“Is that’s what’s different? What did you use, honey? A weed whacker?”
I look at her. She flinches. I swear the corners of Chuckles mouth turn up a tad.
“You can leave now,” I say for the umpteenth time. “It’s a business dinner.”
“Did you shave…you know?” She points vaguely at my crotch area.
“My knees? Yes.” I’m playing dumb on purpose.
“No! Your pink bits.”
I choke and cough uncontrollably. I am not having this conversation, am I? Seriously? What did I do in a past life to deserve this? I was Eva Braun, wasn’t I?
“All the girls your age do it. You’d think having a pubic hair or three was some kind of social crime.” She’s talking, and the words are coming out, but I can’t hear her over the lambs screaming in my head. “Then again, men your age have come to expect a smooth Chuckles, so…”
Chuckles arches his back, the hairs rising on end, and he opens his mouth, hissing.
“A smooth what?”
“Chuckles,” she whispers, enunciating the word. He hisses at her.
“Huh?”
“P-u-s-s-y,” Mom spells out. “That’s the word your father likes to use now that we need to spice things up in the—”
“Hari-kari! Give me a kitchen knife!” I shout just as my sister, Amy, walks in the door.
“To kill Mom, or you?” She’s carrying a bag of groceries and an extremely large foam hand.
“Either. Both. Mom was just telling me allllll about how Dad likes to talk dirty in bed.”
Amy blanches. “Mom? Boundaries! Please!”
“What? It’s not like that time I told you about needing a new diaphragm because it kept slipping during sex and making those strange sucking sounds.”
I think even Chuckles turned pale at that one.
Mom keeps going. “Your father said the sounds reminded him of Darth Vader. So then we had this whole role-play thing going on with Princess Leia and Han Solo….”
My cell phone rings with a text. Sweet Jesus, thank you. Saved by the limo driver. “Gotta go!” I say. “What’s with the foam finger? You got a date with Robin Thicke?”
Amy gives me a look like a dog having its eyes poked out by a toddler. “Where are you off to?” She tosses the foam finger at Chuckles, who flees. She never answers my question, though, because Mom decides to be the town crier.
“Shannon has a date with a billionaire!” Mom exclaims.
“Oh? And I’m engaged to the leprechaun from the Lucky Charms cereal!” Amy replies, clapping her hands with fake glee.
I’m out the door before I can hear more.
Except the limo driver isn’t who greets me when I get down my twenty-seven steps in high heels made of what feel like five-inch hatpins.
It’s Declan.
Mom insisted I wear a little black dress, with an emphasis on “little.” I’m a DD up top. Her spaghetti-strap ensemble left the equivalent of Girl Scout badges covering my boobs.
My tailored blazer with scalloped edges works well. Mom’s borrowed diamond necklace and earrings make the picture. As long as I don’t twist an ankle or take out a small pet with my high heels, I should be fine.
Declan is wearing what looks like a tuxedo, but without the tie. He approaches, and there’s a moment where the setting sun is behind him and frames his body, the hues of rose and violet streaking the gray sky. He saunters toward me with a look of total absorption, eyes only on me, hungry and appreciative. My core tightens and fills with an unfamiliar feeling.
Desire.
He reaches for my hand and just holds it. He smells like soap and cloves and aftershave. I want to taste him. He looks like he wants to devour me.
“Hello!” says someone from behind me. I close my eyes and wince as my mother breaks her You should rule and calls down to us from the top of my stairs. “You kids have fun.”
“It’s not the prom, Mom,” Amy shouts through my open apartment door.
“Of course it’s not,” Mom snaps. “Shannon had those really bad cramps that night and her date got lice, so it’s not like she ever even went!”
Amy’s face appears at the door for a fleeting second before she drags my protesting mother inside. Slam!
I blink three or four times, silent. Declan’s thumb begins to move back and forth, slowly, maddeningly, like it’s gentling a spooked horse.
His hand is shaking a bit. Not from nerves.
Because he is laughing.
I jerk my hand away, remembering myself. This is a business meeting. Business. Pure business.
“I promise I don’t have lice,” he says.
I almost snap back, And I don’t have my period right now, but I already want to crawl into a hole and die. Why add to it?
“Not having lice is a great quality in a VP of marketing. Especially since so many of them are louses.”
“Ouch.”
“Hey, I aspire to be one someday.”
“Shannon Jacoby, head louse.” His face hardens as he realizes what he’s said versus what he clearly meant.
“That just sounds all kinds of wrong, Declan.”
“How about we both stop talking and just get in the limo.” It’s not a question. His hand lands on the base of my back and we both freeze again. Electricity travels in a full circuit between our two bodies. His pulse becomes mine. The tiny hairs on the wrist I can see stand up slowly, as if summoned, just like—
Well, just like something else on his body, I imagine.
The hand on my back slides up my spine, over the fine wool of my jacket, sinking into my loose hair, respectful but sending one hell of a signal. There is no pretense here. I don’t have to guess whether he’s interested. And my signals are so clear that the only way I could be more obvious would be to rent a billboard and hang a twenty-foot color photo of myself na**d with the caption “I WILL SLEEP WITH YOU, DECLAN.”
It can’t be this easy, can it? My mind spins as his fingers move along the tender skin of my neck, making me gasp. I’m looking up at him and his lips look soft. Tender. Commanding and tasty.
A distant sound of ringing glass fills the air. It’s distinct and cuts through the spell between us.
Declan looks back toward my front door. My mother is standing next to the open window with a wine glass and a spoon, gently chiming it like she’s at a wedding reception and calling for the bride and groom to—
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” she chants.
Declan looks at me, and with a deadpan expression says, “I think your mother wants us to take this nice and slow.”