I wedged myself between the bathroom and a display rack of sale-priced mugs and travel cups. I went to Facebook, and within a few keystrokes, I’d found his fan group, naughtily named “Powerfully Gushing for Gabe Powers,” with thirty thousand members. The description of the group was short and right to the point: “This is a group devoted to Gabe Powers. If you aren’t a fan, we don’t understand you!”
At the top of the page was a pinned announcement asking the group members to vote in a competition called “Superlative Hunks” from People magazine. I clicked through to the competition and saw it was set up like a high school yearbook, with graphics made to replicate embossed book covers and “Most Likely To” pages. The idea was that fans would vote for their favorite man, and the results would be published in the next edition of the magazine. The categories included Most Likely to Make You Swoon, Most Likely to Make You Binge-Watch, Most Likely to Get You to Ask Your Husband to Install a Television in the Kitchen.
Gabe was miles and miles ahead of all the competitors in every category. Ninety-eight percent for the swoon, 98 percent for the binge-watch, and 100 percent for the kitchen TV.
I felt a sinking dread welling up in me. The yearbook thing happened to hit a very raw nerve. One of my most raw, without a doubt. So raw that I hadn’t really let myself think about it in fifteen years. But now it all came flooding back.
When I’d been in high school, I had been passionately in young love with a boy named Matt Fransen. He had been my first everything. He was the captain of our football team, and for some reason that I neither understood nor questioned, he had become very, very smitten with me. Oh, how I’d loved him, with that blurry, hormonal teenage love when anything and everything is possible. But after just a few wildly passionate months of sneaking kisses behind the lockers between art and math and Friday-night dates that started in a movie theater and ended in his steamed-up Bronco, the yearbook had come out.
He had been voted Most Likely to Star in an Action Film. And I had been voted Most Likely to Have Thirteen Cats.
I’d gotten dumped so fast it had made me feel carsick.
I felt the pinch and nausea of that memory all over again. Even though I’d put it behind me, I could still feel that old and terrible sting. A vivid memory of sitting in a bathroom stall between class periods while tears slid down my cheeks.
Once again, here I was. The eccentric girl in the eccentric life, swooning over a man so popular it made me wonder how he could even see me.
It wouldn’t work. It would never work. The job might, but not the romance. Maybe I didn’t have any cats, but I was still that girl. And he was definitely that guy. So I took a deep breath, tried to cheer myself up with a little chin up, buttercup, and gave him a ring.
He didn’t answer with a hello. Instead he answered with, “There she is.”
His words made my whole body tighten. It was unbelievable. It was like I was a rubber band, and from all the way across town, he was pulling me tight. But I held my ground. No matter how he made me feel with three tiny syllables, there was still a conversation that needed to be had. Rules were rules. Yearbooks were yearbooks. “So. A little birdie told me that Savannah is a go.”
He sort of groan-laughed. “We knocked it out of the park last night. They agreed to the Savannah episodes based on the audio alone. But I’m not using that audio in the show. That’s mine. All fucking mine.”
I clapped my hand over my mouth from stop myself from moaning and bumped into the display of mugs. That voice was going to be the end of me. “We have to be good. Haven’t you seen the contract?”
Gabe growled. “Haven’t you seen yourself?”
“Gabe!” I said, running my fingers along one of the mug handles.
“Lily,” he shot back.
Just my name on his lips made my knees wobble. “I’m serious.”
He let out a long, gruff breath. “You really think you’re going to be good?”
I nodded at a huge photo of a scone on the wall. I felt a ribbon of warmth unspool through me. It wasn’t going to be easy, but it had to be done. “Yes. I am.”
“So then meet me this afternoon at two. At Uncle Jimmy’s Secret Ingredient BBQ.”
The mention of Jimmy’s Secret Ingredient made me salivate immediately. Gabe’s gravelly and sexy voice was hard enough to resist, but now he was pulling my favorite barbecue out of his sleeve? So unfair.
I stepped aside to make room for some tourists, nestling my petticoats next to the cream and sugar table. I brought the receiver close to my lips and tried to get serious. “We can’t be going out for barbecue, Gabe. Work. Not play.”
He cleared his throat. “We’re going to work. I just hung up with a medium who asked us to meet her there.”
See? It’s gonna be fine! “Oh.” I straightened my bodice. “Right. OK. Good, then! Work it is.”
“Because let’s get one thing straight. When I play with you, you’re gonna fucking know it.”
Or not! The way he talked made me involuntarily clench my thighs together. No apologies, no explanation—just pure masculine desire. But I would have to resist him. I would. Like the last Oreo in the package. Like the last chip in the bag. In the name of unpopular girls everywhere. “We’re going to be good.”
“Speak for yourself, beautiful,” he said, all growly and dark. “Speak for yourself.”
16
GABE
Uncle Jimmy’s Secret Ingredient BBQ was a squatty white building on the outskirts of town with rows of painted red picnic tables under massive cypresses. Sitting in my truck with the AC blasting, I could smell the smoker going full throttle. Holy shit, did it smell good. But as soon as I saw Lily’s van rumble in behind me, all thoughts of mouthwatering barbecue left my head. Nothing sounded better to eat than her.
I cut the engine on my truck and watched her touch up her lipstick. She pouted at her reflection in her rearview mirror and rubbed her lips together. Then she flung open her door, and I saw a pair of pink Converse land on the gravel. I got out of my truck and turned to face her. I gave her a hey-baby flick of my chin. Today it was black leggings that accentuated the Y between her legs and a pink T-shirt that said PUMP UP THE VOLUME! She straightened her shoulders and gave me a polite smile. “Hello, Mr. Powers.”
Here we go. Full names? Bring it on. I knew exactly what the contract said, but I’d never worked with anybody who made me want to break it until now. And I didn’t just want to break it with her—I wanted to light the goddamned thing on fire. Yet it didn’t surprise me that she wanted to follow the rules. She’d gone doe-eyed when I asked her to get filthy in bed, when I’d pushed her to go past what she was used to doing. If she wanted us to be good, I could roll with that. For a while. So I gave her a respectful nod. “Ms. Jameson.”
She turned away for a second, pressing her fist to her mouth and hanging on to her fender.
Closing my truck door behind me, I took a few steps toward her. Cicadas screeched, and the wind rustled the trees. But all that seemed far away, like it was in another world. Another place. My whole focus zeroed in to just her—her beautiful face, the lovely way she had about her. And the fact that clearly she thought she was going to be able to keep me at bay.
Not a chance.
In the dappled sunshine, something caught my eye. Something very distinctive on her neck, in exactly the place that I’d gone for her as she came. Proof that I’d already breached her walls. “Holy shit.” I took a few more steps toward her. “That’s a hickey, isn’t it?”
She slapped her hand to her throat like she was trying to squash a mosquito. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She shook her head, and her curls bounced. “Small blemish. Heat rash.”
She hadn’t covered it the whole way, and I saw the telltale bruising just past her pinkie. “I marked you. Admit it.”
Pursing her lips, she pulled a delicate scarf out of her purse, pink and white to match her shirt. She tied it around her neck and shifted the knot to hide the dam
age I’d done to her. And had every intention of doing again.
I put one hand on the side of her van to cage her in, giving her no place to go but straight into me. “Don’t tell me you haven’t been thinking about last night all goddamned day.”
She placed her fingertip on my chest and pushed me back. “Conduct clause, Mr. Powers. I’m going to follow it. Full stop.”
Fuck that. There wasn’t going to be a full stop until I had my way with her again. Repeatedly. “Chemistry, Ms. Jameson. I want you. Full stop.”
For a second I thought I’d won. Her eyelashes fluttered, she rocked back on her heels, and her chest rose and fell. But as soon as she’d started to give in to me, she got a handle on herself again. She wiggled her finger at me. “Nope.”
Yep. Before I could make another move, like hoisting her up on her fender and saying, I’ll show you what bad conduct really looks like, the noise of a screen door being flung open cut through the air and a man boomed, “Are you shitting me? Goddamned celery seeds? What kinda operation you think we’re running here? Celery seeds!”
The man stormed out of the back door of the restaurant. He was dressed in a barbecue sauce–stained apron, a Hawaiian shirt, and khaki shorts. On his apron was the word AWESOMESAUCE. I watched him plunge his hand into his pocket, from which he produced something small and square. He peeled the back off it and slapped it on his massive biceps. At first I thought it was a bandage, but then I realized, nope. Definitely a nicotine patch. “Celery seeds!” he roared as he chased one of the patch wrappers across the grass. It fluttered away, and he circled back toward the restaurant. He produced a box of what looked like nicotine gum from his apron pocket, popped a bunch of pieces from the blister pack, and shoved the whole handful in his mouth.
I turned to Lily. She glanced up at me and asked, “What are we actually doing here, anyway?”
Her eyes were even prettier today than they had been yesterday. For a second, I got caught up in the way the sunshine brought out hints of green near the center of her irises, which made me think of how they looked when I had her right on the edge of . . .
She put her hand on her hip. “Gabe!”
“Sorry.” I shook it off, inhaling hard and looking away for a second. “Sorry. We’re going to record a séance. I got in touch with one of the mediums from town, and she told me to meet her out here. Apparently Uncle Jimmy has, you know”—I lifted my eyebrow and lowered my voice—“passed on.”
Lily pressed her hand to her heart. Her small, soft fingers fanned out over her breastbone. She wasn’t playing it up; she was genuinely shocked. “Oh my God. Not Uncle Jimmy.”
I forced myself to look at her face—just her face. And what a face it was, especially the slight dryness on her chin from my scruff. “Worse still, it seems he took the secret ingredient of the legendary sauce with him.”
Now her mouth dropped open. The hand that had been on her chest extended to press against my chest. Awww, yeah.
“Are you serious? The ingredient?”
I leaned into her hand, letting her get a sense of what she was really up against. “Come on. Just one kiss.”
“Nope!” She spun on the toe of her Converse, grinding the gravel as she pivoted away. I stepped back to let her do her thing. As she gathered up her recording equipment, I watched her every move. Every curve, every line, every hill and valley. Sassy and confident, she slammed her van doors and marched off toward the entrance of Uncle Jimmy’s. Her steps were purposeful and forceful. Each one sent a ripple up through her thighs and ass.
“I like you coming,” I told her, loud enough for her to hear, “but I like you going too.”
She turned back over her shoulder to face me and shook her head as if to say, Oh no you didn’t. “C’mon, Mr. Powers. We’ve got work to do,” she said with a lift of her shoulder and a pout and set off again, walking faster. Not quite a strut and not quite a march. Maybe that was what they called a sashay.
I grabbed my bag and locked my truck. In a few strides, I caught up with her, and I made it to the restaurant door before she did, stepping in front of her to grab the handle. I opened it for her, and as she passed under my arm, I leaned in close. “Know what’s not mentioned in the conduct clause?”
She turned around to face me. Her stance was defiant, with her hands on her hips. But her face was flushed, and her lips quivered before she pursed them tight. “What doesn’t it mention?”
“Checking you out. I triple-checked.”
Normally when I arrived at a filming location, someone recognized me. But not this time. This time, it was all about Lily. As the bell on the door clanged to announce our entrance, what I assumed was Uncle Jimmy’s family spilled out of the kitchen with booming cheers of “Miss Lily!” and “Lily Marie!” and “Well, would you look who it is!” They gathered around her in a circle asking her how she was doing, and how her sister was doing, and how business had been. Meanwhile, I stood off in the corner holding my backpack and watching her. Behind every beautiful woman, there’s a dude just happy to be there.
Seeing her in her element confirmed what I’d known already—she was a sweetheart, holding hands, kissing cheeks, and being wrapped in warm embraces. Just as fast as they volleyed questions at her, she asked them all manner of things back—about a cat named Francis and a dog named Lulabell, something about some hydrangeas and a tomato patch, and finally, she asked about Jimmy, who had passed away. When she brought him up, the family went quiet. I noticed that on every wall there were big photographs of a man who looked jovial and content in every image. He wore a Hawaiian lei in one, and in another he had a rack of ribs and cheeks smudged with barbecue sauce. Lily held the woman who I guessed was his daughter in a loving, heartfelt hug. “I’m so sorry to hear it.” She clasped the woman’s hands in hers. I could hear the emotion in her voice, that kindhearted frankness of someone opening their heart without hesitation. “He was the biggest love. He will be missed so much.”
And echoes of “Mmm-hmmm” and “Yes, indeed” filled the room.
The big guy in the apron trundled out of the kitchen last, looking as pissed off as a grizzly bear woken up from hibernation. But when he saw Lily, his face lit up into the biggest, widest smile. A 180-degree transformation. He opened his arms, and Lily ran to him. He scooped her right off the floor and twirled her around as she laughed into his burly shoulder. She lifted up her feet and crossed her ankles as she spun through the air.
“Gabe!” she said when he finally set her down. “This is Jimmy Jr. He’s known me since I was . . .” She raised her face to him, shifting her lips off to one side. “I can’t even remember.”
“This big,” Jimmy Jr. boomed, lowering his hand to about knee height. “Maybe this big.” He lowered his hand even more. “Always a ray of sunshine, though! Even when you were a baby and a little . . . gassy!”
The whole room roared with laughter, Lily’s loudest of them all. Once the laughter died down, she took Jimmy by one massive hand and dragged him over to me. “This is Gabe! He’s the one that’s going to be doing some filming. I’m doing his audio.”
“Jimmy Jr.,” said the big guy in the apron. He gave my hand a shake so firm that it made his nicotine patches ripple. “Real pleasure to meet you, Mr. . . .” He trailed off, squinting. “Powell?”
“Powers,” I said. Lily was clearly suppressing a giggle. It was the flip side of the hostess falling all over herself last night. I was on Lily’s turf now, and it felt pretty damned good. Weird, but good. I added, “Thanks for letting me—us—come and do some filming.”
“Real glad to have you,” Jimmy Jr. said. He turned more toward Lily than me to add, “But listen, we got ourselves a big problem. The secret ingredient?” He rubbed his wrinkled forehead and scratched his close-cropped hair. “I’m hosed without it!”
Lily patted his massive arm and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “One way or another, we’ll figure it out. If this doesn’t work today, then we’ll try something else.”
“O
r we’ll have to start buying some factory-made shit in plastic bottles by the case from Costco,” Jimmy Jr. said and headed for the kitchen. “What a week to stop smoking, Christ almighty.”
From there, Lily and I settled into a smooth and effortless professional routine, like we’d worked together a hundred times. One of the reasons I liked working on my own was that it was so much easier than having to tell someone what to do and how. But it was different with her. She took charge of her stuff, and she left me to mine. And every chance I got, I sneaked a glance at her.
Once she moved off into the kitchen, I flipped on my camera and held it out to film myself. Behind me was a specially set table in the middle of the main dining room. All the other tables were raw wood with benches, but this one was set with a checkered tablecloth and surrounded by folding metal chairs. “We’re here at Uncle Jimmy’s Secret Ingredient BBQ,” I said, walking backward through the empty dining area. “They’ve shut the place down for the afternoon for a séance. Uncle Jimmy passed away last month at the age of ninety-three. Unfortunately, he didn’t pass along the secret ingredient to anybody. So we’re here today to see if we can figure out what that is.”
I panned toward the kitchen and caught Lily in the frame, zooming in on her tight. She got up on her tiptoes to adjust a microphone that she’d stuck near the big industrial fridge and then lowered herself back down, straightening her leggings. Her eyes connected with the lens and she stopped. “Mr. Powers. Are you filming me?”
“Checking the light levels.”
She placed her hand on her hip. “Are you really?”
I looked at her over the camera and shook my head. She tsked up at the ceiling and went on about her business.
Outside, I heard the crunching gravel of a car pulling up in the parking lot, where I saw a lady getting out of a little hatchback who was . . . really familiar. Like really familiar. Like my grandma. Or my seventh-grade English teacher. Or . . . I signaled to Lily and pointed outside. “That the medium, you think?”
Do You Feel It Too? Page 11