Best Laid Plans

by Lauren Blakely

  “I do indeed know that about you.” The fact is, Gabe knows a lot about me. It’s funny, or maybe not so funny, how someone seeing you at your worst can forge an instant friendship and a tight-knit bond. That’s exactly what happened with us.

  “Hey, did your mom like the Sandra Brown?”

  “Loved it. She also said she felt like a little scofflaw, reading it early.”

  I place my index finger on my lips. “Shh. Don’t tell the book’s publisher, or I will be in some kind of hot water.”

  “Oh, so I have leverage over you now. What are you going to do to ensure I protect your secrets?”

  “Bribe you by keeping Mama Harrison in top secret, embargoed copies of popular books that I only give early to her?”

  He furrows his brow like he’s considering this, then extends his free hand. “Deal.” Then he shoos me off. “Now stop trying to distract me. You’re terrible at it anyway. You’re also not the only one with impeccable aim.” He raises his arm above his head and narrows his eyes. He cocks his arm, his eyes lasering on the target. For a moment, I let myself enjoy the view.

  I mean, I am great friends with a hottie.

  Gabe is crazily handsome in a how-is-it-possible-to-be-that-good-looking way. His blue eyes are the kind to get lost in and his arms are ideal to wrap around and comfort you.

  I don’t know the nitty-gritty of his dating life, but he’s rarely without female companionship. A few weeks ago, he took out the woman who cut his hair. I bet she was bold enough not to botch a date request. And I bet I could ask him for tips on what men really want. Perhaps we could sit down, I could take some notes, and I’d be good to go. Ready for the next Mr. Businessman situation before it goes belly-up.

  His dart makes a beeline for the target but misses. I thrust my arms in the air in victory. “I’ve still got it.”

  He offers a hand for high-fiving, and I smack back. “Pizza is on me,” Gabe says.

  “Is it a pizza night?”

  “Of course.”

  “Oh, right. You’re having a long-standing love affair with pizza.”

  He laughs. “See, Arden? You know me so well.”

  And I do. I know what Gabe wants. He’s easy to understand. If only I could apply these friendship skills to the dating game. If I could take the ease I have with him and transfer it to dating, I’d feel . . . empowered.

  I let that word roll around in my head, and it hits me. Empowered is exactly what I want to feel.

  As we head to the bar in the bowling alley to order a cheese pie, my friend Vanessa stops by our table, her dark-brown locks curled up at the ends, ’50s-style, just like her bowling alley. The entire place is a throwback to the Happy Days life, complete with vintage posters and a retro theme. Makes sense, since she’s always been the queen of vintage. Tonight, she wears a red-and-white gingham skirt and a white cap-sleeved retro blouse.

  “Are you playing waitress this evening?” I tease, since I know she’s the chief cook and bottle—and bowling ball—washer when she needs to be.

  “I do it all. But mostly I want to remind you two to come to the fundraiser this weekend.”

  Gabe laughs. “As if I’d miss it. I’ll be here with the guys.” He points to me. “And you and I have some games to play, so you better save some lane time for me.”

  “Count on it.”

  See? Saying yes to Gabe is easy because he’s a friend. Friends are easy to understand.

  And because we’re friends, I’m starting to formulate a plan. It’s the seed of an idea now, but I’ll spend time with it, tweak it, refine it.

  After we eat our pizza, he asks if I’m up for a game of bowling.

  I say yes. It’s good practice, after all, and I need time to devise my plan.

  I need to practice saying yes when I want to, and I intend to do precisely that.

  9

  Gabe

  I’ve been called many things.

  Pain in the ass, by my sister.

  Top prospect, by the major leagues.

  Playboy, charmer, and ladies’ man, and any and every combination of those.

  I’m not saying any of those terms are wrong.

  But I do have to wonder what the hell is wrong with being a ladies’ man?

  Women are basically the best thing ever. They’re beautiful, lovely, witty, clever, and a whole hell of a lot of fun to spend time with.

  Women are my favorite gender.

  My best friend in high school was Lacey Cunningham, a soccer star. In college I was tight with Vivian Wells, who was a goddess at grammar. And now, here I am with Arden. She is fit as a fox in that plaid skirt and matching red tank top, and I want to ask why the hell she likes to bowl in a skirt, but I also don’t want her to ever consider bowling in anything but a skirt.

  “So how was the hair stylist?” she asks, inquiring about a date from a few weeks, maybe a month ago.

  “It was fine.”

  “Fine?”

  “Yes. Fine.” I grab a green ball.

  “Fine is not an answer,” she says, egging me on. “Are you seeing her again?”

  “She was a lovely lady, but there was no, how shall we say, spark.”

  She pouts playfully. “Poor Gabe. No spark must have made you so lonely.”

  “Oh, I didn’t say I was lonely.”

  She swats me. “You’re such a pig.”

  I oink.

  “But why would you sleep with her if there was no spark?”

  “Oh, there was a physical spark. She’s a fiery one.”

  “So she was naughty?” Arden asks carefully, as if she’s measuring her words.

  “Maybe a little, but there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  Arden nods, humming. “Nope. Nothing wrong with that at all. How was she naughty though?”

  The question comes out like she’s asking it in class, and her tone makes me laugh. “Are you taking notes?”

  “Yes. I’m working on a report for the town bulletin.” Her tone is 100 percent deadpan.

  “I don’t want to kiss and tell, and definitely not for the same bulletin where Pedro Hardaway advertises his plumbing services and Sally Caruso offers dog sitting by the hour. So stop using your superior powers of persuasion to try to get me to give up all sorts of details, and get focused on your game, woman. I want to beat you.” I head to the lane and take my first shot, sending the ball straight to the finish line.

  “Did she have a riding crop and ask you to hit her with it?” Arden asks as the ball slams into eight pins.

  It’s a damn good thing I wasn’t throwing the ball when she asked that because it might have landed five lanes over.

  Cracking up, I head over to the ball return. “That’s a little specific and definitely inappropriate for a town bulletin.”

  “Did she like to be tied up?”

  I shake my head. “Not going to go there.”

  When the green ball pops up, I palm it then slide my fingers in the holes. She follows my hand with her eyes. “Do you mean she likes to be . . . filled in all the holes?”

  I laugh so hard I nearly choke. “Who has the naughty mind tonight? I was simply getting ready to throw a spare.”

  She doesn’t even blush. She’s undeterred. “Did she ask you out on the date?”

  I frown, trying to remember who asked first. I shrug. “I honestly don’t recall.”

  “You’re not helpful. You won’t answer my questions, and you won’t tell me how it started.”

  “That’s partly because it’s not going to continue. I’m not seeing her again.” I return to the lane and send the ball down the hardwood, waiting until it smacks the remaining two pins, nailing the spare. When I turn around, I ask, “Why do you want to know so badly what it was like?”

  Arden has never pumped me for dating details before. Not the tawdry ones at least. I half want to believe it means something, but it could mean nothing at all.

  “Just curious,” she says nonchalantly as she grabs her favorite purple ball. She make
s it sound so casual, her inquiry. But there’s that word again from Words with Friends—curious—and it snags on my brain. Why exactly is she so curious?

  A second later, she gives me the answer. “Everyone’s coming into the bookstore buying these racier books. It just got me thinking.”

  She turns away, heads to the top of the lane, and holds the ball in front of her.

  And her comment has me thinking too.

  About dirtier books.

  If she reads them.

  What she likes between the sheets.

  What her curiosity has piqued exactly. Well, besides me. I’m definitely piqued, and I make a quick adjustment in my jeans so it’s not so damn obvious.

  As she tosses the ball down the lane, her left leg arcing behind her, showing a hint of the back of her thighs, I groan.

  I want to know the landscape of her body. Want to slide my hands up and down her legs, nibble on her ass, and make her whimper.

  I would love to know what would make Arden go wild in bed.

  That’s not only because I’m wildly attracted to her.

  It’s because I want to know what makes her tick in the bedroom as well as I know what excites her out of it.

  I want to know her in every way.

  Sooner or later, I’m going to have to figure out how to drive this car clear out of the friend zone.

  Sooner is my preference.

  Like maybe this weekend at the party here at the bowling alley.

  Maybe I can find a way to pique her interest in me.

  10

  Arden

  “What kind of wine would you say goes well with a memoir? Something really hard-hitting and designed to rip my heart out?”

  The question comes from a bespectacled woman who’s pawing through my display of non-fiction bestsellers.

  “Like Educated by Tara Westover?”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  I tap my chin. This is my forte. “You definitely want a merlot. It’s bold and powerful, but the best ones with the most fantastic grapes are so good, they make you want to cry.”

  “Like Educated.” Her lips curve into a grin, her laugh lines a happy pair of parentheses.

  “Exactly. Want me to set everything up for your book club?”

  “Yes. It’s going to be a raucous night of…”

  “Drinking wine and only very occasionally discussing books?”

  “That’s exactly what a good book club should be.” The woman extends a hand. “I’m Miriam.”

  “Arden East.”

  “Someone likes you very much to give you that name.”

  “My mom is pretty rad,” I say, thinking of my parents, who are happily traveling the world in their much-deserved retirement. This month they’re in Australia and sent me an email about their visit to the Sydney Opera House. “It’s better than all the travel books say,” my mom told me.

  Miriam points to the nook in the back of the store, reserved for book clubs. “Is tomorrow night available? We plan on being loud and a little obnoxious.”

  “As if I would want you to be anything else,” I tell her with a smile. “The store closes at eight on book club nights with my rowdiest gals. Would that work for a starting time?”

  Miriam’s blue eyes sparkle with a yes.

  The next evening, she parades in a troop of women about twice my age and introduces me to CarolAnn, who wears her jet-black hair in a sexy, messy bun; to Sara, sporting cat-eye glasses and skinny jeans; and to hobo-chic-styled Allison, who tells me I’m beautiful.

  Possibly, I fall in love with all of them on first sight.

  I busy myself with placing orders on the store computer at the front while the ladies discuss Educated and drink a rich merlot from Oak Hollows Vineyard, a few miles south of us. But soon enough, the wine loosens lips, and the conversation shifts.

  They’re no longer discussing a young girl raised in a survivalist family. They’ve sidestepped from the author’s first boyfriend to their own first loves. They then jump seamlessly to current lovers, husbands, and beaus.

  As I let my distributor know I need twenty more of the new Nora Roberts romance, I hear that black-haired CarolAnn still likes it doggie-style at age sixty.

  While checking on my shipment of quirky travel guides, I learn that hobo-chic Allison wants to explore clamps.

  As I hit the order button on a new clean recipe book, I discover that skinny-jean-wearing Sara and her younger boyfriend like to park at the end of a deserted road so she can give him a blow job in the car. Sometimes, if Sara’s really frisky, her boyfriend will pull her hair and spank her.

  During the blow job.

  An unexpected pang of envy stabs me right in the solar plexus.

  I want to know what that’s like. All of it—the blow job in the car, the spankings, the ease with which she talks about it. Most of all, I want to know how the hell studious-looking Sara has navigated the path to car spankings.

  I step away from the desk and straighten some shelves, doing my best to pretend I’m not eavesdropping as I pick up a “You Can Have It All” style of self-help guide that I’m positive Clare knocked over earlier.

  “Look, I know these aren’t crazy kinky things, but I feel like I’ve been liberated since Chuck left me and I met my new boyfriend,” Sara says, in a husky, Kathleen Turner-esque tone. “Chuck was the same old, same old. But Javier? No way. He’s a different creature entirely, and it’s freeing. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Absolutely. You’re sexy and single and you have a hot man who wants you. There’s no reason you shouldn’t do exactly what you want to do,” CarolAnn adds, almost like she’s giving a you go, girl speech. Which she kind of is.

  “How did you get Javier to pull your hair? Was it his idea or yours?” Allison asks, and I don’t want to tune out a second of this conversation even though it’s making me keenly aware of my lack of an interesting sex life.

  I’ve never been spanked.

  I’ve never bitten.

  I have never given a blow job in a vehicle.

  I used to think I was simply a good girl. I boxed myself into a category—I’m the safe one, I’m the one who likes beds.

  And I do like beds.

  But what if I like cars more?

  With a deep, needy ache, I desperately want to know what I’m missing.

  “Easy,” Sara declares, then details precisely how she accomplished the hair-pulling and spanking. I take furious mental notes, adding the ideas to my burgeoning plan.

  If the sixty-something ladies in this book club are sowing their wild oats, it’s time for me to damn well do it.

  I resolve to make a change.

  Tomorrow night I’ll see Gabe at the bowling alley for the party. I intend to walk out of there with a solid plan to figure out what’s been missing all these years.

  When the ladies leave, I say good night, lock the door, and grab a stack of how-to books. After a few hours of study, I make a list. Books rule. Research rocks.

  By the time the clock chimes midnight, I have one hell of a plan.

  I am woman. Hear me roar.

  11

  Gabe

  “And I believe we set a record today.” Shaw stretches his neck, cracking it loudly as he slams his locker shut next to the baby-faced Charlie, one of the paramedics who works frequently with us.

  “For the number of non-fatal medical emergencies?” I put the rest of my gear away at the end of our twenty-four-hour shift, which is thankfully, finally fucking over. Felt like a forty-eight-hour one. But with only minor injuries and no deaths or losses of limb, I’ll chalk it up to a damn good shift.

  Shaw shakes his head. “No. For no phone numbers given out.”

  Charlie drags a hand through his dark hair. “It’s a record shift of epic failures in that department.”

  I roll my eyes. “You two clowns do know it’s called work? That thing we do all day long?”

  “Huh.” Shaw scratches his unshaven jaw, affecting surprise. “Is that the name
of it? Did you know that, Charlie?”

  The younger man feigns shock. “I had no idea.”

  I point to the two of them. “Well, I’m glad to finally be the one to inform you, since you seem to be under the impression that it’s a pickup market.”

  “Oh yes. That’s exactly what I was thinking when we responded to a shortness of breath call for the eighty-year-old Mrs. Miller,” Shaw remarks.

  I give my buddy a sharp-eyed stare. “I don’t think it’s the eighty-year-old Mrs. Miller’s phone number that you were angling for.” I crack up as it hits me. The woman’s twenty-something granddaughter was the one who made the call and then seemed unable to look anywhere but at Shaw as he took grandma’s vitals. The trim, toned blonde ogled him the whole time, and I was positive Shaw would be shacking up with her tonight, but it sounds like nothing came of it. “You didn’t get the girl’s number?”

  Shaw shakes his head.

  And that means I need to give him hell. “You’re losing your touch, man. You need to retire and live life as a monk.”

  He lets his head hang, forlorn. “I know. What is wrong with me?”

  “Everything,” Charlie says in mock seriousness. “Do you need me to give you some lessons on how to win the ladies? Everyone knows paramedics have better game than firemen.”

  I clap Shaw on the back. “You couldn’t close the deal. Clearly, it’s time to accept you’re an ugly, old bastard and you have zero game.”

  “Same as you.”

  “Of course. I’m hideous. I also need to jet.”

  Charlie lifts a hand to wave. “I need to deal with some paperwork. See you guys later.”

  “Catch you next time,” I say as Shaw and I take off.

  “Speaking of closing the deal,” Shaw says as we leave the firehouse and head down the street, “are you ever going to close the deal with Arden?”

  I stop in my tracks, bristling at the mention of the woman I very much want. I narrow my eyes. “What are you talking about?”