A Better Reason to Fall in Love

by Marcia Lynn McClure

  “Hmm,” Jagger said, grinning. “I’m not sure I’m up for all that. My hair isn’t long enough to braid for one thing.”

  Tabby laughed. “Mine either, I guess,” she said. “What kinds of things do boys do at these so-called campouts then?”

  Jagger shrugged. “The regular stuff—tell stupid jokes, eat a truckload of chips and salsa, talk about hot girls…dare each other to run naked around the backyard.”

  “What? Are you serious?” Tabby asked, laughing.

  “Oh yeah,” Jagger confirmed. “So, if you’re not up for stupid jokes or streaking, I guess we’ll have to find some other means of entertainment.” He paused and winked at her, adding, “Won’t we?”

  Tabby felt herself blush—even though she tried not to.

  “I suppose so,” she said. “Though I’m sure I could manage the chips and salsa part.”

  He chuckled and ate for a moment.

  “Can I ask you a question?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she answered.

  “Do they really call me ‘Iron Buns’ at the office?”

  Tabby choked a bit, stunned by his question. She glanced up at him, expecting to see a teasing expression on his face. Yet he looked sincere, as if he were truly curious—and a little embarrassed.

  “Do they really call us the Foxy Four?” she countered in trying to buy time before answering his question.

  “Yeah,” he told her. “What about me though? It’s not really true, right?”

  Tabby blushed, thinking of the nicknames she’d contributed.

  “I mean, it’s not like anyone could even see my butt anyway. I wear a suit every day,” he said.

  “But you don’t always wear a suit coat,” she mumbled.

  He glanced up to her, frowning a bit. “So it’s true?”

  Tabby looked down to her Frito pie. “Iron Buns, Mr. Tight Tush…Gladiator Gluteus,” she shamefully admitted.

  “Are you serious?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she admitted, blushing guiltily.

  He shook his head a moment. “That’s uncomfortable,” he muttered.

  “I-I think the girls just do it to be stupid,” she told him. “You know how silly girls can be…how boring work is if you don’t have something dumb to talk about.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I guess you’re right.” He chuckled then and shook his head, obviously amused. “Gladiator Gluteus,” he repeated. “I guess I should be flattered, right?”

  “Exactly,” Tabby told him. “Of course, there’s always my favorite.”

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Um…the Derrière-inator,” she confessed.

  Jagger laughed. “Now that’s clever,” he said. “The Derrière-inator. That’s good. Who thought of that one?”

  Tabby felt a blush redden her cheeks again. Looking down at her plate, she shoveled another bite of food into her mouth.

  But Jagger was not so easily deterred. “Wait a minute…was it you? You came up with the Derrière-inator?” he asked.

  “We…we were just talking about it one day. You know…just joking around,” she stammered.

  Jagger smiled. “So you like my butt then?”

  “No! Of course not!” Tabby exclaimed in defense of herself. “We were just being dumb…thinking up different stupid nicknames…”

  “So you don’t think I have a nice butt?”

  “No…I’m sure you do. It’s just that—”

  “So you’ve never checked it out?”

  “Of course…I mean, no!” Tabby stammered. She was entirely discombobulated—excruciatingly embarrassed.

  “Hey, I’m just teasing you,” he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. Tabby knew her face was still as red as a tomato, however.

  She heard him chuckle again. “The Derrière-inator. That’s a good one,” he said. “Have you come up with any others?”

  It was pointless to play dumb now. Therefore, she ventured, “His Royal Hineyness?”

  Jagger choked, for he’d been drinking his milk.

  “Are you okay?” Tabby asked, quickly patting him on the back.

  “His Royal Hineyness?” he asked.

  Tabby shrugged. “Work gets pretty monotonous sometimes,” she said.

  “That’s an understatement,” he agreed. He smiled as he scraped the last of the Frito pie from his plate. “I guess we all do something to keep it interesting, right?”

  “I guess,” Tabby said. She put her fork down and sighed. She’d way overeaten and now felt uncomfortable. There was still half a plate full of Frito pie, but she couldn’t eat another bite.

  “Didn’t you like it?” he asked. His brow was puckered in almost a worried frown.

  “Oh, I loved it!” she assured him. “But it was a pretty man-sized portion. And in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not a man.”

  Jagger smiled. As he took hold of the edge of her plate and pulled it to sit in front of him, he said, “Oh, believe me…I have noticed.”

  Tabby giggled as she watched him begin to finish the food on her plate.

  “Wow…you really are a player, aren’t you?” she said. He was way too charming to be safe. Already her pulse had increased.

  He frowned. “I’m not a player,” he argued. “How could I not have noticed you? It ain’t every office that has a dead-sexy redheaded graphics designer.”

  “Oh, so you like redheads, huh?” she asked.

  “I always have,” he said. “I think they’re sexy.”

  Tabby couldn’t decide whether to be happy at his confession or disappointed. She was glad he claimed to find her attractive. Yet her old fear of her hair being the only pretty feature she owned returned in an instant.

  “Oh, sure,” she said, staring at him with blatant skepticism.

  “Really,” he assured her.

  “So, you think, like, Lucille Ball was sexy?” she teased him.

  “No…but she was hilarious,” he admitted.

  “Name one sexy redhead then,” she challenged. “Go on. I’ll bet you can’t think of one.”

  He grinned at her. “You,” he said.

  Tabby rolled her eyes, shaking her head with disbelief. “I’m serious,” she told him.

  “So am I,” he said, pushing his plate to the middle of the table and leaning back in the chair. “I even sang about it. How much more proof do you need?”

  Tabby rolled her eyes once more. This guy was good! She’d have to watch her heart closer than she thought.

  “Okay, whatever,” she said. “Then name another one.”

  “Easy,” he said, shrugging broad shoulders as if her challenge held no merit. “Ginger.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Tabby frowned. “Ginger?” He’d said the name as if she would instantly know who he was talking about.

  His brow puckered, and he looked at her with an “are-you-kidding” expression.

  “Ginger,” he repeated. “The Ginger? The Ginger that every boy in America—and probably all over the world—has been hot for since, like, nineteen sixty-something?” He made a sound as if it were the simplest fact in the world—that everyone knew who Ginger was. “I mean, seriously. Mary Ann was cute. She was even pretty—like, really pretty—and most of the time, you’d have to go with Mary Ann. But let’s be serious. Ginger was like a fantasy.” He smiled—a broad, dazzling smile that caused Tabby to sigh.

  She giggled and shook her head with amused disbelief. “You mean, Ginger on Gilligan’s Island?” she asked teasingly. “That’s the only sexy redhead you can think of?”

  He nodded with emphatic assurance. “Ginger was the bomb,” he continued. “Ginger was…seriously, like, ultimate when it came to sexy women. And she was a redhead. Not the only sexy one. Just the sexy redhead any man thinks of first.” He chuckled with an emphatic nod. He winked at her, adding, “Any man who hasn’t met you, that is.”

  Tabby blushed, even though she knew he was only flirting. Tina Louise, the actress who played the infamous role of Ginger Grant on th
e old syndicated sitcom, was absolutely in a class by herself when it came to true beauty. Tabby doubted any redhead in the world could rival her—especially her rather common self.

  “You’re not even old enough to remember Gilligan’s Island,” she countered.

  “Oh, I watched plenty of Gilligan’s Island when I was kid,” Jagger said. “The reruns were on every day…at three-thirty p.m. for all three years I was in middle school.” He chuckled to himself and added, “I don’t even remember the transition really…just that one year I was racing home from school to watch cartoons and the next year I was racing home to ogle Ginger on Gilligan’s Island.” He paused, his smile broadening once more. “I used to imagine that, sure, maybe the Professor got Mary Ann, but I didn’t care because I always thought of myself as Gilligan…who we all secretly know had a deeply passionate relationship with Ginger.” He nodded. “Yep, the Professor was smart. But Gilligan, now he was the real ladies’ man.”

  Tabby laughed and studied Jagger for a moment—his dark, rather tousle-styled hair, his deep green eyes, his deliciously five-o’clock-shadowed, artistically chiseled jaw. She quickly glanced to his perfectly alluring manner of dress—worn blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a tattered black T-shirt. These were the clothes he’d brought along to change into to wash dishes at the restaurant, and he still looked like a rock star.

  She giggled, shook her head, and said, “Oh, yeah. You’re a real Gilligan. It’s so obvious I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before.”

  She stood up, retrieving their plates from the kitchen table. “In fact,” she began as she carried the plates toward the sink, “I remember the first time I ever saw you. Yep, I thought, that guy totally reminds me of Gilligan on Gilligan’s Island.”

  Jagger chuckled again. “Yeah…well, all guys are just Gilligans at heart,” he said.

  “Oh really?” she giggled.

  “Yeah, you know…kind of gangly and dorky at some point, always crushing on the girls they could never possibly hope to win,” he said. “Still, like I said, Gilligan and Ginger…they totally had a thing, I’m sure of it. Gilligan owning Ginger—it gave all us awkward adolescent boys hope.”

  “Oh, and what? You don’t think girls crush on boys they can never hope to win?” she countered. “In fact, I’d put money on the fact that girls tend to crush more on unobtainable guys than guys do on unobtainable girls. I’m sure you know that better than anyone.”

  Jagger stood, stretched, and sauntered toward the sofa. Tabby followed him, plopping down to sit on the opposite side.

  “What do you mean by that?” he asked, frowning and smiling at the same time.

  “Oh, don’t try to play all innocent with me, Mr. Brodie. I saw your groupies the other night,” she said, wagging an index finger at him. “Fifty women—of all ages and types—swooning every time you looked at one of them.”

  “Swooning?” he asked. “Do women still swoon these days?” Jagger chuckled, shook his head, and said, “Nah, nobody’s swooning over me,” though he looked so embarrassed that Tabby thought he might actually blush. “It’s the guitar. Chicks just dig guys with guitars,” he said. He smiled at her. “One semester of college social life will prove to anybody how true that is. You can take the most unlikely guy and hand him a guitar…and he’s an instant chick magnet. You can’t judge a man by the way people react to him when he’s playing guitar at a blues joint.”

  How about the way he looks just lounging on your sofa? Tabby thought to herself.

  “How about the way they react to him at work?” she offered instead.

  Jagger’s handsome brow puckered. “Oh, yeah,” he said, sarcasm thick in his voice. “There’re so many women swooning at work. They don’t have enough stretchers to carry them out on.”

  Tabby smiled at him. “It’s not as obvious at work. You just don’t pay as much attention in the office,” she said.

  “Neither do you,” he said.

  Tabby blushed again. He was such a flirt!

  “I will say this,” she sighed. “If I could make up my mind to believe that you like redheads…you’d sure be good for my self-esteem.”

  “Okay, I’ll come clean,” he said.

  Tabby felt her heart hit the pit of her stomach with a thud. He had been teasing; he really didn’t like redheads at all.

  “Ginger…she was my adolescent fantasy girl, you know?” he began. “But you…you’re real.” He paused a moment, seeming to study her—especially her hair. “It’s like cinnamon and nutmeg mixed up with barbecue potato chips—some of my favorite flavors, I might add.”

  Tabby laughed. He was so funny!

  “So you just like my hair because you think it might taste good?” she asked, still laughing.

  “It’s you I like, not just your hair,” he told her. “That’s just a bonus.”

  Tabby’s stomach was suddenly filled with butterflies. She felt breathless—knew she was blushing.

  “You know what I mean,” he continued, “like…I’m hoping you find me interesting for more reasons than just my butt—which I guess is good enough to be the topic of conversation here and there.”

  Tabby sighed, again thinking how entertaining he was—in so many ways.

  “Well, everyone has something they’re known for,” she said. “I have my hair, and you have your butt.”

  He laughed, and the sound of his laughter—the sight of his smile—sent waves of warm emotion racing through her entire body.

  “What have you got on your iPod?” he asked, pointing to the iPod and dock sitting on the wall unit.

  “Oh, a little of everything,” she said.

  Tabby stood and went to the dock. Smiling, she pressed play and giggled as Jagger Brodie’s voice graveled a cool blues tune.

  “Oh, no!” he groaned. “Are you serious?”

  “You’re great,” she told him. “I bought two of your CDs…remember?”

  “I remember,” he sighed.

  “Who’s your contract with?” she asked him. “I didn’t recognize the label name. Evangeline Records?”

  “It’s…uh…it’s a small label,” he stammered.

  She turned to look at him. “Evangeline? And your grandma owns a New Orleans style restaurant? Hmmm.”

  “Okay, I produce them myself,” he admitted.

  “Ooo! An artist and a producer!” she teased.

  He shook his head. “I was getting so much pressure from the family to have my stuff available that I caved and just started doing it myself.”

  “I’m surprised you’re not all rich and famous, contracted with some big-name label,” she said.

  His smile faded. “Well, there’s a reason for that too.”

  She sensed he didn’t want to talk about it.

  “What else do you have on there?” he asked.

  “Well, you like Diana Krall, so…” Tabby said, spinning down to a Diana Krall album.

  “She’s so smooth,” Jagger said, smiling.

  “Yeah,” Tabby agreed. “She’s good when you just want to relax a little.”

  She heard Jagger sigh. He was bored, she was sure of it. How in the world would she entertain them until a reasonable time arrived to go to bed?

  “Do you like games?” she asked as she knelt down in front of the wall unit and opened one of the cupboard doors.

  “You mean like post office and spin the bottle?” he teased.

  Tabby giggled. “Well, I meant more like Monopoly or cards or something,” she said as she studied the board games crammed in the cupboard.

  “What’s the green box?” he asked, leaning forward on the couch.

  “Oh, that’s nothing you’d be interested in,” she said. “Just a little novelty thing my parents bought me one year for Christmas…as a joke really.”

  “What is it?” he asked. “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? What’s that?”

  “I…it’s a verbal game I like to mess with, and my parents saw this one year and got it for me,” she explained. “Really, it’s just
a joke…and I only play it verbally anyway.”

  “Kevin Bacon?” he asked. “Like the actor?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Show me,” he said. “What do you mean it’s a verbal game you play?”

  Tabby was somewhat mortified with embarrassment. He’d think she was a whack job! Still, what could she do but explain?

  She turned to him and sat down on the floor in front of him.

  “Are you familiar with the theory of six degrees of separation?” she asked.

  “The human web,” he answered, nodding. “The theory that any two people can be connected through association with six people or less…yeah.”

  Tabby shrugged. “That’s how Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon works…only you do it with actors through movies and stuff.”

  Jagger smiled, leaned back on the couch, and said, “Show me.”

  Tabby tried not to blush, but it all sounded so ridiculous. He was probably thinking, This girl needs a life.

  “Really…it’s just a stupid thing I do,” she said.