Starfire (Erotic Romance) (Peaches Monroe)

by Strong, Mimi

  “Or I could drop to B-List and go on one of those dancing shows.” He fanned his hand through the air between us, as though clearing away bad karma. “I’ll be fine, Peaches. Whatever happens is going to happen. Why don’t you and I get married just because it’s fun?” He slid along the seat to be right next to me, his arm loosely around my back.

  “Fun like trespassing on private property?”

  He raised his dark eyebrows and pouted his lips for effect. “I’m not the one who slept on a sheik’s pool lounger in Malibu.”

  I giggled at the memory. My life had gotten way more interesting since meeting Dalton.

  He leaned in and kissed me on the forehead, right over the eyebrow.

  I closed my eyes and savored his lips on my skin. When had we last kissed? Once, in LA, for the cameras, and before that, our last kiss was on the morning he left my bedroom. That had been before everything went sideways, and I got so angry… over a few mistakes that seemed so small now… especially with his hand on my leg.

  He pulled away from the kiss and turned to look at the set table before us. “Burger?”

  “I don’t know if I can eat, but put one on my plate and we’ll see what happens.”

  Grinning, he passed me some condiments. “Yes, let’s put everything on your plate and see what happens.”

  The construction noises continuing outside seemed louder now.

  “What exactly are you doing to that poor, little innocent cabin? Don’t tell me you’re putting those ridiculous airplane parts in as fans.”

  “No, but good idea.” He took a bite and chewed slowly. “I’m just doing a full seismic upgrade and bringing the cabin into this century.”

  “Why buy a cabin here in Beaverdale?”

  “It’s a great cabin. And after the careful removal of just a few trees, it’ll be waterfront.”

  “How many trees? Did you get permission?”

  He insisted he did, and that he had permits, but I didn’t know whether to believe him or call bullshit and walk out the door.

  I stayed, though, and we talked about his renovation plans as we ate dinner. He asked about the bookstore, and I brought him up to speed on the move and expansion. I paused at one point, teetering on the edge of telling him about Adrian, but the right words wouldn’t get in order and march out of my mouth. That always happens when I think about what I’m going to say. (In other words, infrequently.)

  After dinner, we had strawberry cheesecake for dessert, and Earl Grey tea.

  I stole a few glances across the small trailer toward the sleeping loft. The last time I’d been there, I’d given him something enjoyable, then snuck off when he fell asleep. Would that ploy work a second time? My inner thighs tingled at the imagined scenario.

  We’d been quiet for a few minutes, sipping our tea with a gap of air between us on the banquette seat.

  He cleared his throat and looked over at me, almost shyly. “When can I expect an answer to my proposal?”

  CHAPTER 12

  “I’m dating someone.”

  That was my response to Dalton's sudden proposal.

  “But he’s in Italy,” Dalton said.

  I grimaced, which was not my most dainty expression. “Not Keith. Someone else. Don’t look at me like that. He’s someone I’ve known for a long time. We had a thing back in high school.” I grimaced again, embarrassed at the lie.

  Dalton cracked the tiniest smile, and I wanted to kiss him so bad, to smother that smile under my lips and eat him up.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Adrian.”

  “Do you think Adrian would mind if you married me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not if he’s… disappeared.”

  I stood and grabbed my purse. “Is it late? It feels late. I don’t hear any more construction going on out there. Should we go out and check?”

  “Peaches, sit down. I’m just joking. I’ve made a few major purchases lately, and I wouldn’t even have the funds available to make someone disappear.”

  “Not funny.”

  “You don’t have to give me an answer right away, but I’ve tentatively scheduled an appearance together for this coming weekend. If things go well, and the tide of my PR problem turns, it could be the end of your obligation to me.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know what happens next. Just because I have a plan doesn’t mean I can see the future. All I know is how I feel.” He held his hand over his heart. “I can feel you in my future.”

  “As more than an old friend?”

  “Yes.”

  I stood with my back to the door, my fingertips grazing the cool, metal surface.

  “Dalton do you know what I feel in my heart? Blood squishing back and forth, taking oxygen from my lungs and bringing it to my legs, which are going to walk out of here. Blood is still servicing my brain, which is in agreement.”

  “Don’t get yourself lost in the forest.” He pulled his phone from his pocket and made a call to Vern, telling him to come pick me up.

  “I am sorry about blabbing your secret,” I said. “Which is why I’ll make an appearance with you this weekend. If you think it will help, it’s the least I could do.”

  “What about the other thing?”

  “Other thing? You mean the pr—” My throat closed off. I couldn’t even say the word.

  The proposal.

  The ring.

  A wedding.

  Commitment.

  Love.

  Love?

  It hit me in wave after dizzying wave, so I yanked open the door and took off down the steps. The sun had disappeared, and the woods were tall and foreboding in the dark. I started walking quickly in the direction of the lake.

  A few minutes in the cool night air was exactly what I needed to clear my head.

  I got to the lake’s edge and thought about walking further, turning right or left, but that would mean making a decision, and my brain wasn’t in a decision-making mood.

  An owl hooted, breaking the static of anxiety playing on repeat in my head. The sound of the lake at night rose up around me in the moonlight.

  I sat down on the gravel shore, unconcerned about getting my dress dirty.

  The owl called to me, a three-hoot call. Another owl, closer to me, answered. Who-who-who.

  PLUNK.

  Something dropped in the water—something bigger than the first raindrop of a shower. The air was dewy, but the sky was dark and cloudless.

  PLUNK.

  I squinted at the shimmering surface of the lake. Was that sound made by frogs jumping into the water? Or by ducks submerging?

  The owls were answered by other owls, further off in the distance, just barely audible to my human ears.

  RIBBIT.

  “Holy fuck!” I held my hand over my heart, then laughed at myself for being scared by a frog.

  Footfalls sounded behind me, and I took a deep breath of the lakeside air, trying to become one with the serenity.

  Dalton sat down a few feet off to the side of me, where he began digging around, clinking pebbles. I knew even before he tossed the first one that he was searching for flat stones, perfect for skipping.

  I felt around next to me, located a flat rock, and whipped it out onto the water. My rock made a satisfying smack as it hit the water with torque and then smacked a second time as it sunk.

  Dalton tossed his rock, which smacked the water four times before disappearing.

  I peeked over to see his teeth glinting in the moonlight, and him looking proud of his stone-skipping.

  Searching more carefully this time, I found a bigger, flatter stone, and tossed it out. The stone skipped at least eight times before falling in, its final splashes soft and rapid, blending with the sound of the whatever else was out there, breaking the surface of the water just enough to make me curious.

  Dalton tossed the next stone, and then another, not waiting for me to take a turn. He threw the stones harder and harder, grunting with effort,
but he couldn’t beat my record of eight.

  A vehicle approached on the road behind us, tires crunching on the gravel road. The brief spotlight of the headlights as Vern turned the car around momentarily blinded me, taking my night vision. In the darkness, I got to my feet and started moving toward the waiting car.

  Dalton got to his feet and carefully swiped the rocks and dirt from his pants. I could hear his hands swooshing on the fabric. Still, he hadn’t said anything to me.

  And what was there to say? Marry me for good publicity? Because you stupidly signed a contract agreeing to do ANYTHING if you blurted out my secrets?

  I walked up to the car in silence. Dalton jogged up ahead of me and stood in front of the car door.

  “You’ll think about my offer?” he asked.

  “Offer? You mean your demand?”

  “Think about it.”

  “I don’t have to think about anything. The agreement I signed says I’ll do ANYTHING so that’s what I’ll do. Tell me what day to show up, and I’ll be there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He was still blocking the door. I just wanted to get in the car and go home, away from Dalton and the hypnotic hold he had over me. I could pretend I thought the wedding was a nuisance, and that I didn’t want it to be for real, but that wasn’t entirely true.

  I mean, really.

  Marry the swoon-worthy Dalton Deangelo?

  What girl wouldn’t?

  “Whatever.” I waved my hand for him to move away from the car door.

  “You’ll marry me?”

  “Should I wear my hair up, or down? I’m thinking up. When are you thinking we do this? Saturday? I’ve got the day off work.”

  He chuckled. “I’m glad you have Saturday off work. I’ll send Vern to pick you up at your house as early as you can manage. How’s six?”

  “Sure, six.” Like I was going to sleep at all the night before.

  “You’re the best.” He leaned down to kiss me.

  I held a hand up between us. “I have a boyfriend, remember?”

  “Right. I guess I just got swept up in the moment.”

  “I’ll kiss you when they do the kiss-the-bride thing.”

  “That’s all I get?”

  “Dalton, you’d better watch yourself. You only want me because I’m running away from you, but I’m not playing a game, so you’d better watch out.”

  “Watch out for what?”

  “You chase me because I run, but one of these days I’m going to run right into your arms, and then you’ll find out exactly what kind of man you are.”

  I grabbed the door’s handle and used the door to shove him forcefully out of the way. I pulled the door shut quickly behind me and said to Vern, “Drive.”

  Vern did as instructed.

  After a few minutes, Vern said through the opening, “I haven’t been to that pie place. Chloe’s, I think it’s called?”

  “Chloe’s Pie Shack?”

  “If you insist,” he said chirpily. “Or I could take you straight home, if you’d like, but I’ll admit I’d like to try their famous pie, and it’s no fun to go alone.”

  “I usually go there with Shayla, and we get two flavors and split them so we get a bit of each.”

  “Shall we swing by the house and pick her up on the way?”

  “No, Vern. We’ll go, just the two of us. I wouldn’t want to share you with her.”

  “Very well, then.”

  Smiling, I turned and looked back out the rear window of the car. We were miles from Dalton’s cabin by now, but turning and looking back helped, somehow.

  The things I’d said to him as I was leaving—about him only chasing me because I kept running away—I wondered if it was true. People say that about men, but they also say little boys in school pull your pigtails because they like you.

  After a quiet drive, we pulled into the parking lot for Chloe’s Pie Shack, which shares a building with Burt’s Burger Barn (Burt is Chloe’s father). The place was busy for a Wednesday night, but Vern and I got a nice table in the corner. A few people smiled our way, probably thinking I was out with my father. I scanned the restaurant for familiar faces, but didn’t see anyone I knew by name. (Contrary to what some people think, not everyone in a small town knows everyone else.)

  A redheaded boy around sixteen came by with our menus and two skyscraper-tall, thin glasses of ice water.

  “You’re one of Adrian’s girlfriends,” the boy said. “He’s not working here anymore.”

  “I know,” I said, giving him the stop-talking-now stare.

  Vern and I looked over the menus and ordered the Mile-High Lemon Meringue, and the Choco-Ruby, the latter being a raspberry-rhubarb combination with chocolate lattice on top.

  We mostly talked about the food and restaurant. Vern felt the sugar dispensers and chrome napkin holders were “perfect.” I suggested we hold the wedding reception there. He barely twitched an eyebrow, but didn’t say more.

  The Pie Shack was warm with laughter and body heat. Part-way through the pie, I took off my jacket, which was the red-checked one Dalton had loaned me. I’d forgotten I was still wearing it, and I’d forgotten about the ring, which was still in the box, in the pocket. My finger twitched, as though my finger knew about the ring and craved gold and diamonds. Dalton was rich, so the ring would definitely be impressive.

  Vern asked me what I studied in college, then I asked about his background. To my surprise, he’d been a commercial pilot for a couple of small airlines before he got into his current line of work. He’d enjoyed flying, but never got accustomed to the changes in air pressure from going up and down several times a day, day after day.

  “Your digestive system shuts down up there,” he said as he chased the last few crumbs around the plate. “And I enjoy digestion too much.”

  “Me, too.”

  The waiter came by, and Vern said to me, “What pie should we order to take home for your housemate?”

  I glanced over at the specials board and ordered the Spooky Custard Berry for Shayla.

  I hadn’t thought about getting takeout for Shayla, but Vern really impressed me with his thoughtfulness. It made me wonder how much worse Dalton would be at dating if he didn’t have some coaching from Vern.

  We left the restaurant, and on the drive home, I asked Vern, “Did you pick out the engagement ring?”

  Without pausing, he said, “No. He came up with that himself.”

  “I sense disapproval in your voice, Vern.”

  He chuckled and pushed the button to jokingly raise the glass between us by a few inches.

  ~

  Vern dropped me off at home, and I ran into the house and up to my room.

  Instead of looking at the ring, I folded the red jacket around the box and stuffed everything in a dresser drawer next to my bed. The red foil heart-shaped balloon my family gave me a week earlier had completely deflated, and the crinkled heart gently settled on top of the jacket.

  When I woke up Thursday morning, I stared at the closed drawer for a long time.

  I didn’t look, though. I left the drawer closed and went to work early.

  At the bookstore, I settled into my comfortable routine. Plenty of customers came in to check out the tables of deals on select books. Like most bookstores, we’re able to send back unsold books. They get returned to the distributors. Overstock is not a problem in the book business, except for with a few smaller distributors, where Gordon pays for the books outright, but at a steeper discount to offset the risk. Customers really don’t care about the business model of a retail store, though. If you’re moving locations, they expect a sale, regardless of the economics.

  After lunch, our delivery man, Carter, came in with three boxes on his wheeled cart.

  “Those can’t be for us,” I said, shaking my head. “No new inventory until the move. I don’t need more things to pack.”

  Carter stopped and pretended to have hurt feelings, both hands over his heart. “You’re not happy to
see me? I’m crushed.”

  The new ink on his arms had healed, and countless bright-hued fish swam up and down Carter’s arm amidst fine, red-gold arm hairs.

  “Of course I’m happy to see you.” I smiled and stared up at Carter’s friendly eyes, blue with an inner ring so pale it looked white. He and I had been friendly since he moved to Beaverdale to play guitar and enjoy the small-town life. We’d flirted a few times, but never dated. The topic had only come up once he’d found out I was with Dalton. As I stared up into Carter’s eyes, fringed by pale gold eyelashes, I wondered if he was in my bookstore to further complicate my love life.

  “These boxes aren’t for you,” he said.

  “I’d celebrate being right, as usual, but people take it the wrong way. Maybe it’s the song and dance I do.”

  He grinned. “Do you know I’m the other guy?”

  “What other guy?”

  “I’m dating Golden, who’s seeing Adrian, who’s—”

  “I know the rest!” I put my hands on my hips and looked at Carter through the new filter of him dating Golden. They would make a cute couple.

  “My other girl is my guitar, though. My dating life isn’t as exciting as yours. I have thought about asking out Kirsten, from Java Jones, but I don’t know.”

  “So, you’re just here to let me know we’re in the same dating chain?”

  “And to say hello, because I’ve missed delivering to you.”

  His adoring gaze started to feel weird.

  Some customers came in the door, putting an additional layer of awkwardness on the conversation.

  Carter and I talked a little about the store’s upcoming move, and then he left with the three boxes, which were actually for the music store a few blocks over.

  After he was gone, I wondered if he’d come over to ask me on a date, turning our dating chain into a circle. Little did he know I was pretty booked up, what with the upcoming wedding.

  ~

  Ten minutes before closing, Adrian came in, wearing shorts and running shoes with a sleeveless shirt that showed off his long, muscled arms.

  “I hope you’re hungry,” he said.

  I stared at his face, at the light glinting on the short beard growth on his face. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and he had what always looked to me like brown sugar granules along his jaw.