The Scenic Route

by Devan Sipher

  “After the IPO,” he said, nuzzling against her while Austin rubbed his chafed neck. Austin was deciding whether he should give in and sit back down or sneak out, when the band shifted to a bluesy rendition of “House of the Rising Sun.”

  “What do you think of the keyboard player?” Stu asked him.

  The keyboard player was the one other potentially single female in the room. She had Bettie Page bangs and granny sunglasses that she didn’t seem to ever take off. She looked a bit like Katy Perry, if Katy Perry were about ten years older and had about twenty years of hard living showing on her face. But this woman could sing. “House of the Rising Sun” was the first time she had soloed since they arrived, and it might have been the Scotch, but Austin thought she sounded like Janis Joplin mixed with Cyndi Lauper. And that was a good thing.

  “She’s kind of talented,” Austin said, thinking she was also kind of sexy.

  “You should ask her out,” Stu replied.

  But somehow the fact that she had talent depressed Austin. He watched her shake her long, dark tresses while belting a high, plaintive note. He looked around the room at the smattering of inebriated guests. “It’s kind of sad,” he said, “to be that good and be singing night after night in some half-empty hotel bar. Probably getting paid peanuts.”

  “Maybe it makes her happy.” It was Naomi speaking. She had reappeared, wearing a clean white camisole and carrying a large tray of white ceramic ramekins. “Maybe singing anywhere makes her happy.”

  He had stuck his foot in it again. Before he could even think about qualifying his statement, Steffi started clapping her hands together. “Ooh! Ooh! There it is!” She was ogling Naomi’s tray with an ecstatic look on her face.

  “I present my official, much-delayed wedding soufflés,” Naomi said. “Or as Steffi prefers to call them: volcano cakes.” Steffi started clapping again and jumping up and down, as Naomi put the tray down on a driftwood table, revealing that each ramekin did indeed seem to contain a miniature chocolate volcano. “It’s chocolate hazelnut with double chocolate blood orange lava. But, Stu, live and learn: all that matters to Steffi is that it’s chocolate.”

  Steffi nodded in enthusiastic agreement as she grabbed a soufflé and a spoon. Everyone else followed suit, and aside from the sound of scraping spoons, there were several minutes of reverential silence.

  It was hard for Austin to describe what he tasted. It was like eating a cloud. A chocolate cloud. But a cloud with varying textures and densities. Just when the delicate sweetness seemed too ethereal, there would come a wallop of citrus, coating his taste buds with an earthy tanginess before sliding down his throat in a slow-moving river of molten cocoa.

  “Out of this world!” Steffi declared, and several people concurred with murmurs of “amazing” and “extraordinary.”

  For some reason, Austin was the only one who didn’t know that Naomi was a bigwig Miami pastry chef. Well, actually for a very specific reason. It was because he’d missed the rehearsal dinner, where it turned out she had whipped up a chocolate-blackberry rum cake that people were still swooning over.

  “You should open your own shop,” Steffi insisted, scooping out one last spoonful. “And forget Miami; you should come back to the West Coast and open a hip little place on Melrose.”

  “Why not Rodeo Drive while I’m at it?” Naomi said with a laugh.

  “Why not?” Steffi replied.

  Austin wanted to second Steffi’s suggestion. But he was thinking slowly. Responding slowly. He wanted to tell Naomi the soufflé was fantastic. But he didn’t want to echo the same flattering words everyone else was using. He wanted to find a way to convey the quasi-religious experience he was having, and he wanted to show he wasn’t the cultural Neanderthal she seemed to think he was. He wanted her to know he appreciated artistic endeavors and could be passionate about them.

  “Last song of the night!” the keyboardist announced. There was scattered booing, mostly from Stu. Austin caught Naomi’s eye for a moment as she collected empty ramekins, but he couldn’t read the expression on her face before she quickly turned away.

  As the band launched into an intensely rocked-out “Hotel California,” Stu pulled Steffi to her feet to dance, but she made him wait while she finished licking her spoon. Others guests accompanied them, shimmying to the raucous music and creating a sort of small mosh pit in front of the band. Though Austin was rarely one of the first people on a dance floor, the combination of the sugar high and the hypnotic beat compelled him to his feet as he joined the dance free-for-all. One moment he was dancing with Steffi. The next with Stu. And somehow he found himself dancing with Naomi.

  Well, not so much with her as next to her. They bounced up and down, swinging their heads from side to side, not really looking at each other. But he couldn’t help sneaking glances at her half-closed eyes, her tangled hair, her nearly bare shoulders. And, yes, her breasts. Which made him feel guilty and uncomfortable after what had happened earlier. He still wanted to apologize. He leaned in to say something to her just as the band kicked things up a notch, cranking the volume and the tempo. As the guitar wailed and the bass line churned, Austin somehow found his arms around her waist, and with the crash of a cymbal their eyes locked and his lips found hers.

  Welcome to the Hotel California.

  Such a lovely place, such a lovely face . . .

  The music kept playing in his head as they stumbled along a garden pathway, fumbling with their clothes. They were drinking each other in, their mouths mingling, their hands exploring. There were so many things he wanted to learn about her. So many places he wanted to touch.

  One moment they were nearly horizontal in the hotel hallway; the next he was holding her in his arms with her legs wrapped around him. Somehow he managed to get his key in the electronic lock without dropping her. The light turned green. The door slid open.

  And then she was his.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mandy was disoriented. From the darkness of the seedy bar. From the weight of a man’s hands resting on her thighs. And from the bourbon. Mostly from the bourbon.

  “Who was that on the phone?” the man asked, shifting forward on his barstool. She thought his name was Al. Or Hal. But it probably wasn’t his real name.

  “My brother,” she answered.

  “Your mother calls you this late?”

  She leaned in closer to his ear, so he could hear her above the Fray. But she misjudged the distance and her lips brushed against his ear unintentionally. Mostly unintentionally.

  “My brother,” she repeated. He looked at her, doubtful. But she nodded. “Really.”

  She gave him what she hoped was a playful smile. Or maybe a sultry smile. Like an actress in an old movie. A black-and-white movie. She couldn’t think of which particular movie. But women were always saying provocative things in old movies. It was instead of having sex. Back in the days of the Hollywood Production Code, women didn’t have sex. Well, no one had sex. But women weren’t supposed to even want it.

  His hands moved up her thighs. A warning light went off in the back of her head. But it was muted and flashing in slow motion, so that it actually made a rather pleasing, pulsing pattern in her mind. She knew she should probably stand or move his hands, but it seemed an awful lot of effort to make. And she kind of liked how it felt where his fingers were, lightly massaging her, just enough to be noticeable.

  “You have a beautiful smile,” he said.

  She never knew what to say when men said things like that. Was she supposed to return the compliment? He had a prominent forehead, a thick neck and broad shoulders. In the dark, he was handsome enough.

  “A really beautiful smile.”

  “That’s very nice of you to say,” she said. And she meant it. He was making her feel good. He was making her feel attractive and wanted. That’s what she had come for. That’s all she had come for.

&nb
sp; “You slay guys with that smile. And you know it. Don’t you? You know that I’m defenseless.”

  “You don’t seem so defenseless.” She was Lana Turner. Or Lauren Bacall. Someone svelte and sophisticated. Someone whose nose didn’t hook. Someone whose hair didn’t frizz. Someone who didn’t do Spin classes till she was ready to faint without ever getting rid of the last roll of fat around her waist.

  If she were thinner, Tad would have treated her better. She didn’t care about Tad. She didn’t care where he was or whom he was with. She was with Al. Or Hal. She was having a good time.

  She must have closed her eyes for a moment, because when she opened them, he was much closer. He spread her knees and stood between them. His hands were now under the hem of her skirt. She remembered kicking off her jeans at home and wriggling into the skirt, and she remembered thinking, hoping that someone would want to put their hands exactly where Hal’s hands were now. She decided his name was Hal. She didn’t really like the name Al.

  He was kissing her, and he was better with his hands than with his mouth. But what he lacked in technique he made up for with enthusiasm. This was probably the point when she should tell him that she wasn’t going home with him. But it wasn’t like she was making a commitment to him just because she was letting him put his tongue in her mouth.

  “What do you want?” he asked, coming up for air.

  That was the million-dollar question, and much too complicated to answer after twelve hours of primate observation in a basement lab and four bourbons.

  “What do you like?” he rephrased the question. His hands were now sliding up the inside of her thighs. She kind of liked that. But she didn’t necessarily want to say it out loud. She curled a forefinger under the waistband of his jeans, hoping it would make the point that he should just continue doing what he was doing.

  “What do you like?” he asked again.

  He was like a dog with a bone. Well, a dog with a boner. She smiled again, hopefully playfully, but more likely goofily. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re a woman alone in this kind of bar after midnight on a Saturday night. You know what you like.”

  She liked Tad. But where did that get her?

  “Do you like to be tied up?” He whispered in her ear. “Do you want to tie me up?”

  She kissed him again, partly to make him stop talking. She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to think. She wanted to forget she even had a brain. Just a body. Fingers. Nails. Teeth. Tongue.

  “Do you want to go down on me? Do you want me to go down on you?”

  So many questions. It felt like a quiz. She was losing some of her buzz. “What would you like?” she finally said, turning the tables on him.

  He slipped one of his fingers inside her, and she gasped. She felt the wetness of his breath on her left ear. “I’d like to tie you spread-eagled to my bed and eat your pussy for hours.”

  That was a shame. Because he was better with his hands.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Austin kissed the back of Naomi’s shoulder.

  He wanted to wake her. He was afraid that each moment she slept was a moment they didn’t get to spend together. Well, technically they were together. But he wanted to be talking. He wanted to be kissing. He wanted to be inside her.

  What he didn’t want to do was sleep. He could do that when he was back in Michigan, which was going to be all too soon. The clock on the nightstand said it was 8:10 a.m., which meant he had less than four hours to spend with her before he had to get to the airport.

  He felt like a kid on Christmas morning wanting to open his presents but having to wait. Except it was the person he was waiting for who was the present. Or maybe not a present so much as an amusement park. Was that a sexist thought? Or just a sign of how much he enjoyed being with her?

  In his mind, he was already rearranging his call schedule to go to Miami as soon as possible. The next weekend was out, because there was no way Len was going to let him have two weekends off in a row. But the weekend after was a possibility, if Austin was Len’s bitch until then. That was assuming Naomi would even want him coming to Miami, which was a big assumption given that he barely knew her.

  But he didn’t feel like he barely knew her. He felt like he had always known her. Always known how to make her laugh. Always known how to make her moan. At that moment, if someone had offered him the presidency of the United States, he would have insisted there was no power he could be granted that was greater than the power to make Naomi Bloom smile.

  He leaned over to see if her eyes were still closed. They were. He yearned to see the warm azure pools beneath her delicate eyelids, but he forced himself to let her sleep. The question was for how long: thirty minutes? Sixty? It was impossible to believe he had missed out on twenty years with her. Not that he would have been “with” her in elementary school. He had a vague recollection of a short girl with thick eyeglasses and a shy smile who sometimes came over to his house to play with Mandy. He wondered what would have happened if he had kissed her back then. Would everything in his life be different? Would he have lived in Italy and played guitar in a rock band?

  As if. He wasn’t interested in kissing girls when he was ten years old. He was interested in winning swimming and tennis trophies. He wondered if Mandy might have ever showed Naomi his trophies. They were hard to miss, sitting on the mantel in the living room of their three-bedroom condo. He wanted Naomi to know about his athletic prowess. He wanted her to know everything about him. And he wanted to hear the details about every place she’d ever lived. Every meal she’d ever cooked. He felt like his heart was going to burst through his skin. He reminded himself that was physiologically impossible, but it didn’t stop the sensation.

  He had never felt like this. Whatever “this” was. He didn’t know what to call it. Lust, yes. But more than lust. He leaned over again. Her eyes were still closed. He checked the clock. It was only 8:14. He lifted the white duvet and nestled closer beside her, listening for a change in her breathing. No such luck.

  Part of him wanted to wake her and proclaim everything he was feeling. But that was the impulse of an overtired and overstimulated mind. There were chemical reactions going on in his brain that had nothing whatsoever to do with the real feelings one has in a real relationship. It hit him how much he wanted a “real” relationship with her, and he didn’t want to skip over the introductory steps. Like finding out where she went to college and whether she was gluten tolerant. She was a pastry chef, so she was probably gluten tolerant. But again he was assuming things. And assuming things was precisely what he didn’t want to do. The biggest thing he didn’t want to assume was that she was feeling the same way he was feeling. If he blurted that he was falling for her, it could totally freak her out. It was already freaking him out.

  But if he didn’t say something to her, then he’d never know what she was feeling. There was something to be said for taking a risk. For throwing caution and scientific protocol to the wind and just saying out loud what he was thinking.

  “I’m sorry,” Naomi said, startling him. He hadn’t noticed that she had opened her eyes.

  “What are you apologizing for?” he asked, nervous that she was somehow privy to his inner thoughts.

  “What I said yesterday,” she said softly. “About you choosing to become a doctor when you were so young. I forgot your father was a doctor.” She paused, seeming hesitant. “And I forgot about the accident. I mean I forgot at that moment.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to remember,” he said.

  “I definitely remember. I wrote you a card. At the time. I don’t know if you ever got it.”

  He remembered a bunch of cards from kids at the elementary school. Some in crayon. He didn’t remember if he had responded to them.

  “I remember wanting to give it to you in person and being very upset when my mother insisted I had to mail it. Isn’t th
at silly?”

  “It doesn’t sound silly.” It sounded sweet. He traced the outline of her shoulder blade with his pinky. Then he cuddled closer.

  “What are you doing down there?” she asked as he pressed against her.

  “Just saying good morning.”

  “Good morning or wood morning?”

  “Can it be both?” He kissed the nape of her neck, detecting a salty scent that was part her, part ocean breeze wafting through the diaphanous curtains at the open window.

  “Why did your family move away so quickly after the accident?” she asked him.

  Because his mother was having a breakdown. Because his sister freaked out every time she saw the ocean. And it’s hard not to see the ocean when you live in a beach town. “Just seemed the thing to do,” he said.

  “I never got to say good-bye,” she said. He hadn’t said good-bye to anyone really. Other than Stu. Naomi turned around to face him. “Is that when you decided to become a doctor?” she asked, her burgundy velvet lips only inches from his own.

  “It wasn’t a final decision, but yeah.” He kissed her again, a deep kiss, like he was immersing himself in her. When he finally pulled away, there was less space between them.

  “So when did being a doctor become a final decision?” she asked, rubbing her nose against the stubble on his chin.

  “The day I graduated medical school,” he said. He loved the way her smile spread across her face and then curled upward, catching the corners of her eyes. It was like her eyes were also smiling.

  “What about the day before you graduated?”

  “What about it?” he asked, rolling on top of her.

  “What were you planning on doing with your life?” she asked.

  “Stu was trying to convince me to partner with him on his start-up,” he said, while delivering small kisses down her neck in between every few words.

  “No way. On EZstreets?”