by Alyse Miller
Leave it to Melody and her merciless lawyer instincts going in for the kill. Of course, it probably didn’t take a rocket scientist—or a neuroscientist, by the way Denise had stopped giving her that eyebrow of distant curiosity and was sizing her up like a potential lab specimen—to peg Andie suspect for dawdling on answering such an easy question. By all accounts, it was probably the last thing the rest of her friends really cared to hear about anyway. Nobody gave two shits about nice. Nice guys always finish last wasn’t a saying for nothing. Andie couldn’t help but feel like a guilty offender on the witness stand. With Guy’s heated memory just a blink away, there was no way she was going to talk about his infallible hotness. If she did, odds were about 10 million to one that she might finally melt into that estrogen-filled puddle she’d been trying to avoid all day. If Guy were sitting in the back of this little room in the coffee shop, he’d probably be giving her that same little suggestive smirk again, damn him. They had her surrounded.
Andie gaped around for an answer, and then promptly shoved the entire scone straight into her mouth and pointed at it apologetically as if to say, “Sorry, my mouth’s full.” If she were lucky, that might buy her two, maybe three, whole minutes of peace. Tandy made an exasperated sound and waved her on, demanding at least a nonverbal assessment of Guy’s hotness. Andie offered a thumbs up, swallowed a big hunk of the scone, and put up the other thumb. Two thumbs meant super hot, right? That should work. It seemed to anyway, because Tandy elbowed Elizabeth and giggled something at her under her breath. Whatever she was saying was just fine by Andie, even if it was about her bad table manners.
Denise, who had taken time out from clinical trials to make it to the weekly night meet-up, cleared her throat. “I would imagine it was a very awkward encounter for everyone,” she said matter-of-factly. “But we should get back to planning the gala. This meeting shall now officially come to order.”
Whether or not it had been for her benefit or merely Denise’s crisp way of cutting short the girl talk and getting back on point, Andie gave Denise the most grateful smile she could around the wad of scone still in her mouth. Maybe by next year she’d be ready to talk about Guy Wilder.
***
Two hours later the girls had nailed down a venue, catering selections, and made it through a forty-five minute lecture from Tandy on the nearly indistinguishable differences between blush and bashful shades of pink as if she were Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias herself. That whole conversation was a nightmare that had ended only when Melody, fed up with Tandy, had doused her with a handful of cool tea and told her to “Drink your juice, Tandy.” At least Andie wasn’t the only one feeling like she was living inside a movie this time.
“Okay, I think we’re almost there.” Andie let out her breath, twisted her back to pop, and straightened her stack of papers in the space between empty coffee mugs and leftover scone crumbs. “So. Here’s what we’ve got. We’re going with the ballroom at St. Julien’s hotel, the plated roast duck dinner banquet with champagne and hors d'oeuvres to follow, and the whole place is to be decked out in shades of ivory, blush, and bashful. Right?”
“Right.” They all answered in unison, Elizabeth a millisecond after Tandy as per the norm. Tandy, still patting dry her soggy cardigan, was beaming. Her executive orders had been passed.
“Great, that’s done. Now for the meat of the thing.” Andie offloaded the first stack of completed paperwork to Elizabeth—who immediately turned to Tandy and tweezed back out the blush and bashful fabric swatches. She rolled her eyes and turned her attention to Melody and Denise, who—thankfully—were more keen to discuss that actual event and its purpose than the color palette for the evening. “We’ve got a guest list with close to 300 RSVPS—thanks for getting all the invitations in the mail, Elizabeth—but no confirmed keynote speaker. Any ideas?”
Without a big name willing to walk onstage and speak to the gala attendees about the critical need to support the charity’s mission, they’d be dead in the water soliciting the contributions that they would need to fund ongoing activities to increase literacy in their community. Nothing really brought home the bacon like some star power on stage. If the gala wasn’t profitable, it would be a bust and the entire charity might be at risk without enough funding for another year.
“What about Susan Dahl? She’s a bestselling author and local,” Melody offered.
“Booked.” Denise didn’t bother to reference her list.
“Megan Kant, the congresswoman?”
“Too political, and not looking good for re-election.” Strike two.
“What about Claire Baker?”
“Who’s Claire Baker?” Andie asked. The name didn’t ring a bell.
“Exactly,” Denise answered pointedly. She didn’t even have to say it: if the women at the table didn’t know who Ms. Baker was, many—maybe most—of the gala attendees wouldn’t either. And if they didn’t know the keynote speaker, there was no way they’d be opening up their pocketbooks. They might as well grab someone off the streets to give the big money speech because it’d be just as hopeless.
Andie was beyond frustrated—they’d been struggling to find a headliner for weeks—but she was not ready to give up yet. “Guess we’ll keep looking then. There’s got to be someone willing to speak about women’s literacy with the platform to make an impact.”
“We need to think outside of the box.” Melody thudded her fist against the table. “We’ve been through every author, notable businesswoman, and educator in the larger Denver area, without getting completely lazy and pulling from CU. So, let’s expand our thinking.”
“We could ask one of the Broncos!” Elizabeth blurted out, and then clamped her hand over her moth. Her horrified expression indicated that the words had missed her filter. She had been very careful to remain a closeted football fan.
Tandy snorted derisively. “A basketball player speaking on women’s literacy? Don't be daft, Liz.”
Andie couldn’t help but laugh. “First,” she explained, ignoring Tandy’s glare, “the Broncos are a football team, and second, that wasn’t a terrible idea Elizabeth. Many professional athletes do a lot of really fantastic philanthropic work to support their communities and other initiatives. But,” she paused, thinking of Mrs. Weinstein, the group’s largest and most conservative, crotchety, and old-fashioned funder. She might react badly to a linebacker talking about women’s learning needs. “What Tandy probably meant is that a football player might not exactly be someone who’s going to resonate with this audience.”
“One thing is for sure,” Denise noted, pushing strawberry red curls over her shoulder and patiently waiting until she had gathered everyone’s attention. “We need someone with ‘star power’ to really help us fill the bank. Remember, ladies, our target goal for this fundraiser is half a million dollars. That is not chump change. We have to think big to get big.”
“We need star power,” Melody parroted for emphasis.
Andie was about to suggest they broaden their pool and start thinking about contacting public relations agencies to see if they could find a celebrity within their budget when Tandy erupted in a fit of out loud giggles that made everyone stop to stare. It took almost an entire minute of full-throttle giggling before Tandy was able to get enough air back to speak.
“Star power! My dear Dr. Foxglove, why don’t you just ask Guy Wilder to come speak for us?” She fanned herself with one of the pink color swatches. “I bet your sexy new BFF would be just to die for in a slick black tuxedo with a little bit of bashful peeking out.” She coyly put her fingertips to her lips and winked suggestively. “The color I mean, not that bit of bashful!”
Andie’s jaw fell at the exact second Tandy’s punch line hit home with the rest of the table. Her contagious laughter and general absurdity coaxed Elizabeth, Melody, and Denise to join in. Andie wanted more than anything to glower at Tandy’s cheeky malevolence, but she could do little more than revolve her head side to side in what she hoped was a disapprovi
ng look while her mouth stayed agape. It was nearly impossible not to succumb to the perfect silliness of it all. Andie watched her girlfriends each howl with their own variety of laughter. Tandy had her forehead down and hands slapping the table. Elizabeth doubled over, and Melody had her head rolled back and eyes closed. Even prim Denise was trying to hide her laughter with a hand over her mouth. They were impossible to resist. Andie thought of Guy slinking into her classroom, frazzled and then sensuous, and finally sulky and fuming. She let every mixed emotion blend together and then let them all go at once in her own burst of laughter. It really was pretty damn funny.
Andie laughed. The more she imagined that sullen, brooding hunk of man hiding behind his dark shades and standing on stage surrounded by cloud-like tufts of bubblegum pink tulle, his tux adorned with a giant pink peony and his handsome face fixed with an embarrassed grimace, the harder she laughed, until she was out breath and had almost forgotten about the gala completely. That would serve him just about right.
***
When they’d finally calmed themselves and packed their things to leave, the anxiety of earlier in the day had melted away from Andie’s shoulders. She felt back to herself again, and ready to take on the next day. Even still, all that healing laughter over her mental cartoon of Guy surrounded by pink hadn’t changed the heat trapped deep inside her. There was no doubt in her mind that Guy’s steely blue eyes with their ring of chartreuse fire, would be the last thing she saw when she closed her eyes to go to sleep that night.
CHAPTER FOUR
A spectacular sunrise crawling up the sky in strips of yellow and pink delivered the new morning from behind Boulder’s Flat Iron mountains and into Andie’s open bedroom window. Always an early riser, normally she was up and out the door before dawn, but this morning Andie had taken great pleasure in sleeping in. It hadn’t exactly been planned, but the dream she’d just woken from had been worth it. It was going to take an extra round with the loofa to scrub away the remainders of her very—very—steamy nighttime fantasy about that incorrigible Guy Wilder.
The more Andie tried to remember her dream the faster it slipped away. All she could remember for sure was that they had been on a beach somewhere, and that Guy’s lips had tasted like the ocean as he rose over her, kissing and moving inside of her at the same time. The blazing sun behind him had cast a halo around his entire chiseled torso, his eyes the same piercing blue as the waves crashing in the distance, his hair soft and tickling against her skin… Uugghhh, Andie buried her face in the pillow. It was too much. She’d had sex dreams before but come on.
It was too bad the man she’d encountered yesterday hadn’t been the same as the man she’d met in her dream. While every bit as heart-wrenchingly gorgeous in his unique way, Dream Guy had been…well, warm and open, confident without being cocky, if that made sense. Not anxious or aloof or whatever the hell that mood swing had been yesterday from the real Guy in her classroom, but something that stirred both the lower parts of her body and the more unreachable places in her heart. Two for two. Whatever had happened in that classroom—and whether or not it was some bored actor peddling his captivating, flirtatious wares to some love-lost fan girl—Andie would be a fool to deny that some sparks had flown between her and Guy. She might be many things, but Andie Foxglove wasn’t a fool. It was just a shame that those sparks had turned into the wrong kind of heat. But, Andie supposed, that’s what you get with those cheekbones.
Okay, time to get this guy out of your brain once and for all. Goodbye, Mr. Wilder, and thanks for the lovely evening. Andie laughed out loud in the empty bedroom. Lovely was an understatement. Maybe she’d get a kitten or something and channel her frustration into the next Internet cat meme star. Anything was better than waking up from another dream like that, and some sickly sweet feeling that felt a lot like regret.
And with that, she slid out of bed, shoved the dream firmly out of her brain, and let her bare feet land firmly on the cool hardness of reality. Let’s get this day started.
***
One hour and three changes of shoes later (she really had to stop binge shopping on Zappos), Andie wound a thin cotton scarf around her neck to quell the cool morning breeze, locked the door to her loft behind her, and made a beeline to her favorite little coffee shop on the edge of the university district. Tucked almost completely out of sight and sandwiched between a vintage record shop and a boutique furniture store, this little hole in the wall was known by many early birds for making the best red-eye espresso in Boulder. But, this late in the morning, most of the campus kids who weren’t already in class would be down at the trendier espresso bars near the Pearl Street mall, and most of the other professors and business-types would be avoiding the students and hitting up the Panera Bread on Twenty-Ninth Street instead. Hopefully she’d have the place to herself.
When she arrived, Andie was pleased to find that both halves of the Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Cafe—one with a cracked countertop and barista station, the other a crammed makeshift library with a hodgepodge of worn, overstuffed chairs and torn poetry paperbacks—was mostly empty, save for Scott the owner/barista and his faithful yellow lab, Oz.
“Well, lookit who’s finally here, Oz ol’ boy. You’re late, ya know, Fox.” Scott’s deep, rolling voice boomed across the empty café as Andie walked toward him. She grinned. Outside of the gala girls, Scott was Andie’s best friend in the universe. He’d won her over when she was a Boulder-newbie with his familiar charms and delicious lattes.
Scott flung the towel he’d been using to wipe down the counter over one shoulder and crossed both tattoo-covered arms across his chest pointedly in that gruff way that was more fitting for divey barbacks than baristas. But, it worked for Scott. He managed to look petulant and daunting at the same time, a rare talent reserved for the Peter Pan types of the world. It was a fitting analogy for Scott. “We were thinking you stopped lovin’ us or somethin’.”
“Oh, I don’t see how that could be possible.” Andie smiled apologetically. She knew she’d catch hell from somebody for sleeping in.
Scott kept the café’s stereo set dependably on hipster. Something vaguely bluegrass-y stopped and The Weepies’ Crooked Smile started. Andie usually enjoyed the catchy tune about crooked smiles and how it would never work between the girl and guy, but today it seemed to be the soundtrack that went with the memory of Guy’s smile that kept trying to worm its way back into her thoughts. It wasn’t like her to fixate on one encounter so much. It was a bit absurd really. She’d spent a whole five minutes chattering with some who-cares TV star. A little bit of googly eyes shouldn’t be nearly enough to knock her off her game this badly.
Every time you think of Guy Wilder, I’m going to pinch you, Andie scolded herself. If Pavlov could use reinforcement training on dogs, then she could use it on herself. That was one pathway to self-control.
“Besides….” Andie pulled herself back to the present and flashed a grin at Scott as she lapsed into her best puppy voice. She bent to pet Oz, who had ambled over and rubbed up against her leg. “Who could ever quit loving this sweet face?” The sweet beastie was such an old man at heart no one would ever guess he was only a two-year old pup. Decked out in his bright orange vest, Oz’s calm demeanor was a testament to his station as a post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, service-dog. Scott was barely two years out of the marines, and he’d come a long way in leaving whatever horrors he’d experienced while deployed in Afghanistan behind him over the many months that Andie had known him. Most of that progress, Andie believed, was directly because of the gentle giant nuzzling her thigh. Sometimes, dogs really were man’s best friends. On second thought, maybe she’d get a dog instead of cat.
“Sweet face? Oh, you must mean this sweet face,” Scott chided good-naturedly as he swept from behind the counter, carrying a steaming mug of something thick and warm in his hand. He handed her the mug and gave her a tight, squeeze with one arm and quick peck on the cheek. He stroked the top of Oz’s head with his free
hand. “Because it’s the one bringing over your morning latte, little lady.” With his cocked fedora, thick-rimmed glasses, and layers of scarves and a cardigan, Scott looked remarkably like a younger version of Johnny Depp. He had that same endearing quirkiness, too, that made Depp so mysterious and captivating. It worked for him. When he wasn’t tending the coffee counter, Scott was one of the area’s most celebrated indie photographers. He was famous in local photog circles after he’d won an ICON award last fall for a very emotional self-portrait he’d taken with Oz. Andie had been Scott’s date to the award ceremony, and it had been without a doubt one of the best nights she’d had in Colorado. Of course, even though their date had been totally platonic, she’d still earned herself a few glares from some of the more territorial members of Scott’s fan club by being the girl on his arm that night, but that didn’t matter to Andie. She was just proud to be a part of his special night—he’d deserved it. And it had been a lot of fun too.
Mmmm. Andie inhaled a lungful of cinnamon, nutmeg, and something else that she’d given up trying to figure out. Scott clung to his top-secret chai tea latte recipe as if it were a national treasure. Whatever it was he added, his lattes were nothing short of magical. She took a small sip of the hot milk, swooned a little, and moaned. “Scott, you know the way to a woman’s heart is through her morning beverage, right?”
“So they tell me, but so far you’re the only one who gets weak in the knees from chai.”
“It’s so good it’s almost scandalous.” Andie sank into one of the ragged club chairs on the library side of the café. She tugged up the tops of her tall brown riding boots over the ridge that sitting had made in her dark jeans. The knee-high boots were a much better choice than the ankle-booties, but it really was a shame she couldn’t wear more than one pair of shoes at the same time. First world problems, she mused.