Accounting for Cole (Natural Beauty)

by Trent, Holley

  Before I could get her name out of my mouth, Gretchen threw herself into the backseat, her fingers locked around a roll of lavender-colored papers.

  She slammed the door, Beth hit the locks again, and Gretchen giggled and bounced in her seat. “Yay!”

  Turning the key in the ignition, I eyed Gretchen in the backseat through the rearview mirror. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Drive, drive!” Beth shouted, voice now at fever pitch. She reached across the console, smacked my hand away, and gave the key a hard twist in the ignition. “Greenville Inn! Go!”

  I put my hands up in a calming gesture while Gretchen in the back erupted with another volley of giggles. “I’m not going any-damn-where without an explanation. What’s the hurry? And what’s at the Greenville Inn?”

  Beth, teeth bared and eyes wild, pounded the dashboard again. “Go, goddammit!”

  A flash of soft yellow tore cut through two cars a couple of rows up. The cause of Beth’s agitation suddenly became clear. “Dammit,” I said while letting down the parking brake.

  Freda the Brick Shithouse was on the warpath and headed straight toward my car.

  “What the hell did you two do?”

  They didn’t answer.

  Beth tested the locks, and I floored the accelerator right as Freda’s heavy palm made contact with the front passenger window.

  Beth yipped, and fortunately, the window didn’t crack. If it had broken, how the hell was I going to explain that claim to my insurance agent? “Um, you see, what happened was there was a roach and then a soda and then my two friends poked at a rattlesnake who decided to kill us with her bare hands. Yes, sir, it was all very innocent. Completely unpreventable.”

  “What the hell did you do?” I shrieked as soon as we had put the club a few blocks behind us. “And you’d better answer this time!”

  Beth straightened up in her seat and crossed her long right leg over her left, clearing her throat. She folded down the mirror and smeared a fresh slick of lipstick on before responding. When she’d snapped the visor back up, she started. “Okay, well…wait a minute. Where’d you go, by the way? We looked up and you were just gone.”

  I ground my teeth and stared ahead at the road.

  “Fine, be that way. Anyhow, after the Blowup Dolls finished their song, there was another comedy act, and then that Nicole woman…er…man…er…whatever, came out with this stack of flyers, right? He headed straight for our table. Seemed confused when you weren’t there for some reason.”

  I stole a glance away from the road and looked at her. “Really?”

  She pointed at me. “Don’t get distracted. “The troupe had a limited number of invitations to their special after party and the flyers were sort of first-come, first-served. Well, since you weren’t there, Gretch had to get two and she sort of kind of took one out of someone else’s hands.”

  I gripped the steering wheel a little harder and let up off the accelerator pedal. I was going nearly seventy in a business district, I’d become so distracted. Wouldn’t do to get a ticket requiring a court appearance. “So, what you’re saying is not only did we steal that woman’s table, we took her party flyer, too.”

  Beth shrugged. “Yup. Sucks to be her.”

  I sighed.

  We rode in silence until Beth pointed out the Greenville Inn sign in the distance.

  I parked near the main entrance, just in case anyone got any crazy ideas about doing harm to my car—which the bank still owned—and followed the rabble-rousers to the front desk, grumbling all the while.

  Gretchen held a flyer up three inches from the clerk’s nose. “Where is it?”

  The clerk pushed her hand down. “Says in the courtyard, don’t it?”

  “You little snot, I ought to…”

  I grabbed Gretchen’s arm and yanked her back from the counter right as she started climbing up onto it.

  The clerk was unfazed.

  “Why don’t we go to the bar and top off your tank, hon?” I suggested and looped my other arm around Beth’s. I craned my head around and mouthed, “Sorry” to the night clerk.

  She shrugged in a Whatever! fashion and went to work on her nails with an emery board.

  Once the ladies had achieved their optimal chemical balances, we crowded down the corridor, following the arrows pointing to the courtyard.

  “This actually worked out really well,” Gretchen said as she used the tiny straw in her loopy lemonade to better distribute the sugar. “This is where I booked our room.”

  “Good, so all we have to worry about now is you throwing up in the elevator and not my car for once.” I held the door to the courtyard open to let the two of them through.

  “Exactly!”

  I rolled my eyes behind her back.

  There were already a few people in the tiki torch-lit courtyard, mostly venue staff who’d arrived ahead to set up and a deejay who turned up the volume to the Gloria Summers track he’d been spinning when he saw us. The person I assumed was the organizer, judging by his lavender business suit and drawn-on brows, made his way over with his hand extended.

  “Welcome! You ladies are early.” He shook Gretchen’s hand, followed by Beth’s, and then held his hand out toward me, but I kept my arms crossed over my chest and offered him a warning look. “You must be the designated driver!” he surmised, pointing at me with both index fingers. “No matter! Did you walk our lavender carpet and have your pictures taken? You girls look great!”

  I noticed he was looking only at Gretchen and Beth when he said that last bit. Oh well.

  “Some of the photos will probably end up on the revue’s website, so you should totally do it. You’re so darn cute. You ladies sit wherever you’d like, help yourself to some of our special bang-bang punch and we’ll get some balls brought out to you.”

  “Balls?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Oh, you know—meatballs, cheese balls, melon balls? That sort of thing. It’s our little inside joke.”

  Gretchen giggled then hiccupped.

  I groaned.

  The man excused himself and turned to greet another cluster of women from the club.

  Gretchen and I followed Beth to a little bistro table set up near the fire pit and sat facing the doors.

  “Isn’t this great?” Beth asked, smiling far too wide for my liking as she pried her smartphone out of that little purse. She held it up and a flash went off. I tried to snatch the phone from her but she held it back.

  “Hey, don’t tag me in any of those unless I preview them, okay?” Gretchen said as she chomped on the ice from her loopy lemonade. “Marko thinks this is a scrapbooking retreat.”

  I snorted. “Unbelievable.”

  “We need to stop at the arts and crafts store on the way home.” She knocked her ice around in her cup and stared off at nothing for a few moments. Then she fixed that pale blue gaze on me. “Uh, do you know how to scrapbook?”

  “It’s paper, glue, and scissors. Use them in the combination of your choice. Affix photographs. How hard can it be?”

  By the way her jaw hung open, I was guessing I would be putting a scrapbook together in the morning. I ground my teeth and envied Nikki her busted foot.

  I sat there, rolling my water bottle between my palms, and tuning out their banter by thinking about how much work I left back at the office. The paperwork seemed to never let up, no matter how organized I was—no matter how meticulous I was about enforcing deadlines. I worked a lot of miracles for my clients. I saved a lot of asses from tricky audits and could probably find a missing nickel in a year’s worth of bank records with my eyes closed.

  My entire life was numbers. Don’t get me wrong—I liked numbers. I liked the routine and familiarity of my job, but something lately had been off. Missing. I couldn’t put a finger on what it was, but whatever it was made me feel as though there wasn’t much upward advancement potential in being Edenton’s favorite CPA.

  Beth nudged me. “Macy, did you hear me?”

>   I blinked and dragged my gaze over to her. “No. Sorry.”

  “I asked if you wanted to use my lipstick. You’re looking a bit sallow.”

  I stared, hoping for once she was pulling my leg.

  She crooked up one eyebrow and extended the tube.

  I shook my head. “Why am I friends with you two?”

  Gretchen guffawed. “Did you really forget? Your mother made you be our friend when you were ten.”

  Ah. Now I remembered. I made a mental note to ask my mother why the next time I talked to her. Did she think I needed their influence or did their mothers think they needed mine?

  I was about to ask a follow-up question about how our relationship had ended up being so damned one-sided, but before I could get the words out, the noise level in the courtyard spiked. The revue troupe had arrived.

  Beth and Gretchen squealed and waved a few cast members they seemed to recognize over.

  I considered the scenario. I had the car keys, and they were in a group of other rabble-rousers. They were safe…or as safe as those two could ever get. They couldn’t get too far shy of climbing into someone else’s car, and even drunk they wouldn’t do that.

  I tapped Gretchen’s shoulder. “Hey, I’m going to go check into our room. I want to ditch my pantyhose.”

  “Okay.” She scooted her chair over to make room for the queen coming our way. “Are you coming back?”

  “Sure,” I lied.

  After checking in, I twiddled the key card between my fingers and watched the light-up floor number get lower and lower on the display over the doors. I was so tired, my eyes had started to blear, and I fixated on the glowing numbers. When the doors opened, I didn’t notice I had company.

  I startled when the man touched my back, and said with a deep voice that stirred something low in my core, “Are you getting on?”

  “Oh! Sorry.” I stepped through the open doors, and the man slipped in behind me.

  After the doors closed, I blinked several times to clear my eyes and stole a glance at the tall man.

  His long dark hair was wet and pulled back into a ponytail that dripped onto his shirt. His ears were pierced, but he wore no jewelry at the moment. I continued my visual sojourn of his body, down to his hands. His tanned fingers clutched a six-pack of imported beer by the handle. And the other hand reached for the button panel. No rings.

  He reached out his free hand to tamp a floor button. “Which one are you?”

  It took me a moment to register that he’d asked me a question. I was fixated on the cut of his hairless calves. I thought perhaps he was some kind of fitness buff. Swimmer or runner. Had the nice, tight butt to go with it.

  I swallowed. “Oh. Um…” I actually didn’t know. When the clerk read off the room information, I hadn’t been listening. I pried the keycard’s sleeve out of my skirt pocket and found the room number at the bottom. I extended my hand toward the button panel to find my floor was already lit. “Looks like I’m going your way.” I stole a glance up to his face and sighed at his smirk.

  Everyone thought I was loopy. Nothing new there.

  But then, something about his face sparked a sense of familiarity in me. Maybe his cheekbones? The lushness of his bottom lip?

  I cocked my head and squinted. I didn’t think I’d seen him before. I would have remembered a man like that. He looked like one of those Greek statues made real. Olive green eyes, chiseled chin, elegant nose. And tall, even in his ratty leather flip-flops. If I kept staring up at him, I wouldn’t only need a dry-cleaner by the end of the adventure, but a chiropractor, too.

  “Um…” I shifted my weight and crossed my arms over the stain in my shirt. “I just hope it’s a quiet floor.”

  “Doubtful,” he countered. The elevator dinged, and the movement stopped.

  “The entire floor is filled with the troupe of loud drag queens and female impersonators you’re running away from. I’m one of them.”

  All I could do was blink as the doors slid open.

  He walked backwards through opening, his grin reaching his whole face and deepening the wrinkles beside his outstanding eyes. The wrinkles aged him in the direction I liked. It had been hard to tell how old he was when he was wearing a skirt and enough lipstick to caulk a bathtub, but stripped down, bare-skinned, I pegged him as having thirty a ways back in his rearview mirror.

  He leaned against the elevator door, holding it ajar, smirking at me. When he didn’t move after a moment I looked into his face and asked, “What?”

  He chuckled and the wrinkles at his eyes deepened even more. “You seem interesting. Come talk to me.”

  I felt both brows dart upward. “Me?”

  “I’m harmless, I promise. We go all over the country doing shows like this. This is the first time in a year that I haven’t had to do one of those God-awful after parties.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “Yeah. I threatened to quit, so they sweetened my contract. I’m stuck with this crew for another year but at least I get my pancake make-up off before midnight.”

  “Why are you still doing it if you don’t like it?”

  He bobbed his head toward the hallway as a reminder that I was holding up the elevator.

  “Oh!” I scrambled out to let the doors close and elevator go on its way.

  “Come on,” he said, pointing down the hall with his free hand. “We can leave the door open if it makes you more comfortable. I mean, I’m assuming you don’t have other plans. I hope I’m not being ignorantly presumptuous.”

  Plans? Me?

  Nothing in my brain at the moment was coherent. It was a jumble of thoughts and emotions, all of which were waking up parts of my body I figured he had absolutely no interest in, assuming he swung that way.

  He cocked an eyebrow up and shifted his beer to the other hand.

  God, he was gorgeous. So, I considered his offer far longer than I normally would have. I was prone to giving a quick no, only to regret my lack of adventurousness later. I never stepped out of my shell. Never wanted to, until it was too late, and I had a feeling a couple of hours with this guy would be well worth the anxiety. Might even make a good story later, assuming I was brave enough to tell it.

  Besides, I figured no one would have to know. I let my shoulders bob and slipped past him through the elevator doors. “Okay.”

  “Great.” His smile shifted from flirty smirk to toothy and excited, and he winked as he turned left toward the west wing.

  That wink stupefied me again, but for entirely different reasons than it had back at Club Sapphire. If I’d known then I’d be standing this close to him—and that under that costume he was pretty enough to make the angels weep—I probably would have stuck around for his act.

  As we moved down the hall, he extended one of his large hands to me. “Cole Pearson.”

  I slipped my hand into his rougher one, and he gave it a caressing squeeze, holding it a bit too long for a polite handshake, but finally letting it go as he came to a stop in front of a room.

  “I’m Macy.”

  He slipped his keycard into the lock, and leaned into the door. “Wait right there, Miss Macy.” Cole took a few steps into the suite, grabbed the heavy metal trashcan from the nearby desk, and used it to prop the door open after pulling me in.

  “Old name,” he said.

  “Yeah.” I shoved my hands into my skirt’s pockets and took a visual inspection of the room. Large. Spacious. Bet he even got free Internet.

  He jammed a couple of the beer bottles into champagne bucket filled with ice and stowed the rest in the little refrigerator beneath the counter.

  I perched on the edge of one of the desk chairs and wrung my hands, watching him kick off his flip-flops. “It was my great-grandmother’s name. Kinda sucked having a geriatric name when everyone else in my classes growing up were named things like Jennifer and Tiffany.” And Beth and Gretchen.

  “It’s coming back into fashion, though, isn’t it?” He sank onto the nearby sofa and started
rolled the sleeves of his plaid shirt up to his elbows. It was a strange juxtaposition: his smooth, overly groomed face with his well-worn, masculine attire. If I had been slightly more ignorant I would have expected him to be wearing jeans with crazy decorative seams and designs on the ass, but nope—he wore plain khaki shorts, probably two or three years old, and raggedy at the hems.

  “I guess so,” I mumbled. I fiddled with the services directory on the desk to avoid meeting his gaze. “You didn’t answer my question. Why do you do…”

  “Drag?” he supplied.

  I nodded.

  “Why do people do anything?”

  “Other than liking it, you mean?”

  He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest, cocking an eyebrow up. “What do you do for a living, Macy?”

  “I—”

  He held up his hands. “No, don’t answer. Let me guess.” He got up and walked over to the bank of windows over the air conditioning unit and pushed the curtains open.

  I followed him and we both looked down into the courtyard at the party.

  He was quiet for a moment, and then said. “I bet you work in a bank.”

  “I—”

  He rested a hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently. “No, not a bank.”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t think so.” He drew his hands away and leaned his forearms onto the window ledge. “You probably work alone, right? You seem like the type.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” It sounded indignant, and I didn’t care. I was sick of people judging me without knowing me.

  Or maybe I was sick of being so easy to peg. I blew a breath through my lips and rubbed my tired eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.”

  “Don’t worry.” He turned so his butt pressed against the ledge, and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I didn’t intend to insult you. I’m just good at reading people. I…I think you’re probably…” He closed his eyes, and clucked his tongue as if he were making a mental scan for the word. “Ah. Self-motivated. You probably don’t need a boss telling you what to do.”

  I blew my tension away on an exhale, closed my eyes, and nodded. “You were close. I’m a CPA.”

  “Hmm.” He turned again, this time resuming his observation of the party down below.