Stud in the Stacks

by Pippa Grant

  26

  Parker

  By all rights, I shouldn’t be able to walk today. I also shouldn’t be able to stop smiling, but as we step off the elevator and into the lobby of Bouncy Castle Land, my afterglow beats a hasty retreat and that pesky bitch Insecure Parker makes an appearance.

  Not helping?

  The mob of pint-sized humans who attack Knox almost immediately.

  It’s not that I don’t like children.

  I just don’t have much experience with them. I’ve never needed to. Not since my short-lived babysitting career ended almost as soon as it started.

  The last time I went to a kid’s birthday party—at my mother’s insistence, long story—one kid threw up on me, another stole the lipstick out of my purse and used it to decorate the walls with stick figures that either had really low shoulder pads, the world’s largest boobs, or severe testicular issues, and other than the mom who had to clean said lipstick off the walls, all the adults agreed the artwork was frame-worthy. Also, the birthday girl’s father asked my breasts if they wanted to grab a drink sometime.

  I might finally understand my breasts’ appeal a little more after last night.

  Knox really likes my boobs. Even if there’s enough space between them for the Holy Ghost, and even if I can drop taco meat down my shirt and have it land in my lap. Maybe my lemons aren’t such bad things after all.

  Which I really shouldn’t be thinking about here. At a birthday party.

  “Uncle Knox! Uncle Knox! It’s ponycorn time!”

  The leader of the pack appears to be a curly-headed blonde with big blue eyes, a rainbow glitter dress complete with sparkly pony tail tied around her waist and trailing behind her, and a unicorn horn on her head. She thrusts some kind of homemade unicorn blanket at him. Knox picks her up, tickles her ribs, and blows a raspberry on her cheek. “How’s my favorite birthday girl?”

  “Ponycorn!” she shrieks.

  “Ponycorn!” the preschool army echoes, and not only has my afterglow left the building, it’s left the planet and taken half my confidence with it.

  “Manners,” Knox says to his niece. “Abigail, say hi to Miss Elliott.”

  Abigail wrinkles her nose. “That’s a boy name.”

  “It is not.”

  “Yes, it is. My friend at school is Elliott, and he’s a boy.”

  “You can call me Parker,” I tell the girl.

  “That’s a boy name too.”

  “Abigail.”

  Despite the stern note in his voice and his frown, Abigail shoves the unicorn blanket thing in his face. “Ponycorn?” she asks with big puppy dog eyes.

  My eyeball is twitching. I can’t stop it. “These tacos better be delicious,” I say softly.

  “You only get one taco because the people in Martaco don’t have any,” Abigail informs me primly.

  “She probably had too much unicorn poop for breakfast.” Knox dodges her attempt to throw the pink hooded unicorn blanket over his head. “She’s really sweet when it’s not her birthday. Or Christmas, Halloween, most federal holidays, Flag Day, her sisters’ birthdays, Talk Like A Pirate Day, and every other Thursday.”

  The minions are gathering their forces and chanting. “Pony-corn! Pony-corn!”

  “Abigail. Let Uncle Knox breathe.” Judy bustles over from the cavernous, high-ceilinged room housing at least six bouncy house contraptions. She’s sporting a unicorn horn on her head—today’s version of party hats, apparently—and she bypasses Knox to grab me in a huge hug. “Parker, I’m so thrilled you could make it. Come meet the family.”

  “I—” I start.

  “Mom—” Knox starts.

  “We haven’t been properly introduced.” His grandmother skids her walker to a stop in our path. “Call me Nana. Which NKOTB member is your favorite?”

  “Um—”

  “You can have that Joey boy, but Donnie’s mine. Do you play Duck Hunt?”

  “Nana—” Knox starts.

  “Hush. I need a ringer for next week’s tournament.”

  I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that I’ve apparently been accepted into the family. I’ll let you know when I get a full sentence in.

  Maybe they’re warming me up for the kid discussion again. Although, with the thirty or forty running around right now, I can’t believe Judy would want more of this.

  “Parker works during the day,” Knox tells Nana. “And she’s just fine here with me.”

  “Spoilsport.” Nana tilts her head toward one of the side rooms. “Where’s the ring?”

  “We’re going shopping next weekend,” he lies.

  Nana snorts. “Fine. Food and grown-up conversation is in there. Come on. We’re talking about Buck Tickle.”

  “Absolutely not.” Knox plunks the birthday girl back to the ground and hands her the unicorn blanket. On its own, it would be totally cute. Pink and hand-crocheted by the looks of it, with big doe pony eyes, rainbow fringe, and a gold unicorn horn hood. “No one should talk about that. At a children’s party.”

  Nana grins at him, which makes her face wrinkle harder. “Try and stop me, sonny-boy.”

  He meets my eyes, and I don’t know if that’s don’t blow it or don’t go in there, but he’s definitely not a fan of me being here today.

  “There aren’t any children at the taco bar,” Judy says. “She’s in good hands though. I refuse to let anyone read that kind of romance, regardless of what your grandmother might think. Go on and play ponycorn. Ten minutes and they’ll leave you alone. We’ll take good care of Parker.”

  And suddenly I’m being whisked away to a brightly-lit side room lined with cafeteria tables. Unicorn posters dot the walls. Pastel rainbow streamers are draped from the ceiling. There’s a giant unicorn balloon in the corner that’s big enough to swallow a whole child—it seriously is—and I have a feeling there’s something more potent than unicorn poop in the piñata in the corner.

  Speaking of, Nana and Judy stop me at the side table. Judy shoves a unicorn plate in my hand and points to a bowl of something that looks like Chex Mix that’s been dumped in a vat of multi-colored candy melts and sprinkled with rainbow glitter. “Try the unicorn poop. It’s delicious. Unicorn punch? Steph! Parker’s here.”

  A pretty blonde pokes her head in. She has a streak on her cheek of what’s either sour cream or evidence of a really good time in the other room, but judging by the semi-crazed look in her eyes, I’m betting on the sour cream. “Have you guys picked a date yet?” she asks.

  Dammit. “We haven’t even gotten the ring yet,” I answer. We rehearsed our story on the subway ride here, though I kept getting distracted by those naughty things Knox kept leaning in to whisper in my ear.

  Murmurs of uh-huh go up amongst the other party guests.

  As if they don’t believe me.

  We prepared for this too, but my tongue’s feeling sticky and swollen. “I thought he was joking,” I tell Steph, because I don’t know her and it’s easier to lie to her than it is to lie to Judy. “But we just…clicked. When it’s right, it’s right.”

  “Always told you he’d fall hard when he fell.” I hadn’t noticed the dark-haired guy in the corner, holding an even smaller version of the blondie currently making Knox circle the bouncy castles on his knees. He was chatting with another dude about his age, and I instantly know who he is.

  “Troy. It’s been years.”

  “Yeah, we were illegal back then,” he says with a friendly grin.

  “Oh, stop,” Steph tells him.

  He saunters across the room to lean down and peck me on the cheek. “So sorry for your loss.”

  “My…?”

  “Of your freedom to my crazy brother.”

  Everyone in the room cracks up. I smile along and dig into the bowl of unicorn poop—oh, look at that, there’s marshmallows in it too.

  “Fathter, unipony, fathter!” a little voice cries. Knox pads by the room on his hands and knees, sporting the pink unicorn blanket on his
back, the hoodie on his head giving him girly pony eyes and a unicorn horn, and my heart creaks and swells so hard and loud I have to rub my rib cage.

  I get the kid thing. I do. Even if I’m never having any. My mom likes to remind me that she was forty-six when my youngest brother was born. I think she’s trying to rationalize that if I haven’t heard my biological clock ticking yet, it’s because we Elliott women are late ovulators or something.

  Still, even without wanting kids, I can admit I’m also a little turned on by Knox in the unicorn horn. There’s something undeniably sexy about a lean, muscled jungle man being brought to his knees by a bunch of unicorn-loving princess-wannabes.

  I lean out of the room, call his name, and snap a picture on my phone. “Love it, Mr. Romance,” I say with a grin that’s entirely too forced, because one day, he’ll be crawling around giving his own little girl a ponycorn or unipony or whatever ride, and I won’t be there, because this thing between us isn’t real.

  He smiles at me—a real smile that makes my hooha sing despite the panic rising in my chest—and I wave and duck back into the party room.

  “He promised me tacos,” I announce to everyone. Because tacos cure everything.

  I hope.

  “In here.” Steph disappears into the adjoining room, and I follow.

  So do Judy and Nana.

  “Knox tells us you’ve been a huge help managing all this attention off his blog,” Judy says. “Honestly, I don’t know what gets into him some days. Calling a reporter a—” she glances around and lowers her voice. “You know. Not that I disagree with the sentiment.”

  “Hopefully the coverage of his Romance and Chocolate program will go a long way toward improving public perception.” And toward him keeping his job. I can’t imagine putting security on the line over an insult to a book, but I know they’re important to him. “How long has Knox been reading romance?” I ask Judy.

  Her smile isn’t as bright. “Since his father died.”

  One more thing his fiancée should know, but if Judy notices the flash of surprise on my face, she doesn’t say anything. I never met Knox’s dad, and I can’t remember exactly why.

  “He had a heart attack at forty,” Judy supplies. “Knox was ten. Even though Robert was hardly around—he worked long hours—the boys took it hard, as you’d expect. Troy worked it all out on the soccer field, but Knox… I gave him a Harlequin Presents novel that I had lying around to distract him, and the next thing I knew, I’d catch him stealing my entire subscription box every month and reading under the covers when he was supposed to be asleep.”

  “Those books are the best thing that ever happened to that boy,” Nana declares. “He would’ve gotten involved with hoodlums if he hadn’t been figuring out how to be a pint-size Casanova.”

  Judy smiles. “He still gave us a few heart attacks in his teenage years.”

  I can imagine. Batting those eyes at the girls, and actually having done some research into what women liked?

  If the Knox today is the result, then Judy did the entire world a favor.

  My phone vibrates. I give it a quick glance, half expecting it to be Knox checking on me, but it’s not him.

  It’s my brother.

  And it’s freaking hilarious.

  Your boyfriend is an asshole. This fucking book—her first husband is a dick, and who the fuck uses Windex to kill ants? And redneck golf. REDNECK GOLF. I’m fucking laughing at a game called REDNECK GOLF. Jesus Christ. There goes my fucking man card.

  I’m snickering as I write him back. I’ll be sure to tell him you’re enjoying it.

  I hit send, and my phone changes it to I’ll be first to tell him you’re blowing it.

  For once, autocorrect isn’t getting it too wrong.

  “Is my grandson texting you pictures of his penis?” Nana demands.

  “Nana. Kid party.” Steph snaps a pair of tongs at her. “Zip it with the potty mouth or no tacos for you.”

  “She’s laughing. It’s a legit question.”

  “Mom.” Judy gives me the long-suffering look of a woman trapped between two generations of utter inappropriateness.

  I tuck my phone back in my pocket, give Nana the I never laugh at Knox’s penis eyebrow wiggle—or at least, I hope I do. Otherwise she might think I just said something derogatory about his junk. “Speaking of romance novels, I’m practically a virgin. What’s your favorite?”

  They all eyeball me, I realize what I’ve just said, and I sigh into my unicorn poop. “A reading virgin,” I clarify. “Good god, it’s like you don’t know Knox at all.”

  “Honey, we’re more surprised he got into your pants before he got into your bookshelf,” Nana says.

  “Sign of true love right there,” Judy agrees.

  I catch myself before I snort.

  Because Knox is a good friend—way better than I would’ve expected he could be after just a week, and that was before he blew my mind and my ovaries last night—but true love?

  That one is definitely still a myth.

  27

  Knox

  After giving ponycorn rides for what my back is convinced is fourteen straight months, I declare break time and shoo the little minions back into the bounce castles. It’s probably only been fifteen or twenty minutes, but that’s fifteen or twenty minutes of letting Parker fend for herself, and guilt is seeping in.

  As is an intense desire to just be near her.

  On my way to find her, I give Troy a man-hug, then pass another to Reid, a buddy from college, now a single dad here on birthday party patrol. “Getting old?” Reid asks with a grin when he catches me rubbing my back, as if he’s not sporting premature gray on his head.

  “Your kid kicked me in the kidneys.”

  “Good to know her training’s paying off.”

  I laugh and head to the taco room.

  Didn’t think I’d start anywhere else on a quest to find Parker, did you?

  She’s sitting at a side table between Mom and Nana, eyeballing my sister-in-law’s taco spread with lust in her eyes while Nana gestures to the room at large.

  “I’m telling you, Buck Tickle is going places,” Nana says. “He got off to a rough start with Pounded in the Peen by my Gayranasaurus Rex Lover, but The Viking Alien Baby Takes A Bride had some decently titillating sex scenes. Although I’m still not sure how I feel about his—”

  “Buck Tickle is a self-published train wreck trying to make a dollar off people who like to gawk at car accidents,” Mom interrupts. She tilts her rainbow-colored margarita at Parker. “There are tons of wonderful self-published books in the world, but his are not among them. You should try Maria Geraci. Sweet beach romances. Sexy heroes. But not too sexy. Perfect for an afternoon getaway.”

  Steph’s watching Parker bite into a taco. “What do you think? Did I get halfway close to Taco Nation’s chili lime tacos?”

  Parker moans. “Oh, yes.”

  Fuck, why are we at a birthday party instead of back at her place?

  “That’s what Buck Tickle’s heroines say too,” Nana says. “Except the heroes are never halfway close. They’re always—”

  Mom growls. “If you say Buck Tickle one more time—”

  “I’ll start telling people you’re Buck Tickle,” I finish. “Put it right up there on my blog. With your picture. And I have your friends’ phone numbers.”

  “Ha! That would up my street cred in two shakes of your unicorn tail,” Nana replies.

  I stop behind Parker and settle a hand on her shoulder. “They’re behaving?” I ask.

  “She won’t tell us anything about the wedding,” Nana declares.

  “We’re waiting to see when her brothers can all be there before we start making plans.”

  We’ll just break up before they figure out we’re fake engaged, she’d said on the way here.

  This breaking-up bullshit is giving me more indigestion than a bad can of refried beans.

  Do I want to get married?

  That was a m
uch easier question to answer a week ago.

  But the fact that it’s not a definitive yes still says something, and that’s something I don’t want to think about. Because Parker and I have to end this engagement one way or another, eventually. She doesn’t want to get married. Or have kids. Or give up her single lifestyle. And I don’t want to marry a workaholic.

  “Taco time,” Steph declares.

  Like magic, the hordes descend in the room. Parents line up to fill their kids’ plates. I tug Parker’s hand and pull her out of the room. “Everything okay?” I ask softly.

  She squeezes. “Not as good as staying home would’ve been,” she whispers coyly.

  Those hips. Her freckles. That mouth.

  She’s in another of her jeans-tank top-light cardigan get-ups, and all those curves are temptation incarnate.

  The kids are piling in from the bouncy castles, parents and friends swirling about us, and all I want to do is kiss this woman senseless.

  There’s a door to my left. Without thinking, I open it and haul her inside.

  Storage closet.

  Hallelujah. I light up the room with the flashlight on my phone, put it on a shelf, and lock the door.

  She shimmies out of her cardigan, grabs my cheeks, and kisses me with those lips and that tongue and that hot, wet mouth, and it’s all I can do to hang on to her hips and kiss her back.

  Her hands slide up under my T-shirt, and then she’s tracing my abs, tweaking my nipples, grabbing my ass, her touch everywhere at once. I put a hand on either side of her, pinning her against the door, and dip my head to suckle her lower lip into my mouth while I part her legs with my knee. “I need to touch you.”

  “I need to touch you.” She grinds her pelvis against my thigh and unbuttons my jeans while my cock leaps to full mast so fast my balls get whiplash.

  I palm her breasts, and she gasps and arches into me.

  “I want to lick every inch of you.” I’m peppering her jaw with kisses. “I want to make you come so hard you can’t remember your name.”

  “Yes, please.”