of ancient pleated khakis—he stabs a button on the old phone on his desk. “Kathleen! Hold my calls.” From the hallway, completely bypassing the intercom, Kathleen hollers, “All right!” He pokes a few more times at the keypad, his first finger extended and pecking at the buttons in a random frenzy. One of them lights up and he yells at the phone, “And call that goddamned auto glass place to come fix my windshield!” Again from the hallway, the secretary answers, “Okay!” The guy clearly has a history with the intercom system, because he’s looking at the phone like he’s this close to ripping it off its cord and flinging it through the window. The corner of the phone has a white smudge, and I notice a matching ding in the drywall on the wall to my left. He yanks open his top drawer and takes out a squishy stress ball shaped like a clown’s head. He squeezes it hard, and its nose balloons out. “Now,” says Dickerson, clearly trying to keep his temper in check, “Mr. Macklin. Let me show you the lay of the land.” From the top drawer of his desk he produces a map, an actual paper AAA map, folded up into a tidy rectangle. As he unfurls it, he sends pens, pencils, and a box of paperclips flying. He tosses the therapeutic clown head aside. “This is Port Flamingo.” He pokes the center of the map with his sausage finger. Clearly. “I’m with you.” “This area here…”—he takes a highlighter from his desk drawer, biting off the lid, and then circling a big area to the north of town—“…is where I want to put the next Dickerson Golf Resort. Gonna be great,” he says, around the top of the highlighter, giving the same effect as if he had a cigar between his teeth. He looks off at something behind my shoulder, and I take a look behind me. There, on a table, is a scale model of the course, complete with tiny flags and trees. “Eighteen holes, PGA-approved. Five-star hotel with a spa. Hot rocks, Thai massage, all that fancy schmancy shit. And,” he adds wistfully, “a real hibachi restaurant, like where the chefs will flip food into your mouth while you drink your Mai Tai, you feel me?” As long as it isn’t calamari. “So far.” He drops the highlighter cap from his mouth, and it lands in the Gulf. “However, the mayor of this town is as crooked as an 80-year-old woman’s front bumper. I can’t get anything at all done with him standing in my way.” I lean back in my chair. It’s not exactly corporate espionage, but I guess variety is the spice of life. “Could always wait for him to get voted out.” “We’re not in the land of term limits, son. Even if I do wait four goddamned

years, do you know how nuts you’d have to be to run for mayor of this place? Are you familiar with their history? With those goddamned jellyfish?” I am now, thanks to Penny. My inside source. Inside. Fuck. But I’m not about to let Dickerson see me get lost in a goddamned erotic daydream, so I stay the course. “Just so we’re clear, you’re willing to pay me my flat fee with overtime to look up dirt on this guy? On the mayor of this tiny town?” I cross my arms and watch his every move. “I don’t come cheap, Dickerson.” “I’m ready to pay, son! I've got ready cash coming out of my goddamned eyeballs. Mayor Jeffers is the only thing standing between me and 18 holes of profit. But he’s got his fingers in all of Port Flamingo’s pies.” He stabs the center of the pink circle with the highlighter, puncturing the map clean through. “Right here, in the middle of my back nine, is his unlicensed llama farm.” He draws a line next to the coast, and adds, “And over here is the boardwalk, which he owns too.” “And?” Dickerson huffs. “Mayor Jack Jeffers couldn’t invest in a rigged slot machine and make a profit. Couldn’t rub two dimes together without losing a nickel. Couldn’t…” “I’m with you.” He grunts. “Right. And I won’t stand for it anymore, son. I won’t watch that man make a mess of this town.” He skewers the map five more times with the highlighter, so it’s like it’s been battered with fluorescent buckshot. “It’s a nice place with nice people, and I won’t stand by and watch it go under.” As motives for hiring a PI go, it’s pretty much par for the course, no pun intended. A financial motive disguised as a decent one. Situation normal in this line of work. I look more closely at the map. Dickerson can’t build north, because there’s a green patch there, signaling a national park. Small, bold print defines it as the GREAT SODA LAKE. Down below, the ocean. To the left is East Beach Point Drive. Where there’s a drying rack loaded with perfect lingerie, and a woman named after a fucking goddess. I push the thoughts away. “I’m assuming you’ve tried to purchase these properties from him.” “Goddamn it, of course I have. Lowballed him, highballed him, everything. Do I look like an amateur to you, Mr. Macklin?” What he looks like, I realize, is a guy one cotton-ball beard away from being able to find holiday work at any failing shopping mall on the planet. The nose, the gut, the mullet of white hair. He’s like Santa wearing second-hand dad pants. “Let’s get

something straight, Mr. Dickerson. I can dig up dirt on anybody, but I can only find it if it’s already there. You want someone to fabricate your leverage, I’m not your guy.” Dickerson nods and fumbles for the highlighter lid. He misses the first time and makes a pink splotch on his finger. Rather than trying a second time, he tosses the highlighter aside and it lands next to the clown ball. Then he sits down, takes a letter opener out of his desk, and starts cleaning his ear with it. “Understood, son. I don’t want to make trouble, I want to save this town. We have a deal?” He looks at the wax on the tip of the opener and then back to me. Christ almighty. What I should tell him is an unequivocal no. Saving tiny rural towns from possibly crooked mayors isn’t exactly one of my standard services. And yet, this might be my last job as a PI; while it’s not exactly earth-shattering, it’s an easy one. I glance outside at the gently swaying palm trees. Back in Boston, it’s snowing so hard the plows can’t stay ahead of it. Here I am, in paradise. For a week. With her. “Yeah, you’ve got a deal.” He begins folding up the map the wrong way and sticks with it. When he’s done, it’s all misshapen and about three times thicker than it was when he started. He hands it over. “Good. Keep me posted as to developments, son.” He picks up his putter again. From his pocket, he produces an unlit cigar and jams it into his mouth, exactly like he bit the highlighter. He squares up in front of the hole. “I had my secretary make you an appointment with him, covert-like. Lunchtime, today. Sunkissed Diner. Give him any cover story you want, Mr. Macklin,” he says, and sinks the two-inch putt, “but don’t let him know I’m backing this scheme.”

Back in Port Flamingo, I pull up in front of my Aunt Sharon’s bungalow. Wafting in through the AC on the dash is the very distinctive smell that will always belong to her, no matter where I smell it. Doesn’t matter if it was at some party in college, or on some street corner in Southie. That smell, it’s hers. Weed. Her head pops up from the rows of beans and “tomatoes,” which only look like tomato plants if you’ve never seen a tomato plant. She’s got a joint in one hand and pruning shears in the other. Before I can open my door, she takes off through the leafy green rows. She hustles into her small greenhouse and slams the door behind her. The five-pointed leaves rustle in the breeze. As I open my door, I hear her holler, “You’re not touching my tomatoes without

a warrant, sir.” It’s not exactly the welcome back, Russ! that I was expecting. “I know my rights!” Her voice is weirdly magnified, and yet somehow muted, by the greenhouse effect. “You think I got to be this old without knowing my amendments, Agent Whoever You Are?” Agent. Holy shit. I realize what she must be thinking as I look down at myself, putting what I see through both the foggy windows of the greenhouse and the mind-bending effects of organically grown weed. The black Suburban with the tinted windows. The dress pants, the shirt. The standard-issue haircut. My Aunt Sharon thinks I’m a fed. The thing is, I’m showing up unannounced. I wasn’t totally sure I was going to take this job, and I didn’t want to disappoint her if I couldn’t. But I am, and now I’m here. And she’s got no idea who I am. So I decide to roll with it. “That so, ma’am?” “Hell, yes, it is!” I hit the lock button on my keys. “Here’s the thing, Ms. Baytree. We’ve had some complaints.” I inhale slowly and shake my head at the garden. “Disturbing the peace. Lewd and lascivious vegetables.” The fog inside the green house squeaks as she squeegees off a spot with her hand. She puts her John-Lennon-style sunglasses on her head. “No!” she gasps. I open my arms wide. “Yes. So come on out, you menace to society.” The door to the green house flies open, and she floats down the path, linen flowing. She gives me a huge hug and a big kiss on the cheek. “It’s so good to see you, honey. Sorry about the paranoia—it happens.” “Agent Whoever You Are,” I tease. “Better safe than sorry.” Touché.

With her knife hovering over a pound cake from the freezer, Aunt Sharon says, “Something tells me you haven’t come all this way unannounced for me to plump you up.” This is one of the problems with my job. The people who you want to tell are also the people you really can’t. Like my aunt, and Penny, too. “I’d tell you if I could.” “All right. Fifth Amendment, I’ll allow it.” She slices into the pound cake. “But here’s a question the Constitution can’t stop me from asking: Found yourself a nice girl yet?” For a lady who’s never been married and who says the word marriage like most people say lice, she’s always had a serious interest in whether or not anybody else

has caught the marrying bug. In my gut, I know that Penny is the epitome of a nice girl, but it’s impossible. I’m here for a week, and it’s better to leave Penny off of Aunt Sharon’s radar. God knows Penny has enough going on without gift baskets of kinky carrots showing up on her doorstep. “Not yet.” She studies me over the top of her normal glasses, also Harry-Potter-JohnLennon, but untinted. “A wife can be a good thing. Keep you on track. Call you out on your bullshit. Make sure you’re not living out of your laundry basket.” “This from the woman with a tattoo that says, Men are luxuries, not necessities. – Cher.” A knowing “mmmm” spills from her nose. “Maybe our side of the family doesn’t do marriage. Maybe it’s like people who can’t do the splits or who are tone deaf. Maybe we just can’t marry.” As usual, she has a point. “Think of my mom and dad.” She makes a horrified gasp. “Let’s not, honey. May they rest in peace, but I’d rather think of the Nuremberg trials.” It’s a fact. My memories of them together are pretty hazy, since I was only a kid when they split, but mostly involve my mom intentionally shrinking his pants, while he intentionally drained the battery on her Honda. It’s not exactly a blueprint for marital bliss. She serves me up a three-inch wedge of cake. “Maybe we aren’t the marrying types. God knows I’ve tried that experiment enough times to know I’d rather have herpes than the same man in bed until I drop dead.” I snort-cough into my sweet tea. My Aunt Sharon is a lot of things, but a wordmincer isn’t one of them. But little does Aunt Sharon know, her and her unvarnished descriptions of the world are my best starting point for this job. “You and the mayor, you gave it a shot. Wasn’t that bad, was it?” The knife pings on the cake plate. “Russy. I got mugged in Washington Heights in 1987 and it was more satisfying than being married to that man.” That’s what she calls the mayor, and what she’s always called him. That Man. Some women her age have hobbies like mahjong and bridge. My Aunt Sharon fills her days growing fully endowed carrots and holding a lasting grudge against That Man. Everybody’s got their something. And my Aunt Sharon’s something is the reason I took this job at all. It’s funny, though, because for me, until say, last night, my something has always been work. I’m that guy who is always working. I love work. I think about it all the fucking time. It defines me. It is me. Except now there’s someone else in the foreground. I hardly know her, but I want her. I just met her, but I like what I know more than I should.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to clear my head. In the corner of the living room, my aunt’s cat, Janis Joplin, plucks at her frayed scratching post. “You okay, honey?” Aunt Sharon takes a slice of the cake straight from the plate and puts half of it into her mouth. “Totally.” I blink myself out of the reverie. “But speaking of That Man, if you were hypothetically going to fill me in on his…weak spots, what would those be?” Aunt Sharon puffs out around the cake, “Don’t tell me you’re investigating him…” “Can’t confirm or deny. I need some basic information on him. That’s it.” She chews furiously and wipes her crumbs off her linen shirt. “Well, God knows I can give you plenty of that.”

16 PENNY

Visit Port Flamingo doubles as the mayor’s office, in a little cinderblock building that used to be a pawnshop. It’s now painted exactly the same color as a tangerine, inside and out, including the bars on the windows. The mayor himself painted it, after he got voted into office this last time—nobody cared enough to run against him, but someone did write in a candidate named Root Canal. As in, “I’d rather have a root canal than vote for that man again.” When I heard that, I said to Maisie, “I’ll bet you money that was Sharon Baytree.” And Maisie said, “It’s not a bet if it’s a sure thing.” Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner. Sometimes I think that the phrase bless his heart was invented for our mayor. He’s got good intentions, I do believe that, but his strategy isn’t always the best. He attacked this place with a paint sprayer and a very misguided post-election zeal, which means I’ve spent the last year unsticking the light switches from their paint-crusts and using blunted pencils to pry open the louvers on the air conditioning vents. But it’s cheerful. Provided you’re passionately in love with orange. I unlock the front door and flip the sign from Closed to Open. I put my purse behind my desk, pull my earbuds from my ears, set down my phone, and turn on my computer. Then, outside the window, I see him. He’s making a sort of snappistol gesture like the Fonz to someone across the street. The mayor. His name is Jack Jeffers, but he prefers to be called… Wait for it, babe… Sonny. Of course he does. He thrusts the door open and gives me jazz hands. Ta-da! “Penny, darling!” Every single fiber of my being tells me to put my head on my desk and say, “Enough. I’ll work at the garden center. I can’t do this anymore.” But I know better. While it isn’t ideal, it’s a job. Also, it pays better than rearranging six-packs

of petunias all day. Believe me, I’ve checked. “What’s on the docket, Mr. Mayor?” “Don’t know! You tell me!” He takes a peppermint from the little bowl on my desk and tucks it into his mouth. My computer comes to life and my Google Alerts populate my inbox. Anytime anybody mentions the town or its peculiarities, I get a notification. Today, I’ve got a one-star review from Yelp of our all-purpose bait-shop-slash-gas-station: Staff rude, worms dead, no gas. Also, a Facebook review of the Great Soda Lake: Smells really weird, flamingos are f**king scary, don’t go there. And finally, an op-ed from the Port Flamingo Gazette: “If We Don’t Get Cell Service in This Town Soon, I’m Moving to Tampa and So Should You.” I look away from the screen and try to focus on something a bit happier. I pick up my phone, hoping for a message from Russ. I check my Wi-Fi settings to make sure I’m on the Visit Florida network. I open and close my messages a few times, pounding on my phone with my finger. I open and close Skype. Refresh. Nope. Nothing. If I never hear from him again, I swear to God that’s it. I’m done with men. I’ll throw away all my sexy lingerie, buy only linen tunics and leggings, and wait for menopause to give me back my common sense. In 20 years. In the meantime, it’s back to the grind. I open up the calendar and take a look. Among my assorted tasks are keeping the mayor’s calendar organized—it’s like trying to piece together a jigsaw with only half the pieces. “You’ve got a lunch meeting at the dinner,” I say, reading what he put into the calendar. Wait, no. “Diner.” “Who says?” “You do. You put it in here,” I tell the mayor. “I spell diner with one n. Had to be you. Lunch at noon at the Sunkissed.” He blows his nose into a Kleenex and dabs at his nostrils. “You coming with me?” Root Canal. But the job is the job. Sometimes I feel like I’m the protective gel coating to the aspirin that is the mayor. Maisie raised me a mixed metaphor and went on to say if not for me, half this town would be doubled over with acid reflux. Flattery will get you everywhere. “Yep. I just need to reply to this lady’s review of Soda Lake and see what I can do about the nudists on the public beach. I’ll come find you.” He rolls the mint over to the other cheek, sucking up a droplet of drool midmaneuver. “Sounds good, Darling!”

17 RUSS

The Sunkissed Diner is clean, smells like bacon, and the waitress is wearing pointy 1950s glasses like Lucille Ball. “Help you?” “Yeah, I’m here to see Mayor…” I turn to look. There’s only one guy in the whole place…and it’s Sonny Goddamned Bono. Holy shit. “Is that Sonny Bono?” “Sonny Bono’s passed on, hon. That’s our mayor,” says the waitress, her voice flat and mechanical like she’s said it six hundred times already today. She grabs a menu, signaling to me to follow along. As we approach the table, the mayor looks up at me, in the middle of turning the page on a catalog full of polo shirts and country-club sweaters. The chair next to his is pulled out slightly, and there’s a teacup steaming on a saucer. An assistant, gotta be. “Thinking about buying myself one of these.” He taps on a sweater that the model is wearing over his shoulders. “What do you think?” What I think is that I should take the waitress by the shoulders to ask, You sure Sonny Bono’s dead? You sure? It’s un-fucking-canny. But I keep it serious and professional. “I’m Russ Stevenson,” I say, sitting down. “Stevenson Solutions, Incorporated.” He tugs on the page of polos and it tears along the stapled binding. He looks me up and down. “Stevenson Solutions. That sounds like you’re in septic tanks.” But then he studies me, scrunching up his nose and leaning forward. “Or are you some kind of fed?” What is happening here? Is it the haircut? The starch in my collar? The pants? My entire life, nobody’s thought I was a cop, and now I walk into the Gulf Coast Twilight Zone, and I might as well have one of Guppy’s sheriff’s badges on my belt. “I’m a location scout. I flew in from Hollywood yesterday.” His eyes go saucer-shaped, and he blinks. “No.” Not unlike the thing with Aunt Sharon’s “tomato plants,” the location scout ruse only works if you’re using it on someone who’s never met a location scout. I

did meet a location scout once. She was 24 years old, spent half her day on Twitter, and ate nothing but licorice. But I’m banking on the fact that this guy doesn’t know his location scouts from his Girl Scouts. “We’re interested in filming a feature down here.” “Yes!” He clutches the magazine to his chest like a Bible. “Oh, yes!” “I wanted to make sure that was all right with you, me having a nose around the county. It helps to have local approval. Wouldn’t want to step on any toes.” “Who do you work for?” he says quietly, excitedly. “MGM? Universal? Whatever that one is with ET in the grocery cart?” In his excitement, he rips a corner of a page right out of the magazine, decapitating some guy in a rain slicker. “I’m under a non-disclosure. Couldn’t say even if I wanted to.” He blinks hard, once, twice, three times, like he’s got grit in his contacts. “What kind of film is it? Can you tell me that?” “Couldn’t say that either.” He gives an excited gasp. “Any chance it’s Lifetime? A movie of the week? Manto-man, I’m a big fan of Lifetime.” My first read on the guy isn’t exactly what Dickerson said. On the surface, he seems like any ordinary suburban dad—hardly the mastermind of some smallscale municipal embezzlement operation. But looks can be deceiving. “I won’t need much from you while I’m here,” I say, as the waitress fills up my cup of coffee. “I was just doing you the courtesy of introducing myself.” “Would I maybe get a chance to be in this…” He taps the side of his nose. “Project?” “Never know, Mayor, never know.” He squeaks. “How thrilling. You know, I’ve been told I bear a striking resemblance to…a certain former pop star and mayor. Any chance it’s a biopic? I can sing all his songs.” “Honestly, sir. I really can’t say.” I dump a container of cream in my coffee and notice his assistant left her cell phone; it has its buds attached and they’re all knotted up. It gives me a pinch inside, thinking of her. What the hell am I doing here talking to this guy? I should be with her. In her bed. Right now. But then I hear the noise of flip-flops approaching. A slender hand takes hold of one of the diner chairs and grips it, then freezes. I slide my eyes up her body. Pink dress today, light pink bra. I’m almost positive it was the one hanging on the top rung of the drying rack. Fuck. “Well, hello?” she says, eyebrows rumpled. “What are you doing here?” The mayor saves me from having to lie straight to her face, and thank God for that. “He’s from Hollywood, Penny. Hollywood!”

Penny sits down slowly, her hands falling together neatly in her lap. The dress has a tie at the waist, making the fabric bunch up at her narrowest, sexiest point. I drag my eyes off her body, though, and focus on her face. She’s got her lips pressed together, and she looks almost horrified. “Oh?” “Yes!” booms the mayor. “Any chance you need an assistant while you’re here? Port Flamingo is delighted to welcome you. Happy to do anything we can to help! Penny, here, for instance. She’s not busy, are you, Darling?” Penny’s mouth drops open, and her nostrils flare. She fidgets with her tangled cords and looks from me, to the mayor, and back again. “Mr. Mayor, I’ve got work to do. I’ve got one-star reviews to deal with. I’ve got a schedule…” Clearly, she doesn’t like the idea. I get it. She’s got her job, and I’ve got mine. Probably better if the two don’t overlap. I mean, granted, if I spend the next week having my way with her on every flat surface in this town, I’d regard this whole job as a spectacular fucking success, but I’m not going to push. “I prefer to work alone. I appreciate the offer, though.” But he shakes his head so hard his cheeks flap. “Nope. This is my town, and you’re our guest. It’s my honor to offer you someone from my staff.” Penny holds her hand to her forehead like she’s checking herself for a fever. “I’m not exactly on your…” “Shhhh!” He slaps down his catalog and makes his coffee cup jump. “I sign your paychecks. You’re definitely my staff.” Penny grimaces at her tea as she fishes the bag from the cup and wrings it out by wrapping it in the string. “But you also sign the librarian’s paycheck, and he won’t even let you into the building.” Mayor Jeffers ignores that. He sighs and beams, then claps his hands, knocking his coffee over and sending a big puddle of it onto a white-haired guy walking a yellow lab in the catalog. Penny leaps up and scurries for some napkins, while the coffee trickles off the table onto the floor. The mayor is unfazed by all of it, and keeps on talking. “I insist, Mr. Stevenson. You take Penny. She’s all yours.” Now standing by the table, Penny blots up the coffee with a stack of napkins, unaware that I’m looking right down between her breasts. All mine. Fuck. Yes.

18 PENNY

Of course this would happen to me. Of course I couldn’t have the best night of my life with some ordinary man who works for the IRS or Marriott or who’s a marine biologist for the State of Florida, here to double-check that the jellyfish haven’t returned. Of course he ends up being some sort of super-fancy guy from Hollywood who is today wearing a lavender shirt, unbuttoned two buttons down to show off his dead-sexy chest hair and who also smells vaguely like my shower gel… Mayor Jeffers stands up and shakes Russ’ hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Stevenson. Let us know if you need anything. Penny knows where to find me.” He gives Russ the Fonz snaps and then heads for the door. Russ doesn’t watch the mayor go, though. He is focused right on the gap between my dress and my bra. I clap my coffee-dampened hand to my chest. He flicks his chin at me. “Fancy seeing you here.” I wad up the coffee-soaked napkins and stick them in the mayor’s coffee cup. No. This will never work. Time to nip this thing right in the bud. But before I can muster up one logical word, he says: “Penny, your banana bread was fucking amazing. And that marmalade. Jesus. But the real kicker was the oatmeal cookies.” He’s complimenting my canning skills and my baking in the same sentence. My defenses are decidedly compromised. “Russ.” “Where do you want to start? Your place?” The Man Wagon starts rolling away without me on it, so I wipe my hand off on my leg, and reach for my safety blanket, also known as Maisie-via-text. I feign professionalism: “One second. Just need to check my calendar. I think I’m supposed to be doing something very important right now.” Like what? Passing out? Fainting? Swooning into a puddle on the linoleum? But I work for Mayor Jack Jeffers. I’m an expert in looking busy. I move my face into a concerned professional expression, like I’m reading work email. Fortunately, the Wi-Fi from the office bleeds into this building, provided you

know to point your phone due west, angle it at forty-five degrees, and not move one single muscle. The man from my lanai? Remember? Dimly. Pfffft obviously! I HAVE TO WORK WITH HIM. Is your caps lock stuck? He has those muscles, Penny. I googled them. Know what they’re called? Maisie! Wait. OMG Wait. The Belt of Adonis. And you’re named after a goddess! Peanut butter and jelly!

I drop my phone in my purse, listening to it buzz like it’s full of tiny bees. Maisie is no help, at all. We once took personality tests and hers came back Enabler. My personality test, on the other hand, came back Mediator. So I mediate myself right into the most sensible response: Not only do I now have to work with him, but I now know for certain that he’s just passing through. Dress pants, rental car, Hollywood; nothing about any of those words sounds like a synonym for eligible. And I’m probably not even the first or the only one. I'll bet he’s got a lady in every town, exactly like me, with whom he does all sorts of unspeakable, sexy, tender… I sip my tea. It’s lukewarm and bitter, but I don’t mind. It gives me a chance to collect myself. Sort of.

“So,” he says, rolling up his sleeves a little more and smiling at me. “Where do you think we should start?” If you feel like driving a few hours, I know a place with a private infinity pool and… Penny! I make some flustered hair-smoothing gestures before finding my center of gravity again. “I’ll show you the most interesting parts of Port Flamingo.” I kick into full PR mode. “The Boardwalk, the beaches, the private cove on the other side of the bay.” His jaw shifts off to one side, and he gives me a slow, sexy nod. “Private cove. That sounds pretty good to me.” His gaze stays in my lap so long that I get a simultaneous tingle and shiver. My cup jingles on the saucer, and I set it back down. He puts his hands behind his head, letting me see the full package. And then he says, “But I think I already know the best part of this town, Penny. And I plan to come again. Multiple times. But only after you do.” Gah! It’s then that the waitress comes by with the check. I move to grab my wallet, to use the mayor’s card to pay, but Russ shakes his head at me. He lifts his lush bum from the chair and pulls out his wallet, curved to the shape of his body. “Anything else, Officer?” the waitress asks him. He narrows his eyes at her. The man is too sweet to say what he’s thinking, which is probably something like, Have you ever seen a cop in pants this nice? Because that’s certainly what I’m thinking. But he doesn’t say it. Instead he gives her a polite, “No, thank you,” and hands her a ten, telling her to keep the change. Mayday. A generous tipper! Aircraft spiraling! No, no, no. This cannot happen. He’s passing through—I refuse to get involved. And in addition to all that, the mayor has given me a job, and I’m going to do it right. Somehow or other. If I can’t, I’m headed for the garden center after all. So all I have to do is get through the next… “How long did you say you’re here?” “November 10.” My heart falls like trapdoor just opened up underneath me. November 10. That’s only a week away. But it also strengthens my resolve. I can get through a week. I will not fall for this man in a week. A week is nothing. He flips open his shoulder bag. “I hear the beach at the nudist colony has white sands.” He rolls up his sleeves over those beautiful forearms a little further. “We definitely need to go there.”

Who am I kidding? A week is an eternity. I’m so screwed. He tucks his tush-bent wallet back in his pocket. I crumple up my paper napkin and press my knees together. He’s not a bag of potato chips. I don’t have to eat the entire thing. I don’t have to eat the entire thing. “First things first,” he says. “I need to get the fuck out of these clothes.” At about the same speed as my subconscious flashes me with his gorgeous naked body in my bed, and the two of us forehead-to-forehead as I came for him, it all tumbles out of my mouth before I can stop it. “Russ. Seriously. This is a terrible idea,” I bark-whisper. “We cannot be a thing. You’re here for a week. You’re from Hollywood. You wear dress shirts and wool pants. Look at you, look at me. A week is hardly enough time for an avocado to ripen. Last night is just that, last night. Past tense.” I add a curt nod and slap my hand on the table, now feeling fairly righteous in having flagged down the Man Wagon again. I will stay strong. I will not succumb to his charms or his stubble. “It happened, but now we have to work together and we can’t be sneaking off in the middle of the day to get out of our clothes.” He gets this cocky grin on his face and gives me a laughing sigh. “I actually meant get out of these clothes.” He tugs at his shirt with his thick, rugged fingers. “I can’t get anything done if everybody thinks I’m here to hand out warrants or search their cars for weed.” “But you look so good in pastels.” Maybe it’s Tourette’s. “Shorts, Penny. Some T-shirts. Sandals. I need your help. You’re the one who’s going to be looking at me.” I can smell his gum, his detergent, and his cologne. It’s the trifecta. I fumble through my purse as a wave of heat singes my cheeks. I grab my lipstick and my little pocket mirror, and telescope the lipstick open. He stands up from his chair, and I look up at him as I place the stick to my lower lip. I’m met with a slow head shake. “We cannot be a thing,” he mutters. “Goddamn it, you’re adorable.”

19 RUSS

I hold the door to the diner open for her and guide her through, with my hand on the small of her back. As she passes underneath me, I get a close-up of the bowshaped tan line at the nape of her neck. I follow it over her collarbone, down her chest, and then feel that rumble through my cock, thinking about how she likes to have her nipples pinched so damned much. A week with this woman? It’s going to be fucking fantastic. One storefront down is a sign, hanging from the portico, which says Surf’s Up Surf Shop. She stops cold when she realizes where we’re headed. I try to push her along, but she’s actually digging in her heels—she lifts her toes off her flip-flops and rocks backward. One hand flies out and grabs a post, like she’s trying to stop herself from sliding down a hill in an ice storm. “We should go to Walmart or something. I need to buy laundry detergent anyway. Or we could go to the tackle shop! You’d look fantastic in waders.” “Penny. It’s ten feet away. I don’t need waders. I just need something that doesn’t make me look like I belong in Quantico.” “Seriously, Surf’s Up isn’t your kind of place.” I let my hand slide down from the small of her back far enough to give the top of her ass a squeeze. “This right here is my kind of place.” She groans and rocks into me, but she’s not giving in so easily. “Seriously. It’s expensive and the staff is super rude.” On the sidewalk is a sandwich board that says Everything 50% Off! Voted Friendliest Surf Shop on the Gulf Coast, 2016! Come on in! “Not buying it. Come on, cutie.” She shakes her head even more vehemently. “False advertising. Friendliest surf shop,” she pshaws. “I’ve seen grizzled old surfers come out of there weeping.” She twirls her hair around one finger, making a shiny, thick curl, accentuating the fine line of her neck. That’s her tell, no question about it. “It’s a damned good thing you don’t play poker. You’d be hosed.” Then I grab her hand and drag her

along with me. As we enter the store, the shop girl looks up at us. She’s holding a big plastic glass with some kind of green smoothie in both hands. When she sees us she freezes, with the green stuff suspended halfway up the straw. She lets the straw fall from her mouth, giving me one huge blink and a smile. She grabs a ballpoint pen from the desk and jabs it into her bun. “Can I help you, sir?” She’s cute, but nothing like Penny, not even close. “We’re good,” I say, taking a look at a pair of shorts from a nearby rack as Penny drifts off towards a rack of skirts. The shop girl comes around from behind the register counter and busies herself with a mannequin next to me. She gets up on her tiptoes and moves his plastic arm, so he looks like he’s pushing his hair back with his fingers. “I haven’t seen you in here before, have I? What brings you to Port Flamingo? Business? Or pleasure?” That’s when I notice Penny. She doesn’t know I can see her, but her reflection is shining back at me from an angled mirror by the surfboards. She’s making a slicing motion across her throat. The shop girl leans suggestively on the mannequin. “Looking for swim trunks, maybe? We’ve got a new line of Speedos…” Penny grits her teeth and makes fists of her hands. I turn toward her to try to see what the hell is going on, but she’s snatched up a bikini from a nearby rack and is looking at the price tag. It’s black with white bows, and I can imagine it on her already. Fuck, I’ve got it bad for this woman. But I have to keep some semblance of control. “I’m good. Just looking,” I say, and grab a pair of 36 longs off the rack. “Long, eh?” asks the shop girl with a wink. Behind me I hear Penny make a kind of strangled groan. But the shop girl doesn’t flinch. “You know, you look familiar. Have you posed for any Regency romance covers? I swear to God, I’ve seen you bare-chested in a kilt. Seducing the Rake maybe?” Before I can answer—it was one time, for fuck’s sake; I know guys who had STDs that didn’t haunt them like Seducing the Rake has stayed with me—we are interrupted by a hellacious racket. I turn around to look at Penny again. She’s managed to upend a whole display rack of sunglasses. They’re scattered all over the floor. Dozens of pairs, strewn all over everything. She gives the rack an extra shake, and a few more pairs clatter to the ground. “Oops.” The shop girl huffs and jams another pen into her bun. “You break it, you buy it!” “Put it on my tab!” says Penny, plucking her way through the sunglasses and

leading me toward the back of the shop, where the changing rooms are.

20 PENNY

There’s all sorts of sexy Russ-rustle-rustling as he tries on his clothes. It takes all my willpower to stop myself from running over to his changing room and pressing my eye up to the slats like I’m looking through a peephole. He slings his shirt over the top of the changing room door, then steps out of his shoes and socks. I can almost hear a drumroll in my head and then it happens: his suit pants fall to the ground. Maybe today’s boxer briefs are light gray, like a sporty heather gray, because that would just be… I grab a random black dress off the rack and dash into the second changing room. As I shut the door, I hear Maisie saying something like, “Boy, I sure could use some help with all these sunglasses, ahem-ahem.” But I ignore it. As the rustling next door continues, I unfasten the knot on my sundress and let it fall from my shoulders, so I’m standing in my bra and panties in front of the very unflattering full-length mirror. I’m hoping it’s unflattering. It damned well better be unflattering. But then I notice a very faint bruise on my hip, in exactly the pattern of his fingers as he gripped me last night. I slide my fingertips along it and turn to warm caramel inside. “What kind of movie is it?” I ask him as I finagle my hands through the spaghetti straps above my head and tug the new dress down over my body. It’s a size too small and hugs me like shrink-wrap. “Romantic comedy.” His zipper slides up. “Workplace romance.” Oh, God. I shimmy into the dress and stare at my reflection. There are times in my life when I am acutely aware of that devil-angel-shoulder situation, and this is one of them. Looking at myself in the mirror, I can almost see the two of them in position. The devil is a real vixen. Combat boots, and a raspy, sultry voice. No bullshit and a very respectable smoky eyeliner. She likes her music feminist and her tequila straight. On the other shoulder sits the angel. She’s a dead-ringer for my fourth-

grade librarian. She smells like mothballs, her lipstick flakes off when she talks, and she’s big into smooth jazz. I hate her. Also, she’s pretty much always exactly right. Double-demerit. The angel says, “Penelope Eloise Darling. Why can’t you find yourself a nice man with a steady job? That eHarmony questionnaire doesn’t take that long. Just think: you could find a nice Baptist minister in Tallahassee! At least you’d live in the same state!” I suck in my stomach so hard that I feel dizzy, and try to pull up my zipper. Not even close. I cinch the fabric shut with one hand, suck in harder, and give it a yank. It bites into me, and I stretch the dress to the side as far as I can, testing the tensile strength of 1% spandex to its limit. The devil takes out her hip flask and downs a pull of tequila while she considers her black nail polish. “Fuck that noise, Pen. You want him, take him. Boom. Done.” The zipper finally cooperates. I don’t even look like myself, this thing is so tight. I spin slightly and look at my ass, over my shoulder. Which is when the door squeaks open. I fully expect it to be Maisie, brandishing her Kindle and saying something like, “I knew I’d seen that jawline before,” but it isn’t. It’s him. “Oh, fuck. Sorry, I thought this was my…” He trails off. The desire ricochets between us like a pinball trapped at the bottom of an arcade machine. He’s in shorts that fit him like a glove, and a soft navy T-shirt, with a vintage Pac-Man logo, washed out and faded. And he’s found a hat, a super-stylish baseball hat with mesh on the back. Plus, flip-flops. I thought he was handsome before, but this, this… Casual, and carefree, and look at those shoulders. Peeking out from the sleeve of the T-shirt is the bottom edge of his tattoo on the curve of his massive bicep. Here lies Penelope Darling, who died of a swoon. He lets out a breathy, quiet whistle. “I’m buying that for you.” The way he talks, that dominance, makes me feel like I’m some new but treasured thing. I’m not used to it, but one thing is for sure: I like it. Except even in my haze, it’s the angel that answers first. “No, no, no. I’ll never wear it.” “I don’t care.” Frivolous retail purchases especially for me? “We…should get to work.” His eyes move up and down over me again so deliciously slowly that I feel a shiver up my spine. “I'll show you getting to work.” He takes a step toward me, and runs his hand up the side of my dress. I grab ahold of the hanger rack behind me as my knees start to get a little wobbly. “I’ll take you to the Boardwalk first. Rides. Ball-and-hammer. Funnel

cakes.” He’s reducing me to bullet points. I can’t even string two nouns and a verb. He pulls his hand away with a frustrated grunt. “Fine. But I’m buying it for you. No arguments. Got it?” he says finally, and then heads back to his changing room. The devil turns to the angel, who’s got her lips in a tight, prudish line. But the devil? She gives zero fucks, and she raises her hip flask to me. “Here’s to romantic comedy.” Toodles, Man Wagon.

21 RUSS

She takes a sledgehammer in both hands and brings it down hard. The ball in the cylinder almost hits the top, but not quite. Penny raises one clenched fist in the air, cursing the ball through giggles. “Your girl’s got some guns on her!” says the big guy running the ball-andhammer. I hand him another raffle ticket, and he tucks it into his front pocket, which is stuffed almost to bursting. My girl. It’s too soon for that, way too soon. But still, I like the sound of it. The ring to it. The simplicity of that beautiful fucking idea. “She sure does.” Wham goes the hammer again, ding goes the bell, and the lights at the top come to life, slightly dimmed against the afternoon sun. “Yaaaay!” she cheers, beaming. “What’d I win?” “Got your choice of a coconut,” the guy explains, holding one up that still has a $2.99 sticker on it from the grocery, “or a goldfish,” which he holds out in a plastic sandwich bag. My snort sneaks up on me out of nowhere, but Penny is much more polite. In her eyes, though, I can see that sassy twinkle. What kind of shitty prize is a goldfish? So she chooses the coconut, smiling and laughing as the big guy drives a gleaming railroad spike into the top, and sticks a straw inside. I grab my camera from around my neck—key equipment if you’re in the PIlocation-scout trade—and make like I’m going to take a picture of her. At first, I have zero intention of taking a picture of her, because there’s a shitload of guys here who look seriously shady. That’s the best thing about local carnivals. Need a guy who “has the skills required” to unfasten an ankle bracelet? Carnival. Need to launder some money fast? Town fair. Need to get a sense of a crooked mayor’s potential known associates, criminal, personal, and somewhere in between? Port Flamingo Boardwalk. But in the frame appears Penny, beaming, holding her coconut up like the

Stanley Cup. As soon as I see her in the frame, I get this instinctive desire to possess her. That woman needs to be mine. I grab a handful of shots of her. Flipping back through them, I get almost dizzy with her smiling face, adorable nose, her freckles, all that happiness shining back at me from the screen. Fuck it. The mayor’s shady possible associates can wait. She takes a long sip of the coconut water, and then she puts her glasses on her head and looks up at me. “You think this spot would be good? For the movie? Want me to show you something else?” She takes another sip through the straw, and her pink lips pucker up in a way that makes me think so fucking much of what she’d look like on her knees with her mouth working the length of my… She really has no idea what she’s doing to me, none at all. “We’re not out of tickets yet.” I pull two more from my pocket. She pushes her bangs from her forehead, and I see the beginning of a sunburn. “But you’re getting some color.” “I’m fine,” she says. “Don’t worry.” She’s in the midst of trying to untangle her sunglasses from her hair—worse than the earbuds by far. I help her out, pulling the fine, long strands from the nose clip, being careful not to hurt her. What she doesn’t understand is that she makes me want to worry. She makes me want to take care of her. And I’ve only known her a day. Christ. “I’ve got to stop doing that.” She folds them up and jams them in her purse. She squints into the sun. “You’d think I’d learn to get the ones without the nose pads. But nope, never. I see a pair of aviators, and I’m powerless.” “You just need someone to look after you,” I tell her and take my hat off. I tighten the adjustment strap a few notches and stick it on her head, the bill slightly to the side. She giggles a little and then repositions it. The hat makes it so she has to lift her face right up to the sun to see me. “How do I look?” I tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Sweet as marmalade. Now, how about you, me, and that roller coaster? Perfect for the first plot point.” She grimaces and then she looks away. “Ummmm…” She clutches the coconut to her breasts and presses her fingers to her mouth. “What about palm reading?” I glance at the tent. Hell, no. “Not really my thing.” Penny snorts and gives me a shove. “What, are you chicken? Big bad Russ afraid of a lady with a scarf on her head and Palm Reading for Dummies under the table?” “Fuck, no, I’m not scared. It’s a bunch of bullshit, is all.” She puts her hand on her hip. “You think the hero of your movie is going to deny the girl he’s trying to win over a palm reading? Really?” She wiggles her eyebrows.

“Really?” Seriously, this woman. Every needle and poke makes me want her more than the last one. “All right, you little pistol. You’re on.”

The palm reader is in yoga pants and a T-shirt that says Palm Readers Have It In Hand! The tent is a lot like a yoga studio or maybe a meditation retreat. It smells like incense, and there are some dreamcatchers hanging from the bare metal pole rafters. But that’s it. No scarves hanging from the walls, or tarot drawings, or weird accordion music. No creepy old lady drinking whiskey from a coffee cup. Totally classy, totally modern. Penny and I sit down across from her, in two chairs side by side, and she says, “My name’s Marina and I’m a trained chiromancer. Yes, that’s a thing.” She smiles. “I can do an individual reading for $5 apiece. Or I can do a couple’s reading for $12. Includes a zodiac compatibility assessment.” Penny repositions my hat on her head so she can see me a little better. “Individual, right?” But when she says it, I can tell it’s not what she means, and it’s not what I want either. So I pull my wallet out of my pocket and give the palm reader a twenty. “Couple’s.” Penny whacks my thigh. “Russ. Don’t be silly.” “Now who’s chicken?” Which is met with an adorable huff. Bring it on. “All right, lovebirds,” Marina says, giving me eight in change. “I’d like your first names and your month and date of birth. Dominant hand, please, honey,” she tells Penny. She turns to face the palm reader, back straight, shoulders relaxed. “Penelope. I go by Penny. My birthday is April 9.” And then she puts down her left hand. For a second, I just stare at it. Only lefties notice lefties, and I’m definitely noticing this. So then I do the same, put down my left hand. Penny gapes at me, and I nod. I know. I fucking know. And I say, “Russell. Russ to everybody that knows me. July 27.” The palm reader clicks her tongue. “The Ram and the Lion. Well, well, well. Both fire signs. It means you’re both equally passionate…and both left-dominant. Quite a match! Have you known each other long?” Next to me Penny shifts in her seat, and I watch her push her knees together.

Fuck. “Not long at all,” I answer. The palm reader puts her palms to ours, her cool fingertips barely reaching halfway down my hand, while her other hand almost covers Penny’s completely. “That’s a very powerful combination. Your heart lines indicate a very similar level of emotion. Russ, you seem a little bit more closed off. Do you see here that your heart line is straight, but Penny’s has a few lines running across it?” “Yeah. I do.” The palm reader nods. “You’re probably protective of your feelings at first, whereas Penny wears her heart more on her sleeve.” The palm reader moves on to a different line, the curved one beneath our thumbs. A smile creeps up on her face, like she’s in on some surprise that we don’t know about yet. “I’m guessing you share the same very particular sense of humor…” I flash back to when Penny deadpanned me in the Urgent Care. “How about some jumbo shrimp?” To Lucky being both unlucky and unfortunate. Christ. “…You probably also enjoy many of the same things. Books, for instance.” Dickens, holy shit. Now she moves over to the lines on our thumbs, inspecting each one against the other, like she’s reading fingerprints. “Your chemistry is explosive, but you probably know that already.” Penny’s eyes flit over to mine, and she watches me, unblinking. Explosive. That’s the fucking word. “For the most part, things for you are fairly smooth sailing. You probably feel like you’ve known each other much longer than you have. If you share one flaw, it’s that you’re terrified of wounding each other. You might be prone to miscommunications; the desire to protect the other one from harm could be what hurts you most in the end. But it’s also the biggest asset that you have, that unflinching togetherness.” Unflinching togetherness. Fuck me. “What time of day were you born?” the palm reader asks, pressing her fingertips into my palm. “At night, I think. Eight or nine.” “Same here,” Penny says. The palm reader nods, not the least bit surprised. “It’s a love match, and it’s not to be taken lightly. If you open your hearts—and you might not have a choice— you’ll fall in love hard and fast, and permanently.” She looks to me and then Penny and back again. “This relationship is probably already one of the most important you’ve ever had. It may very well be the most important one of your lives, period.”

In stunned silence, her hand in mine, we leave the palmistry tent. In the bright sunshine, next to a cotton-candy cart, Penny stops and looks up at me. “That was just…” “Surreal.” She nods. “How did she know all that?” She considers her palm. “Is that really written on us? All of that? The books? The sense of humor? The… explosions?” I look at my palm, too. Fuck if I know, but the woman was right on the money: The books, yeah. The laughter. The chemistry, even more. All of it. I grip her hand a little tighter and lead her along through the fair, past a petting zoo area and a big net rectangle full of squishy foam blocks. What I want to say is, Don’t you fucking feel it, too? But I don’t want to scare her, and I don’t want to push too hard. “Probably the same thing she tells everybody.” “Probably. Maybe. Yes, probably,” Penny replies. But there it is. That sweet, soft hesitation in her voice. She doesn’t believe that, and neither do I. I take the last two tickets from my pocket and give them to the roller coaster attendant—a guy in overalls, picking his teeth with a toothpick and reading a copy of The Sun Also Rises. We sit together in the front car, both of us still fucking stunned, and I make sure the cage around her is latched tight. The attendant puts a rope in front of the entrance and presses the button to start the ride. A slow ticktick-tick fills the air as we head up the first steep hill. “Okay, full disclosure…” Penny says. Come on. Say it. I’ve never had a fling, but I want to have one with you. Take the plunge, beautiful. With me. Right now. “What’s that?” The ticking slows as the grade steepens. “I am terrified of roller coasters,” she says with a gulp. I turn to her. She looks halfway between happy and scared to death. She’s not shitting me. I make a move to hit the STOP RIDE button, but she grabs my hand before I can. “It’s okay,” she says, all breathy and flushed. “I’m willing to try it.” Her bare thigh is only inches from mine, and I put my hand right there in the middle of it. She curls her toes on her flip flops, and we approach the top of the hill. The ticking slows to a stop. People behind us chatter with nerves, and a little kid lets out a scream of anticipation. “Listen, Penny.” “God,” she groans. “I love when you get serious.”

“I’m so fucking glad you stole my bag.” I bring my hand to the back of her neck to keep her facing me. The safety cages are loose enough for me to bring my lips to hers. Her eyes crinkle at the edges and then slide shut as that spontaneous peck turns into the real fucking deal. I want this kiss to go on forever, but there’s something I have to say, and I’ve got to say it now. “One week. No strings. You and me. What do you say?” But before she can answer, the cars tip forward, and the bottom falls out from everything.

22 PENNY

We zoom up and down and around, and the whole time my heart is in my throat. His hand stays clasped around mine, and I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so very alive, so very free, so absolutely like myself. But as the roller coaster finally begins to slow, my mind starts to clear. One week, no strings. He grips my hand tighter, and I find I have to look away. I focus on the seagulls circling over the ocean to ground myself again. I’ve had men say a lot of things to me, some good, some bad, some downright astonishing. But I’ve never had one be so incredibly… Forward. When we roll to a stop, he helps me from the car and guides me toward the exit of the ride. Even though I’m off the roller coaster, my mind is still swirling like I’m speeding down the tracks. When we’re alone and separate from the little crowds he turns my hat around backwards. “Don’t keep me hanging, beautiful.” What I want to say, and what I know is true, are worlds apart. Because the truth is that there are always strings. Human beings are made of strings. We get each other tied up in cat’s cradles whether we want to or not. Knotted and twisted and tangled. “I don’t think we can do that. I don’t think I can do it.” There a flicker of pain on his face. “You don’t want to even try?” I do, with all my heart I do. But I know that one week with this man would leave me wrecked. “We can’t…” “Because of what?” “Because of the way we feel already.” He holds his hand to his jaw and roughs up his stubble, and then takes a step back. He turns his head slightly, like I slapped him. “Listen, I’ve got some shit to take care of around here. Stuff to measure, that kind of thing. Not much fun for you, probably.” He won’t even meet my eye. This big beast of a guy, suddenly shy, speechless,

awkward, all because of me. “Russ, I just meant…” He swipes his hands through the air, like it’s all no big deal. “I know what you meant.” His long eyelashes cast a shadow on his cheeks as he looks down at the ground. “I get it.” “Do you want this back?” I put my hand to the brim of the hat. “You keep it,” he says, looking down at the ground. He puts his hands in his pockets. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And then he turns to go.

I walk home down the beach. It’s a long walk, and the whole way I keep my footsteps at the waterline, so the water laps my toes every third or fourth wave. It seems that everywhere around me, there are couples. There’s a man and a woman splashing each other in the waves. A guy in swim trunks spreads out two towels, emblazoned with HIS and HERS. Pretty soon, I hear the throat singing. The noise has cleared out our portion of the shore almost completely, like some instrument of torture. For a long while, alone there on the beach with my face to the sea breeze, I look out into the Gulf. Part of me feels an adult pride in being responsible. I knew what was going to happen. He was going to undo me, and leave me in a heap. He’d have me feeling like I was chasing fireflies at dusk, trying to capture the uncatchable thing. He’d be buying me cocktail dresses and we’d be raising hell, and the whole time I’d be thinking, Maybe he won’t go. Maybe I can make him stay. Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. A man like that isn’t going to turn his life upside down for a girl like me. That much I know for sure. I turn away from the water and head for home, feeling the texture of the sand change from solid to powdery under my feet. It gets rougher, with more broken-up shells, the closer I get to my house. As quietly as I can, I slip through the gate onto my patio, because so help me God, I can’t handle Maisie and all her questions right now. Inside my house, I find Guppy, asleep on the couch. Going down onto my knees, I take off Russ’ hat and wrap my arms around Guppy. He puts his huge head on my shoulder and sighs while his tail whacks the sofa arm. “Sorry I was gone so long.” I give him a kiss on his cheek, as big as an Icelandic pony’s. He answers with a great big lick up my face, drenching me in slobber. I lie down on the rug, looking up at the ceiling fan, and dig my phone from my purse. I open up my favorites and give the mayor a call. I figure I’ve got about a 10 percent chance of reaching him, but I have to try. It’s not like me to disappear for hours, and he’ll

worry. His contact photo is him holding a tiny bunny rabbit at the City Adoption Drive. Someone behind him gave him rabbit ears as I snapped the shot. “Penny!” he booms as he answers the call, bellowing over some polka music in the background. “Just wanted to know if you needed me for anything. I’m not feeling so good, but I can come back in.” Oh-pah, oh-pah, oh-pah, oh-pah. “You’re breaking up!” I inhale hard. “Sick. Staying home. Sorry!” When I was a little girl, Grandpa and I used play telephone via tin cans and string. Cell service in Port Flamingo is no better. “Need me to bring you some soup? They’ve got borscht!” he bellows. “And it’s delicious!” “Where are you?” I squint at the time. He doesn’t sound liquored up, and it’s the middle of the afternoon. “At the Elks! It’s Polish Freedom Day. You feel better. Don’t worry about a thing.” Then I hear a rustling, but the call doesn’t end. Among his many technological challenges, hanging up the phone is top of the list. I hear the noise of his pocket against the speaker as a man yells, “Mayor! Let’s get a photo!” So I end the call myself and drop my phone on the rug. Guppy stares at me from above, his jowls drooping. I reach up and pet his massive head, the fur on top as soft as cashmere. “We’ll be okay. It was craziness, anyway.” Guppy considers me seriously, his wet nose glistening. He swipes his paw through the air in our signal for pet me, mama. I grab his paw mid-swipe and press my thumb into the crevice between the thick, leathery pads. I’ve never had any luck with men, and I’m not about to find the love of my life in a guy who wants a fling. That is not happening. That never happens. Nobody falls in love just like that. So I give Guppy one more kiss, and head for the bathroom. On my way, I notice that Russ made my bed. In the bathroom, I see he left his towel folded, and replaced my drying rack back in the tub where I’d had it overnight. By the looks of the little flecks of hair in the wastebasket, he cleaned up after himself after making a pass with his trimmer over his stubbly, gorgeous beard. I brace myself on the sink. Staring at myself, I feel my heart break a little bit. Or maybe a lot. Silly. So, so silly. Guppy comes into the bathroom and rests his head on the counter, looking at me in the mirror. Normally on a night like tonight, I’d sit with Guppy on the sofa, eat a pint of pistachio ice cream, and re-watch Bleak House with my box of white

wine within arm’s reach. I place my finger on a lone beard hair that he didn’t clean up, a tiny dark line on the countertop. I focus on its coarseness between my thumb and forefinger. I think about how he made me feel—like no man ever has. Or probably ever will again. Life is made of ever so many partings, welded together. “Anything but Dickens, Guppy. Anything but that.”

23 RUSS

After she leaves, I do what guys have been doing when they’ve gotten rejected since the beginning of time, and head for the bar. Actually, it’s a tent called the Sundown Saloon. The front flap has old-timey western saloon doors painted on either side of the opening. Inside is an older guy, grizzled and tan, cleaning pint glasses until they squeak. “Getcha something, partner?” “I need a beer. Doesn’t matter what kind.” He takes one of the glasses from the raw pine shelf behind him, without turning away from me. He wrinkles up his nose and looks me up and down. “I’m not a cop.” I hook my leg around the stool and straddle it to sit down. I plant my elbows on the bar and press my hands to my temples. “Fucking promise.” “Never thought you were. Just deciding if you look more like a lager man or if you’re a Double India Pale Ale.” “Sorry.” I rub my head. “Either one is fine, as long as it’s cold.” And as long as it helps me stop thinking about her. He puts the glass down under one of the taps and pulls on the polished wooden handle. But trying to stop thinking about her is going to be way easier said than done, because I can’t fucking help myself; as he’s pulling the pint, I flip through the photos I took, now easier to see than outside in the sun. I zoom in on her face and feel a punch to my gut. Wham. The thing is, I didn’t want to lie to her. She already thinks I’m a Hollywood scout, and that’s bad enough. I didn’t want to make some promise I couldn’t keep on top of it, and so I didn’t. I gave it to her straight, and now look where it’s got me. Drinking a beer alone at a carnival at three o’clock on a Friday. Fuck. The bartender puts down a coaster and then the glass on top of it. Still looking at her in the window of my camera, I take a long draw. It’s bitter, cold, and fucking delicious. “God, that hits the spot,” I say, wiping my mouth. “Right? Made that myself.” He taps on the coaster, on an old-fashioned logo,

with one of those hand-sketched fingers. Redemption Brewery. Man, I can get down with a lot of things, but if this guy starts quoting Isaiah 3:whatever at me right now, I’m going to have to split. Still though, I don’t want to be an asshole. “What’d you get redeemed from?” “Me? Nothing, son! I was raised a Unitarian Universalist. Our church motto was, ‘You’re already saved, come on in!’ He chuckles to himself, lost in some old memory. “No, here’s how it is: I used to be a probation officer, till I lost heart for it.” “Can’t blame you there.” “But I started brewing in my garage, and lo and behold, I discovered the best way to keep guys out of the slammer? Teach them to brew beer and sell it.” He nods nice and slow. “Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for life. Teach a man to make India Pale Ale, and he’ll stay too busy to get in trouble.” This place really is the Twilight Zone. I come here looking for dirt on the mayor, and I find the salt of the goddamned earth. “I’m Russ.” I reach out to shake his hand. “And this is one hell of a beer.” “Glad to hear it. I’m Tom Darling.” Wait. No. For fuck’s sake. “Darling. You related to Penny?” His tanned old face transforms into an ear-to-ear smile. “She’s my niece. You know her?” Knowing her isn’t the half of it. That roller coaster was bullshit compared to the last eighteen hours. “Met her earlier today through work.” Pinned to his shirt, part of his costume, is a sheriff’s star exactly like Guppy’s. Welcome to small-town Florida, Macklin. There’s no escaping her, no matter what you do. “She’s the apple of my eye, that girl,” he says, crossing his arms over his beer gut. He shakes his head and grins even wider. “Always has been, always will be. She’s a shareholder in Redemption. Five percent stake.” He beams again. “That beer in your hand is called Penny’s IPA.” If he’d sucker-punched me, it wouldn’t have made me feel quite so bad. I stare at the half-finished beer, feeling half-finished myself. Empty, shitty, and drained: There’s a lovely woman out there, she’s got a delicious beer named after her, and I’ll never have her. Ever again. “I better get going.” I pull out my wallet and put down a ten. “That cover it?” “Jesus, I appreciate it. And say, if you see Penny, give her a big squeeze from Uncle Tom, you hear?” “Yeah, man,” I tell him, heading for the exit flap, feeling a headache coming on. “I will.”

The manager at the Residence Inn says, “Name?” I’m so out of it that it takes me a second to remember if I put it under Macklin or… “Stevenson, Russ.” She doesn’t look up from the screen, but clatters away on her keyboard. “We don’t have a reservation for a Mr. Russ. Could it be under a different name?” “Try Stevenson. Russ Stevenson.” “You were supposed to check in yesterday, Mr. Russ-Stevenson.” “I got delayed. Sorry about that.” She clatters away a little longer. On the muted television behind her is a local station, broadcasting the evening news live. I watch the mayor shuffle across the frame at the front of a conga line. “Unfortunately, due to the Polish Freedom Festival combined with the Tangerine Festival and the Kumquat Festival this week, we’re very short on rooms… I don’t see anything opening up for another four days. We did try to call you when you didn’t show up for your reservation.” She looks at my cell phone on the check-in desk. “But I suppose that didn’t get through to you. Let me check one more thing.” She returns to the clatter-clatter. Of course they gave away my room, my fucking luck. Someone hands the mayor a beer stein, and the crawl on the bottom of the screen says, Mayor Jeffers Enjoys Afternoon at Elks’ Fundraiser to Benefit New Preschool. The closed-captioning flashes onto the screen as the reporter puts a microphone near his mouth. “JUST WANT TO SAY GET WELL SOON, PENNY!” says the mayor’s block quote. This confirms the obvious: I’m an asshole. Clearly, she went home and called in sick. Because of me. Us. This high-speed whirlwind we’re both caught inside, and that I pushed to its maximum velocity way too fucking soon. Now he raises his beer. His lips move, and then the caption says, “TO PENNY!” Sprinkling the screen are echoing cheers.

TO PENNY! FEEL BETTER PENNY! HI PENNY! PENNY!

PENNY! TO PENNY! Are these people for real? Is this place for real? “Sorry to say we’re all booked up, Mr. Russ-Stevenson.” Real enough. “Any other hotels in town?” “Mmmm, no. We are the only hotel in town. There’s always the KOA camp ground, and you can shower at the YMCA, but a word to the wise—” She drops her voice. “—I’d recommend bringing some protective footwear for the shower. I’ve heard you can get some mighty resistant fungal…” I hold up a hand to stop her right there. “I’m with you. What else?” She blinks slowly, staring straight at me like there must be something wrong with me. “There are no other options. Not in Port Flamingo itself.” My mind unspools in the direction of Dickerson’s new resort. What I wouldn’t give for twenty minutes in a sauna and a few laps in an Olympic-sized pool right about now. “Not even some sort of sketchy motel?” “Not since Health and Safety shut them down.” I rub my face, feeling the sting of sunburn on my cheeks. I figure I could drive back to Aunt Sharon’s and spend the night with a low-to-medium marijuana buzz while we conspire against the mayor into the small hours of the morning. Tempting, but man, as much as I love my Aunt Sharon, I can’t hack it with the weed. And in that house, there’s no avoiding it. A second-hand high is part of the ambience. There are probably other options, too, I guess, but there’s only one I want. There’s only one place I need to be. With her. The fact is that there’s a time to be a gentleman, and there’s a time for something else. After the roller coaster, she had me on my heels, and I respected her choice. But goddamn it, there is no universe in which I can be within driving distance of that woman and not find my way back to her and that perfect body, that soft skin, that giggle and the way she moans. There is no way I’m taking no for an answer, not tonight. “Is there a florist around here?” The manager touches her bangs, which are crispy with hairspray, and nods. “There’s the bait shop.” She points across the street to a gas station with a smiling worm on the sign. “They’ve got nice carnations. Sometimes.”

24 PENNY

My face is stiff with a homemade egg white mask. From the couch, Guppy and I watch a line of little penguins hop along a cliff, and the narrator says, “Rockhopper penguins are faithful for life, and the males spend several weeks preparing their nest before their mates arrive.” I let my body fall against Guppy. Penguins can have life-mates, but not me. Not Penelope Eloise Darling of Port Flamingo, who was too sensible to risk her heart. “One penguin, however, returns to the flock and cannot find her mate, no matter where she looks.” The music shifts to a forlorn violin solo. “I’m with you, little lady,” I tell the lone lady penguin. Maisie couldn’t even drag me to the Polish Freedom Day festival—it’s the very first one I’ve ever missed. When I told her no, I couldn’t, I just couldn’t, she came back and stuck a thermometer in my ear. And now here I am. From the arm of the sofa, I take my wine. I’ve taken a page from Maisie’s book and am drinking it straight from a mason jar with a straw. I’m wearing a pair of pajama bottoms and a T-shirt with no bra. Full-on, single-girl wallowing mode. Because of the mask, dry and crackling now, I have to sort of contort my lips around the straw. A small dribble of chardonnay slides down my chin and Guppy licks it off my leg. The documentary focuses in on the lone female. “Finding a mate is difficult. She begins to display her grief in her mourning dance.” But before I can hurl myself at Guppy again, the doorbell fills up the house with a long dinnnnnnnng-dong. “Leave it there, Norm,” I call out, my words slightly malformed because of the mask holding my lips like I've gotten an overdose of Botox. I try to scan back through my Amazon purchases to think of what it might be. God only knows with Subscribe and Save, the best bad idea anybody ever had. I’ve got more wheat-free peanut butter cookies than Guppy will ever be able to eat, but they just keep

coming. Dinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng-dong goes the doorbell again. That means it can’t be Norm, because Norm knows the drill. Norm never rings twice. I turn to look over the back of the couch, toward the frosted window adjacent to the door. I see the shadow of someone, but not their actual shape, so it’s definitely not one of the kids from down the street coming to try to sell me Girl Scout Cookies. They always wait with their noses pushed against the glass—they know an easy mark when they spot one. “I don’t need a new roof!” I say, and slurp up a little bit more wine. Knock-knock-knock. “Or new windows!” Dinnnnnnnng-dong. “Oh, for God’s sake.” I thrust myself off the couch and stomp toward the door, wine in hand. I fling it open and get ready to give whoever it is a piece of my mind. And then I see him. He’s holding a single wilted blue carnation in one hand, and a six-pack of Penny’s IPA in the other. He’s got the shopping bag with my dress dangling from his finger, and his suitcase is behind him. My heart careens through my chest like Guppy does through the house when he’s got the zoomies. “It’s you.” “Penny…” he says gruffly, but trails off. His sexy lips part, and he leans into me, blocking out the setting sun with his body. In my head, about a hundred different possible sentences come next, but I hear them all at once. I don’t care if you push me away, I want you, I have to have you. And, How can you know you don’t want a fling if you’ve never had one, tell me that? And, Didn’t you listen to that palm reader? Didn’t you feel it? But instead he says, “Are you okay?” I push my fingers against the crackly surface of my cheek. Oh, my God, the mask. The egg white mask.

I rinse off my face in the bathroom and towel it off on one of my bath towels, inhaling hard into the terrycloth, catching a tiny hint of his smell deep in the fabric. It’s sharp and clean, like cedar. From the drying rack I take a bra and panties, and then from the back of my door I take my beach robe—a flowery, short kimono. I put on a little makeup and blink into the mascara wand, then give my throat a squirt of perfume and open the door. Before I round the corner, I push back my shoulders and take a steadying breathing.

Then I take a step forward into the living room, where I find him sharing the couch with Guppy. He’s got a beer in his hand, and together they’re watching the penguins. When he sees me he stands up, and Guppy sprawls out on the sofa. I am completely flustered, in spite of the fresh makeup and the perfume. But to keep myself from babbling, I grab my phone and turn on the nearest playlist to hand. Peggy Lee fills the room, singing about fevers. “Here.” He hands me a beer, which he had open and ready. Our fingers just touch on the label, an old-fashioned cameo drawing of my profile in silhouette. “Are you hungry? Can I make you something to eat?” I pick up the box of wine. I notice it’s a lot lighter than it was when I sat down with Guppy and the penguins. “I should probably get something in my stomach…” “Don’t go to any trouble. We can go out.” “No trouble, not at all,” I say, and grab an apron from the pantry door, one of the more risqué ones in my collection. It’s the torso, midriff, and hips of a mermaid, complete with a shell bra. He looks me up and down, laughing into his beer. “You really are adorable.” Most men don’t make me nervous, but this one does. Nervous in a good way. Nervous like a tingly ball of nerves dying to get… Untangled. “Is ham and brie okay?” I ask, cinching the ties tight. “Perfect.” From the fridge, I take some ham and a small wheel of brie. I grab the cheese slicer and remove the rind with a few quick peels. “When I was driving down the street, I’m pretty sure the girl from the surf shop passed me and gave me the finger.” I freeze with the peeler stuck into the cheese and look over my shoulder. “That’s my best friend. Sorry. She’s very suspicious of outsiders. And men.” A little smile creases his dimples, but he doesn’t laugh. He crosses his arms, watching me. “She was right about one thing, though. Seducing the Rake.” He winks. I disengage the peeler from the brie and turn around. He’s already taken a step closer to me, and so I sort of go limp against the dishwasher, the heat from the dry cycle making a hot strip across my tush. While I’m not particularly into Regency myself, I can absolutely imagine it. He’s got the hair, the shoulders, the roguish smile. Seduce me, you rake. Please. Then he puts his arms on either side of me. The heat from his body soaks into

mine. Move over, drying cycle. Russ is here. “Penny. About earlier… I’m sorry. I haven’t enjoyed being with anybody so much…. in ages. I got swept up in it all.” That this man, this hunky stud, could get swept up because of little old me is more intoxicating to me than any box of wine, top shelf or generic label. I inhale hard and feel his hips pushing against my mermaid stomach. “I don’t want either of us to get hurt.” “And I don’t want to be the one to hurt you.” He says it with a kind of resignation, a certainty. Total respect for me and what I’m saying. But there is something in his eyes that is greedy, and aggressive, almost. “Not unless you want me to.” Disrespect me. Do it. “I've never had a fling,” I say, slowly. “But…” He growls. He gets closer, letting me feel his strength against my stomach. He’s hard already and getting harder. “Finish that sentence, Penny.” “But…we only live once. And if it’s going to be with anybody…” He doesn’t let me finish, but kisses the words right out of me. My head thumps back against the teacup cabinet. He undoes the ties of my mermaid apron and then breaks the kiss to slip it over my head. “Sandwiches are going to have to wait,” he whispers into my ear. “I love when you talk dirty.” And then he slings me over one shoulder, slaps my ass, and says, “You make it easy.”

25 RUSS

As I lay her down and undo my belt, I see the bruises on her hip. “Fuck, yeah.” She props herself on her elbows and runs her fingers over the bruises, too. I put my hand over the top of them and she answers with a peaches-and-cream smile that makes her eyes twinkle. “I know. I saw it today when I was in the dressing room.” I shift my hand half an inch to the left, so that her fingers fall between mine. I remember when it happened. She was coming for the third time, and I was coming inside her for the second. Fuck. With my pants half undone, I push her thighs apart and kneel on the bed. I pull her body up and undo her bra. “Tonight, you leave everything to me. You got that? Everything.” I take her face in my hands and look her in the eye. As I kiss her, I lay her back down, pinning her hard against the mattress. “Every moan, every orgasm, every please, please, please. Those are mine.” She nods, and her hair slides on the sheets. “Everything for you.” I move off the mattress and stand, taking her in as she lays there. The sheets, the blanket, the mess of pillows by the headboard. Her. Her. In one quick movement, I flip her over onto her stomach, and she squeals. Then I hook my forearm under her hips and pull her up onto her knees. I am painfully hard in my boxers, and I let her feel me between her ass cheeks. “Feel that? Feel what you do to me?” She drops lower on her elbows and groans as I pull her panties down her thighs. Perfect position for my favorite fucking thing. Spanking is an art. Too hard and too high and you’ll do some damage. Too low and too soft, it’s a fucking joke. But I’ve got some experience in this shit. Been a while, but as I run my fingers over her hips, it starts to come back to me pretty fucking quick. She looks over her shoulder at me, accentuating those killer curves. I run my palm over her ass to warm it up, to get her nice and ready. “It’s no fun if you see it

coming.” She smiles and turns her head forward, bracing herself. Let her brace, let her get ready, let her squirm. Fuck, yes. Let it all happen, right here and now. She pushes her knees together in anticipation. And for one fucking second, I feel like the king of the world, all this fucking perfection wound up and ready to explode for me With my other hand, I part her lips and move into her, hooking into her G-spot. She bends her body deeper, bowing toward her elbows, bending her hips and rounding out her ass even more. I tease her from inside, and misdirect her, bringing my left hand back around the front of her hips to touch her clit. Her whole body goes slack when I touch it, and she drops down into a ball on her knees. I’m gentle around the edges, rolling my fingertip toward the center with just enough pressure to make her groan. And fuck me, that groan. She does it with gritted teeth, and it comes from deep in her chest. She might be cute, she might be adorable, but what I saw last night was also the truth. A sexy little goddess who knows exactly what she wants and isn’t afraid to get dirty. As I give her a second finger inside, her wetness intensifies. I slowly move my hand away from her clit. Her walls pulse against my fingers, and I lean into her. “Last night was fucking amazing, Penny. All I could think about, all day, was that you had my cum inside you.” “Shit. Shit.” I pull down my boxers and put my bare cock between her ass cheeks. That perfect ass of hers, fuck me. I push the head against the opening, watching it pucker as I do. She stiffens and looks back at me. “You want it like that?” I push into it a little further—not far enough to hurt her, but enough to show her who’s in charge. She doesn’t say anything, but faces the headboard and nods toward the mattress, along with a slow, sexy, “Mmmhmmm.” Fuck. Fuck. The need to fill her up however I can, to make every opening mine, pulses through my balls. But not yet. Not fucking yet. Because I’ve got her purring and nodding and whimpering. Perfect timing for the spank. I give her a flat-handed whack to the right cheek. She doesn’t squeal or giggle, but grips the sheets tight in her fists. I undo the sting by rubbing it in, and she lowers her face to the bed. Hooking my forearm around her hips again, I pull her up onto her knees and part her thighs wider. With the head of my cock, I tease her opening, compressing the shaft against her until I get to her clit. I fist myself and keep the head there. “I need you inside me, Russ. Right now.” “You’re not running this show.”

“Please. Please. Please.” That is what I’m talking about, but before I do it, before I open her up, before I get back where I need to be, I summon up all my self-control and step away. She whimpers, fucking whimpers, as she feels our bodies part. She rolls over onto her back. “Where are you going?” Goddamn it, she is so beautiful, she’s so open and pure. With my handprint on her body and begging me to get inside her. I drag my palm down her stomach, sliding my finger along her slit. And then leave her alone on the bed. “Russsssss,” she whines. “Don’t you fucking move, cutie. I'll be right back.”

26 PENNY

“Close those pretty eyes,” he says, not more than a minute later. He shuts the bedroom door behind him and I notice he’s got one hand behind his body. “Do you work out a lot, or were you just born like that?” “Eyes. Closed.” I clap them shut and topple back onto the bed. But I’m only human, and I open one a smidge, and watch him through fluttering eyelashes. “Penny,” he growls. “Both eyes. Closed.” The aggression in his voice sends goosebumps racing over my skin. “Okay. Yes, sir.” “Good girl.” I listen to him come closer, his bare feet on the area rug. Something clatters in his hand—it’s a familiar sound, but I can’t place it. So I open my eye again. “You’re so fucking stubborn,” he says, shaking his head and smiling. Still with his hand behind his back, he spots another robe of mine hanging on the back of the door. Carefully keeping whatever he’s holding hidden, he backs up and slides the tie from my robe. “Put that on.” He drops the robe tie onto my chest. “I don’t trust you not to peek, darling.” “Oh, this is so Fifty Shades.” I curl up to sitting and start to tie it around my eyes, like Zorro. “If you ask me,” he says, a smile in his voice, “That was amateur hour.” Gaaaaaah! I get the tie situated with a minimum of hair knotting and smooth it with my palms. “Sure you can’t see me?” I nod, feeling the silk slide against my back. I really and truly can’t see anything, except a dim light from the very bottom spilling in from the curve of my cheeks. Suddenly his lips are on mine, and it takes my breath away, startling me. The kiss is

fast and ruthless, so intense that I fall back onto the bed. “Just checking to make sure you weren’t lying.” “Maybe you should keep checking.” Which he answers with a what? A nipple pinch. On either side of me, the mattress depresses under his knees, and he climbs on top of me. He rolls my nipple harder between thumb and forefinger, and my whole body responds instantaneously. I feel his balls on my stomach, warm and firm and absolutely perfect. With one hand on each of his perfect ass cheeks, I pull him toward my mouth. At first, he resists, dropping his weight onto me. But I hang in there, and he gives me a little leeway finally to slide between his legs, and bring my lips to his cock. It’s hard and ready. I slide my tongue down the shaft, around the head and back again. “Jesus Christ, Penny.” With my other hand, I cup his balls and take him in my mouth a little deeper. “I didn’t say you could do this yet.” He gasps again. I take him even further, nearly to the back of my throat. “Oh, shit.” True, he didn’t say. But he doesn’t seem to mind, either. He places one hand on the back of my head, gently, almost tentatively. I put my hand over his and show him he can put me where he wants me, and that I can take it. As I do that, as I reassure him, as I give him permission to be rough, not sweet, I feel his balls tighten in my hand. “You better watch out. You start that now, I’m going to take everything you’ve got.” I nod, with his cock in my mouth, and then pull my head back. “If it’s too much, I’ll tell you. Until that happens, there’s no holds barred.” His balls tighten again. “Jesus. Fucking. Christ.” I take him deeper, and deeper, a little more each time. I taste his precum and dig my fingernails into his ass. But then he gives a warning moan, and with one strong hand, he forces me backward onto the bed. “If you think I’m going to lose focus because you deepthroat me, think again.” He drops his weight onto my abdomen, and drives the heel of his palm into my breastbone. He keeps me like that, with his knees on either side of my body. His cock lies on my chest, cool with my saliva now. “So this thing with your nipples,” he says, giving me the pinch-and-roll again and making me groan some more. “Tell me about that.” He’s doing it so exactly right, so exactly how I like, I can’t stay a word except, “Russ. Russ.” He eases up on the pinch slightly. “Put your hands on my thighs, and don’t you

dare fucking move them.” This time, I don’t argue. I just do it, feeling the roughness of his legs under my fingertips, the coarse hair, the rock-solid muscles. “Okay.” He leans to one side—I can’t see it, but I know it from the shift in the mattress —and there’s that clatter again. “You ready?” The anticipation and the unknown makes my heart bang against my breastbone. “You make me crazy.” “That’s what I like to hear.” And then there’s a pinch, a glorious, mind-blowing pinch, on my right nipple. “Oh God.” Automatically I let go of his legs and move to rip off my blindfold. What is that magic that’s happening to me? I have to know. But as I try to pull my robe tie off, the pinch stops. He pins me down again. “Penny. You’re not going to get what you want until you do it the way I tell you. We can go around and around all fucking night, but I’ll get my way.” I freeze with one finger about to pull on the bow at the back of my head. “But what was that?” “You want it again or not?” This man. I leave my blindfold where it is and put my hands back where he told me. “There you go. Don’t move, no matter how good it feels.” As I nod, the knot rubs against the back of my head. The anticipation makes my heart pound in my ears. And then there it is again, the pinch. “That’s unffffffff…” I gasp. Everything goes into overdrive; the pinch is amplified by what I can’t see. One missing sense, and the best kind of pain replacing it. My left nipple is on fire, like a lit sparkler, every single nerve ending screaming out more. He takes my hands and puts them on my thighs, pressing them hard to say, Stay there. Then he starts to reposition himself, moving his knees from their place on either side of me. “Don’t go away again.” “Damn it, I love to hear you beg.” “Please, please, please, please…” I say again, with all the consonants mushed together. “I’m not going anywhere, beautiful, except for the one place on the planet that I belong right now.” “Tell me.” His cock slides downward, and I feel the soft skin of his balls against my lips. But

then I don’t feel even that. Just the warmth of his thighs, and the pinch, until… With one ruthless drive he thrusts himself into me. “Inside your pussy. Which is all fucking mine.” It’s like an earthquake, between the pinch and the pound. He stays there, deep inside me, as my hips rise to make room for him. But before I've even gotten used to him again, there’s another pinch, on my right nipple now. It sends me spiraling out of the room, out of the house, out of the state, zinging toward the stratosphere. “Sweet Jeeeeeeeeesus. What are you doing to me?” For five powerful thrusts, he doesn’t say a word. I roar out his name, and arch my back up off the mattress. I sink my teeth into his shoulder because it feels so good, so incredible, I have no idea what else to do. He holds me down on the bed, applying a little pressure to my throat, enough for me to feel my pulse against his hand, while the other hand knots into my hair behind my head. Every drive, every pound, ricochets through my body, like I’m touching the ungrounded socket by the toaster. “Take the blindfold off,” he says, without letting me come up off the bed. I hook one finger over it and peek out. He’s smiling at me, the corners of his eyes crinkled. “What do you think I did to you?” “I don’t know, but you are blowing… my… mind,” I gasp. Another plunge makes my eyes roll back into my head. “God, you’re so fun to fuck,” he snarls as he takes me so hard that even the box spring cries out for mercy. But then he releases me so that I can lift my head, and says, “Take a look.” It takes me a second to really process what I’m seeing. The feeling is out of this universe, but the source of the pain is so…ordinary. Two plain, everyday clothespins, clamped onto me so that my nipples are compressed between the gap for the clothesline. He slows to a stop, still deep inside me, and repositions one of them, shifting it ninety degrees until the wood clamps down tight. Boom goes the pleasure cannon one more time. “From the drying rack,” I gasp as he speeds up again. “From the goddamned drying rack,” he answers. “With all your sexy panties and lacy bras. I can’t get them out of my head. I want to see every single piece of that lace on you.” He gives me another thrust. “Every single bra, ever single thong. Every fucking thing you own. I want to know it all, capture it all. Photograph it all.” Between two drives, I find my words again. “You want to take pictures of me?” He puts two of his fingers in my mouth, and I twirl my tongue around them, same as I did with the head of his cock. It makes his dreamy eyes close, and he fills the room with the most intoxicating groan.

“Yeah. I want to take pictures of you and me fucking. I need to see it. I need to remember it. If you’ll let me.” I look him right in the eye. “Yes, please,” I say, and squeeze him hard. In response, he thrusts in even deeper, slamming into my cervix and coming down on top of me, caging me in with his arms and pressing the clothespins to my breasts with his rippling upper abs. His face is needy and dark; his expression is driven and focused. I have no other choice but to give in to the pure power of him, the pure savage fury. After so many thrusts that I start to lose count, he says into my ear, “Tell me you want my cum inside you.” I may be in the stratosphere, but I’m not gone yet. So I’ll see that dirty talk, and raise him. “I need your cum inside me.” And with one more ruthless thrust, he goes roaring over the cliff.

27 RUSS

For the second time today I start the shower, but this time I’ve got her hand in mine. I can tell she’s nervous, not quite sure what happens next. I look over my shoulder at her and see she’s watching me, her eyes a little glazed and her nipples red and puckered, even though the clothespins are gone. She hasn’t come yet because I didn’t let her. But we’re about to fix that right fucking now. The water warms up quickly. I push aside the curtain, help her inside, and then follow her in. I walk her back into the warm stream and let it run through her long hair. In the humidity and the moisture, her makeup smudges each time she blinks. I press her up against the tiled wall. Her feet squeak on the porcelain, and I wedge my knee up against her pussy. I cradle the small of her back with my hand, making sure the temperature control doesn’t jab her. “When I was in here this morning, I wondered if you ever use this showerhead like it’s meant to be used.” Her eyes dart upwards. “Oh my God.” “Do you?” She blinks away some beads of moisture. “Not in ages and ages. Not since Hitachi upped their game.” Fucking A. “We’ll get to the Hitachi next. But I really, really want to see this first.” I clear away her bottles of shampoo from the corner nearest the showerhead, where there’s a tiled shelf, just big enough to sit on, or get a little leverage, at the very least. I’m a pretty big guy, and only half my ass fits on the shelf, but that’s plenty. I slide my hands down on either side of her hips, opening her up with my thumbs. “Take it down,” I say into her ear, all dewy with beads of water. She gets up on her tiptoes, tightening her ass as she does. She takes it from the holder, the hose snaking down toward the ground. I pull her into me, situating her on one thigh and keeping one arm wrapped around her to hold her close. With my free hand, I slip my fingers inside her, feeling an instinctive rush, knowing her wetness isn’t only her anymore, but both of us. I leave her pussy, and

cup my palm to let a little trickle of warm water run down onto her clit. As the warmth touches her, teases her, her body tightens and then relaxes. “There you go. Put your left hand up here, around me.” She does exactly as I tell her, hooking her arm around my shoulders for support. I brace my foot against the curved tub wall. “See? You’re not going anywhere.” She lets her head fall back onto my shoulder, and I give her a kiss to the side of the neck, to that soft, sweet skin below her jaw. Then, with my free hand, I turn on the massager, rotating it one notch. Her body bucks as the pulse hits her clit, and she drives herself hard against me, her foot squeaking on the tub. Leaving it on the first notch, I open up her lips slightly. She flexes her abs, and I watch her situate herself so that the pulse is hitting her just to the left of her clit. Every piece of her puzzle—what she wants, what she likes—is priceless intel. Everything she does teaches me what she wants, and how she wants it. As she gets used to the pulse, her body starts to relax. She’s using her toes to grip the tub, and she hasn’t allowed me to take all of her weight yet. “I’ve got you,” I tell her. “Go ahead and let go for me.” “Okay,” she whispers, barely speaking the words at all, her voice hardly louder than the sound of the spray. I rotate it another notch. The pulse gets more focused and intense. When the pattern changes, her body bucks again, but she lets go quicker this time, letting me support more of her, letting me take her more fully into my lap. Her body is covered in beads of water, and I get a better look at that bruise. Perfect, naughty, exactly fucking right. My hand on her hip. Mine. She shifts the focus of the showerhead by angling her hips, so that now the pulse hits her clit more directly. Her clit reddens and swells with the heat. “Oh, Jesus.” Even though I came hard about five goddamned minutes ago, she’s doing it to me again. I pump my cock into the soft skin at the backs of her thighs and she looks up at me. “Again?” “Hell yeah, again. If you want me.” “Of course I do, what kind of question is…” But she trails off, stopped midsentence by my head slipping inside her. “Fuck.” Stealing her words with my cock is so fucking hot. As soon as I enter her, she slips into a different sort of ecstasy. Her toes curl, and she grinds one heel down the side of the tub. “You feel so amazing every single time,” she says, nestling her cheek against my shoulder. She doesn’t know the motherfucking half of it. The water runs down off her pussy onto my balls, and the cold tile of the shelf drives into my perineum. I rotate

the showerhead once more, and the stream turns into a bullet-like pulse. As soon as it hits her, she squeezes me, hard. She flails a little, one hand reaching out for support. I grip her tighter, showing her that I’ve got her. “Keep going. I’ll keep you safe and steady right through it.” As I push all the way into her, she finally lets me take all her weight. I position the pulse right above her clit, and I can feel her trying to come for me. Which is, admittedly, so goddamned sexy, but that’s not how I want her. I want her vulnerable and open and however she needs to be. “Don’t do it for me. Enjoy it. I could stay here all night if that’s what you want.” “Really?” she asks. The way she says the word makes a flash of anger boil up through me. Who are these fuckers she’s been with before? Who rushed her? Who made her worry about how to come and when? Fuck that shit. “Be yourself. Do what you want.” I kiss her neck again. “You’ve got my permission.” She groans, shaking her head. “Why is that so sexy? I didn’t even know I wanted permission.” “But you do. You want it, and you’ve got it.” “Oh Russ,” she says again, and then it starts to happen for her. Her contractions feel totally different in this position, and so fucking good. “I came inside you, don’t forget that for one fucking minute,” I say into her ear. “As long as we’re together, you’re mine. That’s how I make you mine.” “Ohhhhh shit.” “I make you mine with my cum inside you. I keep you mine by never letting you run out of me.” “I’m so close.” “You’re already there. I can feel it.” I give her a thrust from below. “I know it before you do. That’s how it’s supposed to go.” I kick up the showerhead one more notch, a thrumming ruthless stream straight onto her clit. I tighten my grip on her even more, and then give her the order. “Come.” And that does it. Boom. Her foot slides out from under her in total surrender. Last night’s orgasms were wild, but this one is Penny completely undone. It starts low and quiet, like water about to boil, and then it builds until her moans turn into screams, until her whimpers turn into snarls. It’s fucking perfect. No holds barred, like she said. She goes and goes. “I’ve got you. I’m with you the whole way.” I hold out for as long as I can, but as soon she starts to relax in my arms, I tip her forward to get a better position. I grip her where I had her last night, right on the bruised handprint.

She drops the showerhead. It clatters against the tub, spraying into my calf and sending back splash all over us, like a busted pipe. I bend her over at her hips, and in one graceful bend she reaches outside the shower and braces herself on the toilet seat. I get as deep inside as her body will let me. With my hands on her hips, I pull her up on her tiptoes. I take a handful of her wet hair in my hand. The pain from her knotted hair makes her pussy tighten in a holy-shit squeeze. She takes every thrust, every pound, every furious drive like she was made for me. And finally I fill her with a second-round orgasm that starts deep in my balls, and makes me fuck her off her tiptoes and onto her knees.

28 PENNY

My whole body is trembling as he helps me out of the shower. I feel like my legs are made of Jell-O that hasn’t set long enough, all wobbly and unsure. He grabs my bathrobe from the hook on the door and wraps me up in it, running his arms up and down over the terry cloth, drying my skin. I am putty, absolute putty, and he pulls me tight to his chest. With a towel from the rack, he dries off my hair carefully, slowly, and in the reflection of the mirror I see him smiling so sweetly that it makes my breath get caught in my throat. His face is partially framed by my steamedmirror graffiti heart, and I can tell he has no idea what he’s doing, sort of patting my hair with the towel, totally unfamiliar territory. But he’s determined to do it. To take care of me. It’s the very sweetest thing. “Thank you,” he says, giving me a soft kiss on the cheek and keeping his lips there as he pulls me closer. I place my chin to his chest. “I’m the one who should be thanking you.” He shakes his head. “That was amazing. You’re amazing.” I take a bath towel from the rack, wrapping it around his more-lush-than-ever bum and cinching it below his belly button. I let my hands slide down over the fuzzy fabric, caressing every inch of those perfect, manly muscles. He doesn’t let me stay like that for long though, and after a moment he turns me around, keeping me close and walking me toward the bed, his body spooning mine as we go. When we get to the bed he undoes my robe and turns me around to sit on the mattress. In one hand, he’s holding my lotion. I scooch backward. “You’re really something.” “Pleasure to serve, ma’am.” He squeezes a long squiggle of lotion down my thigh. He rubs it in tenderly, carefully, making sure he gets every inch. Then he moves to my feet, my stomach, my breasts. He’s especially careful with my nipples, which are sore and sensitive. He comes down onto his elbows, one arm on either side of me, and takes the left one in his mouth. This is different than before, softer, gentler. Like he’s healing me. I look up at the ceiling, and run my hand through his

short, damp hair. I don’t know if I deserve this, but I’m over the moon that it’s happening. “You’re fucking delicious,” he says, coming up into a pushup and climbing on top of me all the way. “By the way, no way am I letting you go to the Residence Inn.” He nudges me with his nose in a half-Eskimo kiss. “Only if you want me to stay.” “I won’t let you leave,” I whisper. “And this time I’ll make sure Guppy doesn’t kick you out of bed.” Russ smiles, sort of laughing to himself. It’s incredibly endearing that not once, not even now, has he ratted out Guppy. Never said, “That enormous bear-dog of yours hijacked my spot,” or “Let’s sleep with the door shut from now on, how about that?” Not a peep against the little man. I give him a go-ahead nod. “C’mon. Spill it. How did you end up on the chaise?” “There were some midnight negotiations. He’s got guerilla tactics. That’s all I’m going to say about that.” Under the door, I hear Guppy inhale and snort. I look at the time. He’s not the smartest dog on the planet, but he knows 5:32 p.m. like he’s hardwired for it. Dindin. I bring my lips to Russ’ for a quick kiss. “Want to help me make dinner? We’ll do ham and brie sandwiches and salad and then… Ice cream sundaes?” He buries his head against my breasts, smiling. “Where the fuck have you been all my life?”

Russ puts on my naughty mermaid apron and says, “I’ll do the salad.” He might have been the one to say, “Where have you been all my life?” but now I’m thinking, How do you feel about elopement? A man who cooks? Who volunteers for salad duty? “Perfect.” I smile and tie my own apron strings. This one says MAY THE FORKS BE WITH YOU. I put a knife on the island for Russ and then open the fridge to grab the lettuce and a new pound of ham. Clearly, Guppy got hungry while we were busy. He spared the brie, though, bless his heart. He knows what side his bread is buttered on. Ham is expendable. Wheels of triple crème are not. Russ slices a tomato on the cutting board, making precise cuts at regular intervals. He doesn’t have the practiced hand of someone who cooks very much, and that makes it all that much more adorable. His eyebrows are furrowed, and I watch him place the knife on the tomato skin and then move it over one umpteenth of an inch to make sure the slices are all exactly the same thickness.

From the fridge door, I take a can of lamb and rice dog food. I scoop out the remaining half and dice a hardboiled egg, putting it in his bowl. Then I add two cups of wheat-free, corn-free venison and sweet potato kibble. I hold his bowl parallel to the ground, against my apron. “That dog has it made.” “Tell me about it.” I say, and then turn my attention to Guppy. “Sit.” Russ pauses, mid-slice, to watch the show. Guppy takes his place on the kitchen mat, his huge back feet tucked under his body and his massive paws sprawled out like oven mitts. A little bubble of drool gathers under his right cheek. “Stay.” I set down his bowl at my feet, and he shuffles his paws. The drool bubble gathers some momentum and turns into a thin stream, which falls like a belaying rope to the ground. Mom. Mommmmmm. “Stay.” Shuffle-shuffle. Egggg. I want my egggg. And my lammmmmmb. “Free!” And the inhalation begins! “That’s awesome,” Russ says. “That he listens to you like that.” “You say that now that we’ve got it perfected,” I explain. “What you don’t see is three years of me saying ‘stay’ and him running to find his armadillo.” I rinse my hands off at the faucet and dry them on my apron. Outside on the beach, Mrs. Mankowitz is at it again, but as she ambles along the stretch of beach down below my house, she’s watching for us and making little grabby motions in the air with her mechanical arm. I feel you, Mrs. M., I do. But then again, there’s a whole lot I don’t know. I turn to him and study him: a big, brawny, bare-chested mermaid. “I don’t even know where you’re from.” He pauses, knife halfway through the tomato. “Boston. Where it’s snowing like a son of a bitch.” Outside, right on cue, the waves crash and fizzle. Boston. My immediate image is a mishmash of Murder, She Wrote reruns, old episodes of Cheers, and a vague sort of Revolutionary War vibe. “I’ve never been farther north than Atlanta, and I’ve never even seen snow.” “Ever? Really?” “Never! Snow virgin,” I say, holding my head high. I spread a thin layer of butter on the inside of the sandwiches. “You grew up there?” “Sort of.” He eats a too-thin slice of tomato. “I was an Army kid, so we were always moving.” “I had a friend whose dad was in the Army.” I pause, trying to remember back.

“Her name was Bernadette. We were friends in second grade and…then she had to move. It was terrible.” He lifts his eyebrow and nods at the tomato. “Story of my life.” And my heart gives a painful thump. “Is your family there now, in Boston?” He shakes his head and considers the tidy row of tomato slices on the board in front of him. “Not anymore. My dad died when I was in high school, and then my mom passed…” He squints, looking off past my shoulder, into the thinking distance. “Four years ago?” The broad strokes of his life couldn’t be more different from mine. His world is so much the opposite of hot and humid Port Flamingo, where there’s a Darling every half-mile. “I’m so sorry.” He doesn’t say any of the usual things but just wipes the knife off on a dishtowel. “You have other family here besides your uncle? Brewing kick-ass beer in your honor?” He takes a swig of his Penny’s IPA, smiling a little around the bottle. “There are lots of us here. If you’re not a Darling, you’re probably married to someone who used to be. My folks live out that way.” I point in the vague direction of the llama farm with my butter knife. “Uncle Tom lives that way.” I point the other direction. “Grandpa’s still in Atlanta.” I signal that with my knife-compass, too, which makes Russ smile and shake his head for some reason. I swallow hard, my legs Jell-O all over again. “Grandpa of Grandpa’s marmalade?” “The very same!” “You’re lucky, you know? To have all these people near you. It must be nice.” Nice. That’s not really the word I’d use to describe it. Difficult to have any privacy at all is more the reality. But on the other hand, I see what he means. Kind of. “Sure, but what must be really nice is to live your life without bumping into your mom in the feminine products section of the drug store.” Oh, geez. Maybe I can take a supplement for this. What is wrong with me? “Sometimes it’s a little… cozy?” He nods. “I can see that.” He glances at the fridge, plastered all over with pictures of me and my nephews and nieces, cousins twice-removed. Always in the sun, always on the beach. Somehow I have a vision of his fridge, something modern and sterile, and it makes me sad just to imagine it. He brings the tomato over and places it in the salad bowl, shoving it off the cutting board with his knife. “Full disclosure, I have no idea how to make dressing unless it comes out of a bottle.”

“It’s kind of reassuring to know you’re not good at everything,” I say, looking up at him and giving him a little elbow to his mermaid stomach. I grab the olive oil and vinegar from their spot next to the stove. “Maybe I could teach you a thing or two.” “No fucking doubt about that.” That blush creeps up my cheeks again. I measure out one part vinegar, and as I drizzle in two parts olive oil, he gives my tush a delightful little pat.

We eat dinner on the patio while the sun sets over my garden wall. He’s a fantastically enthusiastic eater, one of those guys who tackles absolutely everything on his plate like it’s going to be his last meal for years. My grandma said that’s how she knew Grandpa was for her, the way he ate. “When he went for a third slice of my meatloaf, I knew I’d found my man.” Guppy watches every bite with his head on the table, his great big eyes shifting from Russ’ mouth to the plate and back again, like he’s a spectator at a tennis match. Russ finishes off half of his sandwich and then takes the salad tongs from the salad bowl and piles up another big heap of spring greens, tomatoes, and shallots. “So tomorrow, I think we could try the llama farm. It’s got beautiful views from one edge.” Russ halts with a mouthful of unchewed salad. “Yeah?” Provided you crop out the llamas. Those teeth! “You know anything about llamas? Alpacas? Cloven-hooved mountain-dwelling camelids in general?” He shakes his head and goes on chewing. Poor guy. Walking into a llama farm without knowing about llamas is going to come as something of a rude awakening, and I haven’t even gotten to the goats. “That’s okay. I’ll explain when we get there.” He polishes off his salad and eats his crusts and then takes a swig of beer. “Penny, listen. About my job…” I chew as fast as I can so I can stop him. Not this, not now—I can’t take it. I realize it hasn’t even been two days, but I already have the sense of a countdown looming over me, like the rain cloud over Charlie Brown’s head. I don’t need to be reminded. Still with my mouth half full, I say, “Let’s leave work for tomorrow.” He studies me, almost sadly. “There’s stuff you should know.” Gulp. I have a vision of Maisie’s favorite beer koozie. Ignorance is Bliss, for Real. “Tonight, I just want to be with you. Just like this. I’ve spent my whole life worried about the next thing, and if this is going to be a fling, let’s let it be a fling.” He nods and takes a deep breath. “All right. If that’s what you want.” “It is.”

“Then you’ve got it.” The waves crash again, and before I know it, he’s hooked his foot over the base of my chair and is dragging me across the concrete. When I get close enough, he picks up my legs and puts them on his lap, running one hand up and down my shins. The one problem with my live-for-the-moment theory, though, is that nothing about being with him feels like a fling. But that could be all my raging, postshowerhead hormones talking. Maybe. We stay there in the peaceful quiet, watching each other, while the waves break and Guppy’s gentle snore shakes the tabletop, until finally Russ says, “So, I was thinking. You. Me. Your couch. Bleak House.” This isn’t a fling. Can’t be.

29 RUSS

There were no midnight guerilla Guppy tactics, and I wake up the next morning with her in my arms. She’s on her side, tucked up into a ball and wearing this thin, sweet nighty trimmed with white lace. I pull her closer, and nestle my jaw beside hers. I shift her hair aside so we’re cheek to cheek. Her breathing is rhythmic and calm. I glance at the digital clock and see it’s a little after six. The other clock is a cute old retro thing, light green with big white numbers. The alarm pin on the top is pushed down, to off. I don’t know how I’m going to tackle this thing, telling her who I am. It’s not a state secret, but every minute that passes makes me worry more and more. Because in my heart, in my gut, I know I don’t want to blow it. She’s special. You know it. Some fucking fling. I look at the books on her bookshelf, at the photos on the walls, and on the possibly hand-made drapes. And that’s when I notice that the bush outside the window is…moving. At first, I think it’s got to be a bird, one of those child-sized seagulls that are everywhere. But then the bush shifts, and there’s a noise of crunching feet on the ground. Guppy’s ears perk up, and he lets out a low growl. I let go of Penny and roll out of bed. I grab my boxers from the ground and head for the front door, Guppy trotting behind me with long gallops. I pull up my waistband, and undo the deadbolt. Then I step out onto the front porch and listen. Down the street, someone’s sprinkler goes kish-kish-kish, and a lady speedwalks past the mailboxes. I go around to the side of the house, walking barefoot through the cool grass, still damp with dew. Guppy stays next to me, and I notice his massive hackles are up. The bush shakes again, making the leaves rustle. “Come on out. Nice and easy,” I say. Christ, two days of people telling me I look like a cop and now I sound like one, too. But this is different. This is to protect Penny. This is for real. That’s when a face pops up from the hedge. A familiar face.

Sonny Bono. No, wait. Goddammit. The mayor. “Jesus!” he whisper-yells. “Mr. Stevenson!” Apart from my utter surprise at seeing the mayor pop up from the bushes, I feel pretty fucking good about this. I thought I was going to have to spend the day at City Hall digging up tax records and trying to see if he had any shady shell corporations. But nope. The guy’s a peeping Tom. Hole in one. “What the hell are you doing here?” He pops up from the bushes all the way. “Just doing a little light weeding,” says the mayor, with a dandelion in his fist, dirt tumbling from the bare roots. On his knees are gardening pads. He’s got a spade in his hand, and he’s wearing and a hat with a wide brim, safari-style. “Weeding.” I don’t even make it a question. No need to be polite. He nods so hard it makes his huge sunglasses slide right down his nose. “I talked to Penny yesterday, and she sounded a little blue. So I came on over to check on her. But then I saw she had a visitor, and I didn’t want to be rude.” “Weeding? Why are you weeding her yard?” He looks at the dandelion in his hand. “Because Penny hates weeding, and Penny helps me from losing my marbles. So I do Penny’s weeding.” He looks completely puzzled about why this is even a question. Like it’s one of the accepted truths of the world. Gravity, inertia, weeding for Penny. Man, I might have seriously misjudged this guy. Weeding at six a.m. on a Saturday out of gratitude? People have been sainted for less. I rub my temples, inhaling the sweet smell of slightly damp grass. Guppy, meanwhile, has totally lost interest, like this is actually a pretty regular occurrence. He takes a spectacularly long piss on a stone-dead clump of daisies. From the right-hand side of the street comes a cop car, going slow. The mayor, too, watches it roll up and come to a stop. Fuck the Mr. Nice Guy routine. Clearly, someone called the cops. Weeding, my ass. But then the patrol car window rolls down, and the cop says, “Morning, Mayor. How’s the weeding?” “Morning, Sheriff! Pretty good!” the mayor says, holding up the dandelion and shaking off some dirt. “How’s your morning going, Todd?” The whole scene is mind-boggling. I grew up in Boston, where you’ve got to be a blood relative to get someone to look you in the eye. I’ve never seen anything like this place in my life. It’s so fucking nice here, everybody’s so fucking friendly, I’m

pretty sure we’re about five seconds away from a spontaneous musical number. I can see it now: the whole neighborhood in their bathrobes, holding hands, singing “It’s a Beautiful Morning” as they walk in formation down the street. It’s too damned early for all this wholesome shit. She’s in bed, and I need to be there, too. I turn back toward the house, whistle for Guppy, and close the door behind us. “Morning,” says Penny, sleepily stretching by the bedroom door. “What are you doing up?” Outside I hear the mayor say, “What do you say to a cup of coffee at the diner, Sheriff Todd? I’ve got some volunteer ideas to discuss.” I rub my eye with my knuckle. “The mayor does your weeding?” She looks past me at the frosty outline of the mayor, leaning on the cruiser. “Most Saturdays. Unless he’s doing a fun run for kids with cancer or something.” Jesus Christ, to hell with the mayor, to hell with work, to hell with all of it. She’s the only thing that matters now. “Get your ass back in bed, cutie,” I say, pulling her to me, making her gasp as our bodies collide. “I’m not ready to get up yet.” She looks down at my boxers. “I’d say you’re up already.” “Bed. Now,” I say, and slap her ass, which fills the house with her shrieks and giggles.

30 PENNY

By 11 a.m. my skin is slick with his sweat and mine. My clit is buzzing with the aftershocks of two orgasms, back to back, for both of us. As he catches his breath, I perch my chin on his sternum and let my head rise and fall with his breathing. He tucks one forearm behind his head, propping up his neck to see me better. He moves a sweaty tendril of my hair off my forehead. “You ever had one of those chocolate bars from Mexico? One of those ones laced with chiles or whatever?” Now he’s really speaking my language. “I’ve got a whole case of them stacked up in my freezer, the only tried-and-true PMS cure.” “You’re like that. Sweet at first, but spicy underneath. Fuck.” I press my lips to his chest, feeling embarrassed, and just watch him. He links his hand into mine and watches me, too. For the first time in my life, I know what it means to get lost in someone’s eyes, lost in that place where you aren’t speaking, but you’re saying everything you don’t know how to say. That I like you, a lot. That you make me feel like the most beautiful woman ever, and that maybe we should do something crazy. Maybe we should fall in love. But I don’t say it. I keep it to myself, in my heart, where it’s going to have to stay. When the midday sun blasts the bed with a shaft of hot light, I roll off of him to go turn up the AC unit in the window. But when my feet hit the ground, it’s like my muscles aren’t even connected to my bones, and I’ve got to support myself on the dresser. He springs up to help me, scooping me up in his arms to steady me. “You good? Maybe you need to eat something. It’s getting late.” “Oh, you animal,” I say, giving him an elbow to the rock-solid abs. “You did this.” His looks suddenly very smug. “I fucked you until you can’t walk.” I nod at him. “Holy shit, for the motherfucking win!” He scoops me up in his arms, newlywed style. He carries me to the bathroom and sets me down in front of the sink.

“I’m fine,” I say, watching my thigh muscles tremble in the mirror. “You sure are,” he says with a wink. He unpacks his bathroom kit in one corner of my sink. Tidy bottles, filled to the top. His razor. His cologne. I love seeing his things all mixed up with mine, but then the angel starts talking sense again. Don’t get attached, Penelope. It’s a fling. Just a fling. He puts his toothpaste on his toothbrush, and I do the same, watching him watching me in the mirror. Around the toothbrush, his mouth full of foam, he says, “Is there any more marmalade?” “Gallons,” I answer, my mouth full of toothpaste, too. “And pickles. Lots of pickles.” In response to which he gives me a little nudge to my ass with his finally halfsoft cock, to say, I’ll show you a pickle. For the rest of our lazy morning, every single mundane detail seems magical. Being with him is easy—we never bump into each other in my tiny kitchen even once. We have banana bread, coffee, and marmalade. We sit at my little breakfast table and read the news on our phones. He catches me reading my horoscope and doesn’t give me any shit for it at all. I watch him reading about politics, though he seems particularly interested in science and…the arts. Heavens. But when Guppy brings his ball over, I stand up and head for the door. Couplehood has its limits. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to run him down the beach a little.” Russ grabs his hat. “I’m coming with you. I’m not letting you out of my sight.” And so we head down the shore together. Halfway down the Point, I look back at our parallel footprints, threading their way along the damp sand. In our footprints, it is all so beautifully simple. There’s no worry about flings there, or complications. It’s a man and a woman and a dog. A little family. And the thing, I realize, looking back on the long line of prints, that I never knew I was aching to have. Not until now.

After our walk, I give Guppy a handful of cookies. Russ holds the front door open, keys in hand. He’s wearing a different outfit from Surf’s Up, but it’s just as sexy as yesterday’s: a pair of navy shorts and another pre-faded T-shirt, this one dark green. He’s got his sexy baseball cap on, and I’m wearing a sun hat…because he insisted. “No, you’re not going out there without a hat. And sunscreen. Sorry, Penny. Sorry.”

It didn’t even make me mad, it didn’t even wake my sleeping inner feminist dragon. Instead, it melted me into a puddle and made me think that maybe this whole time, I’ve been looking for a man who insists. Who won’t back down when I give him my best scowl, who doesn’t let me win no matter what I say. He is the SPF 50 of hunks, and that’s perfectly okay with me. As we make our way down Main Street, he lifts his sunglasses. “Is that a Starbucks? Holy shit.” “Oh, you.” I give him a shove. “We’re not that Podunk.” He puts on the turn signal and pulls into an empty space in front of the store. “Penny. The lady at the Residence Inn warned me about fungal infections at the Y. I expect nothing.” I groan at the roof of the Suburban. “I answered that complaint myself. There was no fungus.” But he laughs it off and moves the gearshift from drive to park. “What do you want?” “An iced tea. Black, no sugar.” “That’s it?” “Yeah, coffee makes me—” I clear my throat. “—babble.” He cocks his head as he opens his door. He’s left the keys in the ignition and the engine running, so the AC stays on. “I like when you babble.” “You’re sweet, but there’s no need to flatter me. Maisie says the over-sharing is very unattractive.” In fact, her choice word was spinster-making, but I leave that out. He scoffs. “I don’t think anything about you is unattractive.” He leans in and points. “Nothing. So one iced tea, coming right up. Vanilla scone?” It’s like he’s known me forever. “Yes, please.” And off he goes. I watch him and his tush make their way into the storefront, and I cross my still-trembling legs. But as I do, something pokes me in the back of the thigh. I look down and see a small folder wedged between the console and my seat. It’s a brochure-sized folder and I pull it out. It says Hertz on the front and I realize that it’s his rental agreement. I pop open his glove box to put it inside, but as I start to tuck it beside the driver’s manual I notice… The name on the front? It doesn’t say Russ Stevenson. It says Russ Macklin. Macklin. Not Stevenson. That cannot be. I rip off my sunglasses and snatch up the folder in both hands. But it’s not a typo, and it’s not my vision. It’s right there in great big bold letters.

Russell T. Macklin I think back to the meeting with the mayor. Stevenson, he definitely said Stevenson. But there’s no Stevenson anywhere. My heart starts pounding in my chest, a panicked tumble of quickly spreading doubt. He cannot have lied about his name. That’s impossible. That’s insane. Because if he lied about that, he probably lied about…. Everything. I thumb through the thin printouts, tissue-thin duplicates from some sort of out-of-date printer. Every signature has Russell T. Macklin printed underneath it. His signature itself is a big manly R followed by a squiggle, and then a solid M with another squiggle. He’s initialed RTM at the bottom of each page. And there on the second page is the information taken from his license. Driver: Russell T. Macklin Licensing state: Massachusetts I look away from the papers and try to make all sorts of possible justifications. He did say he was from there. Maybe he just moved to California. When Maisie moved to Maryland for a few years, she never turned in her Florida license. Could be exactly like that, probably. Maybe. Hopefully. Except then even that fizzles out underneath something even worse. Current address: 1023 Worcester St. Apt. 4A Boston, MA 05412 Nowhere on any of the pages do I see California, or Hollywood, or anything that makes any sense at all. Except to explain the obvious. The heartbreaking, forehead-smacking, angerspurring truth: that I’ve done it again. I fell off the Man Wagon and into the arms of… I glance up and see him waiting at the counter, his burly back to me, his muscles defined even from thirty feet away. A liar. Bastard! Location scout, my ass. He probably sells life insurance or manages a hedge fund, or worst of all, he works for that turd Dick Dickerson. He probably has a wife and two children and a minivan up there in Boston, with the snow and the clam chowder. No wonder he doesn’t have a California tan. I catch a glimpse of him in profile, putting a lid on his coffee and thanking the barista, who’s shaking up my tea. What is he doing here? Who is he?

I am such an idiot. And how the hell did I manage to land another bullshitter? My thoughts don’t even feel like my own. It’s fight or flight, and I’m not hanging around for details. I haven’t forgotten some painful lessons from the last year. I will not be with a man who lies to me. No matter the explanation, I won’t believe it. He started with a lie, and it’ll end with more lies. I won’t be a part of any of it. So I open my door, unbuckle my seatbelt, and grab my purse. And then I do what I should have done every single time I got entangled in some romantic mess that wasn’t worth all the heartache, what I should have done every single time I suspected something sounded a little funny, or a man said, “We’re not actually divorced yet, but close!” I clench my fists, set my teeth, turn on my heel… And get the hell out of there.

I pound on the door of Surf’s Up and hear Maisie holler, “Closed for inventory! Closed! The opposite of open!” I pound again, harder, a flat-handed thump on the plate-glass door that makes the bell inside jingle with every whack. Maisie’s head pops up from behind a stack of boxes. As soon as she sees it’s me, her mouth moves to say a silent, “Uh-oh.” She comes to the door and unlocks the first deadbolt and then the second with the keys that she keeps on a lanyard around her neck. We are only inches from each other, and as her eyes connect with mine, those familiar eyes that I know so well, tears cloud my vision and my lips begin to quiver. “Hang on, hang on,” she says, fussing with yet another lock. She reaches up and unbolts the latch on the top. Finally, the door swings open. “What happened? Where’s Captain America? Are you okay?” Captain America. I am not okay. I am sweating profusely, there are tears streaming down my face, and I marched over here with so much fury that I made my thighs chafe, so now they’re throbbing and stinging in addition to feeling like they will never be the same after what he did to me. I blubber through a sob, feeling so ridiculous and so tiny and so stupid, stupid, stupid. Slowly, Maisie teases the story from me in bits and pieces. I sniffle out some parts and growl through others. All the joy of the last few days falls away, leaving me feeling used, useless, and absolutely spent. Maisie pulls me to her, and I’m overcome with a cloud of lavender oil. Her cool, soft skin slides against the sweat on my arms, and I let my head fall to her bony shoulder. She says, “Maybe it’s for the best.”

But wound together with the things that he must have lied about are others that he couldn’t have lied about. The laughter and the chemistry and… “He quotes Dickens, Maisie. Dickens.” “Honey. Your bar is set at the weirdest level,” Maisie says. She gives me one final squeeze and locks the door behind me. Then she pulls a bobby pin from her hair and puts it in my palm. “I’ll get my computer from my bag and you break into the bubble gum machine. Then we’ll see what the internet has to say about Captain America.”

What we find is a very slick, very professional website with lots of sharp black backgrounds and sans-serif fonts, talking about his work as a private investigator, about his exemplary investigative methods, about his discretion, about his team of highly skilled associates. MACKLIN INVESTIGATIONS says the banner across the top of each page. Maisie asks, “Whffsf afsuvestef deefed retend doba mufsct?” Her words are all garbled because we’ve both stuffed our faces with as many half-stale pieces of bubble gum as our cheeks can hold. I understand her only because it’s exactly what I’m thinking, too. What’s a private investigator doing pretending to be a movie scout? I lean back on the little shelves under the cash register. Maisie sits across from me in lotus pose, with her nose wrinkled at her laptop. She chews hard and wipes some of the candy coating from her lips with the back of her hand. When her wad of gum gets to a manageable size, she asks, “Military?” and turns her laptop around on her lap. On the screen is a full-sized photo of Russ. In fatigues. I jam another gumball into my mouth and groan. Just as sexy as I imagined him. Hotter, even. With a gun, in the desert. Suntanned, dusty. With that black makeup like football players wear on their cheeks. Lord, oh Lord. But Maisie’s not so easily swayed. “Pretty hinky if you ask me,” she says, turning the laptop back to face her. “This has Polyamorous Relationship in Atlanta written all over it.” I’d be offended if we didn’t both know that story from first-hand experience. What is wrong with me? “How does a person become a nun? Can I just do that? Do I just show up at the church? Is that how it works?” She scrolls through more photos, saying, “I think you have to have some sort of belief sys…” She freezes, mid-scroll, with her fingers perched above the mouse. “Oh, Jesus.” “What?”

“This has to be Photoshopped.” I grab the laptop from her and take a look. It’s him springing off a diving board, in his full glory, whizzing through the air toward a huge swimming pool. Every single muscle is rippling, every single inch is perfect. The spandex of his diving shorts—no bigger than a pair of my boy shorts— accentuates every bulge and curve. The headline on the story says, Michigan State Beats Florida in Diving Thanks to Macklin. It’s not Photoshopped. He really is that perfect, as I know full well: from my kitchen, and my bed, and my shower, and my bedroom floor. And of course he dives. He’s probably got some unbelievably hard-core SCUBA certification and a wetsuit that fits him like a glove, showing off all his man parts under the neoprene. Idiot! I click back a page to the Google results. His internet presence is carefully maintained, every detail of his life well-controlled. Not like me, who has three Pinterest accounts because I can’t remember the password ever. Not Russ. No Pinterest, no Instagram. No Facebook, no Twitter. Not even a LinkedIn account. I go back to the tab with his website and click on the “Investigative Services” part of the menu. It’s divided up into sub-categories: corporate espionage, information brokering, financial histories, tax fraud, insurance fraud. Maisie scooches over to sit next to me, leaning into the screen as I read aloud, “Macklin Investigations specializes in information gathering and brokering, either through direct inquiry or as a disinterested third party.” “Maybe he’s a spy!” Maisie says, pummeling my arm with her fist. “Maybe that accent is pretend! Maybe he works for MI6!” But before we get too far down into her fantasy rabbit hole, I read a bit further. “Private Investigative Licensures in California, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, and Texas allow our investigators to move across state lines as needed during an investigation. We are fully licensed and bonded, and guarantee 100% discretion to our clients.” I don’t know how a business blurb can be sexy, but it is so sexy. All no-nonsense and manly and to the point. Next I click on “About Our Associates” and brace for impact. The top one is, of course, him. Big Man on Campus. Large and in charge. Russell T. Macklin, founder of Macklin Investigations, served in the US Army for 22 years. He received the Bronze Star for valor 2012, and retired from military duty in 2014. “Valor! He’s not just a romance hero. He’s an actual hero,” Maisie says, zooming in on a photograph of him shaking some politician’s hand. In the photo, he’s clean

shaven, and I get an even better look at that jawline and the very faint dimple on his chin. “And hang on one sec!” she says, pointing at the air. She types Seducing the Rake into the search bar. Up pops an image of him in his kilt. “See!” His chest is greased, and his kilt is about to flap open in the breeze. It’s absolutely magnificent. “Not helping. At all.” I force myself to look away from the pleats around his waist, every little plaid ripple whispering my name, and focus hard on the shelves across from me—on the stacks of paper shopping bags and the spare rolls of receipt tape. Seducing the Rake aside, everything else we’ve found makes sense. Yes, it’s sexy. Yes, it fits him. But I don’t like it. He told me he was one person, when he’s another. “I feel like I reached for my tea and got my orange juice instead. I won’t stand for it.” “Pen, I don’t know. Maybe you should give him a chance,” Maisie says, moving over to Google Images. I glance at the thumbnails and see a headshot from the Army. He’s not in fatigues but in the full uniform. There is an explosion of little multicolored ribbons on his chest. LTC MACKLIN, says the nametag. I look up the acronym with a few keystrokes. A lieutenant colonel! But whatever else I am, I’m a Darling first. Our unofficial family motto, which my grandma put into a needlepoint pillow that I still have in my closet, is Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, watch out! So I slap down the laptop screen and look at Maisie. “Nope. No way. Not doing it. Story over. Mission ended. I’m getting back on the Wagon as of right now.” Maisie looks back and forth from my left eye to my right one, as if looking for any flicker of uncertainty. Finding none, she crams her wad of gum into her left cheek and says, “All right. I’ll go sprinkle birdseed all over his car and let the seagulls take their revenge. Meet you back here in half an hour. Stay low.” I swallow hard. It’s tempting to give her the go ahead, because hell hath no fury like an overfed seagull on an unblemished paint job, but I’m not just upset. I’m really heartbroken. I might have only known him a few days, but it’s time to admit it. I like him, a lot. It doesn’t feel like a fling, and it never did. And serious feelings require serious measures. So it’s time to batten down the hatches and put plywood on the windows. “Start unlocking the locks. I’m going to go home and kick him to the curb.” Maisie shifts her gum to the other cheek and grabs a piece of paper from a stack of invoices. On the back she scrawls CLOSED DUE TO EMERGENCY. She pinches off a small chunk of gum from her wad, sticks it to the sign, and slaps it onto the door. “Not alone, you’re not.”

31 RUSS

As soon I see the Hertz brochure on her seat, with the door still open and dinging, I realize what’s happened. She’s found me out, because of a goddamned rental car contract. Fuck. I set her iced tea and my coffee on the roof, instinctively checking my phone to see if she messaged even a fuck you. But she hasn’t—and I wouldn’t have gotten the message even if she had. Goddamn it. I knew I should have told her last night, I knew it. But I didn’t. I let those pretty blue eyes talk me out of it. I don’t want to talk about work, not right now. And now here I am, with a vanilla scone in my pocket and no Penny to give it to. You dumb motherfucker. I have no idea where she’s gone, either. I scan the mostly empty street for her, but I don’t see her sweet smile, or her beautiful face, or her long dark hair. Down the block I see the sign for the Visit Florida office, so I lock up the Suburban and go take a look, pressing my face against the glass door of the building. It’s dark and empty. Her desk is an adorably controlled chaos, a kind of explosion of pens and markers, and a million different colored Post-its everywhere. Above her monitor is a thin strip of corkboard with dozens of photos thumbtacked along it. Guppy, the mayor, her Uncle Tom, an old guy holding a trout, with a T-shirt that says WORLD’S BEST GRANDPA. And for one second, I wish with my whole fucking heart that there was a picture of us right there in the middle of it. Us. I wish so fucking badly there could be an us. But I’ve fucked it up, and there can’t be anything until I find her and explain myself. Right then, there’s a tap on my shoulder. Ka-whump goes my heart in my chest. But when I turn around, it’s not Penny. And it’s not Sonny Bono either. It’s Dick Goddamned Dickerson in a whole fucking explosion of golf plaids. It’s hard to even

look at, like when ESPN sportscasters wear checked suits on high def. Kind of makes me want to puke. “Peeking in windows while you eat pastries isn’t what I hired you for, Mr. Macklin,” he grumbles, nodding once at the scone in the Starbucks bag poking out of my pocket. “I can do that shit myself. For free.” Come the fuck on. Not this, not now. “I gotta say, Dickerson, your vendetta against the mayor is starting to look more personal than professional. And I don’t get involved in personal pissing matches.” Dickerson sniffs, and I notice some man-boob sweat dampening his plaids. “Do your job. Get your fee. I know people who know people, Macklin. You don’t want to let me down.” Whatever. I’m not about to get into an I'll-fuck-you-up-more debate with the Plaid Santa here, not when I’ve got way more important shit to do. “I’ve been here two days,” I say, jamming the scone deeper into my pocket, and turning my back on him. “Don’t call me. I'll call you.” Back in the Suburban, I gun the engine and peel out, tearing down the empty street. But before I can get even a block, a red light stops me, and a milky brown cascade pours down onto my windshield. Her iced tea and my latte. I hit the wipers, and for one second let my forehead rest on the steering wheel. Fuck.

From halfway down Beach Point Drive, I see my suitcase poking out from between the mailboxes. Standing by it is the girl from Surf’s Up, the one with the green smoothie. The best friend. As soon as she sees my Suburban, she puts her hands on her hips and levels me with a stone-cold stare. You can tell a lot about the way a person stares at you when they’re gunning for a fight. If they’re brave, or stupid, or fundamentally chickenshit. Whatever else she might be, she’s not chicken-shit. She glares at me hard, like she wants to punch me right in the throat. Or knee me in the nuts. Or both. I put the Suburban in park and get out. Before I can come around to face her, she’s marched over to my side and intercepted me at my door. She looks just a little crazy in the eyes. “I’m Russ. I need to see Penny.” “I’m Maisie, and you can take your shit and go.” I look over her shoulder for any sign of Penny, any sign of movement, maybe even her face at the frosted window, but there’s nothing. Guppy isn’t there either. I

make a move to push past Maisie, but she stops me with an angry palm to my chest. She rises up on her tiptoes and gets right in my face. “Listen, Mr. Macklin. I don’t know why you’re here or what the hell you want with Penny, but her heart is about as soft as cream cheese. I’ve got no patience for assholes with fake names, and neither does she.” She might be a foot shorter than me, but this woman’s not screwing around. She’s also working on her bubble gum with a goddamned vengeance. Reminds me of a professional baseball player, working their way through a mouthful of chew. “I get it. You’re protective. I respect that…” “Protective,” she snarls. “Protective is when I stick a banana in your exhaust pipe. Protective is when I leave a rude note on your windshield. Protective is when you have to go through the carwash ten times because of the seagull shit. That is protective. You haven’t been here for three days and you’ve got her in tears already. Protective isn’t the word, you got me? Take your slick website and your military heroism and your Boston apartment and your diving records and your investigations and get the hell away from her. Go seduce someone else, you rake.” Whoa. Shit. The shoe is on the other foot—normally I’m the one with the information—and it’s really fucking disorienting; she just shot me down with my own dossier without even stopping for a breath. Everything she said is true. All together, it’s damn near the sum total of my existence. It’s neat, it’s respectable, it’s got sharp corners and clean lines, and it’s also totally fucking empty. “I need to see her. Five minutes. That’s it.” “Yeah? Planning on staying? Planning on giving up apartment 4A and your—” Here she inserts air quotes. “—100% guarantee of discretion?” Jesus, she’s ferocious. She’s also foaming a little bit because of her gum. But I give her huge props. If only we were all so fucking lucky to have a friend like this one. I look past her toward Penny’s house, to the vines and the planters and the warmth that spills out of the place from every window and door. Every inch a home. A real home. A real life. If only we were all so fucking lucky to have a life like this. I take a step back. “All right. I hear you. Point taken. I’m going.” “I’m glad we understand each other,” Maisie says. She walks around the back of my SUV. I’m expecting her to wheel my suitcase around, but she doesn’t. Instead she pushes it along, fabric to the asphalt, like she’s shoving a boat out to sea. She slaps the roller arm handle into my palm. “This broke off while I was wheeling it out here. Have a good visit, Mr. Macklin. And unless you want to roll the

dice with me, a cup of sugar and your Hertz catastrophic insurance policy, I’d say you should stay as far away from East Beach Point Drive as is humanly possible.”

32 PENNY

Maisie said getting rid of him would be as easy as waxing our legs at home—onetwo-three, hold your breath and gone. Easy for her, maybe. But not for me. On the bed, the outline of his body is still visible in the rumpled sheets, and I forgot to put his toothbrush in his bag. His stands side-by-side with mine, next to the sink, a heart-pinching reminder of how nice it was to play house. That is all it was, though, I force myself to repeat. Just house. Just playing house. After eating two slices of banana bread and two cookies, I hear my phone buzz. I lunge for it, hoping against hope that it’s Russ. But it isn’t. It’s a message from Grandpa, on Skype, that says:

Tried to call you at noon like we planned. I'll be here!

And so on top of everything, I stood up my grandpa. This day just gets better and better. Cramming the last bite of cookie into my mouth, I open up Skype. One ring, two, and then the bloop-bloop of connection noise fills the room. Grandpa’s face lights up my screen. He’s in his big bifocals, and there’s a tiny piece of toilet paper stuck to his cheek where he nicked himself shaving. “There’s my lucky Penny! I was wondering why you didn’t call this morning.” I slump down into one of the chairs at my kitchen table. “I’m sorry about that, Grandpa. I totally lost track of time.” “Not to worry!” he says, and he situates his phone next to the stove. It gives me a view of the present I bought him when I went to visit to learn to become a marmalade whisperer—before Russ, before the madness, before the nonsense and

tingles. The apron says, I CAN BECAUSE I CAN, with a smiling jar of pickles underneath. I hear the simmering and sizzling of the canning pot, and the rattlerattle of jars under the water. “Making some strawberry preserves. I’m a bit concerned about the texture, though,” he says, peering down into the water and fogging up his glasses. “Like it won’t quite set, you know? Like when you put too much water in Jell-O and it never quite firms up? Wobbly? Like that?” Oh geez. I’m familiar with the situation. “I’m sure it’ll turn out perfectly.” “So how are you, my dear? Situation normal?” He takes off his glasses and crouches down to his phone, cleaning off the steam with his apron. I usually tell him everything, but I don’t know if I can even explain this. I run it through my thoughts and find it sounds a little…insane: So there was a man whose suitcase I stole, and who I almost poisoned, but who also loves Dickens and who was really such fun and so easy to be around and so utterly… Full of shit. “I’m okay. Maisie is forcing me to go to the Tangerine Festival today.” He scrunches up his nose, and brings his face closer to the phone. “I’ve heard people sound happier about funerals. Get excited, Penny! Tangerines! Carnival rides! The boardwalk! The mayor in the dunk tank!” It’s true, I should be excited. I love the festival and always have. But today, it all just feels so sad. Russ Macklin has knocked the wind from my sails and I’m feeling pretty much adrift. “You okay?” Grandpa says when I don’t answer. What would make me feel better right about now is a good game of Scrabble with Grandpa, and a lesson on the finer points of knowing which cucumbers make the best spicy dills. “I wish you were here.” He puts his glasses back on his face, and they steam up all over again. “Me too, sweetheart. If only to cheer you up.”

I hurl a wooden tangerine at the dunk tank, missing the paddle by an inch. The mayor hoots, “Come on, Penny! I can’t dunk myself for the Humane Society, can I?” Almost in spite of myself, I start to smile. His joy in the face of embarrassment is downright contagious. For as eccentric as he can be, he takes the punches as they come. Nobody likes to be roasted more than the mayor, and nobody likes to be dunked more, either. But I’m way off my game and my second throw is also a miss. The mayor gives me Fonz snaps to egg me on, and I put my hand out for my third tangerine.

Maisie, acting as pitching coach, places it in my palm, but before she lets it go she mutters, “Uh-oh.” My heart takes off in a sudden wild gallop as I search through the crowds. I scan all the slightly sunburnt faces. I look everywhere for those broad shoulders, that beautiful body, that rugged stubble and gorgeous smile. But I don’t see him. What I do see, unfortunately, is a vision of plaid. Plaid shorts, plaid shirt, plaid pageboy cap. Plaid shoes, even. Dickerson. I look to the mayor, who’s spotted him, too. In fact, the whole crowd has spotted him—he’s impossible to miss, like a chameleon with a very serious camouflage malfunction. Also, every single Port Flamingoan hates him. “Turd,” I hear the mayor growl. Dickerson strolls in like he owns the place, which he doesn’t—not yet. The mayor scrambles off of the dunk tank platform and marches over to him, popping his polo collar to say he means business. In the background, out of the painted flaps of the Sundown Saloon comes my Uncle Tom, wringing a dishtowel in his hands. Everybody goes silent. We’re three guns short of a beachside reenactment of the shootout at the O.K. Corral. “Get the hell out of here, Dickerson,” Mayor Jeffers says. “You’re not wanted. And you look like a sofa.” Dickerson adjusts his pants, which are really very unfortunate around the FUPA and crotch areas, and I try to avert my gaze. “You heard the man,” says Uncle Tom. “Get going, Dick.” Uncle Tom straightens his sheriff’s badge and then cracks his knuckles. A couple of the guys who run the teacup ride loom nearby. They brew beer with Uncle Tom, and they’ve got matching Florida Department of Corrections ankle bracelets. I’ve never asked, but judging from the way they’re looking at Dickerson, something tells me they weren’t in jail for some minor tax evasion. Dickerson puts his hands on his plump tummy and rubs his belly button. Then he pulls his signature move, taking his keys from his pocket and cleaning his ear with the key to his Cadillac. The worst. “Just came by to see where my eighteenth hole is going to go.” He looks around, surveying the land. “Figure there’s gonna be a sand trap right about here.” He stamps on the ground with his golf shoe. Still, everything is quiet. Babies don’t cry, and seagulls don’t caw. There’s utter silence as all of us stare at Dickerson, who wants to ruin our town. And who we want to ruin, too. “Sand trap would be an improvement on this hellhole.”

“If that S.O.B. didn’t drive a hybrid…” Maisie mutters. I grip the wooden tangerine harder. Every single thing inside me wants to bean him right between his too-close eyes and knock him down like a bowling pin or one of those inflatable bounce-back clown dolls. But instead I turn away from him and summon all my anger at the day. All my fury. All my disappointment. All my embarrassment at being broken-hearted over a man I don’t even know. I ball up my shame at being so stupid and foolish about Russ, and wrap it in my anger at Dickerson for trying to hurt my home town. What I’d like to do is let loose an almighty, cleansing scream at the sky. But I settle for the second-best thing, and I break the silence with a zinger that hits the paddle, square in the middle, making the trapdoor spring open with a crack.

33 RUSS

For two hours I’ve been sitting in the Port Flamingo Public Library, and I’ve gotten so deep into the local newspaper archives that my vision is blurry. But one thing is crystal clear: I fucked up with Penny. Big time. And I have no fucking idea what to do about it. The librarian drops two small dusty boxes on the table in front of me. He’s a wizened, tanned old guy who smells like sunscreen. “That’s all the microfiche I can find, son. Everything else is on the interwebs.” To distract myself from Penny, I plunge myself deep into a thorough investigation of the mayor. Once I exhaust the digital archives, I fire up the microfiche reader and scroll back through the years. I discover that the “dirt” on Major Jeffers isn’t exactly the shit of Iran-Contra. It comes down to a few basic points. 1) Every single goddamned time the guy appears in the newspaper, it’s for being unbelievably, jaw-droppingly nice. One of the headlines says, Mayor Saves Girl, 3, from Choking on a Strawberry at Local Art Festival. Another explains, Mayor Rescues Raccoon from Bobcat Attack. Responding Well to Rabies Treatment. That’s only the tip of the iceberg. He’s always helping people out, sometimes to his personal and very definite fiscal detriment. Which brings me to 2) He’s broke as shit, and not because he’s crooked or because he’s an embezzler, but because his idea of investment is saving doomed local businesses from bankruptcy. He’s poured his personal money into the boardwalk carnival, the Sunkissed Diner, and also what Dickerson called “the llama farm.” A quick search discovers it’s not really a farm at all, but some sort of pack animal sanctuary. Their ancient homemade website features pictures of goats, llamas, and donkeys, “brought to our 9.5 acres to live out their days in peace and comfort. Donations accepted! Even your spare change helps.” Christ almighty. As distractions go, it’s not enough. I close up the window on two llamas and a goat sharing a bale of hay and type Penny’s name into Google. What comes back at

me is an explosion of vibrant, adorable pictures, just like I saw on her fridge. In one, she’s with the mayor at a ribbon-cutting ceremony, holding a pair of huge cardboard scissors and smiling. There’s one of her with the old man I saw above her desk and on her fridge, each of them with a jar of pickles and both of them wearing aprons that say, YOU CAN TOO. Another is of her, Maisie, and Guppy together in a row on the beach, each of them wearing matching sunglasses and plastic leis. And there’s also one with her with her back to the camera, her feet dangling off the side of a swimming pool, teaching ten tiny children in orange floaties how to swim. She’s not just the salt of the earth. She’s all the sugar and sparkle, too. I move over to the local database and look her up there. There’s her birth announcement from the Gazette, with a fuzzy picture of her as a baby, bundled up in a striped blanket and a matching hat. Penelope Eleanor Darling was born to Alice Faith Darling and Leonard John Darling of Port Flamingo on April 9, 1982, weighing 7 lbs. 8 oz. and measuring 21.5 inches. Unlike all the other newborns on the page, who look wrinkly and puffy and pissed off, Penny is smiling, her hands outstretched, her chubby little fingers spread wide. I scroll further through the database and find an article from a few years later of her swimming, an underwater shot taken at the YMCA. The date of the article tells me she’s barely three, plump in the cheeks and arms. She’s in a purple swimsuit, her cheeks puffed up as she holds her breath. On and on, article by article, I learn bits and pieces of her past—things I don’t think anybody took the time to remember about me. I find a picture of her going to prom, her mouth full of braces, her hair styled short, sleek and straight. Even later, an article where she talks about her work at Visit Port Flamingo and how proud she is to be working for her hometown. My whole life, I’ve been dating women whose idea of going casual is wearing two-inch heels instead of stilettos, and whose idea of cooking involved taking plates from the cabinet for takeout. All that was totally fucking fine with me, but then here comes this little tornado of a sweetheart, with her volunteering and her home canning, and her small-town heart, and her fucking adorable aprons, and wrecks me. The librarian reappears. “Closing up shop shortly, son.” He taps on his watch. “It’s three in the afternoon.” “The Tangerine Festival waits for nobody.” I rub my face, lean back in my chair, and look up at the fluorescent lights—every other one dark to save energy. I’m not exactly sure what to do next, but I’m sure about one thing: I need a home base to do it.

Aunt Sharon drops the needle on a Ravi Shankar record and says, “Of course you can stay with me!” On the sofa, Janis Joplin extends her claws into the upholstery and plucks at the fabric while she watches me. Sounds exactly like someone cracking their knuckles. “Just for the night.” At least I sure fucking hope that’s all it is. “Stay for as long as you want! I’ve got an air mattress somewhere. I’m sure it still holds air. Probably. And if not, there’s always the sofa bed. You don’t mind, do you, Janis?” Pluck, pluck. Aunt Sharon swoops off toward the kitchen, her linen flapping. She squirts some ranch dressing from a huge squeeze bottle into a dipping cup and starts arranging vegetables on a tray. I take a seat in the papasan in the corner that is covered in tie-dye fabric. My ass compresses the cushion, and a haze of dust and weed ash shoots up into the air, every last speck shining in the sunset. Not ideal, but not the worst. Even though the place is circa 1972 and is like a cross between a failing curry restaurant and a shrine to Jerry Garcia, at least it doesn’t remind me of her. At least I’ve got a shot of being able to focus on how to fix this shit without getting stuck in a loop, thinking about how fucking bad I want her. But then I look at the side table, where there’s a little dish of hard candies. Mostly green left, but a few yellows and one pink. It takes me right back to eating Dots at the Urgent Care, and my heart constricts. Goddamn it. But I man up. I can’t be having heart pains over candy, for fuck’s sake. So I take the last pink one and put it in my mouth as Aunt Sharon flows back into the living room and puts the tray down on the coffee table. It’s not your ordinary vegetable platter. Some of the carrots are baby carrots, but littered in amongst them are some of her attempts at lewd vegetable growing. A radish with two butt cheeks, a turnip with a penis. Right in the middle is a red pepper that makes me cough-choke. “Holy shit.” “Vulgar, isn’t it?” Aunt Sharon says, holding it up proudly. “Never had one turn out looking so much like a vulva. Wait until all those amateurs with their dildo zucchinis get a load of this!” I crunch down on my candy. “They’ll never see it coming.” But Aunt Sharon is staring at me, with her anatomically perfect lady pepper in hand. She looks uncharacteristically panicked, which is seriously concerning. She once told me the only really important thing I needed to remember in life was, There’s no need to worry unless there’s a signature on the warrant. “Hang on. Was that one of my candies?” Her eyes move over to the side table

and then back to me. “From that dish?” “Yeah.” I dip some celery in the ranch dressing and shove it in my mouth to get rid of this weird lingering candy taste. I’m not surprised, though. After she went to Thailand, I got a pack of durian candy for every holiday for five years running. She brings her hands to her cheeks, like that painting The Scream. “Those aren’t candies, Russ.” I stop cold with my carrot in the air. “Don’t tell me I just dosed myself.” She nods gravely. “100% sativa, low CBD, ultra-high THC.” Shit. But no, c’mon, whatever. I’m not worried. I might not be a guy that loves to smoke weed, but I weigh two hundred and fifty pounds and I can throw down four shots of tequila before I even get a buzz. I’ll be fine. “My frat house always spiked the brownies in the dining room. We’re good.” Aunt Sharon blows out an exasperated gasp. “Russy! This isn’t street corner schwag from a sandwich bag!” It’s like I’ve offended her down to her very core, the way most Apple users react when you insult their iPhones. “That’s top-grade product. Smuggled it from…Jesus, no. Never mind. Better if you can plead ignorance. The important question is, what color did you eat?” The only color. Her favorite one. “Pink.” Aunt Sharon moans, and her turquoise rings clatter. The weed ash hangs suspended in the air, and the sitar music switches to a minor key. Janis Joplin rubs her face on the sofa cushions and tickles the fabric with her tail. And then very slowly and with a controlled deep breath, Aunt Sharon lowers her hands to her lap. “Buckle up, honey. You’re in for a hell of a ride.”

According to the clock on the cable box, only an hour has passed, but that’s fucking impossible because I've been sitting here for at least four hours. “You should call your cable company. That clock is totally fucked.” Aunt Sharon drapes me in a rainbow-knitted blanket. She hands me a glass of milk and then places a few little black balls into my hand. “Chew these.” I study the spheres in my palm. They look like homemade bird shot. “If this is peyote, I’m going to pass.” She honks with laughter. “Bless your upstanding, tax-paying, military-serving heart. No. That’s black pepper. Bite down on those.” I put the pepper in my mouth and snap the peppercorns between my molars. It stings my nostrils and makes my eyes water like I got maced, but it does help. Kind of. I don’t feel like I’m on the light end of the see-saw anymore at least. I sniff hard and rub my nose with my knuckle to try to loosen up my sinuses. “I hate weed.”

“I’d suggest a neti pot, but you know what’s hard to do when you’re stoned?” Aunt Sharon says, lying flat on her back on the floor and looking at me. I can take a wild guess, in spite of the fact that the Jerry Garcia tapestry on the wall is starting to look a lot like Jesus. “Using a neti pot.” She nods knowingly. “Correct. And showering. And going for a walk. And asking the internet How to come down off a marijuana high.” She pulls her phone from her bra and pokes in some letters. Then she holds it up to me to show me. Google has auto-filled the possible responses: How to come off a marijuana what’s that word How long will this high last what do i do fuck I’m too high help I try to will my way out of it, blinking hard and trying to focus on real things. Like the cat, right now disemboweling the throw pillow, and the ceiling fan, and my pants. None of it feels quite right or quite real. Without even meaning to, I drift back to being in bed with Penny, feeling her breathing slow after another epic, bedshaking, fingernail-raking orgasm. That’s real. She is real. And the way she’s got me feeling is absolutely real, too. On the table by the window is a framed photograph of Aunt Sharon and her first boyfriend. She’s got a bandana around her forehead and so does he. They’re both making peace signs at the camera, and I’m pretty sure that’s Jimi Hendrix on stage behind them. Uncle Tim, she always calls him. He never came home from Vietnam, and she’s been holding a torch for him ever since. After a guy like that, Mayor Jeffers never had a chance. “All right, I know this isn’t exactly the time for a heart-to-heart,” I say, easing back into the papasan and putting my feet up on an Indian silk footstool. “Not the worst time, if you’re down for some circular logic.” “So...” I clear my throat. Fuck, I never thought I’d say these words, but here goes: “How do you know when you’ve found the one?” Aunt Sharon straightens up. “I take it back. You sure you want to have this conversation right now? When I get too stoned all I want to do is eat orange sherbet and put my feet in the fridge. You want to talk about the one?” I look at the tapestry. No more Jesus. “Yeah, I’m good.” She lies back down on the ground, and Janis Joplin comes over and sits on her stomach. “I mean, you just know. You feel it. Like when you know you’ve got a sunburn, or eaten too much tofurkey, you just…” She glances at me. “Know.” “You think it can happen in two days?” Aunt Sharon scoffs. “I’ve known it to happen in one second, honey. Happened to me at Woodstock. At the very instant I saw your Uncle Tim, Jefferson Airplane

started playing Somebody to Love. Kismet.” She kisses her fingertips. “I was never the same.” The room gets a little weird again. The sitar music sounds like the off-screen voice from Peanuts, that wah-wah-wah. And in that gap, wherever I am, however long it lasts—two seconds, twenty minutes—I think about Penny and how simple it all is, really, if I strip down all the bullshit and all the work and the space between us. How simple it is that I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time. And that I feel fucking happy about it, right down to my very core. “Honey? Did you hear me?” I gulp down half the glass of milk and look at the clock. Exactly one minute has passed since last I looked. “Hit me again.” Aunt Sharon comes up to standing and takes the picture of Uncle Tim from the table. She looks at him with utter admiration and presses the frame to her heart. “I said that time doesn’t matter, not when it comes to love. When you find your person, you’ve got to do whatever you can to keep them. Because if you don’t…” She looks back down at the picture, her eyes dewy, “You never know what tomorrow’s going to bring.” It really is that simple. It’s what I want, and it’s what I need. But I don’t need to just win her back. I need to get serious, and blue carnations aren’t going to cut it. So I decide right then and there that as soon as this buzz wears off and I can drive without seeing weird shit in my peripheral vision, I’m going to lay it all out there for her. I’m going to show my hand, with all the cards on the table. And then it’ll be up to her.

34 PENNY

Our yoga mats are side by side. The sliding glass door is open, and the sea breeze sways the curtains. Our rum and Cokes are mixed. Maisie conceded on the throat singing, and it’s Adele instead. Happy hour yoga is officially underway. “Bring that breath into your belly,” Maisie says, with her hands perched on her knees, thumb and forefinger pinched together like Buddha. Sort of. I mimic all her movements, but I’m every inch an ugly duckling. She’s a natural at this stuff. Sometimes I think she was born to plank and hold it, hold it, hold it. I, on the other hand, have been known to lose my balance with both feet on the ground. She holds her breath and finally exhales. “Honor it, and let go.” I do, feeling very dizzy and more certain than ever about one thing: I can’t. I can’t let him go. All day, I’ve felt terrible. Defeated and silly. Terrible that I let a man in cashmere socks make me weak in the knees. Defeated that I got tangled up with yet another undateable man. And silly because I liked him before I even really knew him but liked him so much all the same. “Let your thoughts come, and go. Come, and go.” Roller coaster, bed. Kiss outside Urgent Care. Palm reading. All the namastes in the world aren’t going to get rid of these feelings. “Whatever your thoughts are, recognize them for what they are. Passing ideas. They are just your mind clearing itself, like bubbles down the drain.” Showerhead. No condoms. Ass pinch. I’ve got you. I’ve got you. “Go down into plank.” On her elbows, Maisie perches herself over her straw and takes a sip. “Squeeze those buns. Squeeeeeeeeze.” I give them my best squeeze, but they’re already burning from all the amazing romps in the sheets from the last forty-eight hours. I flop down onto my stomach with a gasp. “You’ll be teaching yoga in no time with form like that,” Maisie says, and takes another plank sip. I stay where I am, flat on my belly, and plant my forehead into my bent arms.

Guppy nuzzles my ear, his face wet and extra drooly from a visit to the water bowl. “What did you say to him, anyway?” I ask, with my face mashed to the mat. I haven’t asked all day, because I thought this sting was going to fade. It hasn’t. If anything, it’s only gotten worse, because now on top of all the other feelings, I’m so curious about what a man like that is doing in a place like this. “I have no idea who you’re talking about. Annnnnd, exhale…child’s pose.” I elbow her in the side, grinding my arm into her ribs through her yoga tank. She looks at me from under her outstretched arm. “Just said a few words about where he can hang his dress pants from now on. And, inhale… Come on up to rabbit.” She raises her arms up above her head, and I scramble up from my face plant to do the same. Guppy sits down between us, looking from one to the other and back again. “You can tell me. I won’t be mad.” A laugh bubbles out through her straw and makes the Coke fizz. She sets her glass down on the corner of her mat. “Mmmm, no. Best if I don’t divulge. Annnnnnd child’s pose again.” Inhale. Exhale. Inhale once more. “Cross your legs, come into lotus…You really like him, don’t you?” Maisie says as we sit back to back, bottom to bottom. I feel the reassuring movement of her breathing, that dancer’s confidence—that perfect calm. “I really do.” “Annnnd, leg up and bring your elbow to your knee, into seated twist.” I look back over my shoulder as I do it, and she does the same. It’s like we’re sitting on a courting sofa. “I don’t want to see you get hurt. That’s part of the best friend contract.” “I know.” We switch knees and arms and face each other on the other side. “But he’s the bag of potato chips, Maisie. He’s the grocery store birthday cake. I’m powerless. Only I haven’t heard from him all day. Not a peep. I told you to go easy on him.” Her inhale and exhale makes her shoulders lift and lower against mine. I watch her gaze land on the area rug, and she sucks her top lip into her mouth, letting it go with a pop. “Maisie.” She flexes her toes and then points them. “It’s possible I came on a little strong. Possibly.” She repositions her elbow, and I hear her spine make a few pops. “I was in full bear mama mode.” “Oh, God.” “Seated warrior, let your hips relax…”

“Maisie!” She tucks her feet under her body, and so do I. “I mean, I didn’t make any actual threats. Not like the time I made that accountant cry.” She snorts. “All I said that if he was going to bullshit you, he should leave you alone. That was the theme. Basically. And I broke his bag. Accidentally. Annnnnd up into the sun salutation… Feel your body opening up…” Let me feel you. Right now. He is in every pose and movement. Every ache in my body is his. Every remaining tingle and jitter-like aftershock. I don’t know if the earthquake called Russ is a good thing or a bad one. But as we go back down into downward dog, I get a look at the chaise out on my patio, and I wish so very much that he was laying right there, right now.

35 RUSS

In my shopping cart, I’ve got assorted gifts: a box of wine, like I saw in her fridge; every kind of salt-and-vinegar potato chips they sell; a box of Dots; some Kama Sutra warming massage oil because I couldn’t fucking resist. And that just leaves one more thing. I put my basket down by a display of cupcakes and clear my throat. “I need to get something written on a cake.” The baker turns around. She pulls her hairnet off her head and says, “I’m leaving for the night, sir. I can take your order, but it’ll have to be for tomorrow.” This part can’t wait. Penny needs to know I’m not sleeping on this. She needs to know I listened to every single thing she said—every last detail, every last word. I lean forward, putting my hands on the curved glass case. I glance at the baker’s nametag and then look her in the tired, baggy eyes. “Jacquie. It’s urgent. I fucked up, and I need to apologize.” “The bait shop has some nice carnations. Usually.” “Already tried that. Didn’t take.” She gives me a stern stare, like if the blue carnations didn’t do it, I must really be in the shit. “Jacquie. Please.” She inhales long and hard, pursing her lips tight. “I’ve got my bowling group in twenty minutes.” She points backward toward the freezers, and I see a turquoise bowling shirt hanging on the back of a door. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t have time.” She starts undoing her apron, which is a smudgy, colorful explosion of frostings. “Like I said, come back tomorrow. I’ll be glad to do whatever you’d like then.” I pull out my wallet and open the billfold. “I’ll pay your overtime. I’ll pay your lane fees. I’ll buy you a new goddamned pair of bowling shoes. Whatever you want.” I put a fifty on the counter, next to the crumbly remains of some free cookies. “I just need a cake, tonight, with a message written on it.” She looks at the money and then back at me.

“Jacquie. We’re talking about…” What the hell are we talking about? Chemistry? Sparks? That feeling in my gut that I’ve never felt before? Happiness? No, it’s more than that, and there’s only one word for it. “Love, Jacquie. We’re talking about love.” Holy fuck. As soon as I say it, I know it’s true. Just a few days with Penny and I’m saying the word I’ve never said before—the one I never thought I’d ever say at all. She lowers her nose, crumpling her chin into her throat. “Love?” “Love. Like love-at-first-sight, different-planet, just-like-that love.” She sighs hard, considering the cash. And then finally she untangles her hairnet from her palm, slipping it over her crunchy curls. “Five minutes. Pick out your cake. I’ve only got time for writing, though. No extra flowers. No balloons. No decoration. No sprinkles. We’re clear?” “Jacquie, you’re a life saver,” I say, and pull a small round cake, decorated with pink roses, from the display shelf below. I slide it across the bakery case as she reties her apron. Then she takes a pad of paper and hands me a pen. “Print what you want. Nice and clear. No cursive. I’m not letting one of my cakes become a hashtag bakery fail, all right?” She puts on a pair of plastic food service gloves and pops the lid off the cake. She sets it on a pedestal to the left of the register. I pick up the pen and look at the blank pad, thinking about what I want to say and how. It isn’t Shakespeare. It’s the truth. Six words does the job. When I’m finished, I put the pad on the other side of the case. “There.” Her gloves crinkle as she reads it, and then she recoils a little. She gives me a shame on you shake of her head. “Sir, this is a family establishment. I can’t write that on a cake.” I pull another fifty out of my wallet. “How about now?”

36 PENNY

Our yoga form spiraled into chaos in direct proportion to the number of mostlyrum and Cokes Maisie made, and so by the end of happy hour yoga, we were lying flat on our backs on our yoga mats, singing aloud at the top of our lungs to “Rolling in the Deep” while Guppy humped his bed in his usual pre-dinner ritual. And I still don’t feel better. Alone in my kitchen, I listen to popcorn kernels explode in the pan and I count the seconds between them. I sense the beginning stages of a hangover, and I think I gave myself a charley horse during camel pose. But in spite of all of it, I’m still thinking about him. I glance at the part of the kitchen counter where he hoisted me up. I’ll never be able to look at that spot again without my tummy going all tumbly. I am, as my grandpa would say, in a state. The kernel explosions slow to one every few seconds. Guppy walks into the kitchen and drops his armadillo on the floor, standing beside me and staring at the stove. He’s panting a little, from his nightly private affair with his bed, but the siren’s song of the popcorn was too much to ignore. “Hot. Careful,” I tell him, and he moves his nose away from the stove, sitting back on his haunches. Together we watch the pot, me patting his head, him drooling all over my foot. Pop-pop. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. Pop. With an oven mitt on each hand, I give the pan a final shake and then take it off the heat. I dump the hot kernels into a bowl, and I’m about to drizzle half-a-stick of melted butter over the top… When the doorbell rings. “Norm! Leave it!” Which is answered by a startling, serious knock. Guppy takes off barking, sending the kitchen rug flying into a heap behind him. I shake off my oven mitts and put a handful of the buttery deliciousness into my mouth. From the cookie jar, I grab a dog treat and toss it into the laundry room,

where I stash Guppy, and then head for the door. But when I open it, there’s nobody—not even a newbie UPS man who doesn’t know the drill. Instead, sitting on my front mat, there’s a small, round cake, in its plastic bakery box, with the tag peeled off part of the way to get rid of the price. I crouch down and take off the lid. In pink frosting it says:

PENNY – I’M SO TUCKING SORRY RUSS

My heart jumps up into my throat. If he’d had a pilot write it in the sky, it wouldn’t have been sweeter. I read the words over and over and blink back a wave of happy tears. “Where are you?” I ask, but get no answer. I hear an engine start, and somewhere out of view, the crunchy noise of gravel under wheels. Poking out from under the cake, I notice a business envelope. I slide it out and open it up. The front sheet is written in his handwriting, strong, masculine and laser straight.

Penny – You need to know who I really am, so I decided to tell you in the only way I know how. If I’d come inside to see you, I’d never have been able to explain it all. There is no universe in which I walk into that house and don’t take you straight to bed and fuck you until your legs go out from under you. Again.

I groan into my clenched hand and scoop up a fingerful of frosting from the edge of the cake.

Read the attached. Every word of it is true. A lot of it are things I’ve never told another living soul. If you want me as I am, meet me tomorrow night at the Shorefront Grill. 7:30. Wear that dress I bought you. I know we don’t have long together, but I need you to be sure. I already am. Russ

I slide the letter to the back of the tri-folded pages. On top of the second sheet is his company logo, with the words:

CONFIDENTIAL BACKGROUND DOSSIER TARGET: RUSSELL THOMAS MACKLIN

Walking down the beach with Guppy, I think it all over. Every word, every bullet point, ever parenthetic explanation. Every single aspect of his life was there. It was a brutally honest, almost heartbreaking summary of a military career, of valor, of business. Every fact about him, every part of his life was summarized in clean, orderly detail. And I even learned that his scar, that sexy one that runs across his eyebrow, wasn’t from a valiant knife fight at all, but a swipe from his aunt’s cat when he was four years old. It was all there. Heroic, upstanding, and accidental. I toss Guppy’s tennis ball into the incoming tide and realize that what struck me most of all was how very empty it all seemed. No long-time girlfriends, no children. No pets. He’s got his work and his practical, sensible decisions. He’s most definitely not the sort of man to live in a beach house in constant danger of being swept away by hurricanes. He’s not the type of man to adopt an inconveniently enormous, wonderfully complicated dog. And he’s definitely not the kind of man who I’d have ever thought would fit into my life at all. Not for a week, not for a day, not even for a minute. Guppy returns his ball to me, along with a mouthful of seaweed. I look back at my house and down the shore toward Port Flamingo. I imagine our footprints from earlier, now washed away. I don’t know how he fits into my life, but I’d never forgive myself if I never gave myself the chance to find out.

I let myself onto Maisie’s lanai, where I find her sound asleep on her deck chaise. When she’s awake, she’s incredibly elegant. Swan-like even. But she sleeps like a retired truck driver in a La-Z-Boy, with her mouth open, snoring, arms sprawled out on each side of her. “Maisie.” I give her a shake. No response, aside from a huge gasping snore. She’d kill me for even thinking this, but there are some very definite Guppy-like traits.

I pick up her leg and drop it. Nada. I don’t want to be rude about this. She is, after all, the world’s best and most aggressively protective friend. She’s sacred, that’s all there is to it. And because of that I don’t want to, say, dump some ice water on her head or spray her with the hose, but I need her help. Right now. Before she goes into REM sleep and I have no hope of getting her up until 10:30 tomorrow. Her purse is sitting on the kitchen cabinet, and I dig through it. It’s full of stuff like Vegan Whole Wellness Soy Gelcaps and tinctures in unlabeled brown bottles with dropper lids. Her credit cards, cash, and all her spare change gathers at the bottom, organized purely by gravity. And I thought my purse was a vortex. Intermixed with the change are a bunch of loose almonds and some raisins. But then, there at the bottom, I find it. The cucumber water. Exactly like mine. Returning to battle, I take my position next to the chaise. I’ve learned my lesson, after a rather unfortunate trip we took to visit Grandpa together, when we slept in the same bed. Waking her up is like disturbing a hibernating grizzly bear. I stand back far enough to prevent any half-asleep self-defense maneuver—Fool me twice, watch it!—and get ready to fire. I give her leg one more shake, just to be sure, and then hit her with a spritz. She shoots straight up with a gasp. “What’s happening? Why am I outside? Who’s eating cucumbers?” “I need some fashion advice.” She blinks hard and looks me up and down, same as I’m doing to myself. I managed to get out of the house without Guppy sliming my dress, which was a victory. Other than that, I feel kind of like a little black sausage. “You look…fantastic,” she says. “I feel like a bratwurst.” I shimmy the hem down an inch. She makes a breathy whistle. “Why are you dressed like that? Did I miss a Facebook invite? Is there some sort of something-or-other at the Elks?” “I need to wear this tomorrow. But all I have to go with it is turquoise nail polish and flip-flops. I need you to help me with a makeover. Starting with heels.” She winces. “We’ve covered this. My corporate history is my corporate history. Past tense. Dead and buried. I shall never in my life work in a cubicle again, so help me God.” She mimes dusting her hands off, to say that’s that. Only I know it isn’t. She had a brief but very lucrative stint working in the corporate world—a phase in her life that she talks about with about as much joy as her long battle with forehead acne. But I know her too well to believe it’s all dead and buried. “I know you haven’t parted with your Louboutins. You’re too cheap.”

She glares. “Frugal, Penny. Frugal.” “You’re too frugal to part with a pair of $500 heels, no matter what you say. So come on, dig up the bodies.” She shifts her lips side to side as she inspects me, starting at my hair and moving down. I lift my toes when she gets to my bare feet. “Do you even know how to walk in heels?” “Zero idea whatsoever.” The closest I’ve ever come to heels was a pair of clogs I had to wear at my brief attempt at waitressing. I’ve never worked so hard in my life, and never dropped so many dishes in a four-hour period, and I twisted my ankle. “I’m going to need a primer on that, too.” She whines and rubs her face with both hands like a toddler. “I just want to sleep. I was in the middle of this fantastic dream where I was having a torrid affair with an alfalfa sprout farmer. He was perfect. I mean perfect. We were talking about mushroom compost, and then he said…” “Alfalfa will be there later. We’ve got a real man to worry about.” I grip her arm and look her hard in the bloodshot eyes. “He bought me a cake. An Albertson’s cake. With a special message on it. And a dossier. This matters.” That, more than the spritz or the leg shakes, really wakes her up. “He came here? Onto your property? Goddamn it. That bastard is going to be so sorry when I come at him with my Diet Coke and Mentos...” “Shush! Cease and desist. We have more important things to worry about. Like this.” I ruffle up my curls with my fingers. “What do I do with this? I can’t wear this dress with an untamed mane. There’s a time for beachy curls.” I yank on the dress, “But this isn’t it.” She reaches up and touches my hair, inspecting the ends suspiciously. “Do you even own a curling iron?” “I know how to finger comb. End of story.” She picks up her empty rum and Coke, poking at the dry bottom of the glass with her straw. “How are you going to repay me for this, Pen? I can’t work miracles for free.” “A year’s worth of Captain Morgan. All the vegan wellness capsules your heart desires. All the kale you can eat. Whatever you want.”

37 RUSS

I wake up hard for her, and I reach out to pull her body into mine. But she isn’t there, because—I realize as I come up into consciousness—I’m not with her. Instead, I’m on Aunt Sharon’s lumpy hide-a-bed, with my feet hanging off the end and metal rods poking into my body at various crucial points. Kidneys. Ass. Spinal cord. When I open my eyes, I’m met by Janis Joplin staring down at me from the back of the sofa with one strand of upholstery fabric dangling from her claw. “Morning.” She licks the thread with her sandpapery tongue. I rub my face and yawn. It wasn’t the best night’s sleep, and this morning wood is fucking killing me, but the day’s got promise: I’ll see her tonight. Probably. If she shows. Also, on the plus side, I think I smell…coffee. Not some kind of weird tea made of twigs, but actual old-fashioned coffee. I roll out of bed and put on my pants. Janis Joplin leaps off the back of the sofa onto the warm spot where I was lying, staring at me like she can’t understand why it took nine fucking hours for me to get the message and move. In the kitchen I find Aunt Sharon reading on her iPad, with a big cup of steaming coffee next to her. “Keurig is all set for you.” I look at the counter. I sent it to her for Christmas, and holy fuck alive she’s using it. “I was sure you’d donate it to the Humane Society.” “They already had one,” she says, trying to keep a straight face. “Just kidding. It’s awesome. They’ve even got my chai.” She lifts her cup and flips the page on her book. I make myself some French roast and let my mind return to Penny and what she must be doing right about now. In her nighty. Curled up in bed. With Guppy in my spot. The machine gurgles to signal it’s all done. I pour in some soy milk and see the Gazette is on the counter. I take a seat across from Sharon at the little kitchenette and realize the whole scene feels oddly…normal. Could be any house in America. I

don’t even see her vape pen anywhere. But then things get back on track, as she glances up at me and says, “There’s some eleven-grain, gluten-free bread in the freezer if you want some.” “Awesome.” I put a slice in the toaster and depress the button. As I wait, I notice the headline on the newspaper: Golf Tycoon Applies for Zoning Change. Underneath that is a picture of Dickerson, in his golf plaids, swinging a golf club. The photographer managed to capture him in the exact instant that he missed the drive, and his face is double-chinned and puckered-lipped with anger, like he’s been constipated for weeks. And in that expression, I see something totally unexpected. I knew he was an asshole, but the truth of it is written all over his face. He is full of rage. Richard “Dick” Dickerson Continues Efforts at Development; City Council Raises Concerns. I skim the article. Variance. Sixty-day permit. Filing fees. Opponents. It doesn’t seem big, but I’ve been in this job long enough to know when someone’s up to something. And this guy here most definitely is. The toast springs up from the toaster, smelling like burnt nuts. I slather it with some vegan butter, tuck the paper under my elbow and grab an apple from the fruit basket. Aunt Sharon says, “And I’d recommend not eating anything from any dish, bowl, or tin in this house.” She glances up from her iPad. “I tried to mark all the edibles, but then I ran out of Post-its.” “Copy that,” I answer, and head back to the spare bedroom.

As I sit down with my laptop at my Aunt Sharon’s desk, my phone buzzes. It’s a message from Rex, my oldest Army buddy. It’s his company that’s luring me away from the PI business when I get back to Boston. On the screen is a photo of him and me standing together on tour, with an Abrams tank behind us. We’re dusty, fucking exhausted, sunbaked and half shell-shocked. And so fucking glad to be alive. It’s one of those photos that’s so intensely nostalgic, I can hardly look at it straight. Below it, Rex has added:

Looking forward to next week, Macklin. Fucking psyched you’re joining the team.

It all seemed so logical when I agreed to it—one of those jobs that any guy in his right mind would kill to land. But that was before I asked a girl if I could untangle

her earbuds, and everything unraveled from there. My heart bangs hard in my chest —it’s got fuck-all to do with the French roast. That’s Penny. That’s these feelings. Scary as shit but real as a heart attack. But right now, nothing about her is for sure. Life has to go on, and I can’t leave Rex hanging. Same here, man. Thanks. See you Thursday. I pocket my phone and get down to the case at hand. This might be my last job as a PI, but I’m damn well going to do it right. Using the back door of a mortgage database, I look up the major property owners in Port Flamingo. Not surprisingly, the mayor’s name is everywhere. Co-signatory, 7.9 acres single-family residence/farm, 901 FL Route 8. I pull the map out of my bag and scan along Route 8, into Dickerson’s highlighted circle. It’s the llama farm. Back to the database, where I find him listed again. Co-signatory, Commercial property, 1220-1450 North Beach Point. That corresponds to the whole patch of land where the boardwalk carnival is. On and on. One local business after the other, rescued from bankruptcy by the mayor. But another company keeps popping up in the property listings, which is known by the mysteriously nonsensical name of National Kindergarten Folios, Inc. It hasn’t made any huge land grabs, but it’s made a fuckton of little ones: $15,000 for beachfront acre, $10,000 for a derelict building. They’re such tiny purchases, in fact, that it makes me wonder if someone’s buying up mineral rights on the downlow. I’ve seen this same kind of shit in places like northern Colorado and the Permian Basin. But this doesn’t look like mineral rights. National Kindergarten Folios is also buying up foreclosed houses, closed-down gas stations, and even shops on Main Street. I do a search for it in the county, and the map springs back at me in square red pixels everywhere, covering the town like a rash. It turns out that National Kindergarten Folios Inc. isn’t a real company, but a shell corporation. It’s registered in Delaware, operated from Florida, but there’s no real name linked up to it anywhere. The paperwork of the Florida company points back to Delaware, and back again. Tricky shit. Expert shit. Whatever the company is really about, it fronts all sorts of projects: Boat building, real estate, communications, construction. An article buried way down in the search results says KFolios Communications to Build Cell Towers in Port Flamingo. Which never happened. Clearly. Even the name of the company is weird. It’s like Mad Libs—a string of words

together that don’t really belong in a row. And sure, people do weird shit with company names, but not usually this weird. So I go with my gut and write it out on a pad of paper. Under that, I write down A.R. Dickerson Golf International. I cross off one letter after another, as I find them in each word. D from Dickerson matches up to the d in Kindergarten and so on. By the time I’m halfway through, I see it, clear as can be. It’s a fucking anagram. The letters are rearranged, but it says the same goddamned thing. I look back at the map, and the holdings, and the article about the uncompleted cell towers. I lean back in the little office chair, thinking, Holy shit. Because Dick Dickerson isn’t trying to build a golf course with a spa and a knockoff Benihana. He isn’t trying to help Port Flamingo. He’s trying to wipe it right off the map.

The Shorefront Grill is upscale. It’s situated at the end of the bay, one town over and up on a clifftop, with a view of the Gulf. At the end of the road that leads to the parking lot is a commercial For Sale sign, and for about one heartbeat I think, What I wouldn’t give to own a place like this. I arrive way ahead of our reservation, and the hostess seats me at a table for two in the corner. She puts the menus down, making sure the edges are exactly parallel with the tabletop. “Can I get you anything to start?” “Scotch, neat.” She nods. “Any kind in particular?” “Best you’ve got. But one thing, before my date gets here,” I say. My date. Not even close to the right word, not even close to how I feel. She smiles down at me, her hands clasped behind her back. “Yes, sir?” “No fish.” I slice my hand through the air. “Not the same cutting board, not the same plate. Not an oyster, not a clam, not a piece of calamari. Not for me.” “Noted,” she says, and turns to go. As the waitress leaves, I keep my eyes locked on the parking lot. I give it a 50/50 chance that Penny won’t show. I feel more nervous about this than I have before a date in…fuck, years. Maybe ever. I look out at the sunset and try to think about the last time I came totally clean with a woman, told her straight up the whole fucking deal, laid it all out there, lock, stock, and barrel. I've never done it, not once. I’ve never wanted to and never felt the need. Until now. Down below me, Penny’s Bronco pulls into a space right next to my Suburban.

Her door opens, and one beautiful leg slides out, wearing a killer black heel with a red sole. Out comes the dress, and the body. Her hair is in perfect long curls, in a cascade down her back. The sun glints off them, and she bends inside to grab her purse. I slug back half my Scotch without looking away from her. Fuck. She was beautiful before, but now she’s someone else again. She turns and looks up at the restaurant, giving me a view of her cleavage and a string of pearls, long and knotted, nestled right between her breasts. I groan into my palm. The restaurant is up above the parking lot, at the end of a long set of stairs, which means she can’t see me watching. She turns her back to me again and bends her knees, touching up her lipstick in her side mirror. The position accentuates her hips and her waist and every perfect inch. I drain back the rest of the Scotch and feel the warmth come up from my stomach. And then I watch her make her way up the cliffside staircase. Every other step shows the inside of her thighs—that creamy, soft skin, those curves and lines. I imagine her bruises, invisible under the dress. The ocean breeze catches her hair, and she gathers it up in her palm, holding it in front of one shoulder. Straightening my shirtsleeves and smoothing my vest, I pray to a God I don’t even really believe in that maybe, just maybe, she’s willing to take a chance on me. On this. On us.

38 PENNY

My day was full of llamas, donkeys, and chaos at my mom and stepdad’s farm. Before the slightly stooped doorman opens the door for me, I step aside to collect myself behind a stucco column. My feet already ache from the walk up the steps, but not as bad as I expected. I’m getting used to the dress, but I’m still not used to how I look. My face is reflected back at me in the shiny chrome doorplate and I realize that I don’t look like Penny anymore. I look like Penelope, the whole kit and caboodle. Put together. Polished. Poised. I’ve always felt confident, but never like this. Cute but never… “You look very beautiful, ma’am,” says the old doorman. “You look like an angel that fell right out of the sky.” I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear and smile at him, too nervous to even say thanks. I steady myself, and take a step towards the door. I feel like I’m about to jump from a plane, that same sort of oh my God is this a good idea? panic. But the plane is airborne, and my chute is packed. All that’s left now is to step off the edge and hold my breath. I adjust my long string of pearls and the doorman puts his hand on the massive door handle. “Ready?” And I give him a wordless, smiling nod.

As soon as I walk inside, Russ stands from the table. I don’t wait for the hostess to lead me over, but go straight to him. He looks even more handsome tonight than before, because not only is he crisp and starched in yet another pair of perfect pants, but he’s also wearing a vest. No suit coat, because it’s too hot, but a very yummy, absolutely perfect pinstripe vest, with his shirtsleeves rolled up. He pulls my chair out for me, and I sit, looking up the length of his body at him as I do. I scooch in, and he puts his hand on my back, certain and confident. “You’re here. Does that mean I get another chance?”

I feel the blush come back up into my cheeks. My words are all caught up in my throat, like I know what I want to say, but I don’t know how. He sits across from me, and for one long second, we stare at each other, unblinking, over the flickering candle. “Yes. Yes.” As I say it, warmth returns to my nervous-cold hands. “You didn’t have to tell me all that. I don’t need to know everything, Russ.” “Yes, you do. Listen,” he says, leaning in and putting one of his thick forearms on the white tablecloth. That listen of his turns me into rice pudding. “I’m not going to bullshit you. I’m falling for you, that’s all there is to it. The last few days have been fucking madness, and I’ve loved every second of it.” I press my lips together and stifle a laugh. “I know. It’s been insane. I’ve loved it, too.” “I don’t have any fucking clue what we’ll do when I leave, but I promise you, Penny. We’ll figure it out.” We’ll figure it out. I grip my chair hard with both hands. I remember hanging onto a piano bench exactly this way when I was five years old, and I forgot how to play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” at the school recital, when every note slipped right out of my head. I’m falling for you. “I hope so.” From his vest, he pulls a second envelope, like the one from last night. He slides it onto my menu. “I forgot something.” I consider the envelope without picking it up. “If these are tickets somewhere, the answer is yes. All I need is a few hours and a twenty-degree temperature range so I know what to pack.” He snickers, loosening up like I am. “We can do that. Iceland, Turks and Caicos. Bali. You name it. But that’s something else.” He glances at the envelope. “I realized I left that out last night. And I think you, of all people, need to know about it.” I turn it over. The flap is tucked into the fold, and I peek inside. On a typed piece of paper, I see a few words on a single page, but I don’t read what they say. “Can’t you just tell me?” He raises his delicately scarred eyebrow. Just because I know it came from a cat scratch now doesn’t make it any less sexy. “Going to make this hard on me, tiger?” “Noooo,” I say through a smile, suddenly feeling much easier in my dress than I did five minutes ago. “I’d rather hear it from you.” The hostess comes by and takes our drink order. When she’s gone, I try to hand the envelope back to him. But he won’t take it and waves me off. “That’s yours. Not mine.”

So I put the envelope between the salt and pepper shakers. I smooth my napkin and lean in. “All I want to know now is what you’re doing in Port Flamingo. And why.”

“I’m not a movie scout, which I’m pretty sure you know already, judging from the way Maisie rattled off every last detail of my website at me.” I nod at him through my wine glass, watching him all the time. My “ummhmm” echoes back at me through my chardonnay. “A private investigator.” “I do what’s sometimes called information brokering, but what could also, possibly, be called…” He hesitates. Blackmail. I might be a small-town girl, but I’m no dummy. “Gathering things to use as leverage.” He lifts fingers from the table and nods. “Right. I prefer to keep it corporate. Sometimes it gets personal.” He takes a slow sip of his Scotch, and I can tell he’s not used to talking about this, because for the first time his words are a bit unsure, almost. Not that normal dominant confidence, but something a little more…gentle. Like it’s up to me to decide if I approve of him—of his work—or not. Which makes it all so incredibly sexy. “I don’t do dirty work. I don’t do process serving or any of that shit. I stay in the background, get the info, and move on.” I let him keep going without any extra interruptions, even though I really do have about six million questions, just to start. He goes on, “But I keep it legal. I’m not in this job to get myself thrown in jail. So that’s my line in the sand. The edge of legal is where I stay.” At first, the angel on my shoulder sort of gasps. I don’t know what that means, the edge of legal. The devil gives the angel a solid shove. “Don’t be such a wuss.” “I was hired to come down here and see what I could find on your mayor.” “The mayor?” I lean forward so far that the back legs of my chair come up off the floor. “Look into him for what? Man of the year?” “See, that’s just it,” Russ says, picking up his drink and swirling his Scotch. “Everything I find on him is unbelievably nice. Never seen anything like it.” Nice doesn’t even scratch the surface. “He’s never seen a lost cause he didn’t want to fix. He’s like Saint Rita in a green polo.” “Exactly. I couldn’t find any leverage on him at all. So then I started thinking about this job in the opposite direction. What if the mayor isn’t the problem? What if the backer is?” While I’m totally down with all of this, the jargon is a little bit unfamiliar still.

We’re heading into Bourne Identity when I’m only vaguely familiar with Mission: Impossible. “I have no idea what that means.” “The guy who hired me, he’s my backer. The name is Dick Dickerson.” As soon as the words come out of his mouth, my rage spikes up inside me like the ball-and-hammer game at the fair. “Bastard.” “You know him?” “Know him?” I keep my voice hushed, but I don’t let the volume hide my anger. “We have two hobbies in this town. Going to festivals and hating Dick Dickerson.” The waiter comes over with some bread and butter and hesitates, like he’s waiting for us to order. Russ gives him an incredibly authoritative come back later glance, and he nods and walks away. He doesn’t even have to speak and he gets his way. God. This man. How I want this man. Russ straightens his fork. “I don’t think he wants to develop the land. I think he wants to raze it. What intrigues me is why.” At first, it all seems so absurd, so obvious, that I almost burst out laughing. It’s like asking, Why does the guy who owns the carwash drive a Range Rover? Because seagulls have made his fortune, you num-num. But then I realize that Russ can’t know the whole story. He’s not from here. He doesn’t know about small-town skeletons. He deals in high-end information, not the sort of thing that gets nattered about at the beauty salon. However, we have now officially entered my wheelhouse. I take a seductive sip of my wine and say, “It comes down to the Darlings, darling.” “Yeah?” “Oh, yes.” He lifts his chin at me. “Let me hear it, because I’m in the weeds on this one.” I tear open my dinner roll and slice off half a sphere of butter with my knife. This time, I don’t need to think about what to say or how to say it. “Because my mom stood him up…at the altar.” “Oh shit.” Russ puts one hand behind his neck, flexing those gorgeous biceps and making his vest slide up a little, hinting at the flat, solid, dreamy expanse underneath. “You’re kidding.” “My dad left when I was really little, just a baby. When I was about three, Dick Dickerson entered the picture. Mom said he was good to us at first,” I explain. “When I was five, they decided to get married. I remember I was supposed to be the flower girl, and she was about to put me in my dress.” I think back to that day. To her in her robe, her with her hair in huge pastel Velcro rollers, pinned to her head with oversized bobby pins. “But then suddenly, she said, ‘Penny, you’re not going

to be a flower girl today. We’re going to take a trip up north instead.’ And we did. She packed my bag and hers. She stuck my bouquet in a plastic cup, put it in the cup holder in her Bug, and we hit the road. It was pretty much the best thing ever. Except I was too little to know that she had a minister, a church full of people, and Dick Dickerson waiting for her.” He stares out at the ocean. “Jesus. She just…decided? Like that?” He adds a strong snap. I nod. “Straight out of the movies. Needless to say, I didn’t see him much after that. Rumor has it he went kind of bananas. And ever since, he’s been trying to ruin Port Flamingo and every Darling in it. Especially my mom.” I take a big bite of my roll and watch Russ go from outraged to broody and protective, putting pressure on my leg with his. “Fucker.” With my mouth half-full, I explain, “I don’t hate many things, except for cilantro and too-ripe bananas. But I hate that man.” Russ exhales slowly, rotating his glass on the tablecloth. “The golf course, the restaurant, the spa. It sounds like it could be a good thing, objectively.” “Objectively, maybe. But practically, it would be a disaster.” Cupping my hand over my full mouth, I shake my head hard. “It’d be the end of us. What restaurant in town could compete with a place like that? None. What happens to the YMCA when he opens his pool? Closes. What happens to the Sunkissed Diner? We aren’t big enough to have all of it. It’d ruin us.” Russ gets it, I can see that. It’s simple logic. He doesn’t need a pie chart to show that the big fish always eats the little one. “We’ve tried to stop him—city council meetings, that kind of thing—but there’s only so much we can do. He’s got the money, and we don’t. Maisie’s tried her own approach…and now she can’t get within a hundred feet of him.” He points at me with a warning finger and smiles. “We’ve got to keep that one on a tight leash. We can’t have her going apeshit and blowing our cover. I like her, but…” He trails off. There really is no need to finish that sentence. “It’s okay. She’s going out of town for a few days, so we’re in the clear.” “Good. I did some digging this morning. There’s a holding company, called National Kindergarten Folios, Inc.” “That’s like word salad. What does that even…” But then all the letters dance around in my head, lining up into A.R. Dickerson Golf International. “Oh that bastard.” “All this...” He looks me up and down. “…And you can do anagrams without writing them down?”

I give him a little ain’t no thing shrug. “Damn,” he says, pursing his gorgeous lips. “Anyway, his involvement in that company is hard to prove. He’s done it carefully, and it’s damned difficult to say to a guy like that, ‘Listen you son of a bitch, we have a quasi-convincing paper trail that may or may not lead to the Cayman Islands, so you better hit the road.’” “No, I can see that one doesn’t have quite the splash one would hope.” “But if we can get him on something concrete, I think we can stop him. If you’re willing to go to the edge of legal with me.” Oh, goodie. “You want to nail Dickerson, and you want me to help you?” I say around my roll. The truth is that I’d go pretty much anywhere with him. Legal, illegal. Public, private. Do anything, go anywhere, in one hot minute. My whole body is thrumming with it. With him, for him. He nods and then leans in. With his thumb he wipes a little butter off my lip, but he keeps his palm cupped against my jaw. It’s the first time he’s really touched me since I walked in, and the seismograph inside me goes insane. Russ says, “We nail that plaid-wearing, ear-cleaning, slick son of a bitch. Together. You and me. You in?” I nod against his hand, and then plant a long, happy kiss to his heart line. “I’m in, handsome. 150 percent.”

Over dinner—two steaks, with baked potatoes, and salad, followed by dessert—we talk about all the possible ways to snare Dickerson. Russ says anything is fair game: “Soliciting, possession with intent to sell, anything embarrassing that would make a good headline. Anything at all.” “You don’t mess around,” I say, finishing off the last of the flourless chocolate cake and scooping up the final smudge of raspberry sauce. His leg presses into mine a little harder. “I definitely do not.” Mush. Utter mush. He reaches back into his pocket and pulls out his wallet. Automatically, I reach for my purse to get my card. “What the hell are you doing?” he asks. I freeze with my hand in my purse. “Paying? Going Dutch?” “Don’t even think about that shit. Ever again,” he says, narrowing his eyes and shaking his head at me. “I’m going to hit the men’s room, and give her my card. Then we’re gonna get the hell out of here so I can have my way with you. Got it?” I press my heels together, clenching my thighs against the instant wave of wetness. “Yes. Got it. Definitely.” “Good. So put your damned wallet away, cutie.” He stands up, but before he

goes, he leans down and kisses me. Nothing big, nothing outrageous, but enough to say, You’re mine. And that’s how it is. I watch him walk away, his tush so delish in those dress pants, his shoulders so broad, accentuated by the slippery satin back of his vest. I watch a woman at another table give him some elevator eyes, and I resist the very real urge to throw the salt shaker at her. Which is when it catches my attention. The envelope. I already know all I need to know. In the honesty race, I’m lagging—so many complex triangles to explain, so many failed attempts at finding my own love story —and yet, he says there is still one more thing he needs me to know. I trace the corner, letting it poke into my fingertip. It could be anything. Could be mundane. Could be ordinary. Or it could be… exciting. And something tells me that it’s probably not an expired membership to Blockbuster. So I peek into the envelope and part the piece of paper far enough to read what’s inside: There aren’t many words, but they’re thrilling: Tumblr. Account dormant. Username: DominantR76 Gaaaaaah. The one last thing nobody else knows. A dirty little secret. Just for me. I pull my phone from my purse and angle it toward the windows. In addition to the Shorefront Grill having to-die-for chocolate cake, their location also ensures that they have the best thing of all: Reliable cell service. My Tumblr account is mostly old reblogs from Maisie and mason jar salad photos, but I’ve got a feeling from that screen name he’s been on Tumblr for a different reason entirely. So I type it in. The little wheel spins and spins, and I tilt my phone toward the window. And then… Beautiful, dirty, naughty porn. It’s carefully curated, all black and white. It’s artful, sexy, and sizzling hot. I scroll down past a GIF of a man on his knees in front of a woman, and she’s gripping his hair as her head falls back against the wall behind her. DominantR76’s caption is, That moment. I fucking love that moment. My body responds to his words instantly and viscerally. There is something so irresistibly sexy knowing that—I look at the dates—three years ago, he did this for fun. That women probably private messaged him and that he drove them wild. And that now, all these years later, all that desire is mine.

And so is the man down the hallway. With his pants unzipped already.

39 RUSS

I step out of the bathroom, and there she is, looking wild in the eyes. We’re alone in a modern hallway, out of sight from the rest of the restaurant. She grabs me and pulls me in for a kiss, inhaling hard and hooking her fingers over my belt. As she touches me, my cock takes over—I need her. I want her. I have to have her. One day without her and I’m dope sick. I kiss her back, hard, as I put my hands on her ass. She’s taller in her heels, and I like her this way. Having her on her toes gives me a better grip on her hips, and makes her a little less steady. Her kiss is like she’s been unleashed in a way that she wasn’t before. I walk her backward, and the women’s restroom door swings open behind her. And I keep on fucking walking until I bang her up against the side of the stall. When her body hits the metal wall, the impact ripples through her ass. One of her legs slides up around me, making her skirt ride up her thigh. She goes for my belt, and I dig my fingers into the soft flesh at the backs of her legs. I touch the edge of some kind of lacy panty, and in the mirror to my right I see a strip of red. Fuck. I drive my knee up under her pussy and grind into her to show her who’s boss. She relents and lets her weight drop down so her panties press against my pants. Right through the wool I can feel her. Hot, wet, and so fucking good. “Looked in the envelope?” She pulls me to her by the shirt collar. “You don’t know what that does to me. Seeing what you like, seeing how your mind works. What you want, what you fantasize about.” I pin her with a hand to her throat. My belt is only halfway undone, and she’s pawing for my cock. “You know what I fantasized about? What I’ve always been fantasizing about? You.” She groans, pulling me in closer. Her breasts compress against my chest, and the pearls dig into my pecs. I press my forehead to hers but don’t kiss her again, not yet. “I need to see you like this.”

“Like what?” “Greedy. Wild.” One of her fingers brushes along my perineum, and I whack the stall with my fist. She smiles when I do, smug and satisfied that she’s undoing me, too. I force her back on defense with a teeth-clashing, aggressive kiss that knocks the breath right out of her. “I want to bend you over the sink, Penny. I want to fuck you from behind and look you in the eye when I’m doing it.” She pants and bites her tongue. “Do it.” But just then the door creaks and the noise of the restaurant spills in. I glance at the mirror and see the hostess. Her mouth drops open, and one hand comes to her lips. “Oh my God,” she gasps, her heels coming to a clacking halt. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…” And then she backs out the way she came. All the restaurant noise disappears again, and the only noise in the room is Penny breathing hard into my ear. “You want me to fuck you here, or you want me to take you home and fuck you right?” Through gritted teeth she snarls, this primal, wild snarl. The small-town sweetheart is gone. In her place is a wildcat who only I can tame. “I don’t care. Everything. Now, then, later.” Her cheeks are flushed, and her pupils are dilated. “The way we fuck isn’t for public bathrooms, Penny,” I tell her. But because I can’t fucking resist, I hike up her skirt and touch her inside. Soaked. I watch her as I finger her. I grip her G-spot, and her legs start to tremble. I slide my fingers out of her, and she whimpers, “Russsssss.” The smell of her is everywhere, and it flips that basic switch inside me, that alpha drive. But I’m stronger than all that shit. It’s going to be right, and it’s going to last way beyond last call and closing time. “I’m not going to take you in the ass in a goddamned restaurant, Penny.” Before she can say anything, I put my soaked fingers into her mouth, letting her taste the thing I need so fucking bad it aches. “That is the key to everything right there. That taste. I’d do anything for that taste.” She sucks it off, her tongue winding circles around my fingers, every single movement echoed right back into my cock. She bites down on my fingertips, and then whispers, “Please, please, please.” “Listen to you beg.” “Russ. Now. Please.” No fucking way. She might have me by the balls, but I’m still running this fucking show. I push her hands off of me, and then cup her pussy in my palm. “I’m taking you home, and I’m going to fuck you so hard that the only word you have left

is my name.”

I drive, but she isn’t making it easy, not with her hand down my pants. “If you’re not careful, I'll drive right off this road.” She scoots closer, getting some leverage by tucking one leg behind her so she can reach over a little farther. With her right hand, she finds her way underneath my balls. “I don’t want to be careful ever again.” I am rock hard, fucking throbbing for her with every ounce of my cock. Every inch pulsing. I glance away from the road for one fucking second. First I look into her eyes, then down at my cock, then at her mouth. “So do it. Right now.” She gives me a sassy shake of her head, and her curls sweep along her shoulders. “I’m a small-town girl, Mr. Macklin. I can’t be giving road head when it’s still light outside. I've got a reputation,” she says, fisting my shaft hard, and bringing her cheek up against mine. “I’m a good girl.” She smiles, and I feel it more than see it, her cheeks sliding against my jaw. Her tongue traces the edge of my ear, and she bites down hard enough to make me hiss. She laughs. “You said I’m a good girl yourself.” “So good. So perfect.” “That’s right.” I keep one hand on the wheel and put the other around her, one ass cheek snugly in my palm. She wets her hand with a sexy lick to lube me up. She grips the base and then slides up my shaft, rubbing the tip with her thumb. “Christ, Penny.” I slam the wheel. “That palm reader was so fucking on point.” “I know.” She slides her nose along my cheek, laughing softly. “I know.” Her grip tightens. She isn’t gentle, and she doesn’t need to be. It takes all my focus to come to a full stop at the stop sign in front of me. I move my foot back to the gas and keep my knee wide to give her more room. As I get back up to speed, she wets her hand again, working every inch of me exactly like I need. “What are you going to do to me tonight?” she asks. “Every fucking thing I want.” She pulls her face back from mine, an inch and then two. “But until we get back to my house, you’re powerless.” “The fuck I am.” I give her ass a hard squeeze. She laughs a little. “Bullshit. I think for the next ten minutes, I’m in control. What do you think about that, DominantR76?” “How the fuck did you get so sexy?” She winks. Then looks from the rearview to side mirrors, checking to see if the

coast is clear. Her expression turns from sweet to rebellious in an instant: Fuck the reputation. Fuck the small-town girl routine. She’s going to go down on me, in a rented Suburban, at dusk. Fuck. Yes. Her pearls spill from her cleavage onto my leg. She slips them off her head and drops them onto the floor mats and then lowers that face down, down, down into my lap. She doesn’t kiss my cock or lick it. She takes me all the way into her throat, making me groan and grip the wheel for dear fucking life. She takes her long hair back from her face in a ponytail, and I can see from the lines by her eyes, she’s smiling. I’m so fucking gone for this woman. I don’t put my hand on her head but instead rest it on the small of her back. The fabric of her dress ripples and stretches as she goes up and then down. But as we approach town, I’m already thinking ahead. Because I like this, a whole fucking lot, but I need to be inside her for real. “Penny,” I say softly, and she pauses with my cock halfway in her mouth. She looks up at me, asking What? without saying a word. That’s it. Right there. Done. The hottest thing ever, full fucking stop. She blinks. Somehow I find my words again and manage to say, “Is there anywhere we can get some decent lube?” She blinks again. And then shakes her head, with my cock still in her mouth. “Drugstore?” Now she nods. As she does, her tongue slides up and down the shaft, and then she gets back to work. She gets farther up on her knees and takes me deeper, and I work my free hand up her skirt. With one finger, I slide into her pussy. When she feels me inside her, she freezes with her lips tight around my cock. Letting her regroup, I give her a second. But as she takes another deep dive, I part my fingers. Right in that moment she growls with my cock deep in her throat. The vibrations of the growl electrify my dick, forcing me to hit the brakes. “I gotta pull over, Penny,” I tell her, hitting the turn signal. “Don’t you dare fucking stop.” She doesn’t. I pull over onto the shoulder of the highway and put the Suburban in park. She takes me harder, deeper, faster, until I’m so fucking close to exploding into her that my cum is pulsing up through my balls. But then she slows, my cock halfway into her mouth, her thumb and forefinger gripping the base. She’s got this look on her face, like she’s the queen of the world, and she knows

it. She pulls me from her mouth, and licks a long line from my balls to the head. Without lifting her eyes to me—talking to my cock—she says, “I’m going to make you come. And I’m going to swallow everything you can give me.” Fuck, yes, she is. I tip her face up with my finger to her chin. “Then we’re going to go find some lube, and I’m going to do whatever I want to you. Whatever I fucking want.” “Glad we’re on the same page.” And then she leans over me and hits the recline button. Fuck. Holy, holy fuck.

40 PENNY

He comes in three intense spurts into my mouth, roaring out my name slow and strong, “Pennnnnnnnnnny,” as he grips my hair in his hand. After he comes, I wait for him to come back to sanity, watching his massive chest rise and fall with deep, gasping breaths. On the highway, a car speeds past, buffeting the side of the Suburban and making the cab shake. He raises his head up off the headrest. “Holy fucking shit.” He cups my jaw in his hand, touching my cheek with the pad of his thumb. The way he’s looking at me, it makes me feel so… “I fucking adore you. How can you be so sweet and yet so fucking dirty?” I reach over his body to raise up his seat again. “I’m a lady of many talents.” “No shit.” He rubs his face with his hand, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Jesus, Penny. Jesus.” “We should go home. Screw the lube,” I say, sitting up and smoothing my hair. I actually don’t know if we can skip the lube. I’ve never done what he wants to do before, and I don’t know how this goes. “Fuck that. I’m all for spit as lube in porn, but that’s porn.” He narrows his eyes. “I want to do this right, and I’m not going to hurt you. No fucking way.” I nod, because I’m in his hands now. “There’s a CVS next to the diner. In and out, bing bang boom.” He lifts his scarred eyebrow and gives me a manly chin flick. “That’s what she said.” My bubbling giggle fills the car right up to the roof. He’s dark and sweet and funny. Russ Macklin is all the best things at once.

Twenty minutes later, we pull into a parking spot in town. “Lube aisle, here we come.”

“Christ. Even that’s hot,” he says as he opens his door to get out. But as I start to do the same he turns to me, giving me a menacing stare. “Penny. We’ve covered this. If your door needs opening, I’ll open it.” I freeze with my fingers on the handle. “’Kay.” As he walks around the front of the car, he gives me that cocky stare again. He opens up my door and takes my hand, and together we head into the CVS. I feel brave; I feel sure. I feel totally fine purchasing adult products at the same pharmacy where my mom used to buy my diapers. Until I see the cashier. Who is my retired, fourth-grade librarian. Also known as The Angel. “Oh hello, Penelope!” she chitters. The very definite smell of mothballs hangs in the air. I don’t know how it’s possible. She’s not even wearing wool. I grip Russ’ hand hard. On the other shoulder, the devil is laughing hysterically, wiping laugh tears from her smoky eyes. “Screw Westworld,” she cackles. “This is the best show ever.” “Hi, Mrs. Martenson. I didn’t know you’d started working here.” “Well, funny you should say that,” she says, nodding like she was waiting for me to come in here at 8 o’clock on a Sunday night and strike up this very conversation. “I was telling your mother how important it’s been for me to stay busy now that I’m retired. She was just here.” She glances around like Mom might materialize at any moment. “I’m sure you could go outside and track her down.” Next to me, Russ cough-snickers into his clenched palm. You’re not in Boston anymore! I try to tell him with my bug-eyed stare. Welcome to my world, where I have to buy lube from the lady who first told me about The BFG and where my mom could appear at any second to put a wrench in all my evening plans. “Russ, this is Mrs. Martenson. My elementary school librarian.” He’s man enough to not hoot with laughter, but I can tell he wants to. Badly. The Angel looks Russ up and down and up again. “My goodness, I didn’t know the FBI was in town.” Russ shakes it off with a manly press of his tongue to the inside of his cheek. “Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Martenson.” “Can I help you find anything?” she asks, tilting her head exactly like a canary. “We have a special going on Halloween candy.” “Oh no, we’re fine. Just going to pick up some essentials,” I say as Russ takes a basket from the stack. “I know how you like your Dots, Penny!” she chirps. “Three for a dollar!” “Thanks! Yep! Thanks!”

We head down the aisle with the baby supplies. I watch the muscles in Russ’ jaw tighten and then relax. “Know her?” “Only for my whole life.” Now he does snort, now that we’re alone. Once we’re out of Mrs. Martenson’s direct line of sight, I whisper, “It gets worse, though. You ready? Her son took me to my first high school dance. I swayed back and forth with him for four hours, and you know what I got in return? A peck on my forehead,” I say, also catching the giggles. “And not even a nice forehead kiss. Just a sort of cold-lipped press against my face.” “You poor thing.” I give him a Scarlett O’Hara swoon. “I have suffered more than you will ever know.” He turns more serious and pulls me to him. Behind his head is a display with a dad holding a set of twins, one cradled in each arm, and for an instant I see Russ doing that. Lordy. “You know, you don’t have to stay here forever if you don’t want to.” I stare at him, looking for any hint that he’s joking, or pulling my leg, or making fun of me. But he isn’t. “Are you asking me…” He opens his mouth but then closes it again. He loops his finger over my pearls, shifting them side to side. Finally he says, “I’m just saying. There’s a lot of real estate out there in America. The Northeast. Boston. You know. That general area.” It stuns me. He could knock me over with a bag of cotton balls. And yet, it doesn’t scare me. There is nothing inside me that says, Penny, don’t be absurd. For as forward an offer as it is, it’s also…a possibility. Looking into those eyes of his, anything is possible. My thoughts unwind like a runaway filmstrip. I let myself go there, right to the brink of the idea, but not so far that I get lost in the land of What If. Before I can say another thing, though, Kenny G gets quieter on the PA system and Mrs. Martenson announces, “Attention. We will be closing in ten minutes. We will be closing in ten minutes. Thank you.” It catapults me back twenty years to afternoons spent in reading cubbies with Maisie. “Oh my God, she used to say that exact same thing in the library.” “C’mon,” he says, wrapping his arm around me and putting a kiss to the side of my head. It’s a possessive, sensual, gentle kiss that is a million miles away from any high school dance on the planet. “Let’s get those essentials.”

With the full array of KY products in our basket, we head down the bath and beauty

aisle. Russ stops in front of a display of bath puffs and throws a pink one in, and then considers the shelves of body wash. “Is this part of the plan, too?” “Hell, yeah.” He watches me as he flips open the top on something pink and dotted with little bubbles inside the gel. He gives it a sniff and asks, “What do you think of that?” Gently, he compresses the bottle under my nose. It’s rich and floral. “Oh yes, that’ll do.” “Excellent.” He snaps it shut and adds it to the basket, holding my hand as we head for the register. In the recesses of my memory, I remember being at the library with Maisie, and the way Mrs. Martenson would read out the titles of our books as she stamped them. It was incredibly embarrassing, because even when you’re ten you don’t want everybody you know hearing that you’ve checked out There Wasn’t Hair There Yesterday: A Kid’s Guide to Growing Up. But this is a pharmacy. A national pharmacy. There have to be HIPAA rules against that kind of thing. There just have to be. Russ sets the basket down on the checkout counter. Mrs. Martenson slides her glasses up the bridge of her nose and types something into the register. “One bath puff,” she says, and scans it through, and the register dings. No. Oh, no. No. “One bottle of midnight peony bath wash.” I grab Russ’ hand and hang on tight as she picks up the lube. “One container of intim…” She trails off, blinking. Shocked. And clearly, quite surprised that there is a product that includes the words pleasure, lubricant, intimate, warming, cooling, and enhanced sensation all on the front label. She looks to me and then Russ and back again. Boston. Hello? But then, bless her sweet angel heart, Mrs. Martenson swallows a smile, scans it, and drops it into the bag without a word.

41 RUSS

We get back to the house and find Guppy sprawled out on the couch like an exhausted linebacker. I lock the door behind her and ask, “Is he going to bother us?” She shakes her head. “I walked him before dinner. He’s out for the night.” “Good.” I take her purse off her shoulder and hang it on the hook. Then I pull off her pearls and set them on the table by the door. She undoes the top button of my shirt, and I unzip the tiny zipper on the side of her dress. Kissing her is as natural as breathing, and I’d rather have my lips to hers than anywhere else. So I kiss her again, this time less frenzied than earlier. The CVS cooled us both down, which is good. “I want to take this slow. Savor every fucking second.” I lower myself onto my knees in front of her and start undoing her heels. They aren’t just heels, but these sexy-ass sandals with straps that go partway up her calves. I undo the fastener and unwind the leather, letting my fingers slide along the small indentations in her skin. She steadies herself with one hand on my shoulder as I help her out of the left and then the right. When I come back up to standing, she pulls the tail of my shirt from my pants and undoes my belt as I walk her back up against the wall of the foyer and press my body into hers. “You go start the shower,” I whisper into her ear. “No arguments.” “Okay,” she whispers back. But then as she turns to go, she stops. She gives me that sweet, beautiful smile and ever-so-slowly starts unpeeling her dress from her body. Fuck. “Shower,” I tell her again. “A striptease isn’t an argument, is it?” I go right for her, automatic and instinctive, but she stops me with her palm to my chest. She sits me down in the chair under the coat hooks. Inch by inch, the dress comes off her body. She lets it fall to the floor and bats my hand away when I try to undo her bra. “You like torturing me?” I ask.

“You know I do.” She reaches back behind her and unhooks her strapless bra. Her breasts come free, her nipples tight already. She shimmies out of those sexy red panties, soaked through. She picks them up with her toes, bending one leg and snatching them out of the air. Then she gives me a long, dirty kiss and walks down the hallway, bare-assed and with her panties hooked over one finger, swaying in time with her hips.

I take a candle from the bookshelf, along with a lighter and the CVS bag. I put the lube and the massage oil on the bedside table. When I hear her step into the tub, I open the bathroom door. The bathroom has steamed up already; as I close the door, she pokes her head out from behind the shower curtain. “Close those pretty eyes.” She smiles, biting her tongue a little. And then she does as I asked. I light the candle and turn off the lights. I hear her gasp as the room goes dark. “What are you up to?” “Taking care of you. That’s what I’m here for.” When I’m sure the candle is lit for good, I put it next to the sink and strip off my clothes. I see her watching me through the little space between the tiled wall and the curtain. “Am I supposed to still have them closed?” she says softly. “Because that would be such a shame.” “You’re perfect.” I step out of my boxers, hard again already. She slides the curtain open for me, watching me through the gap, and then I take the bath gel and the puff and join her. From the tips of her fingers to the back of her neck, I cover her in soapy suds. I move across her bellybutton, over her nipples, down each hip, along the soft skin at the backs of her knees, careful to not neglect one single curve, one single valley. Standing behind her, I press my cock between her ass cheeks. “I’m not going to lie to you, Penny. The things I’m feeling for you I haven’t felt in years. Ever, maybe.” I turn her in my arms, and raise her chin on my finger. “Ever.” “Me too.” She wipes some water from her cheeks and forehead, and then I pull her closer to shield her from the spray. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to do terrible things to you.” “Oh, God,” she growls. Gritted teeth again. I fucking love that. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want to worship you right over the edge.” I squeeze a handful of the gel into my palm and pull her toward me. I keep my eyes right on hers, one hand at the small of her back. And then I move my other hand, and the gel, down between her ass cheeks, just sliding my finger over that

tight, perfect opening. As the cold gel touches her there, she inhales and holds her breath. The way she responds to all this, it’s got a certain nervousness. I press into her ass a little harder with my first finger, warming her up. “Have you ever done this before?” The area around her lashes is streaked with mascara, double-dark and sinful. “No. Never.” Well, fuck me. All at once, the need to protect her and to look after goes into overdrive. To do what I need to do to her, yeah. To have my way with her. But I also need to make sure she’s good, every fucking step of the way. “You sure about this?” She nods against my chest, and her ass opens up a millimeter. I let the water rinse away the suds but keep my finger exactly as it is. “Will it hurt?” Christ almighty. I’m forty fucking years old, and she’s making me feel like it’s the first time. “If it does, you stop me.” “Okay.” “Promise me.” She nods again, and then whispers, “Promise. Unless it’s the good kind of hurt.” “Exactly.” Fucking exactly.

I lay her down on her stomach in bed. I press my cock against her thighs, and she reaches back to grab me but I don’t let her take over. I put myself right at the opening to her pussy and push into her. I’m so hard that I don’t even need to guide myself inside. Her body is still wet from the shower, and so is mine. The water makes her extra slick, even wetter than before. Into the mattress she moans, “Why do you feel so good, Russ?” Fuck me, she doesn’t know the half of it. Every curve and inch of her body feels like it was made for me. I reach around in front of her, sliding my palm between her pussy and the mattress, and make a circle around her clit. She grips me tighter in response, an instant constriction that goes straight up my spine. “For the next four days, you’re mine. There’s nothing you can do to change that.” She reaches up behind my head and runs her fingers lightly through my hair. I kiss her shoulder, her throat, and that pale sliver of skin between her ear and her dark hair. I push all the way into her, slowly, so fucking slowly, until I hit her cervix. When her body bucks, I ease up. Buried inside her from behind, I come up onto my knees and take the lube from the nightstand. Because of the way I'm on top of her, her cheeks are compressed,

so I pull them apart and squeeze some lube onto the pink line of her ass. It runs down onto the base of my cock, and drips down along my balls. “You nervous?” She nods, without turning to look at me. “Yeah. I am.” I hold her tight, her hips like perfect, curved handles. “I’m going to warm you up first. Get you used to the feeling, see if you like it.” “Okay,” she says softly, and then turns her face toward the headboard, chin to the bed. Her body tenses, like she’s bracing for something to hurt her. For real pain, and not from clothespins. I don’t like that—I want her to enjoy it, I want her to want it. I need to know that’s where she’s at, or I’m not fucking doing it. “Hey. We don’t have to do this.” She turns her head quickly so she’s facing me. “No, no, no, don’t stop. Please.” Goddamn it, that. That look in her eyes, all that desire, all that uncertainty, all that need. That is what I need to see. And so without taking my eyes off of her, I open up that tight O with my thumb. As I press into her, she gasps. I drive my cock into her pussy a little further to reassure her, to give her something familiar. But goddamn it, her ass is so tight around my thumb and everything inside me is telling me to fuck her there and fuck her hard. Right now. “Jesus.” Gripping the side of her ass with my fingers, digging into those sexy curves and lines, I open her up a little wider. “Touch yourself,” I tell her. “But don’t go too far.” As she does, I move into her further with my thumb. The hand that isn’t busy with her clit makes a tight knot of the pillow case. “You okay?” “Yes.” Her breath comes out in a long, unsure shudder. “Yes.” Awww, fuck yeah. I move in past my first knuckle, and her opening tightens around the narrower part of my thumb. That tightness is making me fucking insane, and my cock is throbbing already. “I’m going to talk you through it, the whole way.” “Yes, please.” When her ass has loosened up, and when her fingers start to work her clit more quickly, I slowly pull out of her pussy. I put more lube on her ass and place the tip of my cock right at her opening, keeping the base tight in my hand. As the head nudges into her, she freezes and looks back at me again. “You ready?” She nods into the sheets. “Say it.”

Three quick blinks and a smile. “I’m ready.” With the shaft of my cock, I spread the lube over her opening. I use plenty, but not so much that it’s impossible to stay where I need to be. “Keep touching yourself.” I part her cheeks with my hand and drive the head just into the opening of her ass. “Relax,” I tell her, as I push inside. She tries to squeeze me out at first, pure physical reflex, and so tight that it wouldn’t take hardly anything to make me lose it inside her again. But I stave it off and keep up the pressure. Finally, she lets me in, with a little whimper. “You still good?” “Yes.” She grips the sheets. “I’m good. I am.” I’m not fucking convinced though, and I give her some time to get used to me. She’s hot, and she’s tight, and all the blood from my erection is getting trapped in the base and back in my balls. I don’t move my cock inside her ass—it isn’t fucking easy because all I want to do is go all the way in right fucking now—and I reach out for her free hand and clasp mine over it. Our fingers are tangled together at her hip, over the place where I bruised her. “I’ve got you.” I look down at my cock, a quarter of the way into her ass, and the idea of her being a virgin keeps repeating itself on a loop in my head. You’re her first, her fucking first. Take care of her. Look after her like she deserves. “What does it feel like?” she asks, her words muted by the sheets. “Tight. So tight.” “It’s different than the other way?” Christ. Night and day. “Yeah. Totally different.” I watch her ankles hook over the edge of the bed, the tops of her feet anchoring her against the mattress. She shifts her knees, getting comfortable. I start to settle into a slow rhythm, hardly fucking her at all, but letting her get used to the feeling. And me too. Because this ass, this woman. Holy shit. I gather a mouthful of saliva and drip a few drops down onto my shaft. When my spit hits her ass, she groans and whimpers again. “I love that.” Something primal overtakes me: the need to fuck her until she begs for mercy. I want to ruin her, to defile her, to take her down to nothing and then put her back together again. But I’m not going to do it. Not tonight, not yet. Slow it the fuck down, Macklin. She’s submitting to you already. Take more than what you’ve got and you’ll fuck it all up. “You decide how fast you want to go. You do the fucking.” She gasps a little, and I see that pretty smile. With tentative bends of her knees, she moves herself back into me, taking more and more of me. I know that if I put my hands to her hips right now, I’ll pull her into me so hard she screams, so I keep my hands back, behind my neck, giving her free rein.

I can tell she wants it because that fear and uncertainty quickly shifts to confidence. Her early hesitation turns to a smooth, easy rhythm, each push back into me is steadier than the last. The tight balls of her fists open into spread palms, and she comes up on her elbows. Her hair spills over her shoulder and she watches me as she fucks me, as she takes me all the way. There’s a lot of hotness in the world. But this, right here, this little pistol fucking herself with my cock in her ass? Might as well tap out right now because I’m done. She starts to get into it, and every backward drive gets me ten times closer than she can possibly fucking realize. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I whisper. “Easy.” She gives me this wide-eyed stare and stops with my cock halfway into her. “Oh really?” “You’re in the driver’s seat. I told you. So just…” I clear my throat. “Give a guy a break.” Her head drops down between her shoulders, and a single curl slides between her shoulder blades. She sweeps her hair aside, and I see she’s smiling again. “I had no idea.” “I mean, I might be taking you in the ass, yeah. But you’re…” There she goes again, coming back into me, taking all of me. “…you’re in control. That’s the thing, Penny. I’ll always be trying to take what you’ve got, because you’re the one with all the power.” “That’s so sexy.” She bends forward, almost making my cock slide out of her, but then leans back into it, and I watch every inch of me bury itself into her ass. “Tell me how it’s different,” she says. Jesus. She wants me to make a full sentence when I’m nothing but reptile brain and need. But I’m not about to deny her, so I try to explain it. “Taking you in the pussy, it’s tight everywhere. But this is all focused at the opening.” She nods, and stretches out her arms as she curls her toes. “So when I do this,” she says, coming back into me almost brutally. “You like that?” “Holy fuck,” I snarl, staring up at the ceiling. “And this?” she says, pulling away from me slowly, half an inch at a time, before driving herself hard back into me again. Her ass slaps against my thighs, my balls swing forward against the lips of her pussy. “Be careful, Penny. I’m barely stopping myself from taking you until you can’t handle me anymore.” It comes out like a warning, dark almost, because it is. She’s got me on the verge of losing my fucking mind. “You don’t understand what you do to me. You’ve got no fucking idea at all.” She picks up the bottle of lube and hands it back to me, and then she says, “So

show me.”

42 PENNY

It hurts so good. It’s the only way to describe it. He doesn’t take me as hard as he has before, and I start to realize that’s because he…can’t. Because he’s that close, because it feels that good. Just a few minutes of this, and I’ve got this beast of a man, with his tattoo and his scars and his attitude, with his military record and his filthy-good Tumblr habit, ready to go down on his knees. It’s incredibly empowering, like I’ve put a spell on him. He nails me with a good solid thrust and braces himself on the bed, his abs pressing into my back. “Christ, Penny.” His voice is hoarse and gravelly, like he just woke up. This isn’t taboo. This isn’t vulgar. This is amazing. And I love him like this, so strong and yet so vulnerable. It’s mesmerizing. His expression is softer and less in charge. He drives into me, watching his cock and biting his lip as he does. In the mirror behind him is the reflection of his sexy tush, clenched tight, perfect depressions in each cheek. “I need you to come, at least once,” he says. Keeping myself on one elbow, slide my hand down to my clit and run the tips of my first two fingers over the knot of nerves. “You think you can do that for me?” he asks as he reaches forward, going all the way into my ass and pinching my nipple in the same instant. It short-circuits all my logic. Whatever little bit of power I felt I had two minutes ago, poof. One pinch and I’m putty all over again. “Touch that pussy. Make it happen. Right fucking now.” He rolls me onto my side, and takes me even deeper than he had before. My opening burns, but not so badly that I can’t stand it. He slides around behind me, pulling me right into his body and making me hiss because he’s gone so deep. “Too much?” “A little,” I pant, my fingers frozen on my clit, all absorbed in the sudden burn. And so he eases up and goes slower. Into my ear he tells me, “You’re so fucking beautiful, Penny.” He tightens his grip on my body. “Nobody’s ever made me feel

what you do.” I turn my face into him, and he kisses me, a gasping, aggressive kiss, a substitute for the word neither one of us is ready to say. When he lets me go, I tell him, “I know this isn’t supposed to happen so fast, but…” I bring his hand to my chest, like maybe he’ll sense the word right through my body. That pinch in my heart that can only be one thing. He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t backpedal. “We’re falling in love with each other,” he whispers. “I’m not afraid of that.” Then he closes those gorgeous eyes and places that scratchy, rugged jaw to my shoulder. “You feel it, too?” “Penny.” He pushes into me a little more. “I couldn’t lie to you right now if I wanted to, and I promised you. No more bullshit. Only the truth.” He plunges into me deeply and stays there. “Let me feel you.” It doesn’t take focus, it doesn’t take any tricks. It just takes listening and agreeing. So damned simple, so damned easy. He wants what I want, and I want the same. With one more pinch of my nipple, he’s sending me tumbling down, and his growls tell me I’m pulling another orgasm out of him too. He isn’t even fucking me, there is no friction, but I know it from the way his breathing becomes more urgent, more desperate. I know it from the way his eyes slide shut and his eyebrows come together in a serious, hard-set line. I know I’ve got him right where he’s got me. His hand slides up my body, up my chest. To my throat. And that does it. “Russ. Oh God.”

43 RUSS

There’s something ringing. I blink hard at the clock. It’s 3:10 a.m., and she’s still tucked up in a ball, her back to my chest. I fell asleep inside her, and we haven’t moved a muscle since. It’s heaven, except for the sound of a ringtone marimba cutting through the quiet over and over again. For a second, I think we can wait it out. But it keeps on and on, and I know the ringing is going to fuck this all up. She’s sound asleep, and I’m not about to let anything disturb her. Carefully, I slip out of bed and head into the hallway, closing the bedroom door behind me. As suddenly as it started, the ringing stops. I scan the dark living room and see Guppy sitting on the couch, watching me. “Hey, man,” I whisper. He gives me a bored mouth adjustment and hurls himself onto the cushions. But then the ringing starts again. It’s coming from her purse, and the lit screen makes the top of her bag glow. I reach inside and grab the phone. I’m about to decline the call—who the fuck calls at this hour anyway?—when I see an old man’s smiling face, and underneath the caller’s name: GRANDPA At three a.m. You don’t have to be a PI to know this is a seriously bad sign. I could hustle back to her bed and wake her up, or I could make an executive decision. So I do. “Yeah?” I answer. “Penny Darling’s phone.” There’s a pause. “Sorry,” says a woman’s voice finally. “My name is Karen. I’m a nurse at Atlanta General Hospital. Is Miss Darling there?” I sink down onto the couch next to Guppy. Fucking fuck. The image of some nurse in an emergency room flashes into my head. Right on cue, I hear hospital noises in the background. The sound of a PA system. A rattling cart. Beeping from machines. The situation is pretty fucking clear: Something has happened to her grandpa, and it can’t be good. “Is he okay? Is he hurt? Is he…” I don’t even have the courage to say it. I don’t

even know the guy, but in every photograph of the two of them together I feel the love she’s got for him. Every time she mentions him, she sparkles with the most intense, pure adoration. Behind me, a light comes on from the hallway, filling the room with shadows. “Everything okay?” Penny says, her voice sleepy and a little hoarse. There’s about a millisecond when I think I’m going to have to give her the worst news a person could get in the dark of the night, or any time of day at all. But then there’s a clatter and a bang, the rustling of someone grabbing the phone on the other end of the line. A new voice comes through the phone, saying, “Lucky Penny. I twisted my stupid ankle, and they insisted on calling my next of kin. I’m not dead, promise.” The relief hits me like a shot of Jack Daniels after a long day. I might never have met him, but because he matters to her, he matters to me. It’s that fucking simple. “This isn’t Penny. This is Russ.” “Oh, boy,” says her grandpa with a little embarrassment in his voice. “My apologies, Russ. Pleased to…speak to you, and sorry to…” The phone rustles, like he’s moving the mouthpiece. In a much louder voice he says, “…Go to all the trouble of disturbing you in the dark of the night for a sprained ankle! Isn’t that right, nurse?” Old man spunk. You can’t beat it. “No need to apologize. Penny’s right here,” I say, and hand over the phone.

She ends the call and says, “It’s a break, not a sprain. If I hop in the car now, I can be in Atlanta by morning.” Sprained or broken, she’s not standing by, and I don’t blame her. “I'll drive you.” She shakes her head. “You’ve got stuff to do here. They’re discharging him tomorrow, and then I can come back,” she says, “because we don’t have much time left together. I don’t want to lose a moment, but…” While she seems unsure, there’s not a single question in my mind. “Go, don’t give it a thought.” I might be counting the days with a lump in my heart, too, but life is life. It doesn’t stick to a schedule. “Okay,” she says, and puts her phone on the kitchen table. “I’ll just put a few things in a bag. But wait…we left my car at the restaurant. Shit.” “We’ll go get it right now.” “Right, good, okay. But also…” She grimaces. “Maisie is out of town. On her yearly pilgrimage to the Promised Land.”

I've got to take a total shot in the dark on this one. “Miami?” Penny shakes her head. “IKEA.” At first, I’m not totally sure why it matters where Maisie is, until Penny glances toward the couch. Guppy. She looks from me to the dog and back again, like the idea is so ridiculous that she won’t even give it a full thought. “I’ll call my Uncle Tom. The guys at the brewery love him.” “At three a.m.?” She grimaces again, and puts her hand to her face. “Good point, and I can’t bring him to my mom and stepdad’s because he doesn’t get along with the goats.” She really is so cute when she gets wound up. But there no need for that, not when I’m here. I put a firm hand each of her shoulders. “I’ll take care of him.” She pulls her face away in surprise. “No need to be a hero, Russ. You’ve done enough for this country.” She places her hand to my tattoo. “You’ve already got your Bronze Star.” So cute. So unnecessary. “I’m serious. You go, I’ll stay. I’ve got this.” I can see all the thoughts spinning through her head, things like, Does he even know how to feed a dog? and What will happen when he tries to walk him? and Will they fit in bed together? But I’ve been in dicey situations before. I can handle a grumpy pony-sized dog with sheriff’s stars on his collar. No fucking doubt about that. “I’ve got this, Penny. You go. Guppy and I will be fine.” “I’m sure I can call doggie daycare. They can come pick him up if I just…” “Penny.” This time, I’m really stern. “Go. Do what you need to do. I’ll be here whenever you get back. Don’t worry about a thing.” She inhales hard, like she’s about to plunge into a pool, and then all at once hits me with a spray of buckshot warnings: “He detests plastic flamingos, he’s afraid of redheads, and he shouldn’t eat bananas unless you want to gas yourself to death.” “Noted.” “You have to feed him three times a day, and he likes a hardboiled egg with dinner.” “Got it.” “Under no circumstances should you let him anywhere near the Chihuahua that lives down the street. Her name is Miss Muffet, and he has the hots for her in a totally inappropriate way.” “Penny.” “Every night at about 5:55, he starts to hump his bed. It’s really best if you don’t

interrupt him. And he doesn’t like when you stare.” I pull her into my body so her bare skin presses against mine, until those tender nipples compress against my upper abs. “We’ll be fine.” The couch makes some crunching wicker noises as Guppy gets comfortable. He lowers his enormous head on the back of one of the cushions and stares at me. Careful what you wish for, man. But I can handle it. Totally. I can tell Penny isn’t convinced, though. So I pull out the big guns and reassure her with the most honest thing I can say, straight from Dickens himself. “We’ll get along like a house on fire. I’ve fucking got this.”

The next time I open my eyes, the sun is up, and there’s an enormous set of dripping jowls dangling over my face. Guppy has put his paws on the mattress and is staring down at me, like a doctor waiting for a patient to wake up from a concussion or an experimental anesthetic. “Hey,” I say, using my hand to block the sunshine streaming in. He lowers his nose, blinking those huge bloodshot eyes. “You good?” Blink. The dog is absolutely having thoughts. The cure for cancer, a solution to the crisis in the Middle East, a short but concise history of the liquid-fueled rocket engines. Big thoughts. I sit up and rub my face. As I do, I also give up the prime middle-of-the-bed real estate, which is clearly his preferred spot. He jumps up making the springs ping and groan, and noses his way under the covers until all that’s showing is his tail and one huge, bear-like foot. He digs into the fitted sheet with a sort of sporadic, furious scraaaaatch-scratch-scratch, followed by a sniff so hard it makes the top sheet suck tight against his huge muzzle. In my boxers, I head out into the kitchen, where Penny wrote me about six hundred notes last night, like she was preparing for me to take him for two months, not one day. Change water bowl every day and Be sure to bring extra poop bags and DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE TRASH BAG PHOBIA. All this fuss makes me like her more and more. I haven’t been fussed over like this ever, not even when I was a kid. I look around at the spread of notes, one even stuck to the light switch that says, Don’t touch the faucet when you’re flipping this switch, trust me! Followed by a heart. As the coffee pot bubbles to life, I turn on the radio, which is set to the mayor’s

morning show. Right now he’s singing Simon and Garfunkel’s If I Could, including the panpipes. Hardcore. As he closes out the last few lines, he says, “And now, to local news. Adolf Richard Dickerson, golf tycoon, suspected sociopath, and man with zero regard whatsoever for anybody but himself…” Man. I got to hand it to him. The mayor might be eccentric, but the guy’s got balls. Balls that don’t give a shit about things like slander. “…Will be appearing tonight before the Port Flamingo City Council in an effort to have Glad to Be Alive Sanctuary declared blight. Which, we all know, is ridiculous. So mark your calendars, ladies and gents: The meeting begins at seven, doors open at six, and there will be free kazoos to blow when he tries to talk. Now, on to traffic.” Balls. Huge ones. I take the eggs from the fridge and a little bowl from the stack by her salad plates. Everything about this place reminds me of her. Bright, chaotic, and sweet. The home I never even knew I was wishing I could have. Just as I crack the first egg into a bowl, I hear a thundering ruckus from the bedroom, and then Guppy trots out with his ears perked up. “You like eggs, right?” Eggs or no eggs, I can see he still isn’t sold on me. He prefers the person who makes his eggs to be that nice lady with the brown hair and the pretty face, not some dude in boxers who’s been stealing all his mom’s time for the last few days. But I’m no stranger to negotiating with guys who aren’t too interested in seeing things from your side of the table. Trick one, know how to speak their language. Trick two, never let them see you sweat. So instead of cracking three eggs into the bowl, like I would for me, I crack five. And I go easy on the eye contact. I warm up the pan, and he picks up his tennis ball from its spot by the garbage can, compressing it with his shark-like jaws. The ball makes a wet, squelching noise while he watches my every move. I slide the eggs into the pan. They hiss and sputter. His ears slide backward, and he doubles down on the tennis ball assault. After four minutes, I take the eggs from the heat. I divide them up onto two plates. He sniffs the air, his huge black nose quivering. Because he’s so big, and because Penny has left a Post-it that says Everything on the counter is fair game, I put his eggs on top of the fridge to cool. I take the jar of Grandpa’s marmalade from the fridge door, along with the banana bread, and the oatmeal cookies. He pauses with the tennis ball half-smashed in his mouth, mid-squish, and locks onto the cookies in particular. But I’m in charge of this dog now and I’ve got to make sure I don’t mess up the routine. I can’t be feeding him oatmeal cookies,

for God’s sake. There’s got to be a limit. And anyway, I plan to eat every single one of them myself. He looks up at the top of the fridge and sniffs the air, each inhalation making his barrel chest expand. “Sit.” He dead-eyes me. How about you go sit somewhere yourself, buddy? Into his huge bowl, I measure out his kibble and wet food, like I saw her do the other night. I mix it all up with a soup spoon, also like she did. Then I put the cooled eggs on top. Sunny side up, yolks still runny. With one finger, I check to make sure they’re not too hot. Holding his bowl in my hands, I look down at him. “Guppy. Sit.” Two seconds pass. Ten. Twenty. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t flinch. Just stares. Christ. I once played poker with a guy like this in Vegas. They called him the Wooden Indian for a reason. I think back to last night’s vocabulary rundown. “You want brekkie or not?” As soon as I say the magic word, his ears flatten, he drops his ball, and his ass hits the floor. The irritated, annoyed stare changes to something a whole lot more interested. “Sit. Stay.” Like I saw Penny do, I set down the bowl on the tile. He watches me and starts drooling onto the accent rug. Splat goes the drool, and he shuffles his feet. All right. It’s show time. So I say, “Free.” But nothing happens. He doesn’t move a muscle. “Free,” I repeat. “Go ahead. They’re good. Not hardboiled, but you’ll like them.” Shuffle-shuffle. But no takers. So I think back to how I saw Penny do it, thinking about how she told him he was good to go. She didn’t say free like I just did, no way. She didn’t say it like a dude. She said it like Penny. And that’s Guppy’s language. Not English. Pennyish. One more time, I say, “Free!” but this time, I mimic Penny’s intonation. The joy, the happiness, the up-at-the-end delight. It ends up being little bit falsetto, but fuck it. I’m down. That joy for life that spills from her is contagious, and I’ll go falsetto if that’s what it takes. Free. That does it. He goes for it, gobbling it up and jamming his nose into the sides of the bowl. Some kibble flies out, and a piece of egg lands on the rug. It’s like a oneshark feeding frenzy, so loud I can’t even hear the mayor singing about Mrs. Robinson anymore. It’s awesome. I drink my coffee and watch him scarf down one enormous bite after another.

Halfway through, I give him a pat on the huge haunches. When my hand touches his back, the feeding frenzy stops cold. Vaguely, I remember seeing some dog training show on TV when I was getting my oil changed once. Never interrupt a dog when he’s eating, not unless you want to discover what a canine incisor really feels like. Shit. Just what I had in mind: another trip to Urgent Care. But to my total fucking surprise, he doesn’t growl, and he doesn’t fart. He doesn’t even raise his hackles. Instead, he gives his tail one minuscule, almost imperceptible wiggle, and dives back in. Progress. I’ll fucking take it.

44 PENNY

I hustle down the hallway of the hospital. At the coffee machine, I spot a nurse in blue scrubs and a hoodie, with a stethoscope looped around her neck. I’m walking so fast that I skid to a stop, my flip-flops swooshing along the polished linoleum. “I’m looking for David Gunderson. He broke his ankle. The ER said he’d been moved up here.” She presses a button on the machine, and a stream of hot water comes from the dispenser, filling up a cup of soup. The dry noodles crackle and shift against the Styrofoam. “Take a breath, honey,” she says as soup smell fills the air. At first, I want to blurt out, Are you kidding me? I’ve just driven eight hours on nothing but gas station coffee and cinnamon bears! I have to pee like a racehorse, and I couldn’t relax if I wanted to! But her presence is absolutely no-nonsense and discourages the imminent babbling. Clearly, she’s not about to let me come flipflopping in here, hopped up on caffeine and anxiety, and upset the whole ward. On her chest is pinned a red rectangle, which says: Nurses Always Stay Calm and Carry On! Very sensible advice for this moment. She taps on the pin and takes a deep breath. I focus on her soup, on the dried peas and carrots bobbing at the surface. I follow her lead—innnn, and out. Once we’ve gone through two deep breaths, she pins the paper lid to the cup using the tines of a plastic fork. Calmly, slowly, measuredly, she says, “He’s in 314. He’s absolutely fine.” She breathes again, making a small outward circle with one hand to signal me to do the same. “It’s okay.” I take another calming breath, and she gives me an approving nod. “There you

go. No panic. We’re taking good care of him. Are you family?” “Yes, his granddaughter. Same nose, see?” I tap on the hard ridge of cartilage. She peers at me and nods, like that’s really all the ID she needs. “Is it a bad break? I don’t know how many times I’ve told him that just because the pool is open all night doesn’t mean he should be doing laps at 3:00 a.m. I knew this would happen one day. I even tried to get him to wear those rubber swim shoes, but oh no. No, no, no.” She shakes her head slowly and places one hand to my forearm. “It’s an uncomplicated break. He’s in very good shape, and a real sweetheart.” I don’t know if it’s her overwhelming Zen, or the comforting smell of chicken stock, or the good news, but all my tiredness hits me at once. Relief, exhaustion, a whole drive spent worried sick over brittle bones suddenly fall away. I’m almost swaying with exhaustion, and steady myself on the coffee machine. “Thank you.” “You’re welcome, dear. Take a second. Have a hot chocolate.” She tips her head at the machine. “It’s watery, but the marshmallows are pretty nice.” I’m all for this lady’s approach to things, but generic Swiss Miss from a foam cup doesn’t take priority over Grandpa. “Maybe later. I don’t want him to be alone.” “But he’s not alone, honey,” she says, soup in both hands, like a chalice. “His lady friend is with him. He’s happy as a clam.” I stare at her, the plume of soup steam between us. She swizzles her noodles and takes a peek under the lid. She pinches a hot reconstituted pea between her fingers and pops it into her mouth. There’s no way I heard that right. Grandpa has canning, Grandpa has bingo, Grandpa has amateur woodworking. But one thing he’s never mentioned, ever, is… “What lady friend?”

Watery hot chocolate in hand, I make my way to room 314. From two doors down, I hear Grandpa chuckling and a woman’s laugh ringing out gently over his. Like I’m in some low-budget spy movie, I put one eye to the edge of the door frame and peek inside. Grandpa in the hospital bed, with his leg elevated, covered from toes to mid-calf with a cast. He’s wearing his old sweater, patched at the elbows, and underneath that is his hospital gown. He looks thin and frail, the liver spots on his chest a reminder he’s about to turn eighty-five. And yet, liver spots and thin gown aside, something else is absolutely evident, twinkling in his eyes and in his big smile. He’s…happy. Happy in a way I haven’t seen him since my grandma passed away. There, next to him, I see why. She’s plump and friendly looking, with reddish hair and a pair of bright

turquoise bifocals low on her nose. She’s younger than he is, by ten years or maybe more. Underneath the hospital bed, I see her feet are pressed together neatly. She’s in capris, and a pair of turquoise flats that exactly match her glasses. Doughy, soft skin overflows just slightly from the tops of her shoes. I shift my face so I’m hiding again. It’s not like me to eavesdrop, especially not on Grandpa, but this is something entirely unexpected. A lady friend. I can smell a pleasant, warm perfume, which must be hers, coming up over the acrid hospital disinfectant. It’s very nice and slightly old-fashioned. Not like my grandma wore, but familiar all the same. “Four down. Seven letters. On Valentine’s, you might be this with your mitten,” she says. She’s got a lovely southern drawl, that beautiful Georgia lilt that Grandpa has, too. There’s a pause. A nurse pages a doctor behind me, startling me out of my covert listening mode. Someone gives the coffee machine a whack. But Grandpa and his lady friend, they aren’t fazed at all. Finally, Grandpa says, “Smitten!” And they both dissolve into teenage giggles. An orderly narrowly avoids ramming into me with a rolling meal cart, and I decide I better take my chance before the universe gives me away. I poke my head through the open door. “Hello?” “Lucky Penny!” Grandpa says, opening his arms wide. His lady friend slips her bifocals from her nose. I give Grandpa a big hug, and he gives me a kiss on the cheek, his short white stubble like fine-grit sandpaper. And then I turn to her. She’s got kind eyes and rosy cheeks and is wearing a sensible sweater set, white with tiny red hearts all over. Little pearl buttons match her earrings, and a hint of bronzer shines on her cheeks. “Penny, this is Rose. Rose, Penny.” “Hello, Rose.” I reach across Grandpa’s bed to shake her hand. She stares at my palm out in the air and makes a tsk with her tongue. Then she sets down the crossword and comes around to my side of the bed. She wraps her arms around me and pulls me into her little cloud of sweet perfume, saying, “What a joy to meet you, my dear. Finally.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about her!” I whisper-bark, after Rose has gone off to get us all some cheese Danishes. Grandpa makes a sort of potato-potahto balancing act of his hands. “I didn’t know how you’d feel about it. I know how you loved your Gram, and I loved her with all my heart. I haven’t known Rose that long, only a few months. And I didn’t want

to…” I wait for the rest of that sentence. I pour him a glass of water from the strange hospital pitcher, with its funny spout. Grandma has been gone for only two years, but I’m not hurt. I’m delighted. “Didn’t want to what? Tell me that you have someone that you obviously adore?” He smiles hard and straightens his glasses as I hand him the water. “I didn’t want you to think I was dishonoring your grandma’s memory.” “I’d never think that.” He answers that with a slow nod and a sheepish smile. “And maybe I didn’t want to jinx it.” I take a seat in a chair next to where Rose was sitting. I see she’s brought him the latest Nicholas Sparks, his Woodworker’s Monthly, and a bag of Lemonheads. “Jinx it, please! If she says get well with presents like these, I’ll go get ordained at theuniversalchurchoflife.com myself.” “She really is a doll, Penny. Don’t know what I did to deserve her, and probably best if I don’t think too hard about it.” There are some considerations before I give my blessing though. “Does she like home canning? Is she okay with punny aprons? Does she mind that you leave your socks on the floor and that you like your bananas green?” “She likes me just as I am,” he chuckles. “Green bananas, pantry full of jam, and everything. Can you believe it?” Of course I can, because he is truly the best. I find myself so utterly bowled over with happiness for him that I suddenly tear up with the plain joy of it all. I've worried so much about him being lonely, but not anymore. I give his hand a gentle squeeze. “She seems lovely. Where did you meet her?” “Bingo! And she is lovely,” he says, looking off at the open door like he’s hoping and hoping she’ll come through at any moment. “A lovely lady for an old fella like me. But speaking of fellas…” Uh-oh. I snatch up the crossword and try my best to look very, very interested. “Let’s see. Nine across. Fine baked, better French.” I look at the filled in letters. R S ET. Russet. Russ. No. God. What? I slap it back down on the bed. I cannot escape him. He’s in the sound of sheets and the names of common potatoes. He’s everywhere. “Penny.” Grandpa taps the back of my hand, like a blackjack player asking for another card. “Come on now. Give me the scoop.” There’s really no point in pretending I’m not going to tell him, because my heart is bursting for him to know. But how to say it? Where to start? At Urgent Care or when I stole his bag? “He’s…” I stare at Grandpa. I have no idea how to have this

conversation. With my mom, yes. With my step-dad, maybe. With the mayor, possibly. With Maisie, definitely. With Guppy, obviously. But this is uncharted territory for Grandpa and me. Never in my life has he asked me about boyfriends. Told you. The best. But something’s different. It’s as if Grandpa’s old-fashioned Spidey sense has taken over. Because this relationship is different. Russ isn’t just merely dateable. He’s more exciting, funnier, smarter, more…Russssss. “Does he have a name? A job? Hobbies? Hobbies are very important, Penny. Hobbies say a lot about a person.” He straightens out his old cardigan, like he always does when he’s about to tell me something that falls under the category of very good advice. “Rose, for instance, is a quilter. Quilters are patient, precise, caring. Know how to use a rotary cutter without slicing off their fingers. All very good qualities.” All right. Here goes nothing. “His name is Russ, he’s a private investigator. He used to be in the Army, and he lives in Boston. And I don’t know about hobbies. I only met him on Thursday.” Grandpa squints at me. I realize that not a single one of those things seems like a match for me at all, so I make a preemptive babble to explain it. “It’s crazy, Grandpa, but I like him. A lot.” As I say the words, I know like isn’t even close. We’re falling in love with each other, Penny. “And he’s taking care of Guppy while I’m here.” Grandpa chortles into his cup of water. “Did you give him a gas mask or did he bring his own?” I level him with a fake glare. “I told you not to feed him bananas.” But Grandpa just smiles and jiggles the ice in his cup. “I know you pretty well, my girl. Happened to be there on your first day at this rodeo called life. And I’d say, from where I’m sitting, you’re pretty much…” He looks down at the crossword on the bed and presses his finger to the very word. Smitten. Bingo.

45 RUSS

Guppy and I jogged down the entire beach and back with him galloping right alongside me like a horse. Fucking awesome. And now, showered and ready to roll on this Dickerson job, I turn on the cable box to Animal Planet. A tiny deer is eating a tiny leaf, and Guppy gets himself situated on the couch, about one bowl of popcorn short of being totally fucking human. I grab a handful of dog treats and I’m about to put them in his bed when my phone dings. He grumbles as I turn my back on him, my fist full of the promised cookies. I toss one through the air, and he catches it in mid-air with a snap of his massive jaws. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I see it’s Skype. It’s her. Holy shit. I take a deep breath and hit the green video button. “Penny?” Skype makes its weird whooshing noise, and then I hear her. “Russ?” There she is, as pretty as ever, even half-pixelated and fuzzy. In the background, I hear clattering dishes and some laughter. “Hang on,” she says, and she disappears from the video feed. A door creaks, and then returns to the frame, which is when I realize she’s got me on a bed. She lies down on her stomach, with her feet crossed behind her, knees bent. I can see down into her cleavage, but it doesn’t distract me from her sparkling smile. “Russ, I can’t see you.” Man, I love this house, I love her little world, but this town needs three cell towers and a visit from Verizon right fucking now. Doesn’t matter though. All that matters is her, frozen in a smile. Absolutely adorable. Except then she says, “I think your thumb is on the camera.” Goddamn it. I used to be so suave, and now she’s turned me into a guy who doesn’t even know how to use a smart phone. I pull my thumb off the camera lens, and my own face pops up in the window at the bottom of the screen. “Hi!” she says, clapping with happiness as the video buffers to catch up to her. “Hey there, beautiful.” I sit down on her sofa, and she beams. She flexes her

feet behind her, her adorable toes wiggling, the sexy line of her calf making me think dirty things already. “How’s everything up there?” “Oh, fine! He’s okay! We just brought him home. But listen to this,” she drops her voice and glances off-screen. “Grandpa has a girlfriend!” Once again, I don’t know the guy, but I’m all for him. “That’s fucking awesome.” “I know!” Penny says, barely a whisper. “And she’s so nice. She’s moved some of her stuff in so she can stay to look after him, but I’m just too tired to make the drive back today.” She looks down at the keyboard, away from me, as a huge facecontorting yawn hits her. And she’s still pretty. “I’m exhausted.” “Hey, hey, hey,” I reassure her. “Don’t you worry. We’ve got time.” She blinks back some yawn tears. At least I fucking hope they’re yawn tears. “We don’t.” “Shhh. Stop that. You do what you’ve got to do. Guppy and I are doing great.” She places her hand to her forehead, and grits her teeth like she can’t bring herself to believe that, no matter how sure I sound. “Really?” “We jogged on the beach, all the way to the end of the Point. No problem from Miss Muffet, and only one plastic flamingo destroyed.” She snickers in her hand. “He averages one a day. Usually. Depending.” “And holy shit, he can run. I haven’t had a running partner like that since I was in basic training.” Penny giggles, her shoulders going one way, her tanned calves going the other. “You’re sure you’re okay? You’ve got plenty to eat, plenty to drink?” Her gaze moves around in a rectangle for any sign of inconvenience, it seems. “Got the WiFi working? Maisie hasn’t reappeared and cut out the crotch from all your pants?” “We’re good. No Maisie. Yet. And here.” I hit the camera-reverse button and give her a shot of Guppy, who’s holding steady with the death stare because I still haven’t made good on the cookies. “I was about to leave. He’s waiting for…” “Oh, my God, don’t say it,” Penny gasps, laughing. “Hey, little man!” I stand up and flip the camera back around, holding it out to him so he can see her too. He might be smart, he might have thoughts, but it’s clearly pretty fucking confusing that his mom is now inside a little box and her head fits in my hand. “How’s my Guppy? Is Russ taking good care of you?” Guppy cocks his head ninety degrees, total Scooby Doo. “Are you being a good boy? Are you having fun?” One-eighty in the other direction. Guppy leans forward and sniffs curiously, but when he realizes that the lady in my hand can’t be his mom because there’s no mom smell, he flops downs tragically onto his bed, like he’s been shot in a duel. I

turn the phone around so I can see her, and see she’s put her chin into her hands, fingers just touching her cheeks. “He’s good. I made him eggs for b-r-e-k-k-i-e, which were a hit. Over-easy.” I give her a wink and a click of my tongue. “Way better than hardboiled.” She breaths out a big sigh of relief. “Thank you, Russ. I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t there.” “It’s my pleasure. Seriously. My total fucking pleasure.” That’s the honest-toGod truth. It’s my pleasure and my honor to look after her, to do everything I never knew I needed so badly to do. She scoops her hair up and twists it over one shoulder. “Is it silly to say I miss you?” The words hit me like a warm wave because it’s the same thing I was thinking. “Fuck, I miss you, too.” But then, from somewhere on her end, I hear someone call out, “Where’s my Lucky Penny?” “Shoot, I should go,” she says. “I’ve got a Scrabble game with my name on it. Thank you again, Russ.” “Stop thanking me. Take care of yourself. I’ll call you later?” “That’d be great. Bye. Thank you again,” she says, and blows me a kiss before the screen flickers to black. For one second, I stay there, staring at my phone. One blown kiss hurts. Saying a big goodbye to her, after this week—the idea makes me sick. But we’ll figure it out. We have to fucking figure it out. In the meantime, there’s shit to do. I stick my phone in my pocket and give Guppy the rest of his cookies. He doesn’t even chew them, but just downs them like vitamins. I give him a pat on his huge head and grab my gum from my pocket. I unwrap it and flip my hat around backward, thinking about where to start. “If you were a crooked golf developer with an anagram shell corporation,” I ask Guppy, “where would you be right now?” No answer, of course. But on the upside, no growl either. I turn the gum wrapper over in my fingers. I think back to the day I met Dickerson and consider the best way in. Then I pick up my phone again. I google Dickerson Golf International and call the front desk via Skype. “A.R. Dickerson Golf International Main Office, Kathleen speaking,” says the secretary. “Morning, Kathleen. This is Bruce from SafeShield Auto Glass. Mr. Dickerson phoned us to say he’s got another nick in his windshield. Tried his cell, but you know how it is.”

She sighs. “Do I ever.” “I’m calling to confirm that Mr. Dickerson will be at the office this morning about eleven. We’ve got our mobile tech coming to fill in the crack. Shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes.” “Oh, he’s actually going to be…” I hear some typing. “Yes, he’ll be at the Manatee Municipal Golf Course. His tee-time is at 10.” Goddamn it. Sometimes I hate this job, but sometimes I fucking love it. “I appreciate it, Kathleen.” “You bet, hon,” she says, and click goes the line. Done and done. I grab my shoulder bag and my camera. As I’m leaving the kitchen, I notice that the trash can is almost full, and is ready to go out to the bin. I grab hold of the sides of the bag, hooking one finger over each red loop. But as I’m doing it, everything goes into slow motion. Somewhere inside me, something says, Oh fuck… To my left, Guppy leaps wildly from his bed and bangs into the wall, a full-on holy-shit-the-world-is-ending panic. “Dude, it’s good!” I say, and let the bag go, but that makes it all so much fucking worse. I hear the grinding, thread-ripping noise of his claws trying to find some purchase on the area rug. He’s like something out of Looney Tunes, moving too fast for his feet. He ricochets into the coffee table, sending the remotes flying. He freezes. For a millisecond, we hold still, staring at each other—him with his haunches low and his ears flat against his head, me with my arms up in the air like it’s a bank robbery. “We’re good, Guppy. It’s okay.” But it’s not. Because then, all by itself, the weight of the garbage in the bag makes the whole thing suck down into the can, filling the air once again with the noise from hell. He’s a white streak, tearing off down the hallway. Thump goes his face into a door, bang goes the door knob into a wall, followed by the bang-bang-skitter of a hundred and fifty pounds of deeply traumatized dog taking cover. In the bathtub.

I head to the bathroom, cookie jar in hand. Guppy knocked over the drying rack, and there is lingerie everywhere. At first, he’s invisible, and I’m not even sure he’s in there until I get far enough into the bathroom to see all the way in the tub. He’s flattened himself against the bottom with his legs splayed out at all angles, and he’s shaking so hard that his toenails clack against the porcelain. “It’s okay, buddy. I’m sorry about that. I forgot. My bad. Won’t happen again.”

A tremor of terror rolls through his massive body. He cowers in the corner, and mashes his face into the drain. I put one cookie on the edge of the bathtub and sit down on the bathmat, beside the upturned rack. I move one of her pretty bras aside, briefly held hostage by a pink bow between two bra cups. But then I get back to the mission and add another cookie to the row, and another beside it, until the whole selection is lined up. Red, green, dark brown, light brown. The full buffet. He considers the line of cookies but he doesn’t lift his head, paralyzed by bonedeep terror. PTSD doesn’t just happen to military guys. Fear is fear. I get it. So I go slow, and easy, and let him calm down on his own. “It was nice to see your mom, right? She misses you.” Guppy blinks and glances at the cookies. I straighten their curved edges along the lip of the tub. He flattens his ears a little more, and I give him some time. I let my head fall back against the soft towels behind me, which smell like her and me together now. I study the sketch of a sand dollar, framed above the toilet, and the wicker rack under that, with all her perfumes and her makeup. I see a bottle of Advil, and a prescription bottle just visible inside the cabinet. A squeeze tube of aloe, and some spray-on sunscreen. I lean forward and open the cabinet under her sink. There are dozens of bottles, boxes, and brushes, crammed into bins and baskets. Right up front is a bottle of something with a picture of a dog on the front, and leaning up against that is a rubber brush, bright blue and embossed with the shape of a paw. I imagine her giving Guppy a bath in this bathtub and how much fun that would be to see. And then my mind takes a sudden detour…to her giving a baby a bath. From way down deep in my gut comes a wave of hope, the start of a hardly formed dream. It’s irrational, unexpected, and overpowering. But that? Fuck, that. I close the cabinet and refocus on Guppy. Another wave of fear makes him tremble hard, like he’s hypothermic. I let him sniff my hand and give his ears a scratch. His fur is soft, his ears warm. Every scratch gets a groan. He pushes back into my hand with his muzzle, and he rolls slightly onto his side, and it feels so good he gets jimmy legs. Groan-snuffle. But as I ease up on the scratching, the shaking hits him again. I double down on the rubs, paying attention to each side of his wet muzzle, digging my fingers into his thick fur around his face. I unbuckle his collar and drop it on the bathmat, scratching all over where he can’t reach with his paws. “You’re good. Totally good. All safe and sound.” It’s helping, but it’s not enough. He’s still in lockdown, and there’s no way in hell I’m leaving this house while he’s acting like this. I reach into my pocket and

open Skype to give her a call. One ring. Three. Six. I’m about to give up when the blue screen shows connected. Her face pops up on the screen as she’s sinking her teeth into an apple. “Hi!” The camera jostles along as she heads out onto a patio, passing a grill and a shelf full of empty pots. “You okay?” “We had a situation. With the trash.” “Oh, no. Is he in the tub?” I turn the camera around and give her a view of Guppy, then flip it back to me. “I really didn’t even think about what I was…” She tucks the mouthful of apple off into one cheek and waves one hand in front of the screen. “Don’t worry. It used to happen to me all the time. Can you make it so he can see me?” I grab a washcloth and set it in the soap dish. Carefully, I prop my phone on top of it, leaning it against the shower wall. I situate the forward-facing camera so it’s angled toward him and so his face appears in the frame for her to see, too. “It’s okay, Mr. Banana,” she says, in a soft just-for-them-voice. “You know that. It’s okay.” For an instant, when he hears her, his ears shift so they’re not so smashed up against his skull anymore, but then they go back to where they were. “No one will ever hurt you again, you know that. It’s okay to be scared. You’re a good boy. Such a goooooooood boy.” His tail speeds up a little, whacking the side of the tub with every wag. “Maybe Russ could go get you your armadillo.” As soon as she says the word, I’m up and looking for it. I scan the hallway and then his toy basket, gnawed to shreds at the edges. I hear her talking to him, her sweet voice echoing through the bathroom. I see a one-winged turkey, a threelegged cow, but no armadillo. But then it hits me. I pull off the sheet from the bed and there it is, tucked into his nest from earlier this morning. Back in the bathroom, I put it in the tub with him. “See?” Penny says. “There’s Armadillo.” Guppy nudges it with his nose. Penny whispers, “Make it squeak, Russ!” So I do, three times in quick succession, one squeeze on top of the other until it makes a dying animal sound. Guppy snatches it out of my hand, stuffing it into his mouth and breathing into the green shell. “Eeeeee-kaaaaaa,” goes the armadillo. Penny lets out her contagious giggle, and Guppy tilts his head, dropping the armadillo onto his paws. He pushes his nose against the screen, right onto Penny’s face. He snuffles and sniffs, and his tail bangs once and then twice on the porcelain. “Who’s my good boy?” Penny asks. Guppy answers with a huge lick across the front of the screen, sending the

phone flying, and Penny laughs from the bottom of the tub. As Guppy resumes Operation Destroy Armadillo, I right the phone and crouch down on my knees to get into the frame. The thumbnail shows the armadillo face closest, then Guppy’s snout, and then me way back behind. I give him a pat and ask quietly, “Will he get out of the tub? Or is this going to be an…all-day thing?” She looks at the screen, studying Guppy. “It depends. Sometimes I can get him to calm down, if he didn’t get too spooked. Was it just the noise of the trash bag or…” “Whole shebang. I had it halfway out of the can.” Penny groans. “Well, there’s some Rescue Remedy in the cabinet, but you have to dose him with about a quart of the stuff for it to have any effect. He’ll be okay though, Russ. You go on with the day. Don’t worry.” But fuck, I do worry. This woman trusted me with her dog—a dog with special shampoo and fancy food, who gets hardboiled eggs specially cooked for him, who’s got a custom-made collar and a bed in every room. This isn’t some mangy stray chained up outside a chop shop. This is her child. I’m not going to fuck this up. So I scratch his ears again and say, “I’ll keep you posted.” “You’re sure?” “Yeah, beautiful. We’re good.” “Okay, gotta run,” she says, all breathy and happy, and ends the call. Guppy sinks his head down between his paws, breathing into the armadillo. I’m not sure that seeing her helped, because now he’s not just freaked out but also missing his mom even more. So I think back, way back, to when I was a kid, recalling memories I haven’t allowed myself have in ages, because they’re too fucking painful. But they’re there, and for Penny I let myself fall back into them. When I was about six, when we were living in San Diego, we had a dog that my mom brought home from the pound, where she volunteered. We named him Buck. He was a scruffy little mutt, blind in one eye. He wasn’t too keen on people and spent most of his time sleeping on my parents’ bed. But the one thing in the world that he truly loved was the car. Window cracked, didn’t matter where we were going, as long as he could come along. So I figure it’s worth a shot. “Guppy. You like riding in the car?” He raises his face instantly, staring hard at me, so focused that not even the armadillo squeaks. Now we’re talking. “Yeah? You like the car? Car-car?” His tail starts thumping. “Want to go do some recon with me in the car-car?”

He skitters up to standing, his back feet sliding until he finds his footing. Then he plants his huge bear paws by the drain so he’s got his front end down and his ass straight up, with his tail wagging like crazy. “Want to go spy on Dickerson…in the car-car?” Which is when Guppy drops his armadillo, clacks his paws one more time on the tub, and answers with a huge, happy, “Rarf!”

46 RUSS

Guppy and I find Dickerson on the seventh hole of the Manatee Municipal Golf Course twenty miles north of town, with a cigar in his mouth and his putter in both hands. I’m parked off the fairway, behind a chain-link fence covered with fake ivy, on an access road marked MAINTENANCE ONLY. I’ve wedged the Suburban up against the gap in a gate to get a direct line of sight. The view is dismal. All the signs are faded, and the grass is singed with too much sun. I’m not even totally fucking sure the palms are real. I take my camera from the console and zoom in on the green. Dickerson puffs on his stogie and does that thing golfers do, like they’re trying to level out their shoeprints on the turf, or like they’ve got a hemorrhoid that’s giving them hell. Today he’s rocking another oldschool velour tracksuit, this one a brownish purple. From the passenger’s seat, Guppy gives a low, serious growl. This isn’t the protection racket rumble; this is the real deal. Guard dog fury. I’ve got a problem with that guy. Big time. “Yeah, I don’t like him either.” I tighten the lens to get a better look. He’s wearing white-rimmed Ray-Bans, which don’t fit him quite right, and his chest hair puffs out of the top of the tracksuit. On his cheeks are two white streaks of zinc oxide. I prop my phone up on the dash and start recording. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I’ve got a feeling good old Adolf Richard Dickerson isn’t out here to play nine holes and drink a couple of cold ones, not at 10:00 a.m. on a Monday. I roll down my window halfway so I don’t miss anything worth hearing. From the other end of the fairway, a golf cart is approaching, so I focus my lens on that. Whoever’s driving is hauling ass, and the chassis bounces along the bumpy paths, heading for the green where Dickerson’s standing. As it nears, Dickerson tries to make the putt and blows it by two feet at least. “Goddamn it!” he roars, with his cigar puffing. He makes a two-handed strike of the putting green with his club, like he’s chopping wood. The putter sinks into the

turf, and he yanks it out, sending a divot through the air. From the other cart comes a guy whose face I know from somewhere. At first, I can’t place it—he’s a little guy, and he’s blinking hard in the sun. But I know that face. Somehow. Dickerson jams the stogie back into his mouth, and the newcomer scurries around behind him. That’s when it hits me. It’s the tailor, that poor bastard who I saw in Dickerson’s office the first day. Only now, instead of having a pincushion on his wrist and a measuring tape around his neck, he’s got some kind of book with him. I zoom in with my camera. It looks like a binder. Dickerson grabs a few balls from his cart, and the tailor hustles around, right on his heels. The tailor flips open the binder, holding it like a preschool teacher reading to the class, pointing at… What the fuck is that? Carpet, it looks like. Little squares of shag carpet. I glance up from the viewfinder. If I came all the way out here to see Dickerson decide on wall-to-wall shag, I’m going to be so fucking pissed. But it isn’t carpet, I realize, zooming in even further. It’s all different colors, all different lengths…of fur. “Goddamn it,” Dickerson booms. “I don’t give a shit about legal! Get me mink from the Ukraine. Fifty rare foxes from Siberia, I don’t care. Just make it realistic. Got that, little man? High quality. The best.” The tailor says something, pointing to a square near the corner of the binder but speaking too softly for me to hear. Dickerson whacks his putter into the green one more time, and the two balls jammed into his tracksuit pop out onto the short grass. “Fuck you and your economical squirrel pelt. Get it done right or you’ll be working for Macy’s, hemming clearance rack prom dresses faster than you can say what’s your inseam.” He points at the tailor with the lit end of the cigar. “Got it?” Clearly, the tailor’s got it, because he clutches his fur book and scrambles for his golf cart, lurching off wildly toward safety, careening toward a sand trap before maneuvering back onto the path. I relax back into my seat and lower my camera. Guppy takes his cue and slings himself over the console, draping his jowls over the gearshift box. Dickerson knocks one of his spare balls two inches, and it lands in the hole. He pumps his fist in the air, straight out of Rocky. Fur. It isn’t exactly interstate drug trafficking or large-scale federal tax evasion. But it might be something.

Back at Penny’s house, I set up a makeshift office on her kitchen table, and spread out everything I can find on Dickerson. After commandeering her little inkjet, I go truly old school on his velour ass and print out all his financial records. All the news stories, all the dirt. And I even find the wedding announcement dated 1986 from the Gazette. It’s coupled with a Sears family portrait of Penny, her mom, and Dickerson together. Her mom, all those years ago, looks every bit as pretty as Penny does now. Bigger hair, thinner eyebrows, but that same sincere, delighted smile, in spite of the total shithead sitting next to her. Penny in the picture also has the bubbling joy she’s got now. She’s missing her front tooth but she still looks like Penny. The little date in the corner says 1986. I think back to Dickerson’s limbo Cadillac, parked outside his office building. I do a quick search and find out that yeah, even that old piece of shit is from 1986. I also remember the plaque on the wall in his office, dated that same year. Which tells me that since 1986, Dickerson hasn’t changed anything at all. Not his hair, not his clothes, not his car, nothing. He’s fucking frozen in time on the day the woman he loved finally wised up. Just like Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. I can see it all. Dickerson in some mini-mansion, with all the clocks set to the time when Penny’s mom was supposed to be at the altar. A piece of the cake in his fridge. Wedding invitation on the mantel. Pan Am honeymoon tickets from the travel agent still on the kitchen table. Fucking frozen stiff in the moment all his dreams went kaboom. Guppy comes over and puts his face on the table, considering the laptop and the papers, licking his lips at a banana peel next to my beer. “You want dinner?” His huge pink tongue comes out and wets his nose. I unfold myself from the kitchen chair and crack my neck side to side. I go through the whole routine with Guppy’s food again, but this time when I say “Sit,” he listens, first time, and I don’t even need to go into falsetto to make it happen. Progress indeed. I take a second beer from the fridge and shoot Penny a message on Skype.

You there, beautiful?

She doesn’t answer right away, but within a few seconds, the indicator by her name changes from gray to green.

We’re so modern! Texting! Everything okay? Yeah, just checking in. How about you? I've eaten way too many dill pickles and I’m getting killed at Scrabble. KILLED.

I don’t want to get too dirty, but I can’t resist either.

I’d like to rearrange your letters sometime.

* dies * I find myself laughing at the screen, and Guppy turns to glance at me, scarfing down a mouthful of dinner. And I realize I’m fucking starving, too. I've had a long day of digging deep, which started with one of the most intense runs I’ve had in years. I could go somewhere, maybe, but I don’t much care for the idea of going out to eat around here without her. The other thing is that I really like being in this house. It isn’t like mine. It isn’t sterile. It isn’t a place where you just crash and shower in between 11-hour work days. This is a home; a place where I could get comfortable. I look around at my stuff spread out everywhere, all mixed up with hers. Really comfortable.

Listen, if a guy wanted to order a pizza in this town…

The blue bar comes up from the bottom of the screen, telling me she’s typing. And she replies with: He’d have to move to a different town. LOL! But there is a frozen pizza in the freezer!

I open up the freezer door and see a whole stack of them. Pepperoni, mostly. One Greek. Totally my kind of girl. So, dinner is solved. There’s only one more question. Because I’m not just hungry for pizza, that’s for damned sure.

I need you to get some privacy later on tonight.

I watch her start typing and stop once, twice, three times, the blue bar popping up and vanishing. It makes me think I might have pushed her a little too far. She’s at her Grandpa’s house, for fuck’s sake. But I need her, I want her, and I don’t care if she’s an 8-hour drive away. I’ve got to have her.

Are you going to talk dirty to me on Skype, Mr. Macklin?

We’re going to do a lot more than talk.

You give me so many butterflies. That’s the idea. See you at 10.

47 PENNY

If I thought he had me hot and bothered when I was standing in the economy parking lot last week, I had no idea what hot and bothered really was. From the instant he says goodbye, my brain starts swirling with all sorts of naughty, sexy things, featuring heavily on his abs, his smile, and the way he talks to me when he’s inside… Penny! No. Get your mind out of the gutter. Be wholesome. Be upstanding. Do not think about dirty things while you watch Jeopardy! with two retirees drinking sweet tea and eating Nilla Wafers, do not. “Who is Jimmy Carter!” Grandpa says, snapping his wafer in half and waiting for one of the contestants to confirm. I am caught between two worlds. On one side is the warm, soft, familiar world of my Grandpa—and Rose, who fits right in, like she was always meant to be here— and on the other, my very new, very exciting world with Russ. I feel like I’m 15 again, waiting for my first real boyfriend to call. “What is needlepoint!” says Rose. I stare at the clock. 6:31. I love them, a lot, but for the first time my heart and mind are pulled in a totally new direction. Into a place that is just for us. Ours alone. When I was driving up here with my cinnamon bears and burnt-bean coffee, I thought I’d get some clarity, as if being away from him would make me see the facts more clearly. Like maybe I’d realize it was all a colossal mistake, letting myself fall for a man who isn’t there to stay, and who made not-so-veiled hints at me moving to Boston in the diaper aisle. As if maybe five hundred miles would clear my mind. It hasn’t. It’s only made it worse and made me start counting the days until we say goodbye, which is now ticking down to three. And it has filled me with so many what ifs, I could burst. What if he could stay? What if I went with him? What if we

tried to do the long-distance thing? I once sat next to a lady on a plane who said that she worked in Baltimore, but lived in Atlanta, and that it was the best thing that ever happened to her marriage, bar none. But she was sixty! She’d probably had a whole lifetime of memories with her husband, grocery shopping and ring shopping, deciding on paint colors for their house, and all the bits and pieces of an impenetrable foundation. Our situation isn’t like that. And Russ Macklin isn’t the sort of man I want to have more than a few inches’ distance from anyway. The pain of being apart is absolutely real. I glance at the clock again. 6:33. “What is Absence makes the heart grow fonder!” says Grandpa. It’s going to be a very, very long night.

I make it through Jeopardy!, Wheel of Fortune, PBS News Hour, and Rose’s delicious chicken casserole followed by strawberry Jell-O with mandarin oranges. And now it’s 9:58 p.m. and I am as far away from Grandpa and Rose as is humanly possible while still being in the same house. After I lock the door, I stuff a towel up against the crack underneath it like I’m trying to prevent smoke from coming in from a fire, and I turn off all the lights except the one by the guest bed. They both have their hearing aids out, so I think the coast is reasonably clear. I tuck my feet up against my body, with my heart thumping away, and watch my computer screen. I unwind my earbuds from his holder and put them in my ears. I look at the video feed of my face and ruffle my hair. I try to twirl it off to one side, but that doesn’t really help. I try to go for messy and sexy, but that makes me look kind of insane. I opt for having it down over both shoulders, and I perk up my girls. I try to tilt the camera for optimum angle-flattery, but then Skype starts to ring. I take a deep breath and answer. He’s got me in his lap, giving me a perfect view of his abs and his chest. He’s leaning up against my headboard, massive arm pinned behind his head. “Hey,” he says. His whole voice fills my ears like I’m in some great big stadium, where there is nothing but him. “Hi.” He repositions his laptop, and I get an up-close view of those girthy forearms. “Don’t tell me you’re nervous,” he says, teasing me. I am nervous. Suddenly so very nervous and feeling so very…dirty. “I don’t know if I can do this.” He smiles at me, teasing no more. “We don’t have to.” “Oh no, no,” I whisper. “We definitely should. Or at least one of us. Maybe you

should just…you know…” As I trail off, he slides his hand down past the camera frame. “I should just what?” And I completely forget everything in my head. “I fucking love when you can’t finish your sentences. I love when I steal your words.” His hair is a little messier than it was when I first saw him, and his beard a little thicker. He’s now more casual, more beachy, and even sexier than before. The muscular ridges of his shoulders are highlighted by my bedroom light. I suddenly flash back to being a teenager and flopping down on my bed, staring up at the Backstreet Boys on a poster on the ceiling with an aching, never-ending, dreaminterrupting burn. I notice that his left hand isn’t still. It’s moving. He’s gotten down to business already. Oh. God. The rush of wetness is instantaneous and immediate. “Are you doing what I think you’re doing?” “You’ve got me all pent up.” His rippling forearm moves up and down, and I notice that when he gets to the end, he pauses. His arm flexes, like he’s squeezing himself at the top. “I can’t stop thinking about you.” He is so ridiculously dreamy, so incredibly hunky. And without even asking myself if I should or shouldn’t, I let my fingers move down to my clit. “Good girl.” I don’t just hear him in my ears. I feel his words in my bones. “Are you wet?” I nod at the screen and swallow hard. “You need to be quiet. You listen, I'll talk. Got it?” “Yes,” I whisper back. “Perfect.” “Lie down, relax. Put the camera next to you, let me see your face.” I do exactly like he asks, turning to watch him, making me feel like he’s cradling my head in his lap. He grunts as I reposition myself. “Fuck, you are so beautiful.” “I really do miss you,” I say. If I ever had a filter with him, it got blown to smithereens somewhere between the Cosmo-debunking orgasm and the cake on my doorstep. “All day, it’s been you. Since the minute I saw you, it’s been you. My whole life, even before I knew you, it was you.” Here lies Penelope, struck through by ten thousand heart-fletched arrows. Me.

Just me. This sexy, mysterious man was always waiting to meet me. He grunts again, and I watch his forearm slide back down. “Close your eyes and let me tell you want I want to do to you.” I look up at the textured ceilings and shut my eyes. I hear his breathing in my ears, and my mind starts to play tricks on me because I can almost smell him. That musk, that heat. “That’s it. I want to do everything to you, Penny. I want to be good to you during the day, and terrible with you at night. I want to worship you and be so fucking rude with you.” “Russsssss,” I say as I speed up on my clit a little more. “I want to fuck you on every flat surface in your house and then take you right down to the floor. I need to feel you come on my cock every fucking day. I want to make it difficult for you to get anything done—I want to watch you bend over in the shower and come right in with you. Because that whimper when you’re gone, fuck,” he moans. “Fuck it all. When I heard you come, I knew I didn’t stand a fucking chance.” “Oh, God.” “Imagine me fucking you, gripping your ass and telling you to come for me, come for me again and again, until you can’t come anymore. Until you beg for mercy…” “Mercy.” “… which I'll never give you, never.” Never. My whole reality, with my eyes closed like this, is his voice—that booming, husky baritone. I feel myself start to turn the corner already. “The things you do to me,” I gasp. “You have no idea.” “Yes, I do, because you do the same fucking things to me. But I want to do all the filthy things I haven’t had a chance to do yet. I want to take you, whenever you want… Whenever I want. I want a room, with a mattress, just for us. Nobody else allowed. Just our place for doing what we have to do. Where all you are is mine.” “Yours…” “Mine,” he growls, making me gasp, which he answers with a long, “Fuuuuuck.” I glance at the screen. He’s moved the camera aside slightly and I see the tip of his cock as he strokes it, ruthless and aggressive. Exactly like he is when he’s inside me. “I love you like this,” he says, more softly now. “But I need you to come for me, I need to see that.” “I’m close,” I whisper. “Get closer.”

Oh, shit. I switch hands. As soon as my slightly cooler fingertips touch my clit, my body responds, my back arching off the bed. “I need you, Russ.” I let my words float on my breath and nestle my lips against the mic. I’m barely saying them at all. “I need you inside me. I need you over me. I need you so, so much.” “Fucking A, Penny. Fuck.” He growls again, and I hear him fisting his cock, the sound of his hand slapping against his balls. In the corner of the screen, I watch him tug at the skin, pulling it up over the smooth tip. “Jesus Christ, this is so hot,” he says. His head drops back against the headboard, and he gasps up at the ceiling. My vision tunnels in on those rippling muscles, that broad chest, the ruggedness of that line of stubble. “I need you like this all the time, I need…” But before I can finish the sentence, I’m heading over the cliff. In free fall, my body throbbing and pulsing, every single fiber his. “Come for me, Penny. Let go…I’ve got you.” “Tell me you’re coming, too.” “Fuck yes, I am.” “I’m coming.” “I’m right with you.” “Go.” “Now.” “Yessssss.” I’d give anything to scream right now, but I stop myself. I turn all that energy back into myself, and it amplifies the orgasm ten times over. In that instant, five hundred miles is nothing. My fingers are his hands; my body is all his. Everything belongs to him. He doesn’t have to be quiet and he isn’t. Every aggressive groan fills my ears at full volume. It is the sexiest sound that ever, ever was. Together, we catch our breath, my pants coming twice as fast as his. It’s almost hypnotic, and the explosion he just pulled out of me makes me curl up into a ball, still facing the screen. I focus on his breathing, on the sound of his body on my sheets. I press my fingertips to the image of his abs, the warmth of the laptop playing tricks on me all over again. “We’re in deep, Penny.” “I know.” “I never want to come up for air.” “Me neither.” “I wish I could touch you,” he says quietly. “So fucking much.” He swallows and repositions his head on the pillow.

My orgasm was so intense, though, and my day so long, that sleep is sneaking up on me fast, and he already sounds dreamy and far away. “I'll leave first thing in the morning. Before you’re even awake.” On his end, sheets shift and my mattress creaks. “Are you fading?” “Yes.” “Good. I’m going to stay with you until you fall asleep. I don’t want to hear you say goodbye. Not now. Not ever.”

48 RUSS

We’re in one of those Tahitian beach huts that sit on stilts over the water. She’s next to me, all curled up with her back against my chest. I shift her hair from her cheek and whisper, “I love you, Penny. You know I fucking do.” But she smells kind of…not like Penny at all. Not like vanilla or something sweet. But more like corn chips. Or a hot vacuum about to burn through its belts. And she’s wearing something fuzzy, like maybe fleece sweatpants. Makes no sense at all. We’re in Tahiti, and she’s wearing fleece? But it gets weirder still, because instead of saying she loves me too, she says, “Marf, marf…” I open my eyes, and I inhale hard, the bright light stinging my retinas. I’m not in Tahiti. I’m in her bed. And I’m not spooning her. I’m spooning Guppy. I roll away from him and rub my face. My weight makes a valley of the mattress; as I move, so does Guppy, sliding over onto his back right beside me. His tongue hangs out from one side of his mouth, and his paws are limp at the wrists. He really is just so fucking awesome. I wedge my forearm under the back of his neck to prop his head up. I grab my phone from the bedside table and snap a picture of us together, and then I send it to Penny with the caption, We’ve been spooning. You better get back here quick. She replies with a video message, and the timer wheel spins over her beautiful face as the video loads. As I hit play, I hear the noise of the car, the hum of the engine. The highway streaks past in the background. Every mile marker she passes brings her one mile closer to me. “Good morning, handsome!” Her hair is in a braid, like the first day I saw her, her bangs pinned back to show off that beautiful face. “I knew you and Guppy were going to fall in love; I knew it! Anyway, I’m on the road. I’ll be there by dinnertime. If you have to leave Guppy for the day, let me know and I’ll give Maisie a ring. She’s back, I think.” Penny glances at the screen, like she’s giving me a silent warning, and then turns back to the road. She hits a bump, and it makes her cleavage jiggle. Fuck. “And let me know if you want me to

pick you up a souvenir from the World’s Biggest Cinnamon Bun, because I’ll pass it and I don’t want you to miss out.” I reply with a video message of my own. “You’ve got all the cinnamon buns I need.” She answers with a video snippet of her laugh, midway through the first big giggle. Two seconds of pure fucking heaven. Before Skype can swallow them up, I hit save on that video, and the one before it. Then I tell her:

Drive safe. No texting. K. xoxo

In the kitchen, Guppy and I settle into yesterday’s same routine. Eggs, breakfast, and coffee are followed by the mayor playing clips of Dickerson’s hearing at the City Council. “Here we have the opening remarks of his argument to have the Glad To Be Alive Sanctuary condemned as blight…” The audio bite is a furious buzz of kazoos. “And that, Port Flamingo, is civil disobedience in action!” He plays a sound clip of canned applause, chuckling to himself. “It’s going to be a hot one, so make sure you bring some extra water, and don’t forget your sunscreen. Now, onto local events. The Kumquat Festival will be held…” I turn down the volume and look out at the beach. This place might be the Gulf Coast Twilight Zone, but I fucking dig it. More than all that, I dig her—the way she lives her life, and the way she exists in the world. But then I look outside at her grill, covered with a bleached black canvas covering. At her deck chairs and her potted plants. At her home, so much like her and rooted so deeply to this place. To her best friend next door, to her uncle, to her mom, to the mayor. I can come and go from Boston whenever I want and nobody notices but my cleaning lady. But Penny’s life has roots like mine has never had— like mine might never have. And so, not for the first time, I get that sickening punch of doubt that this might not work. That it’s fucking insanity. Because she’d have to be crazy to even think about leaving all this. For Boston. For me.

Forty-five minutes later, Guppy and I are back from our run, and I’m exhausted from sprinting full-on and working out the maybes. But the run helped me focus on what’s really fucking important now: her and our last few days together. More important than that is making sure she’s happy, that she really wants this. To be sure, I need to get up the courage to ask her, straight up and point blank, what she wants to do. About us. I grab a big glass from the top shelf and fill it up with water, then lie down on the chaise lounge. I listen to the waves and think about how to make tonight special, how to really show her how I feel. But before I can get too far into details, a face appears in the vines above the patio wall. Maisie is back. And she looks pissed. Yet instead of saying, “You again,” or “How about I show you a thing or two about homemade napalm?” or “Go wear your dress shirts in some other zip code,” her face disappears from the vines quickly as it materialized, followed by some frustrated noises and grunts. Next to me, sprawled out on the concrete, Guppy whacks his tail and perks up his ears. More grunts. More huffs. And also something clattering. I don’t want to interfere, but it really sounds like something’s seriously wrong, and there’s no fucking way I’m just going to lie here while Penny’s best friend is in trouble. So I plant my hands next to the planter and pull myself up to look over the wall. On the other side is Maisie, sitting on the floor of her patio. Scattered around her in every direction are particle board rectangles, plastic bags full of bolts, and a white instruction manual that looks like it got wadded up into a ball and smoothed out again. She looks up at me, a hex wrench in her hand. She takes one of the plastic bags and rips it open with her teeth, sending bolts flying. There’s a lot that my life is missing—home, warmth, happiness, the chaos of living every day to bursting, Penny herself. But one thing I definitely learned about, during my many years as a bachelor, was how to assemble IKEA furniture. That I definitely know how to do. “Need a hand?”

49 PENNY

As I pull into the driveway next to Russ’ SUV, Maisie scurries across her yard and raps on my window about sixteen times in quick succession. Then she freezes with her knuckles hovering over the glass as her eyes dart back and forth toward my house. I shoulder the door open. “What’s wrong? Why do you look like your washing machine just backed up again?” She steels herself by hanging on to my door. “I…owe you an apology.” Oh, my God. It wasn’t worry on her face. It was the courage to say the neverbefore-said. “Maisie. That’s amazing. What’s it like to learn a new language this late in life?” It’s not easy, clearly. She’s looks as pained as she would in an IRS audit. “He’s actually very…” She draws in a breath and holds it, like she’s trying to get rid of the hiccups. “Dreamy? Hunky? Good company? Smart? Sexy?” She holds up her hand to say stop. “Very, very good at assembling complicated pieces of furniture from the Promised Land.” She gasps when all the words are out, exactly her hiccup technique. I’ll be damned. So that’s her threshold for a nice guy. Someone who can make furniture pop out of a box. “Here I was, thinking you wanted me to find a man who didn’t have borderline personality disorder. All you needed was a guy who could put together your bookshelves.” She glares, and pulls her lip balm from her bra. She uncaps it and coats her lips, finishing with a smack. “It’s a lovely dresser, I’ll have you know, but it’s got so many drawers. He spent three hours on my lanai putting it together, didn’t complain once. Then when it was assembled, and I told him where it went, he even took the doors off so it would fit into my bedroom and put them back on. Not even a grumble! And then, I made him a smoothie, and he didn’t even tell me it smelled like farm. Like someone I know.” She shoves a hostile little fingertip in my face.

We square off for a few seconds, and I stifle my giggles long enough for her expression to soften. She retracts her finger and looks down, almost shy, rubbing her lips together to spread the balm. “I’m sorry I doubted him. I’m also sorry that he doesn’t live here. For your sake and his.” The words hit me hard, extra heavy after a very long day. “There’s always a chance,” I say as I slide out of the Bronco. “I sure hope so.” Maisie steps back to let me get my stuff out of the trunk. “He left for a while and then came back with a whole bunch of grocery bags. Reusable grocery bags, Penny.” She claps her hand to her chest like she’s about to swoon onto the asphalt. “The man’s a winner,” she says. Then she plants a waxy, pepperminty kiss on my cheek, and scurries off back to her house.

As I walk through the front door, Guppy thunders toward me like a racehorse. I drop my bag and unlock my knees as he comes up on his hind legs, putting his front paws on my shoulders. He showers me in a messy slathering of dog-food kisses. There’s no point in resisting, so I hold my breath, shut my mouth, and let him have his way. Sometimes, after someone else looks after him, he spends a few minutes giving me disappointed looks from his bed before he forgives me for abandoning him for eight hours, but not this time. This time, he’s just plain happy. When he’s covered me in kisses from ear to nostril and back again, and decided that I am, in fact, really home, he drops back down onto all fours and launches himself onto the sofa. I notice the table is set for dinner, with the napkins neatly folded and the silverware carefully arranged. On the table is a bouquet of real flowers, not bait shop carnations, but white lilies and red roses. This time, the angel and the devil are in agreement. Maisie was right, and I knew it all along: He’s a winner. “Hey!” he says, turning to me from the stove. The apron he’s wearing is new, and not one of mine. Don’t Be Afraid to Take Whisks. “That’s…amazing.” “Right?” he says, crumpling his chin into his neck to get a better look. “I found it in that kitchen shop in Manatee. Thought you’d like it. And I’m cooking you dinner. So how about that?” I see a chopped onion. Tomatoes. Ripe avocados ready to be sliced. In a Pyrex dish, there are some marinating chicken breasts, and stuck to the microwave with my lobster magnet is a printed-out recipe from Cooking.com. He was sexy in dress pants. He was dreamy in his boxer briefs. But here, in a punny apron he bought for me, cooking me dinner after a long day on the road, he

really is all my dreams come true. He sets down his spatula and takes me into his arms. One of his hands slides down to the small of my back, straight past the point of polite, down, down, down my ass to the very center of possessive. With the other hand, he tips my chin upwards for a kiss, but he lingers there before he goes in all the way. “You know, there’s a theory about kissing.” He lips are near mine, but not close enough. “Called the rule of 90/10.” I put one hand into his rear pocket, touching that yummy curve of his wallet first, and then his ass after that. “I couldn’t do math right now if I had to.” “The theory is that I come in 90% of the way, and then it’s up to you to decide if you want to come the last 10%.” He nudges my cheek with his nose, cupping my jaw in his palm and supporting the back of my neck with his solid, confident grip. I put both my hands into his back pockets and get closer to him by going on my tiptoes until we’re almost eye-to-eye. “How about I meet you 80/20?” “That’s my girl.”

50 PENNY

He is sweeter this time than ever before, and yet more focused, too. He keeps his eyes closed and drives into me so hard that every muscle in my body vibrates with the impact. Each time he pounds into me, he scoots me backward on the bare sheet, until I’m pinned against the headboard and have no other option but to reach up to the oak frame and hang on tight. He’s an animal right now, and he’s going to have what’s his. And I want nothing more than to get devoured. I don’t know how long he keeps me like that, but long enough for every single nerve ending in my body to be thrumming and pulsing, until I’ll either explode or dissolve in his arms. It feels so good, so intense, that it brings tears to my eyes. I blink one away, and it slides down my cheek. As soon as he sees the tear, he freezes. “God, I get so fucking lost in you. Are you okay?” “You make me feel like I’m everything. Like I’m the only woman in the world.” He sweeps the lone tear away with his rough thumb and stays deep inside me, letting me recover and catch my breath. “Because you are.” He gets up slightly onto his knees, unpinning me from the headboard and sliding me down the sheet, using my hips to maneuver me. Then he flips us together so I’m on top of him, my hair spilling down my shoulders so it brushes the skin of his chest. He gathers up my hair, and not with the practiced, smooth movements that I have, but with rugged grasps, like he’s doing something he’s never done before, as if he’s being tender in a way he’s only just learning to be. I let myself ease down onto his cock. He runs his hands up my calves, then my thighs, then my ass, before finally wrapping his arms around me, forearms to my hips. When I take as much of him into me as I can comfortably handle, he says, “I had a dream I told you I loved you last night.” I run one finger down the rippling ridges of his abs, down the line of hair that runs down into his treasure trail. “You did?”

From below, he finds a slower, less intense rhythm. But he’s so deep, I can barely see straight. He grips my ass and pulls me up slightly so he isn’t making my eyes roll quite so far back into my head. “Did I answer you?” He smiles. “No. We got interrupted. But what I said was, ‘I love you, Penny. You know I fucking do.’” He lets it hang there. Doesn’t ask me to answer. Doesn’t ask me to say more. But instead says, “And I bought you something else, besides the apron.” Still staying inside me, he reaches across to open the drawer of my bedside table. From the drawer he pulls out a little silver egg, on a wire, attached to a tiny remote. “Oh God.” I let my body slide all the way down onto him. Everything is pleasure, except for the pinch in my feet from the tight curl of my toes. He turns on the remote, and the egg starts to buzz. Taking it between two fingers, he places it to my clit. I’m no stranger to a good vibrator, and I’d buy stock in Hitachi if I had the cash. But because of the way he’s been talking to me, because of the way he’s been fucking me, because of the way we are together, this little tiny egg puts the Magic Wand to shame. I plant my palm on his stomach and take him all the way in. “You take this,” he says, putting it in my free hand. “You do you. And I’ll fuck you the whole way through it.” “I love the way you talk to me.” “Not more than I love doing the talking.” He takes me into his arms, bringing me to his chest, and uses the mattress to leverage himself against me, driving into me hard from underneath. All the while, the egg is whirring against my clit, bringing me closer and closer to… His finger presses on mine on top of the remote, and suddenly the rhythm changes, from a constant vibration to a staccato pattern. And I’m absolutely blown to sky high. Whirr-whirr-whirrrrrrrrrrrrrr. “I’m going to come. Oh God, Russ. Oh God, Russ.” “That’s right, beautiful. Get my name tangled up with His. Fuck, yeah.” It isn’t just an orgasm. It’s a full-body implosion, and halfway through it, when I’m seeing nothing but the kaleidoscope, I find myself saying the thing I’ve been thinking for days and days. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” over and over again. “I love you too, Penny, so much it hurts.”

51 PENNY

The next morning, I wake up wrapped tightly in his arms, five minutes before my first alarm goes off. He is here, and I am here, and everything is perfect. Except for the worry that is bubbling through me like lava from a crack in the ground. I watch the second-hand tick along, and think about the date, which makes my heart plummet. Every tick brings our goodbye closer. We told each other the biggest words last night, but not even love can stop what’s coming, barreling at us like a runaway train. “Russ,” I whisper. As soon as I say his name, he inhales hard against my bare shoulder. “You okay?” I reach back and run my fingers through his thick hair. “What are we going to do?” He’s such a sweetheart that he doesn’t say, “It’s 5:55 a.m., Penny. Can we wait until breakfast to talk about the future?” Instead he clears his throat and tucks his chin alongside my neck. “Well, what do you want to do?” I turn to face him. “You first.” “I want to be with you. I want to find a way.” “Me too. More than anything. Do you have to go?” He wipes away some sleep. “I wish I didn’t, but I've got something big happening back in Boston on Thursday. You should come with me.” “Work? A new client?” He traces a line down my cheek with his thumb. “Everything I tell you has to be a secret.” “Promise.” “An old Army buddy of mine runs a logistics firm called Darkwater. He’s hired me as head of security.” Somewhere in the dim recesses of my memory, I know the name of that company. From the news, maybe. “That sounds… fancy.”

He laughs a little and rubs his eyes again. “I don’t know about that. But it’s steady work, no more hustle. Plenty of money.” He pulls the sheet up over me, like he’s worried the blasting AC will give me a chill. “Enough for whatever you need.” I give him a little push on the chest. “I don’t want to be a kept woman.” He clasps his hand around mine. “Tough.” All the ridiculousness of that idea aside, there’s something much bigger to worry about first. I press my face into his shoulder. “Seriously. What are we going to do?” “Look at me, Penny.” I keep my eyes hidden. “Fly back and forth every two weeks until…what? Until something changes?” This time he doesn’t tell me to look at him, but makes me do it, holding my face in his hands. I push down the panic, and do what he says. His eyes are wide, sincere, and his expression unflinchingly calm. “Maybe we try it, until we decide where we want to be. What do you think of that?” Where we want to be. I turn away from him, and glance around my bedroom, at the curtains my mom made from the pattern my grandma left behind. At the walls I painted when I moved in. At the bookshelves my uncle made for my mom. Three generations of Darling women have lived in this place, and the idea of leaving it for somewhere so unknown is just so very… “Listen,” he says, in that confident way of his, “I think we take it one step at a time. One week after another. People do make these things work. But I’m not going to lie, if you want to come back to Boston with me tomorrow, you’d make me the happiest man on the planet.” Under the closed bedroom door, I hear Guppy snuffle, and right on cue the alarm goes off. The mayor booms, “Gooooooood morning Port Fla—” and I whack it into silence, and switch off the second alarm before it starts beeping too. “One step at a time,” I repeat. He nods and shifts my bangs away from my forehead. “What do you say to this: In two weeks I fly you up to see me. Then two weeks after that, I fly down here. Or we can do it every weekend if you want.” He’s a true romantic, but he’s not thinking logistics—he’s not thinking about holding mail and dog care. He’s here, in love, with me. In my bed. On a Wednesday morning. The man absolutely melts me. So yes, I can do this. At the very least, I can try it. I don’t have to pre-worry my way right through the next year. Hopefully. “If we’re taking it one step at a time, I think maybe you should meet my mom and my stepdad.” He breaks into a big, beautiful smile. “I’d love that.”

“Really? Seriously?” He nods, only once. “Get used to me being serious about you, Penny. I meant everything I said last night. Every last fucking word.” “So did I. Every last one.” He climbs on top of me and sinks down into a kiss. He knits his fingers into mine and pins my hands onto the mattress. He smiles as he kisses me, and he is right back between my legs again. He doesn’t even have to reposition himself as he presses into me. And as he does, all the worry flies out of my head, like embers falling from a firecracker in the sky.

52 RUSS

I pull into the driveway of a gray ranch house, surrounded on all sides by barbed wire fences. It’s straight out of a federal penitentiary. The driveway is flanked and then the perimeter of the house is surrounded, too. On the porch stands a woman in a big gardening hat, wearing white shorts and hiking boots. She waves at us from way far away, like she’s bringing a ship into port. “Penny. I don’t want to be judgmental, but I don’t think there’s any crime in this city at all. Isn’t this fence overkill?” Penny glances around like she’s surprised to hear about a fence. “Oh, you mean the goat perimeter! That’s not for crime. That’s for Horace.” Penny points across me, and I turn to look. “That’s him. Horace is the King of the Asshole Goats.” To my left, maybe fifty yards away, is a brownish goat, spotted with white and gray, trying to break through the fence. He yanks on the barbed wire with his teeth, trying to get some leverage by grinding his hooves into the soil. Behind him stand a clump of what I assume to be llamas, chewing on some hay. Behind those, a donkey is ambling along toward nothing in particular. I bring the Suburban to a halt next to a minivan, which has the sanctuary logo painted on the side. A kicking donkey, with the words G.L.A.D. TO BE ALIVE SANCTUARY. “Goats, llamas, alpacas, and donkeys,” Penny explains, counting off the acronym letters on her fingers. “Cute, right? A whole lot better than Kindergarten Portfolios Yadda Yadda Yadda.” Her sweet voice spirals down into a grumble. “That asshole.” It occurs to me then that this mission might serve two purposes. But I better check, because I’m pretty sure it’s not on the potential son-in-law instruction manual to walk into your prospective in-laws’ home and start asking the bride’s mom about the ex she left at the altar. Immediately, my logical brain catches up to that thought. Bride. Son-in-law. Prospective in-laws.

Holy fuck alive. Did I put all those words in the same sentence? I look at Penny, who smiles back at me. “Ready?” she asks, reaching out to give my hand a squeeze. “Just so we’re clear: Is Dickerson off limits, or can I ask a question or two?” “Pfffft!” Penny says, laughing. “She’d talk all day about him. She and Wikipedia have diagnosed him right into psychopathy. She’ll show you her spreadsheet. It’s very compelling.” I love this woman, and I’m goddamned proud of it. Hell yes, I thought those thoughts. “I’m ready, beautiful. I sure am.”

Penny’s mom is named Alice, and the first thing she says to me is, “Well, aren’t you hunky.” Next to me, Penny groans. “Mommmmmm!” But Penny’s mom seems awesome, not unlike my Aunt Sharon. Maybe when women hit menopause, the fuck all y’all gene kicks in. Whatever it is, it’s badass, and this lady’s got it big-time. She gives me a conspiratorial wink. “Come on in, you two. I’ve made us some iced coffee, and I’ve got coconut popsicles for after.” We take a seat on the back porch, Penny staying close beside me with her arm linked in mine. Way in the distance, I see a man hurling hay bales off the back of a truck. “That’s my stepdad,” Penny explains. From every direction flock assorted awkward animals. Galloping, scurrying, loping along. “Is that a camel?” I squint hard. Can’t be. No way. Only… I think… Jesus Christ. It is. “Oh yes. That’s Omar. He’s our star.” Alice beams. “When the elementary school kids come to visit, he takes them for rides around the property. Horace won’t come near him.” Omar trundles along the horizon, like something straight out of Lawrence of Arabia. The whole thing is both surreal and fucking awesome. Alice adds cream to our iced coffees. “But Omar is also part of our problem.” As she says it, Penny’s grip on my hand tightens, same as it did on the roller coaster. Her big eyes dart over to mine, as if to say, Buckle up. And then her mom is off, letting fly with one long sentence, each word spewed into the air like BBs from a pellet gun: “Because that sorry excuse for a human being Adolf Dickerson has filed an injunction accusing us of having exotic animals without a license, and we can’t afford the goddamned license which means that if we can’t get this thing straightened out, all of us—including Horace the goat, Omar the camel, and Sweet Pea the miniature donkey—are hosed.”

Well, that at least explains where Penny got her tendency to babble. It also makes me dislike Dick Dickerson that much more. Seeing this place puts it all into perspective. All these animals, where would they go? Not on the back nine of a Dickerson International Golf Course, that’s for damned sure. Knowing Dickerson, he’s probably got stock in a glue factory already. “Mom. It’s okay. Have a calming pastille,” Penny says, digging through her purse. “Maisie made them. They only give you a tiny headache. Tiny.” But Alice isn’t having it. She slugs back a few gulps of her iced coffee and stares at me. “Sorry.” I wave off that apology. “I’ll get straight to the point.” “My kind of man!” “I did some background research. He’s pretty well protected. Shell companies, holding companies, that sort of thing.” “Anagrams,” Penny adds, adorably, but not particularly helpfully. Still though. So cute. “It’s very typical of his disorder,” Alice says. “His ego is damaged by the very smallest insult.” She parts her fingers by a millimeter and peers through the gap. “Which would explain why he is still trying to ruin me thirty years after I told him to take his kinks elsewhere.” Penny glances at me, her face bright red. But my son-in-law mode takes a backseat to my PI mode. That is the shit of information brokering. Secrets, fetishes, proclivities. The weirder the better. “Kinks…” “I don’t think I can have this conversation,” Penny mutters, dumping more cream into her coffee. “Maybe I’ll go see Horace. It’s been a while since he’s bitten me in the shins.” But I squeeze her hand to tell her to stay right here, by my side. I might have the know-how to dig up dirt, but she knows this town and the people in it. She’s key to all this. Also, I’ve got one more day with her, and no fucking way am I losing one second of that to some maniac goat that eats barbed wire for fun. “Kinks!” Alice says, flinging herself back into her chair and tipping back her hat. “I’m a pretty open-minded person. I mean, I like a spanking as much as the next girl.” Penny winces as if Horace actually did just bite her in the shins, and I’ve got to swallow my laugh. I cough into my glass and keep my cool somehow. How fucking weird and awesome is this? I love this place. I love these people. Fucking love it. “But that man.” Alice lowers her chin, like it’s time to get serious. “I didn’t know there was a word for it, not back in the eighties. Hell, there probably wasn’t a

word for it, not then. But I was willing to try it, just the once. I’ll try anything once. Dennis and I have recently gotten very interested in…” “Mom!” Penny barks. “Right. Sorry, honey,” Alice says. “What I meant to say was that one time he asked me to dress up in fur for him, and he was never, ever the same.” Penny chokes into her glass, making her creamy coffee bubble. But from where I’m sitting, the golf course visit from the tailor starts to make a lot more sense. “Fur, like fur coats? He’s got a fetish for fur coats?” Penny squeezes my hand so hard that my fingers start to go numb. I look over at her and see her blush has migrated from her cheeks down her throat like a rash. “I’d have been fine with a fur coat,” Alice says, totally unfazed by Penny’s horror. “No, Russ. The man’s damn near obsessed with fur suits. Animal costumes. The more intricate, complicated, and authentic, the better.” “You’re shitting me.” Alice shakes her head, looking satisfied and delighted. “I’m not! I looked it up on FetLife, and they’re called furries.” Penny makes a strangled croak. “And Dick Dickerson is the king of them. Now, who’d like a coconut popsicle?”

53 PENNY

When I was 13, I had the world’s most ginormous crush ever on a boy in my class. He was one of the popular ones, who wore his baseball cap low and didn’t say much and listened to Live really loud on his yellow Walkman tape player. His name was Matt Greene, and I used to draw hearts around his name in my World Geography notebook. For reasons I will never, ever, understand, he started to take a fancy to me, halfway through the school year. And it was a big fancy. Like, sometimes he would even look right at me across the lunchroom, and sometimes even asked if I wanted to be his partner in Language Arts. Big fancy. One afternoon, in the five sacred minutes between Spanish and Biology, Matt Greene came up to me. He took his Walkman earphones off, looked me up and down, and said, “Hey.” Just that. Just hey. It was like every single Greek god dropped out of the sky at once, lowered their swords, fell to their knees, and kissed my feet. Hey. “Hi,” I said, and shimmy-stumbled up against the bank of lockers, lost in his deep green eyes and his three emerging mustache hairs. His T-shirt asked If second place is the first loser, why do they get a prize? Sexiest nonsense eighth-grade motivational saying ever. To really set the scene, Friends was in its heyday, and I was—as Jennifer Aniston taught me—wearing corduroy overalls and a white tank top underneath. Very chic. Very Rachel. Matt said, “You want to, you know, hang out?” Behind him, Maisie’s mouth dropped open, and she clutched her sparkly unicorn binder to her chest. “I’d…sure, I mean, I have to be home by 4:15 but…” “No, I mean like, hang out. At the mall.” Oh my God, hang out at the mall. It was the mysterious pastime of the cool kids —milling around outside Lucky Jeans, drinking Orange Juliuses, doing I-didn’t-

know-what. I’d only ever seen them from a distance when my mom took me underwear shopping. “Yes, anytime, whenever. I’m totally free all the time, every day, I mean, I’m even free right…” Maisie made a slicing motion across her throat and then fanned her face with her folder, mouthing, “Be cool!” So I tried to play it cool. “I have band practice on Saturday morning, but after that I’m free.” Maisie bashed her face with the unicorn folder. Cool has never been my forte. But it was good enough for Matt and his three mustache hairs. “Sweet,” he said, and put his earphones back on. He pressed the play button on the side of his tape player and turned to go. However. As Matt Greene turned to go and I began to scramble for Maisie so we could debrief about what on earth had just happened, my overalls got stuck on one of the lockers behind me. Which meant that as I took one step forward, my overalls stayed put. And tore with a long, horrible rrrrrrrrrip. It was loud enough to silence the hallway. And loud enough to make Matt Greene turn and take off his earphones too. Astonished, and startled by the breeze on my backside, I spun around to see what had happened. As I did, I showed my slightly pudgy thighs and my underwear to everybody who’d turned to stare. Cue the crickets. But it gets worse. Because they weren’t just any underwear, oh no. They weren’t some cute little pair of polka-dotted cotton Hanes for Girls, nope. These were the ones my mom had insisted I get, and so there I stood, showing off my nude, control top, grannycuts, in full view of Matt Greene and my entire eighth-grade class. And until this moment… Mom says, “It was the mooing that really got him going. And the barking. That was the special sauce.” Russ nods and then asks, “Is there actual sex happening with these furries, or is it more of a dry humping and mingling type deal?” …I’d never been more embarrassed in my life. But this takes it. Second place is first loser, Matt Greene. Have fun at the mall.

After scarfing down my popsicle, but before my mom can start talking about her theory on the problem with male-centric porn, I grab Russ’ hand and drag him out

of the house. “Don’t you want to meet Horace?” Mom asks as I’m pulling Russ over the threshold, yanking so hard that my rotator cuff aches. “I can chase him around with the weed whacker at my place, Mom. Thanks for the coffee. Love to Dennis.” I give her a rushed kiss on the cheek, shove Russ out the door, and pull the knob shut. Thank God. I take a deep breath in the silence and plunge my hand into my purse for my cucumber water. But then Mom reappears, opening the door a crack. “Pleasure to meet you, Russ. Hope to see you again soon. It’s nice to talk to a man who’s so comfortable with semi-deviant sexual…” “Mom!” “Pleasure to meet you, too, Alice,” Russ says warmly, and Mom closes the door. I squirt myself in the face over and over again and try to put myself together. It isn’t working. And I feel like I just fell into a Greek salad. Russ, meanwhile, is not even resisting the church-and-funeral laugh, but is overcome with tearful, silent, body-shaking laughter, rubbing at his sexy dark lashes and groaning. “Penny, she has no filter at all.” “Tell me about it!” I give him an elbow in the spleen as I drag him along toward the Suburban. “Be glad you’re not related to her! What if it’s hereditary? “Like the spanking?” he says, dissolving into snickers. He wipes a tear away and gets consumed in manly deep laughter all over again. I try to shove him on the chest, but he flips the tables on me, spinning me around like we’re ballroom dancing, and walking me backward until we’ve got some privacy behind the Suburban. All my awkward frustration gets inverted into a sort of speechless need. He presses me up against the fender, one hand to my hip, the other to my ass, shaking his head at me like I’m so, so cute. He drives his hips into my stomach and gives me that yummy, possessive flick of his chin. I’m expecting something sexy next, like, You’re cute when you’re flustered, or Goddamn it, I love when you blush. Something very Russ. But instead he says, “She gave us some valuable intel though. The fur could be the answer.” No, no, no. I give him a halfhearted shove, but he doesn’t budge. “I’ve been traumatized enough. Do you know how difficult this is going to make watching nature shows with Guppy? Or seeing mascots during football games? I’ll never recover from this. Ever!” But it seems no amount of protest or whining is going to get this plan out of his sights now. “It’s fucking perfect. Him in a moose costume, dry humping a lady in a bunny suit? That’s the stuff that the internet was made for.”

I try to forget that image as soon as it takes shape in my head, along with all the rest, including my mom saying, A moose in the rut, ever seen one? “Sounds pretty sketchy. Messy. Hot.” Russ nods, pure confidence. “Exactly. All we really need to keep this place, this town, and the rest of your family Dickerson-free is something that’ll embarrass him. Something that we have, just us, that we can use as lasting, solid leverage.” Truthfully, I don’t much care how we get there, providing that at the end of it he’s ingloriously defamed, left to a lifetime of sweaty, second-hand velour tracksuits, and nights spent alone listening to Michael Bolton in some studio apartment on the wrong side of Tallahassee. Apparently, Russ can either read me like a book or he can hear my machinations from where he’s standing. “Edge of legal, Penny. I know you want to get him where it hurts, and I think this is it. I figure we can either catfish him, or we could honey trap him.” I squint up at him, blinking against the sun. “Are those actual verbs?” “God, you’re adorable.”

54 RUSS

The Paco’s Tacos truck is parked right behind the hardware store, and Paco knows Penny’s order by heart. In the corner of the menu, painted on the plywood, is a generic fish inside a big red circle and struck through with a diagonal red line. “Paco’s part of your tribe,” Penny explains. I give Paco my order and pay for our lunches, and we take a seat on a bench shaded by the angle of the building behind us. I pull my phone from my pocket, and I unlock it while Penny leans against me, so I feel the warmth of her bare arm against mine. The wind shifts, and I’m back in the fog again. “Why do you always smell so good?” She does this adorable thing, sort of sniffing around her face. “Do I?” “Christ. Yes.” “Mmm,” she says, leaning into me. “So do you.” “Yeah, but I don’t smell like fresh cookies.” She inhales deeper and more slowly. “Oh no, you smell better than that. And taste better, too. I should know.” It’s like there is nobody else on the planet. No Paco, no taco truck, no handfuls of people on their lunch break milling around and chatting. Just her. And me. And the purest fucking desire I’ve ever felt. What I wouldn’t give to lay her right down on this bench and fuck her until she comes with me inside her. “You’re making an animal of me.” She snickers. “And I’m not even wearing fur!” “Cute. So damned cute.” She gives me the Wi-Fi password for Visit Port Flamingo, and after about thirty seconds of searching, my phone moves from No Service to 1x Roaming… and back again. “Can I?” she asks, her fingers on each side of my phone. “It’s like using an Ouija board. Takes a special touch.” “All yours.”

She takes a long gulp of her watermelon juice and then sets the cup down on the asphalt. Keeping my phone flat in her palm, she angles it just so—left, down, right —until we get two full bars. “Okay. If we stay exactly like this, we’ve got a shot of a whiff of Wi-Fi. What are we looking for?” “FetLife.” Her eyes dart up to me. “Oh, geez.” “You got a better idea to find out what Adolf is up to? Because if so, I’m all for it.” She swallows hard and stares at the screen, which glints in the sun. Paco thunders out of the truck with our tacos in two Styrofoam boxes, rubber banded together with plastic silverware and napkins on top. As he walks away, leaving us alone again, I crowd her space a little. “And don’t pretend to be a prude,” I growl into her ear. “I know what you like, and it doesn’t taste like vanilla.”

As it happens, browsing FetLife with the woman I’ve not only fallen for but also want to fuck until she forgets her own name isn’t the smartest thing to do in public. While our tacos sit waiting, we make a fake profile, using the same email I used for Tumblr and every single online purchase I’ve ever made. I leave the profile details to her, mostly, because it’s fucking sexy, watching her decide what she likes, and even sexier, getting confirmation that she knows what she likes. Rather than marking herself down as a submissive, she scrolls down to switch. “Good girl.” I adjust my position, because this hard-on is fucking serious. She presses her lips together and squeaks. I reach across her, grab her purse, and put it in my lap. “Smart,” she says, nodding. “Necessary. For the record, I want to take you into that alley behind us and give you everything I’ve got.” Penny sort of gulp-hiccups and falls back on the bench. “Okay.” “And if there wasn’t a guy back there breaking down boxes for recycling, that’s exactly what we’d do. We clear?” She lets me take her weight on my shoulder. “Yeah. Very, very clear.” “Good,” I tell her, and pull her a little closer on the bench. Together, we make short work of it. Just a matter of clicks and a few quick zip code searches reveals there’s a guy two zip codes over with the screen name PandaPaul1986. I zoom in on the avatar. It’s a guy in a full-head panda mask, but that year at the end of his

handle… “Is that when your mom left him hanging? ’86?” “Yes!” Penny gasps. “Miss Havisham, right?” She gasps again. “Holy shit! Never even occurred to me.” “Hell, yeah. He’s frozen there. Probably still thinks the Berlin Wall is standing. The clothes, the glasses, the whole deal. You Darlings, you’re heartbreakers. Through and through.” Penny gives my arm a flat-handed smack and giggles. I zoom in tighter on the profile. “Male, 68. Entrepreneur. Interested in furmeets and yiffs. Always free to chat.” “Yiff?” Penny asks me, taking another big gulp of her watermelon juice. “You’ve got me.” “Okay, Google!” Penny says. “What’s a yiff?” Google answers, “A yiff is a type of room party at a furry convention where furries may engage in sexual intercourse with each other.” Man. Man. “I don’t know what to think about that, but I definitely know I don’t want to spend my last night with you at a furry convention.” “Seconded.” “So catfishing it’ll have to be…” Penny looks up at me and slurps a long gulp from her straw. “I have no idea what that means, Russ.” “You will soon.”

55 PENNY

An hour later, I step out of the dressing room at Masks and More in Coconut Cove. I’m in a sexy little fox costume—a furry leotard and a rubber muzzle mask that has the same smell as brand new rain boots. “Man,” Russ says, running his hand down over his stubble. “I’m not into this shit, but looking at you right now, I think I might get it.” I twirl around in front of the mirror, the fluffy fox tail swinging behind me. It’s not a full-body fur suit, but more of a Playboy bunny meets Grimm type thing, and not all together unflattering, much to my surprise. The ears are especially cute, and I adjust my headband for maximum effect. “You think this will work?” “Yeah, I do. You’re sure you’re game, though? I mean, you’ve known this guy your whole life, villain or not.” Looking hard at Russ in the mirror, I think it through. On one hand, I’d like to really nail Dick Dickerson in his surely sagging old-man scrotum. I’d like to divest Kindergarten Whatever The Hell Inc. of every single one of its shady holdings. But on the other hand, Dickerson was the man who once used half a jar of peanut butter to get a wad of Maisie’s gum unstuck from my hair when I was four years old. My mom was engaged to him for almost a year. He isn’t all bad. Or he wasn’t always. And the more I learn about him, the more pathetic and less villainous he seems. “How come you’ve got to be so logical?” He holds up his left palm and points to it. “Born that way.” And winks. While I do feel brave, Russ is right—the practicalities of this whole plan suddenly make me want to take a very hot, very long shower, with an extra scoop of salt scrub. I don’t even want to know the logistics of a yiff, let alone see one with my own eyeballs. And yet, we need to get Dickerson out of the picture as quickly as possible, for Port Flamingo’s sake. For my mom’s sake. For Omar the camel’s sake. “What’s our other option?” I ask him, adjusting my muzzle. He laughs a little, giving me a steamy stare. “Don’t know. You wouldn’t happen to know someone who’s got an almost pathological passion for vengeance, would

you? Who’s your age, who’d fit into that costume, and who told me while I was assembling her IKEA dresser that she quote ‘wouldn’t mind giving Dickerson the mother of all metaphorical wedgies, but was still working on the deets’ end quote?” He’s got all the skills and all the answers. “Maisie!” Russ nods and plays with a rubber clown nose that he just took off a display rack. “Think she’d do it?” In my own personal thesaurus, Would Maisie like to bring down the man who is trying to destroy our town? is a very complicated way of saying Obviously! “Are you kidding? She’ll be giving herself eyeliner whiskers so fast, we won’t know what hit us.” “Perfect. Now, change out of that outfit before I can’t handle myself anymore,” he says with a smack of my slightly furry bottom. In the changing room, I strip down to my skivvies, and that’s when I hear his phone ring. We are in Coconut Cove, after all, one town over from Port Flamingo, which means that real life can encroach on you anytime and anywhere. “Yeah,” I hear him say, rough and gravelly. “This is Macklin.” I pull my ears off and my muzzle and peek through the curtain at him. He’s turning a collar over in his hand. Lord have mercy on my soul. “Hey, man, I know. I’ll be there at six sharp. My flight comes in at four. If I’m late getting into Logan, I’ll let you know.” It takes only one second for me to piece together that he’s talking about his flight back to Boston. His life. The end of this crazy, perfect dream. Though I’ve known it’s coming, hearing the confirmation shocks me. It shocks me in a way that I’m hardly ever shocked, and a wave of emotions overtakes me so that I’ve got to brace myself on the little chair in the corner. “That sounds great. I’m stoked, too.” Even though his tone is quiet, and unexcited, the words are still there. The next chapter of his life is in motion, and it doesn’t involve me. I sink down, sitting on my fox costume, as my headband pokes me in the leg. The air conditioning blows on my mostly naked body, and I suddenly feel very cold, and very small, and very, very naïve. You silly girl. He’d never give it all up for you. Ever. With that thought, the sadness really overtakes me. When I sniffle, Russ’ face appears in the gap next to the curtain. “You okay?” His phone is still to his ear, but it’s me he’s talking to. I try to nod but a sob shoots out of my mouth. He ends the call without even saying goodbye. Through my welling tears, I watch him fling back the curtain and close it behind him. He scoops me up off the chair. “It’s okay, Penny. We’re going to figure it out.”

“But how?” I press my wet cheek into his chest and cling to him as hard as I can. He smooths my hair, and fills my left ear with a low stream of shhh, shhh, shhh, until I calm down a little. When the sadness eases up, he inches his face away from mine and asks, “If I go do something, really quick, will you stay here?” I wipe my tears away and nod. “Yes. I’ll be here.” “Five minutes. That’s all I need.” “Okay.” He gives me one more kiss, and leaves the dressing room, closing the red velvet curtain behind him as he goes.

He left his credit card with the guy at the front desk, and so when I come out, the costume is paid for. The clerk puts the outfit into a paper bag, using meticulous care to keep everything tidy and orderly, wrapping up the muzzle mask and the ear headband in tissue paper. But then something catches my eye. It’s an apron, and one I don’t have in my collection yet. It’s too skimpy to be useful, and that means it’s absolutely perfect. The French Maid. “I’ll buy that myself.” The clerk rings me up. “Same bag?” “Definitely. But hurry. I don’t want him to see it.” The clerk smiles to himself as he wraps it up quickly in a little tissue paper bundle, tucking it alongside the fox costume. I sign my receipt and tuck my card into my purse. Just as I’m taking the sack from the clerk, the door chime dings and Russ reappears. In his hand is a small paper bag. Russ leads me outside by the hand and stops in the shadow of a tree planted in a gap in the sidewalk. “It isn’t a ring,” he says, “but it’s something.” He hands the little sack over, and I open it up. There inside, I see it. Brilliant, sparkling brass. A freshly cut house key. “For your apartment?” I press the key to my chest, still warm from the key cutting machine. From his pocket he produces a keychain, which also looks brand new. Written on the little insert is his address in Boston. He pulls me to him and presses a kiss to the top of my head. “We’ll get through it. I promise you.” All the way down into my soul I want to believe him. I need to believe him. And so I summon up my strength, suspend my worry, and try to hang onto the way his body feels against mine. I take comfort in the smell of him and the size of his hand on the small of my back. I try to find some peace in the sound of the palms

swishing and the warmth of his breath on my cheek. “Let’s get this thing done, beautiful. First we take care of Panda Paul, and then the night belongs to you and me.”

56 RUSS

I pour Penny a glass of wine and turn on the burner under the pot of pasta water. She comes around the corner in a flowered sun dress, and I watch her tie a cute little French maid apron around her waist. Fuck me. I raise my beer to her. “To you and me. And saving Port Flamingo.” “To you and me especially.” “First and always.” But right as we take the first sip to celebrate our last night together for a while, I hear the clatter of the back gate. “You decent, lovebirds?” Maisie says. Penny puts her hand to her forehead. “This might be more than we bargained for, Russ. Maybe you should be the sexy fox. You’re very alluring. You’ve got a certain dark charm…” Not going to lie, it had occurred to me. Putting innocent women on the opposite end of an internet catfishing expedition isn’t exactly why I became a PI, but it’s the only way this time. “Pretty sure I’m not his type, and Maisie will do great. If it gets too weird, we’ll just close the laptop. That’ll be that.” Penny steadies herself with a gulp. “Okay. Yes. Deal.” Except it becomes pretty clear pretty quick, as Maisie walks in through the back door and Guppy leaps from the sofa, that there was a variable we didn’t consider in all this furry, Dickerson-undoing subterfuge. One quantity that we didn’t account for. The hundred-and-fifty-pound furry who lives here. Guppy himself. He skids to a stop and stares at Maisie, who—incidentally—looks fucking perfect for the job. Penny told her to go heavy on the eyeliner, and she did. She’s not nearly as sexy as Penny was in the costume, but there’s that little bit of crazy in her eyes that really puts the whole thing right over the top. And Guppy agrees. I look at the clock. 5:54 p.m., and I realize from his posture that the nightly love affair with his bed has been supplanted by something much

more alluring. “Oh, God,” Penny mutters, taking the pulse of the slowly unraveling situation, same as I am. She downs her wine. “Guppy. Bedtime.” Her voice is calm and firm, with a tiny undercurrent of concern. But Guppy isn’t hearing her. Guppy is in heaven. Right in front of him is a fox as big as he is, and he’s falling in love with her right in front of us. “It’s me,” Maisie says. “It’s your Auntie Maisie.” Guppy gives her hand a hard sniff and then humps the air in two undulations of his body. “Uh-oh,” says Maisie. “Not the pink rocket, not right now,” Penny mutters, trying to distract him with his armadillo. But not even the armadillo can stop this train from leaving the station. Guppy takes another step toward Maisie and raises himself up on his huge back legs, placing his enormous front paws on her bare shoulders. Maisie starts giggling, and he doubles down with the air humps. As soon as Maisie gets the giggles, so does Penny, and then it’s like a circle of positive feedback as one laugh feeds the other. Guppy gives his sexy new fox friend a huge lick across the face and his hips bounce along in the air. Maisie is so overcome with laughter that she ends up backing herself right onto the sofa, sinking down onto the floral pattern in a silent, full-body laugh. “Guppppppy,” Penny tries to say through voice-shaking giggles. “No. Bedtime.” I clear my throat sternly. “Car-car, Guppy.” Penny tries another one. “Beach.” My turn again. “Brekkie.” Not a fucking single syllable gets through, not least because Maisie is squealing and laughing. Floral throw pillows tumble from the couch, and the wicker squeaks with every thrust. I pry him off of Maisie in a backwards bear hug and carry him off to the bedroom, while Penny walks in front of us with a handful of cookies. He’s panting and drooling and still dry humping the air. “Easy, man. Easy.” I feel like I’m trying to reassure a buddy after a bar brawl. Penny closes the bedroom door and I set him down on her bed, where he flops onto the blanket, exhausted. From the kitchen, Maisie hoots, a long, delighted, “Wheeeeeee!” and I hear her pouring some wine for herself. “That was like something out of one of your nature shows,” Penny says sweetly, patting him on the head. He gobbles up the cookies and rolls onto his side. Canine vigor spent.

Penny steps away from the bed and looks up at me. “That was really… I’ve never seen anything like it. I almost didn’t want to watch, but I couldn’t look away.” She bites back a laugh, like she doesn’t want to embarrass poor Guppy any more than he already has himself. “At least the costume passed the test.” Penny nods slowly as we turn to go. “It sure did.” Just as I open the bedroom door for Penny, guiding her through, we hear the familiar noise of Skype ringing from my laptop. This time, though, it’s not the account I normally use, the one that belongs mostly to Penny now. This is a new account that belongs to FoxyLoxy, which “Foxy” used to bait Dickerson into a virtual yiff. And now here he is, right on time. I take a few long strides down the hallway to the laptop. I click record on the screen-cast software, and pull out Maisie’s chair for her. Penny straightens Maisie’s muzzle and cleans a little smudge of eyeliner out from under Maisie’s eyelashes with a damp fingertip, like she’s doing makeup before the five o’clock news. “You ready?” I ask her as Penny steps away, hands to her mouth in anticipation. Maisie slugs back a gulp of chardonnay, slams the glass on the table, and says, “Hell yes, I am! Roll tape.”

Maisie is flirtatious, coy, and she keeps doing this thing where she ruffles up her hair and kind of scratches her furry ears. Every fucking time she does it, Dickerson gasps like she just grabbed his balls. “So, big boy,” Maisie says, putting her elbows together on the kitchen table and pouting, “How was your day?” I lean into Penny’s ear and whisper, “Has she done this before?” Penny raises a finger and pulls her to-do list pad from the fridge. On the other end of the video feed, Dickerson talks about himself not as Dickerson but as Panda Paul, who has a whole legend of his own, which is mind-blowingly detailed. Born in the bamboo forests of Thailand, the alpha male of the pack, sire to sixteen cubs, on and on and on. The dude is intense. But Maisie doesn’t flinch, not even once. The weirder the details, the more interested she looks. “I’d let you sire my cubs any day,” she says, with an actual purr. On the pad of paper, Penny writes, She had a super-kinky boyfriend in Denmark for four years. They never met in person, but he asked her to marry him 17 times. So, you know. Makes perfect fucking sense. Together we watch Maisie work her charms. The

whole time, I keep my hand tightly around Penny, and without even meaning to, I find myself feeling up her ass. She swats my hand away. “Sorry,” I mouth. And she wiggles her sweet little finger in the air in a way that doesn’t make me feel bad about it, not one fucking bit. I take the pad of paper and rip off Penny’s note to me. On the back of the page, in clear capital letters, I write down a message for Maisie. We need him without his mask. Penny slides it across the table for her, and Maisie makes an almost imperceptible bob of her chin to say she’s got it. “How about you let me see that face of yours, Paul. I want to see the man behind the beast.” Except Panda Paul is deep in character. “This is my face, Foxy Loxy. I’m Panda Paul. This is me.” Christ. Next to me, Penny winces. She touches her fingertips to her ears like she’d really, really like to drown it all out with a good loud la-la-la-la. But Maisie, she’s a fucking pro. “I know it is, Paul. But I’m very curious as to what sort of human male would have a booming, beautiful voice like yours. I want to know the animal behind the animal. So virile. So masculine. So alpha.” There’s a long pause, filled only by the hollow sound of Dickerson breathing behind his mask. Vaguely like Darth Vader, but with more fur involved. “Please,” Maisie pleads. “Foxy, this is my face.” Maisie does her ear scratch and then paws seductively at her muzzle. Panda Paul groans again, but doesn’t seem to be ready to take the bait, not yet. That’s when Penny grabs the pad of paper and writes out a message. She writes it so fast, I can’t even fucking see it before she’s slid across the table to Maisie. I watch Maisie read the note, and then she raises her gaze to the webcam, batting her long fake lashes. “You sound like that guy who played Magnum P.I. Tom Selleck. Mmmmmm.” “Really?” says Panda Paul. “Oh yes,” coos Maisie. I step around to the side of the living room, out of frame but close enough to see the screen. Penny stays where she is in the kitchen, holding her wine in her hand and grimacing like she’s bracing for a plane crash. “Please, Paul.” Maisie says, and adds a tiny, high-pitched, “Arf?” That little yelp seals the deal. Dickerson puts his furry panda paws to the sides of his mask. There’s a rustle, and the sound of some separating Velcro.

And then there he is. Dick Dickerson, with a panda mask on top of his head, looking sweaty and drunk on all this kink. “This is me, Foxy Loxy. Here I am. Rawr!” From the kitchen, Penny squeaks with delight, and I stand behind Maisie, letting my face get into the frame. “What in the ever-loving… Macklin!” He yanks his mask back down, keeping his furry hands on the sides of his face, like the losing mascot at a college basketball game. “Get your fat fingers out of Port Flamingo, Dickerson.” “Leave my mom alone!” Penny chimes in from off screen. “And stop being such a turd,” Maisie adds. He groans from under his mask and puts his hands to his googly panda eyes. “Goddamn you, Macklin. I knew it. Never trust a man in a lavender dress shirt!” “Fuck you, Dick.” I've got him where I want him, and now it’s time for the death blow. “Knock off your shit or else this video goes viral faster than you can say ‘bunker shot.’” “Grrrrrr!” says Panda Paul. I give him the old Semper Fi salute. “Pleasure doing business with you, Adolf.” End tape.

After Maisie leaves, and after we toast each other and a job well done a handful of times, to partners and crime, to the downfall of Dickerson, and all the rest, I hoist her up on the kitchen counter, like I had her that first night. “You’re kind of a hero, you know,” she says, biting her lip and tipping back into my arms. I can tell she’s a little tipsy. Fuck, yes. “Are you hungry?” I ask, and pull her toward me, sliding both her skirt and her French maid’s apron up her legs. “Not for dinner, I’m not.” She hooks her finger over my belt and wraps her calves around my ass. I hoist her off the counter and take her by the hand into the bedroom. Guppy stumbles out of his Foxy Loxy dreams and trots off toward the kitchen. Walking her backward, her knees bend as she gets to the mattress. She plants her hands and scoots toward the pillows. Both the sundress and the apron ride up her thighs, showing off her panties. She tugs my shirt off over my head, and it falls to the ground. Her legs fall open for me automatically, like she knows exactly what I need. I take her panties with my teeth and drag them aside, hooking them with my forefinger to expose her pussy in all its fucking glory. I sink right into her,

pulling at her clit with my teeth, and reach up with my other hand to pinch her nipple. She responds to the pinch with a shudder, but then she relaxes underneath me, trusting me to do what needs to be done. Tangled up in all these last few hours is a big fear of mine. She’s a beautiful woman. I’ll be three thousand miles away. I’m not so fucking cocky as to think that she might not meet someone else while we’re apart, and I wouldn’t blame her. It is possible—the worst fucking case scenario—that this is the last time I'll ever be with her, and I've got to be ready for that. So once I’ve gotten a taste of her, once I’m high on the way she feels and the way she smells, like seashells, like the ocean outside, I pull my mouth from her pussy, and wipe my lips on her leg. I take my phone from my pocket, and then unzip my pants and take off my boxers. I kneel on either side of her, with my cock on her belly and take a shot of that. A shot of her pussy. A close up of my cock against her clit, with the edge of her panties in the frame. Another close-up of her nipple pinched between my fingers. She reaches out for my phone and flips through them. “Oh God,” she says through gritted teeth. “I want plenty of those, okay? When we’re apart? Send me all your filth.” She nods, looking sad already. “I’ll fill that Skype window up with so much skin, you’ll be afraid to open it in public.” “That is what I’m talking about.” I toss my phone on the bed and drag my hands down her body, trying to cover every fucking inch of her with my prints, obsessed with the idea of marking her as mine. The bruise on her hip is still there, so I grab a shot of that as well. “I’d fucking love to see that as a tattoo.” I press my fingers to the spot. “I’ll do it. All you’ve got to do is say the word.” She is a fucking goddess, and that sweet shell is only for show. She’s all fire under there. Exactly what I’ve always needed. “I don’t want any other man to touch you ever again.” Her eyebrow goes up. “Possessive looks fantastic on you.” I stand at the foot of the bed and pull off my shirt. “You make me fucking wild with it. Insane to make you mine.” She laughs a little, turning her cheek to the sheets and letting me see that long gorgeous line of her throat. Her fingers move up to her starfish pendant, and she brings it to her lips. “You already gave me your key.” “Yeah,” I say, looking her up and down, taking in every last fucking inch. “But I want to give you a lot more than that.” She watches me like she doesn’t know what to say. Or like she’s trying to decipher it. And for one second, I’m thinking, Fuck, man. You pushed too hard.

But then she places her feet to my thighs, pushing her ass up off the bed. Her back bows and makes her abdomen curve outwards in this sexy, exaggerated way. For one fucking second, in that bend in her stomach, I can see what she might look like not as she is now, but… I run my hand over that bowed curve and the tightly stretched skin over her belly button. She’s got to be thinking what I’m thinking. It’s so fucking obvious here between us. It’s hanging in the air like an unsaid thought. It’s the most human goddamned thing, which would bind us past distance and jobs. Past hometowns and five-year plans. The thing I never even considered until she started letting me put my cum inside her. “Goddamn it, Penny. Don’t tease me.” But she doesn’t giggle or turn her cheek. She doesn’t play demure and bat her lashes. She doesn’t snicker. She holds my stare and says, “I’m not teasing you, Russ. You want me to be yours, make me yours.” She bows her stomach further, exaggerating that imaginary place. Holy shit. This perfect woman, this gorgeous creature, by my side forever? All the years roll out in front of me, one snapshot after another. “If that happens, we can’t stop with one.” “Not one. Three. Five. Seven. Nine,” she says, now smiling a little. She opens her legs wider, and I sink down into her deeper. Without even needing to guide my shaft, I push inside her, shifting her panties aside with my cock. When I’m truly balls deep, I pull her into me even farther, hooking my fingers over her shoulders and covering her as much as I can with my body. Because I want to protect her, I want to devour her, I want to be her everything. Forever and fucking ever. “You know what I’m talking about,” I say, and put my hand on her belly. “I want to be clear about that.” She nods, and into my ear she whispers, “I want that to be the risk every time you come inside me. Every single time.” “Fuck. Penny.” She gives me a ball-busting squeeze. “Every time.” Fuck. But as usual, her words, her body, her moans and curled toes, they make me want more. She makes me so fucking greedy for her—to be more, to have more, to take her to the limit. To be filthy, and possessive, and never apologize. My lips are right against her ear, and I can taste her perfume on her skin. “I want to fuck my baby into you. I don’t need papers, I don’t need rings. I want to knock you up and make you mine. Simple as that.” She presses her head back into the mattress, putting an inch between her eyes and mine. I move my right hand down onto her ass and grip it hard, digging my fingers into that perfect, soft flesh. Her knees fall back into the good, old-

fashioned missionary. She places her lips to my ear now, and her breath warms my cheek. I give her one slow drive, and then another, which is when she finally says, “Do it, Russ. Get me pregnant, if you haven’t already.” And with those words, the deepest desire I never knew I had comes fucking unleashed.

We lie in bed for hours, her with her head resting on my arm, me gently stroking her hair. We take a midnight walk in the moonlight along the beach. We make a plan for me to come back in two weeks, and for me to fly her up to see me two weeks after that. At the end of the Point, she turns to me and loops her arms up around my neck. “I’m going to miss you so, so much.” I watch a tear slide down her cheek, shimmering in the bluish moon rays. “How about I see if I can push back the contract signing? I'll do anything for you, Penny. Just tell me what you need.” She doesn’t answer me. For the first fucking time, she doesn’t give it to me straight. And what I need straight, right now, is for her to say all the big things that seem too soon to say. Yes. Now. Forever. You and me. Give up everything. Take a chance on this. But she doesn’t. Instead, she wipes her cheek against my shirt, and shakes her head. “Two weeks,” she says, with lips quivering, breaking my goddamned heart.

57 PENNY

I follow him to the rental car drop off. I park in the waiting spot and get out, keeping my hand in his every step of the way. Every single thing needs to be memorized. The way he walks, the way his pants hug that sexy tush, his body. His eyes. He puts the keys and the contract onto the counter, and slides them across to the attendant. I don’t notice anything or anybody, except for him. The noise of the television seems very far away, and the only thing I’m really aware of—really need to feel—is him beside me. He pays his bill, and we leave the little cube of a rental car office. He puts his suitcase into the back of my Bronco and slams the tailgate shut. Cupping his hand to his forehead, he shields his face from the sun and looks down at me. It’s like every single minute is an eternity. I don’t want them to pass, and yet I know they are ticking by. Each second is one fewer that belongs to us. Behind him is a clump of palm trees, swaying in the breeze. I take my phone from my pocket and open up the camera. I get up onto my tiptoes and plant a kiss on his cheek, snapping the photo as I do. I can’t even bear to look at it, not here. Not now. Not yet. “Send that to me, okay?” he says. Already, I’m getting choked up, and I nod hard, pursing my lips to keep back a sob. I drop my phone in my purse and then get into the driver’s seat of my car. He gets in the other side, and his hand finds its way to my thigh, that same possessive, delicious grip that he has used on me since the first time. It’s as if neither of us knows what to say, and so we drive along in painful, heart-wrenching silence. I pull into the short-term parking garage, out of the sun and into the deep shadows. I don’t waste time looking for a spot, but pick the first one. As I put the Bronco in park, he leans over and cradles my jaw in his hand. This kiss is more tender than urgent, and also so very, very sad. My tears slide down my cheeks and make his lips wet against mine. Together we make our way toward the terminal. He carries his suitcase by the

side handle, so there’s no clacking rolling noise, only the sound of our footsteps on the oil-stained concrete. The suitcase doesn’t seem heavy to him, because I realize it isn’t. It only contains a week’s worth of his clothes. That’s all it’s been. One week. One week that changed my entire life. And now it’s over. He checks in for his flight, never letting go of my hand. I catch a glimpse of him on his license, where he looks much less happy, more like when I first saw him and not at all like the man I’ve gotten to know. Before the ticket agent can take his bag, I pull my pink pom-pom from my purse and double-knot it onto the handle. “There,” I whisper. I look up at him and see that his lips, those sexy, confident lips, are trembling. He puts his fist to his mouth and his eyes fill up with tears, spilling over his dark lashes and sliding down his cheeks. As soon as his tears start coming, so do mine, in big, awful, painful sobs. “I hate this,” I say into his shirt. His breath is jagged as he tries to keep the sadness down. “Fuck. So do I.” The attendant takes his bag and looks sadly from him, to me, and back again, then puts it on the conveyor and says, “Gate A6, Mr. Macklin. Boarding in half an hour.” We wait until the bitterest, bitterest end of those thirty minutes. We sit together, making more plans for the next visit, and the one after and the one after, assuring each other it’ll go by in a flash, that it won’t feel like any time at all, that two weeks will pass before we know it. But every single minute of this week was the most precious eternity, and how I’ll survive twice that time without him, I just don’t know. As the final boarding call comes over the loudspeakers, we head for security. I wait with him all the way through until they won’t let me stay anymore, until the TSA agent has stamped his ticket and handed him his ID. He turns to me and takes me in his arms, walking me up against the black lane tape and out of the way. “This has been the best week of my whole life, Penny. I never knew what it was like to be happy until I met you.” There are so many things I want to tell him, so much I can’t say. Please don’t go. Please stay. Please. Please. Please. But over the loudspeaker, they’re calling his name. “I love you,” I say, as he hugs me so tight that my feet come right the ground, until there is no gravity but him, no force in the world stronger than what we feel together. “Tell me when you land in…” But I can’t get the words out. “I love you, too. I’ll see you soon,” he says, finally setting me down. He steps

back from me and turns away. Ask me to come with you again. Insist on it. Tell me your heart is breaking too. And he does turn to me but doesn’t say anything. Just smiles and wipes his eyes, thumb and forefinger pushing away the tears. I have never known heartache like this, never. It’s the kind of grief that makes me want to fall right down onto my knees. I watch him take off his belt and see the sliver of skin under his shirt as it comes untucked. He puts his bag on the conveyor, and his laptop. His shoes, his keys. All the little things that I adore because they are his. Everything that is his is perfect. Everything that he is, perfect too. He stays, with his eyes on me, for one long moment. And then he’s gone. Somehow, through my tears, I find my way back to my car. I press the earbud holder to my chest. I open my phone to the picture of the two of us in the sun and clap my hand to my mouth. And for a long time, I sit in the dark, quiet parking garage, sobbing with my head to the steering wheel, while all around me Adele sings about the difference between us, the million miles, and who we used to be.

58 RUSS

Just before we take off, my phone dings. I want it to be the thousand things I need to hear. Don’t go. Stay. Stay forever. But instead it’s the picture of us together, in front of the palm trees. I look so happy that I barely recognize myself. But I recognize her. The love of my life, now getting farther and farther from me as we taxi toward takeoff. I open up the video of her laughing from the day when she was driving back to me. Her giggle fills my ears, and that contagious smile makes me smile too. Again and again I watch it—her glance, her smile, her whole-body giggle. And my heart bottoms out every time it ends. I don’t even try to hide the tears as I watch Port Flamingo disappear below the plane. I wish with all my fucking heart I’d gotten on one knee and told her, Fuck real life. Marry me. Be with me forever. All the shit I should have said last night, and today, and a hundred other times, but didn’t.

59 PENNY

As soon as I get home I get back in bed, where I spend the new few hours crying into Guppy’s fur and drifting in and out of sleep as old episodes of Murder, She Wrote stream at me from my laptop. As I finish off an entire pint of Rocky Road, my phone dings with a message from the mayor.

Dickerson’s pulled his permit for the golf course! Looks like he’s moving on, Darling!

It seems as good a time as any to break the bad news to the mayor, so I rub my snot with my knuckle, send a party hat emoji with only half my heart, and tell him:

I think the movie scout was actually here investigating him.

Which he answers with a .gif of Sonny Bono clapping. I drop my phone into the sheets and tuck my face into the cool pillow case where Russ slept. My phone buzzes again, and I see that it isn’t Russ, or even the mayor, but now a message from my mom. It’s a picture of Omar, which she’s outlined with a hand-drawn red heart, the lines a little jerky from her phone’s photo edit app. Underneath she’s added the message:

You two did it! The farm is safe!

Give that Russ a hug for me! I want to be happy. I am happy, for her and the animals and Dennis, and for Port Flamingo too—but I am also well and truly stuck in a hopeless, heartbroken mope. With no more ice cream left, I move onto the Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies, which make my sheets feel like I just sprinkled them with sand. I pull up his flight information on Google, and keep hitting refresh until he lands in Boston. Within seconds of the flight showing landed, he messages me with a simple:

I love you.

And the tears start all over again. He was here for so little time, and yet he changed everything. He changed me, he changed our town, he changed my life. He rattled everything I am, everything I know, and everything I’ve ever thought I wanted, too. Maisie comes to check on me every few hours and finally comes and stays about five o’clock. She sits by my bedside, putting her hand to my forehead every ten minutes and taking my pulse for no reason whatsoever. She feeds Guppy, and she drags my UPS boxes in from the porch. But around six o’clock, she marches into my bedroom with her fists on her hips. “I’m all for mourning periods, but I can’t watch this.” And then she literally pulls me out of bed. She makes me put on a pair of soft black shorts and my favorite tank top. She dots my cheeks with blush and then, hauling me by both arms, loads me into her car. “Where are we going?” I say sadly against the window. “To cheer you up. I know just the thing.” Just the thing is, of course, not the thing at all, because it’s a drink together at Lucky’s. As she puts her little hatchback in park in the sandy parking lot, I drop my face into my hands, and the sobbing starts all over. I’m too exhausted to tell her that this is the worst place she could have picked, and yet I’m also too tired to resist. She loops her elbow in mine, and we walk through the sand, down the very same path I took with Russ. Where our feet were that first night. Where everything started to change forever. On the beach, we sit in the same place where Russ and I sat, but the sand doesn’t budge underneath Maisie’s chair. I peer at the hot sauces through my fingers. “I don’t know how to do this, Maisie. I know I shouldn’t feel so…” Her hand rubs the back of mine gently and slowly. “It’s okay. You feel how you feel, and that makes sense to me.”

The tears splat down on my bare legs. Maisie orders two mango margaritas for us and I look up at Lucky as I sniffle. Even through the fuzziness of my tears, I can see his big face is worried and pained. “You okay, Pen? That guy recover from the incident?” The tidal wave of sadness hits me once again. It’s madness, and yet it’s the only logical thing. There is a wisdom of the head and a wisdom of the heart. I know I will see him again, but there is a great big gaping hole in my chest where he used to be. Where he should always be. “She’s okay,” Maisie explains, handing me a paper napkin. “Two frozen, mango, sugar rim. A double for me and a triple for her.” I try to blow my nose, but I’ve been crying so hard that my sinuses are blocked up completely. I make a dreadful honk into the rough brown paper napkin, and the tears keep on coming. Lucky returns with our margaritas and a basket of complimentary calamari. As soon as he sets it down on the table, I press my napkin to my eyes so hard that I see flashes. Maisie makes soothing, “Shhh, shhh, shhh,” noises. The squirt of lemon is a gentle spray on my forearm, but I’m too stuffed up to smell it. “You need to eat,” she says. “You’ll disappear on me if you don’t, and we can’t have that. Who’s going to beta test my new salt scrub? Who’s going to do happy hour yoga with me, if not you? Norm from UPS?” She skewers a piece of calamari with her plastic fork, holding it out in the air to me. She nudges my closed lips with the battered circle. “Oh em gee, Penny. It’s not the hay smoothie. You love calamari. So down the hatch. Please,” she pleads, and I finally open my mouth. “There we go.” She nods maternally as I do my best to chew it. I swallow hard, gulping down some of my margarita through a straw and blotting at my cheeks with a new napkin. Maisie feeds me another piece of calamari and then another. As I chew, she makes small chewing motions of her own, nodding with her perfect eyebrows mushed together in a dramatic line. Every swallow reminds me of being a little kid and having two ear infections and a cold at the same time. “It’s okay, Penny.” Her voice is far away, and I feel like I’m underwater. “It’s going to be fine. Just two weeks, and he’ll be right back here.” “Two weeks. Fourteen days. Three hundred thirty-six hours.” Cue the wracking sobs again. “Boy, Cupid is launching a full-scale assault on you. Have some margarita. Let me get you some of my calming tincture. It only tastes like vinegar for a second.” I put the margarita straw in my mouth, but before I can take a gulp, something

else comes over me—it’s a totally unfamiliar feeling. It’s a queasy, stomach-rolling dizziness. Once, my uncle took me out on some choppy seas, and I felt sick like this. I put my margarita down and hang on to the edge of the table. A tremor of nausea comes up from way down in the pit of my stomach, and my hands go cold and clammy. I slap my palm to my mouth and bolt for the trashcan, but it’s too late. This ship is sailing, and I lose my cookies right into the lapping ocean waves. Maisie is right behind me, and soon enough comes Lucky with a damp wad of paper towels. I fall down to my knees in the wet sand, the stinging bile of the vomit hot in my nostrils and burning my throat. “There’s something wrong with that calamari,” I tell Lucky as I clean off my mouth. “There isn’t,” he says, patting me on the back. “I’ve been eating it all day. So has everybody else.” “I feel fine,” Maisie adds. “Maybe it’s all the crying. Let’s get you home. I’ll put you in the bath, and then we can watch some Dickens.” Oh, God. Up comes the sadness and the wave of nausea again. I heave into the sand and throw up the ice cream from lunch. “Maybe you’ve got a bug.” Maisie moves my hair aside. I dig my fingers into the sand and brace for another round. The waves slide up the shore, and the smell of the ocean makes me sick all over again, reducing me to horrible dry heaves. “Maybe I should take you to Urgent Care.” “Maisie,” I groan, through the rolls of sickness, “I love you, but you’re not helping.” “’Kay, okay,” she says softly, pulling my hair back into a makeshift ponytail as I fall to my elbows, overcome with nausea again. “Quiet time. I gotcha.” I watch Lucky’s huge bare feet sink into the wet sand, until he’s in up to his ankles. Another round of heaves rips into me, and another, until I’m on all fours on the beach. When I lower myself back down to sitting, in between bouts, Lucky lets out a whistle that sounds like one of the mayor’s radio sound effects. “Last time I saw someone sick quite like this,” Lucky says, patting me on the back again, “was when my missus was pregnant.” Maisie’s hand halts its soothing rubs. A barge horn stops, leaving the air eerily silent. I freeze, watching the waves fizzle out in front of me. And then I turn to look at Maisie, whose mouth drops open as she stares at me, unblinking. Pregnant. Oh. My. God.

60 RUSS

At six that night, I get out of a cab in front of a steakhouse on Boylston. The streets are full of people heading home, watching the ground as they walk, and it’s starting to snow. I walk through the first door, into the small heated anteroom, and the hostess opens the second door for me. “I’m meeting a couple of guys here. Reservation’s probably under Miller.” She glances down at the computer, a flat panel in the podium. “Yes, sir. Can I take your coat?” I exchange my jacket for a claim check ticket, and she leads me through the packed restaurant. Steaks sizzle, and forks clatter on plates. At the far table, in a private corner, sits Rex with two of his investors—Army guys, too, but I don’t know them. All three of them are in suits, like I am. In front of the empty chair sits a Scotch on the rocks, waiting for me. On top of my menu is a manila folder with the Darkwater logo. Two weeks ago, I was so fucking stoked about this. No more PI hustle—just steady, solid work for someone who’s been to hell and back with me. But now, everything is different. She undid me completely. Rex stands up and shakes my hand. He introduces the other two as Ortega and Brooks. It’s the old familiar move—a shoulder-grip hug. “Nice tan,” Rex says, when we take our seats again. “Where the hell have you been?” Only getting my goddamned heart flipped upside down. “Fuck, if you only knew.” He studies me like there’s some secret that he’ll be able to find on my face, or like I'm hiding a shrapnel wound to keep up morale. “You good?” “Yeah, I’m good.” Such fucking bullshit. I’m the opposite of good. I check my phone, like I've been checking all day, my thumb automatically opening up Skype and the chat window with her. She replied to my earlier message with I love you too. But there’s been nothing since. I look up from my phone and inhale hard, looking around the table. It’s a surreal

déjà vu, back to sitting across from Rex at endless poker games in Basra. Back to the tours we felt like might never end. But that was then. And this—this feeling in my gut—is now. “Paperwork first, celebrate after,” Rex says, and uncaps a pen. Rex’s wedding ring catches my eye, and so does his phone on the table, the picture of his wife underneath the passcode, with their two kids kissing her cheeks. Then the screen fades to black. Ortega and Brooks order another round of drinks, and Rex asks the waitress for four shots of Jack. I open up the manila folder and the words come at me like graphics on a PowerPoint. 5-year contract. Benefits. 2.5% share. I flip to the first flag, waiting for my signature. I put my pen to the paper. And think of her. And what we could have, right now. And forever after. This contract is a seriously sweet deal. But not as sweet as her. That’s when I know it: She is my future, there’s no fucking doubt about that. I take my pen off the signature line, and then shake my head at Rex. “Sorry, man. I can’t.” Rex puts his elbows on the table, making all the glasses shake. He doesn’t look pissed as much as totally fucking puzzled. Ortega and Brooks give each other a glance, and in unison loosen their ties. Rex says, “You what?” I close up the folder and blow out a long breath. “I just…” I look down at the logo, all industrial, mysterious. Ominous. Secret jobs, high-value intel. A world apart from the one I want, from the woman I need. “…I can’t.” The waitress returns with the shots first. In front of each of us, the whiskey shivers in thick crystal glasses. Rex lifts his hands to say What the fuck? But now, I don’t hesitate. There’s only one reason to pass up the job of a lifetime, and it’s Penny Eleanor Darling. So I just fucking say it. Pure and simple: “I met a woman in Florida, and I don’t want to say goodbye to her ever again.” As Rex rubs his crew cut, he looks at me, both perplexed and astonished. And I don’t blame him. I once told him what I used to believe—that love was for other people. Not for me. “Dude,” Rex says finally. “For real?” “I know. Fucking crazy, right?” He stares at me hard, his forehead a series of deep parallel grooves. “You love her?” It’s crazy, it’s fast, and it’s intense. It’s the truth. “Yeah. I really do.” “Holy shit. What’s her name?” “Penny.” Even saying that one single word makes me smile so fucking hard.

And then Rex starts to smile too. “Well, goddamn. I never thought I’d see the day.” “Me, neither.” All the stress of today drains out of my shoulders, and I feel like I can finally breathe. The big weight is gone. The path is clear. “But I’m really fucking sorry to leave you high and dry.” “Fuck that,” Rex says, beaming. “Jobs are jobs, a dime a dozen, but love?” He spins his ring and nods. Then he raises his shot glass, and so do Ortega and Brooks. And Rex says, “Love is everything. So goddamn it, man, here’s you. And to Penny!” To Penny. For Penny. With Penny. Forever.

I get back to my apartment, with its gray walls and its clean lines. I look up the next flight to Port Flamingo, which leaves the day after tomorrow. It’s all middle seats, it costs a fortune, and it’ll take all day. I've never hit book trip so fast in my life. Staring out at the brick wall across the street, I order a pizza and give her a call. She sounds stuffed up, like she’s been crying, and I fucking get it. Until I turned Rex down, I felt like my whole soul was bleeding out. Part of me wants to tell her I’m coming back to her, that I’ll be there before she knows it. That we’ll be together soon, and I’m never leaving again. But more than that, I want to surprise her. Really surprise her. I want to show up with a one-way ticket and every single promise kept. I want to see the look on her face when she walks in from work, and I’m on the couch with Guppy, watching nature shows and drinking a beer with her name on it, with her house full of flowers and dinner all ready to go. If we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together, I want to get it kicked off exactly fucking right. I want to see her face. I want to hold her tight. And I can’t do any of that shit from Boston. “You okay?” I ask her as I head into the bedroom. I put my suitcase on the bed and take off my tie. “Yes,” she says, sniffling, but I can hear her smile. “I’m great. How are you?” “I’m all right.” I put her on speaker and set her on my bedside table. “How did the contract signing go?” “Fantastic,” I say, pushing down my happiness, keeping my voice neutral. “There was a surprise, but I was ready.” She sniffles again, and then she blows her nose. In the background on her end, I hear Guppy squeaking his armadillo. I’m about to unzip my bag, but I realize there’s something way more important than getting repacked. I go to my dresser and start digging through the drawers for the thing I never thought I’d use. I riffle through my boxers, my long underwear,

my undershirts. There, in the bottom drawer, I find the black leather ring box. I pop it open and take out my mom’s wedding ring, which was also my grandmother’s. The only Macklin family heirloom in the world. I put it on my first finger, and it doesn’t even hit the knuckle. Somehow, I know it’ll fit her. But if it doesn’t, she can wear this one around her neck, because Penny Darling’s got diamonds coming her way. Every anniversary, every birthday, for forever. “By the way, tomorrow I’ve got to help out at the Kumquat Festival,” she says. “I have to be there at seven in the morning. If you can’t get hold of me, that’s why.” I tuck the ring back into its little slot and put the box on top of the dresser, front and center. “Sounds good. I’ve got a packed day, too.” But not with what she thinks. Instead of starting a new job, I'll be moving my bank accounts, giving notice on the lease for this place, and checking to see if the Shorefront Grill is still for sale. “Want to eat dinner with me and then watch Little Dorrit together on Netflix?” she asks. I hear the clatter of a pan and the noise of her kitchen faucet. I smile at the sad, old yarn pom-pom. For one more day, I can handle it. For thirty-six more hours, I’ll survive. “That sounds perfect.”

61 PENNY

The Kumquat Festival was a white lie. The next afternoon I step out of Logan Airport, wearing a pair of boots that Maisie kept from her corporate days in Maryland, along with a pair of mittens that have a small moth hole in the palm. The noises of cabs, cars, and buses swirl around me, but I don’t notice any of it, because although everything is strange and loud, it’s also magical. Falling from the sky are big, fat, snow-globe flakes that don’t look real. Each little crystal shimmers in the street lights. I turn my face upwards and let them patter down onto my cheeks. I pull off my glove with my teeth and feel the small pinpricks of cold on my palm. I’ve never felt anything like it. It’s like the gentlest salt spray that the ocean ever made. It’s almost dusk. The cold stings my nose, and diesel fumes, too. But it’s all just perfect. Someone bumps into me from behind, and as I take a step to get my footing, my hand goes automatically to my stomach. Because what Lucky suspected was true. Maisie and I confirmed it with three different brands of pregnancy tests that we bought from Mrs. Martenson. I am a plus sign, two lines, and PREGNANT. And I’ve never been so happy in my life. A cab pulls up into the cab stand, and the driver rolls down the passenger’s side window. “Going somewhere, lady, or just going to stand there and look at the sky?” At first, it shocks me—that brash accent and the rudeness, too. This isn’t the land of Afternoon, hon, where you headed? But then I realize he’s smiling when he says it, so I smile back. “Yes, I’m going somewhere.” I drag Maisie’s pink suitcase, which has a working handle, through the fluffy flakes. He puts his taxi in park and gets out. He’s a little guy, much shorter than me, with huge unruly eyebrows and kind blue eyes. He slaps down the roller handle and flings open his trunk, which also holds a bag of salt, a little shovel, an ice scraper, and three gallons of wiper fluid. One lane over, a van driver pounds on his horn. The lady he’s honking at doesn’t hurry along but instead rolls down her window and gives him the finger.

Definitely not the land of sweet tea. But there’s a loud plainness about all of it that I find I like very much. No nonsense. You honk at me, I’ll give you the bird, so how about that? “First time to New England?” he asks me when I slide into the back of the cab. “Yes, never been north of Atlanta. I’ve never seen snow before,” I say, mesmerized by the way the flakes make white ridges, like frosting, on even the tiniest surface. “We got a blizzard coming, so it’s a damned good thing you got in when you did. Might get two feet or more.” “Feet?” He turns up the heat a little higher and maneuvers through the clogged lanes of cars. “Feet. So where are we heading?” “One sec.” I buckle up and tuck my purse into my lap. From the top of the vortex, his brass apartment key shines back at me, and I can’t help but smile so hard it makes my cheeks ache. I pull out my phone, delighted by full coverage and not a single roaming warning. But I don’t want to blow the surprise, so I stay in the Skype app, and ask:

Are you home? Not yet. Bank, dry cleaners. You?

Lying really doesn’t come naturally to me, but I can do it for a little while longer. It’s for the very best cause.

Still up to my eyeballs in kumquats. Will you be home in an hour or so? Can we video?

Can’t wait

“Lady!” barks the cabbie. “Where are we going?” He lifts his hands and glares at me in the slightly dusty rearview mirror. “I’ve got shit to do! Snow to shovel, Cards Against Humanity to play.” He snaps his gloved fingers, making a wooly thud. “What’s the address?” “1023 Worchester Street.” He wrinkles up his red nose and tries to rotate in his seat, making the fabric of his parka crinkle. “You mean Wooster?” What? No. I definitely don’t. There aren’t nearly enough syllables in that word. Maybe it’s my accent. Do I have an accent? Oh, geez. I probably sound like some southern belle, and I don’t even know it. So I try to give him the phonetics. “Whirrchester.” I hold up the keychain that Russ gave me and press it against the plastic barrier between us. “Right,” he booms. “Wooster. Rhymes with rooster.” I stare at the word. “That makes no sense.” “Welcome to Boston, lady!” I stare at the keychain and try to sound it out. It doesn’t rhyme with rooster, not even if you say it fast. But that’s okay. It’s a brave new world, and I love it. “1023 Wooster then. But can we make one stop first?”

62 RUSS

As I’m rounding the corner to my building, my phone buzzes inside my coat. I pull it out, and a few flakes melt on the glass over the words Video call, Penny. Even though it’s fucking freezing and snowing and halfway dark, there’s no way I’m missing it, so I start the video feed. Her pretty, smiling face lights up the screen. “Hi!” she says. “Where are you?” A plow blows past, the blade on the front grating on the pavement and sending the few accumulated inches of slush spewing onto the curb. “Just about home. You?” “Oh! I’m home already.” I shoulder my way into my building and decide to take the stairs so I don’t lose her in the elevator. This call is different than the one last night, though, because she’s not pixelated or fuzzy. She’s crystal clear. “You’re at home? The video quality is fucking amazing.” Her eyes widen, and she snorts. “Maisie moved the wireless out from under her cable box. Maybe that’s it.” “Got to be,” I say, as I get to the second-floor landing. “So how was your day?” she asks. “Better now. How were the kumquats?” “Small and weird. But fun!” There’s so much I want to tell her. That I scheduled a moving date, that I put an offer on the Shorefront Grill, that I’m hers forever. I don’t even know where to start, and half of me suspects there’s no fucking way I’m going to be able to make it until tomorrow before I tell her everything. Still though, I wait. Because I want it to be perfect. I open the door from the stairwell to the fourth floor, and I head down the hallway toward my apartment, stomping off the last of the snow and salt from my shoes. I see that she’s got me on the bed again, and her feet are up behind her, like she was when she first called from her grandpa’s. Except, weirdly, she’s

wearing socks, and what look like leggings. I squint at the screen. “You’re said you’re at home?” She nods vigorously. As her head bobs, I get a look at the room behind her in little slivers. “Did you paint your bedroom? Why’s it so dark?” “Must be the lighting,” she says, scooting in so her face and shoulders fill up the whole frame. “It’s cloudy today. There’s a storm coming. So, tell me about your day, handsome. Start to finish.” I pull my keys from the lock and start to unlock the deadbolt. But as I go to turn the key in the lock, I realize…it’s already open. The lights in my apartment are on. There’s a pink suitcase by my couch. And holy fuck alive, Penny is running down the hallway towards me, giggling. She leaps into my open arms, and I twirl her around and around. “Am I dreaming?” I ask her, but I realize I can’t be. I can hear her laugh, I can smell her skin. She’s in my arms. It’s her, it really is her. “Holy fuck. I’ve got tickets to come see you tomorrow. Did you figure that out?” “No!” she giggles into my cheek, “But I couldn’t wait any longer. One day was all I could stand. And I stopped by the grocery!” I set her down and hold her face in my hands. She’s really here. My Penny is really in my apartment. Holy, holy shit. “There’s something in the fridge for you,” she says. I kick the door shut, but before I can grab her again she backs away, laughing, with her hands clasped together in front of her mouth. “Fridge!” “I don’t give a shit about groceries,” I say, yanking her to me. But she squirms free and shakes her head, all sass and sparkle. “Nope, not yet. I got you a surprise, and you need to see it.” All I want to do now is lay her down on my kitchen table, but who am I kidding? She’ll always get her way. “All right, all right. Groceries first.” She squeaks. “Top shelf!” “What are you up to?” “Go look!” I open up the fridge and on the top shelf, there’s a cake box. She takes her place on the side of the open fridge door, pressing her fingers into the rubber seal. She’s clearly just so fucking excited about whatever it is, and her little feet thunder on the wood floor as she jumps up and down. I set the cake on the counter and pop off the top. “Read it!” she says.

I do, over and over again. I see the words. I read the words, but I can’t fucking process the words. As each one falls in line after the other, my mind is saying it’s too good to be true. This cannot be happening. This has to be a dream.

YOU’RE GOING TO BE THE BEST DAD! The joy. Holy fuck alive, the joy. “Penny. Are you?” “Yes!” she says, putting one hand to her stomach, looking suddenly nervous. “Is that…okay?” Okay? She will never understand how much I love her, not now, and not ever. It is everything. She is everything. This is everything. I’m so happy I can’t even speak. I scoop her up into my arms again, and spin her until we are alone together inside the gray blur, until there is nothing but the two of us, and her squeals, and the long welcome-home kiss.

63 PENNY

One month later.

Barefoot, I step off my patio into the sand, looping my arm around Grandpa’s. Together we make our way down the beach, toward two rows of folding chairs, decorated with ribbons and white shimmering balloons. A few rose petals from my bouquet get caught in the breeze, tumbling toward the ocean. One lands between my Uncle Tom and Russ’ Aunt Sharon. Another under my stepdad, and one under my mom. One turns cartwheels and lands flat on Guppy’s side, a little pink dot on his huge white flank. The pink of the petal matches the corsage tied to his collar, the bouquet Maisie is holding in her hands, and the flower Rose has pinned to her dress, too. Russ turns to me and smiles, the sun catching the shadow of his dimple ever so slightly. The music shifts from Scarborough Fair to Here Comes The Bride. And everybody stands, dresses and ties flapping in the sea breeze. Before I’m even halfway down the aisle, Russ has reached his hand out for me. Palm open and waiting. “You’re so beautiful,” he mouths to me. The tears tumble down my cheeks unchecked, and my lips begin to quiver. “Don’t cry,” he tells me, but I can see his eyes are filling right up with tears, too. And so, with the purest, most joyful, simplest happiness, we stand together on the city beach. In front of us, Mayor Jeffers is looking dapper in a linen suit, his tie a wide, old-fashioned knot. I know what he’s saying, but the words wash over me like the tide. We are gathered here today gets tangled up with the waves. To join this woman and this man is lost in the sound of the seagulls overhead. And before I know it, Russ is putting his mom’s ring on my finger, and I’m putting a new white gold one on him.

Now, more than ever, we are alone in the center of the universe. The world swirls, the palms sway, but not us. With him, everything is still, and peaceful, and right. The mayor is still talking, but I’m not listening. “I love you,” I whisper to Russ. He moves a lock of my hair aside and whispers back, “I love you, too.” Mayor Jeffers coughs and nudges me in the side with the Bible. I glance away from Russ long enough to come back to earth. The mayor looks at me, and then Russ, and takes a deep breath. Russ squeezes my hand a little harder, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Guppy knead the sand with his huge paws. Then the mayor says, “By the power vested in me by the people of Port Flamingo and the state of Florida, I now pronounce you...” But Russ doesn’t wait for the words, and husband and wife is lost in a kiss. THE END

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THANK YOU

The more I write, the more my gratitude grows. To Neda, Dani, Sybil, Najla, Eagle, Kiezha, Karin, Keyanna, Mila, Anita, Kate, Sam, April, Anna, Emily, Serena, Christina, and my darling Sarah. To the Peaches and the Motherbitches. To the KOs. To the many blogs, big and small, who have enjoyed being naughty with me. To the new readers and the old. To the authors who inspire me every day. To my students, who haven’t a clue that I’m doing this but bear with me when my eyes are tired because of it. To my dogs. And most especially to Henry, my favorite human on the planet. I love you more every single day.

ALSO BY NICOLA RENDELL Hail Mary

Confessed Professed

All titles are standalone romantic comedies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nicola Rendell writes dirty romantic comedy. She likes a stiff drink and a well-frosted cake. She loves to cook, sew, and play the piano. She realizes that her hobbies might make her sound like an old lady and she’s totally okay with that. She grew up in Taos, New Mexico; after receiving a handful of degrees from a handful of places, she now works as a professor in New England. An Amazon bestseller, her work has been featured in USA Today's Happy Ever After and the Huffington Post. She is represented by Emily Sylvan Kim at the Prospect Agency. @AuthorNRendell AuthorNRendell www.nicolarendell.com