When It Hooks You

by Nicki Elson

  “I never let a woman pay on a date,” he whispered, his fingers flinching but not releasing their grip on her arms.

  She opened her eyes at the odd statement, jerking her head back to look at him. “Uh…good for you?” She swiped her fingertips at her tears.

  “You picked up the tab. On our first date.” His grip tightened, and his eyes flashed. “But it wasn’t a date because I never let the woman pay.” His mouth stretched into a wide grin.

  Trish studied his gleeful features. Her budding concern for his sanity evaporated when she caught on. “This wasn’t our third date!”

  “No, it was only the second.”

  “We’ve got one more.” She threw her arms around his neck, and he wrapped his across her back, squeezing her to him.

  “One more,” he murmured. There was warmth in his tone but also caution.

  They each had their rules and reasons for not letting this go further than a few, fun dates. If it was this hard to say goodbye now, how much harder would it be after spending even more time together? With her mouth at his ear, Trish whispered, “Is this a bad idea?”

  “Potentially.” Their arms loosened, and they slid apart. Their fingers apparently didn’t agree with the separation and intertwined. His forehead pinched. “I need to start making my way through security.”

  “Okay. So is this…are we…”

  “It’s up to you.” His intense eyes watched her, not blinking.

  Did he want her to say yes to one more date or was he hoping she’d say no? What she read in his expression was a mixture of both. The idea of telling him no physically hurt from the pit of her stomach to the fingertips that so desperately clung to him.

  “I really need to go,” he said.

  She felt his hands slip away from hers. “One more!” she practically yelped.

  He smiled and wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, touching his lips to hers in a swift, gentle kiss. “I’ll be in touch.”

  She walked him to the security line. Before she let him leave her, she grabbed the front of his shirt to pull him to her for one final kiss. Stepping back to let others pass, she watched him weave his way through the tethers and scans. She stayed rooted until his very last molecule was out of her sight.

  As she drove to her brother’s house, she cast doubt aside. It wasn’t as if they were abandoning the plan entirely. They were merely extending it based on a technicality. What harm could come from one more little date?

  Chapter 15

  “LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE GOT LAID LAST NIGHT,” Trish’s sister-in-law Bethany teased as Trish scooped ice cream onto cake plates. They were in the kitchen, away from the party crowd.

  Though her giddiness apparently shined as brightly as baby Drew’s giant balloon bouquet, Trish wasn’t ready to share the reason for her happiness. “Not I. How ’bout you? Wait…you getting laid would involve my brother, and I’d rather not think about that.”

  “Don’t worry—turns out the best form of birth control is to have a baby. We’re too busy during the day and too tired at night to have any sexual aspirations. I need to get my romance fix through you. Who is he?”

  “Why do you automatically assume my good mood has something to do with a guy? Maybe I’m elated because of something that happened at work.”

  “Are you?”

  “No. It’s a guy.” She wanted to scowl at herself, but couldn’t make the curves of her mouth turn anything but up.

  “And…”

  “That’s about all. It’s nothing serious.”

  “When do I get to meet him?”

  “What did I just say?”

  Drew’s cry pierced into the kitchen followed by an urgent “Beth!” bellowed by Trish’s brother. Bethany huffed. “You’d think with two grandmas and a father out there I might get fifteen minutes off of baby duty. Mind handing these out?”

  “Not at all. Go take care of that little pill.” When Bethany quirked an eyebrow, Trish explained, “Because he’s birth control. Get it?”

  Unamused, Bethany left the room. Cake was handed out, the pill was calmed down, and present opening commenced. On either side of the peasantry of normal-sized gifts were dueling towers of vibrantly wrapped boxes from each of the grandmothers—who were evidently as concerned with size as everyone else. The stacked presents looked innocent enough, but to Trish they signaled the beginning of a battle for the title of favorite grandma.

  About half way through the first stack, she thought she heard her phone buzz with a new text. Her purse was tucked under one of the end tables a few feet away from where she sat. She’d check it later. Her eyes drifted to the clock on the mantle. Assuming Adam had been headed to the East Coast—she realized now he’d never said where he was going, and she’d never asked—his plane should have landed.

  She refocused her attention on the gifts. Had the second stack grown larger? This was going to take forever to get through, especially when Bethany paused after each gift to try to coax her infant son into giving some sort of favorable reaction. Trish’s phone buzzed again. The bathroom was down the hall, and her purse was on the way.

  “Excuse me,” she whispered to no one in particular, surreptitiously rising from her perch on the arm of an overstuffed chair. Moments later, she was in the bathroom, reading a text from Adam.

  Is your passport still active?

  “Passport?” she murmured. Did this mean he was going to whisk her out of the country for an overnight and take her revirginity? Was there a clause in his reasons and rules that made such an act permissible on foreign soil? She read the second message.

  Separate rooms.

  “Hmphf,” she grumbled, typing back.

  So you’re planning this one?

  Are you okay with that?

  Yes.

  Is your passport still active?

  Si.

  Over the next few days, Adam and Trish agreed on dates for their trip, and Adam arranged the plane tickets. The one he forwarded to her only went as far as Houston. He explained that they’d meet up there and then catch a flight together—to somewhere comfortably warm and modestly humid. The only other clue he gave her was to be prepared for rain. The big date was set for late September, leaving Trish with enough time to obsess.

  “I’m a rabbit. He’s a monkey,” she told Lyssa over Skype.

  “Since when are you into the Chinese zodiac?”

  “Since it nailed us both. Listen to this: the rabbit is appealing to the opposite sex, uncomplicated, affectionate, and realistic about itself, often leaving leadership roles to others.”

  “You think you’re affectionate?”

  “When I want to be. Here’s Adam: high intelligence, original thinker, successful in endeavors, and friendly but introverted. It’s totally him!”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it. But you and I were born in the same year, so I’m a rabbit, too. Does this mean we’re supposed to be exactly alike?”

  “No. There’re variations based on which element you most closely associate with. Let’s see.” She flipped to the web page she’d pulled up earlier and scrolled to a description of the elements. “I’m earthy; you’re more metal.” She returned Lyssa’s image to full screen.

  “If you’re traveling together, does this mean your revirgination is out the window?”

  Trish’s lips curled into a feline grin. “We’ll see. He was mister chivalrous protecting my virtue last time, and we’ll have separate rooms this time, but I’m not sure he’ll be able to resist all of this again.” She combed her fingers through her long, blond strands, lifting them above her head and letting them slip to float down around her shoulders.

  Lyssa shook her head and laughed. “Maybe he’s got other reasons for resisting your seductive charms.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like…I don’t know.” Lyssa pressed her lips together and gave her head a small shake, reaching for her glass. The girls were indulging in a long-distance happy hour. “Where do you think he’s taking you?�
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  “I have it narrowed down to Guatemala or Honduras. I know he travels to both for business, and they each have connecting flights in Houston from both Chicago and Baltimore. Plus, their expected weather is in line with how he told me to pack.”

  Lyssa’s mouth puckered. “He’s taking you on a work trip to a developing nation? Are those areas stable? Don’t you think you ought to Google him before you take off to a foreign land together?”

  “I trust him,” Trish said with enough warning in her tone to end the inquisition. “How are classes going?” She sucked an ice cube into her mouth as her friend eagerly skipped off on the new tangent, exactly like Trish knew she would.

  When the conversation ended, Trish opened a blank window on her computer. Her fingers hovered over several keys before she chose her search terms: Chinese zodiac compatibility.

  Clicking on the first result, she followed the rabbit row across to the monkey column to discover: Need effort. She went back and chose the second link, which led her to a prediction that any kind of relationship between a rabbit and a monkey would take a considerable amount of work. “Third time’s a charm,” she murmured and took a gulp of her now bitter-tasting Moscow mule. “Snake eyes,” she grumbled upon reading that despite the rabbit’s fascination with the monkey, the primate was a very poor choice of mate.

  Trish sighed, clicking off the computer. Those warnings were actually good things. She and Adam were blissful and harmonious now, but if they were to continue beyond this final date, the passion would eventually wane and the necessity for effort would set in. Knowing this would make it a lot easier to part ways with her beloved monkey at the end of their rendezvous.

  “You’re not driving me to the airport,” Trish said. “The L is faster, anyhow.”

  “This guy’s whisking you out of the country. He could be kidnapping you for all we know. This might be my last chance to ever see you again, and I’m not going to miss it,” Cliff said. “Besides, this’ll give me an excuse to avoid driving to the North Shore for brunch with the long lost great aunt who’s toddled into town.”

  “Aha, we strike upon the real reason you want to take me.”

  “See you tomorrow morning. Mind being on the curb so I don’t have to do a ritual dance to the parking gods to find a spot?”

  Several hours later, Trish threw her carry-on bag onto Cliff’s backseat and climbed into the front next to him. “To O’Hare, Jeeves. Terminal one.”

  He navigated them out of the city onto the Kennedy Expressway. “I’d feel more comfortable with this if you’d at least tell me the guy’s name.”

  “You don’t know him, so what’s the difference?”

  “A name and a few background details would give me something to tell the police when I have to file a missing persons report.”

  “Would it make you feel any better to know—” She let out a rough exhale. “Cliff, if I tell you who he is you have to be sworn to maximum secrecy. You can’t tell another soul—living or dead.” She didn’t think she was breaking any rules by dating a client, but thought it best to be discreet.

  “Oh my God. Who is it?”

  “Swear your oath.”

  “If you go missing, can I tell the fuzz who it is?”

  “If I’m not back at my desk Monday morning and you haven’t heard from me, you may inform the authorities. Barring that highly unlikely circumstance, you tell no one. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “He’s a fully vetted client of the firm.”

  “Our firm?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  She paused. “Tell no one—and for the record, I don’t approve of any of my friends trying to find out anything about him on the Internet. This is a temporary relationship, and I want it to stay pristine and unsullied in my memory banks. Got it?”

  “Do you think he’s hiding something juicy?”

  “No! But he’s a successful businessman. A young, handsome businessman and I don’t doubt the possibility of nasty rumors floating on the interwebs. I’d rather not be privy to them.”

  “Who is it?”

  “You can’t tell anyone.”

  Cliff huffed. “You know what? I don’t even care anymore.”

  “Do you still want me to tell you?”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s Adam Helms. Of Helms Enterprises.” The corners of Cliff’s eyes creased, indicating no recognition of the name. “He’s one of Michael’s clients. He’s based out east, so he’s only occasionally at the Chicago office.”

  Cliff shrugged. “I’ve never heard of him, but it does make me feel better to know Michael knows him—and that we’ll have all kinds of information on him should the police need it.”

  “They won’t!” She slugged Cliff’s shoulder. She appreciated the concern of her friends, but didn’t give it any credence. Fending off their uncertainty had made her realize how much she trusted Adam, which only strengthened her feelings for him. He’d defied the odds to become her ideal male specimen. She hadn’t seen him in weeks and communication had been sparse, giving her imagination all the room it needed to polish and enhance his positive attributes.

  It was even easier to brush aside her friends’ skepticism and the doomsday forecasts of the Chinese zodiac when she reflected that she didn’t need Adam to be a shining star into her future. She merely needed those mesmerizing eyes drinking her in, that tender mouth roving her body, and his rumbling voice whispering her name for one more weekend.

  Chapter 16

  THE FLIGHT TO HOUSTON was long enough for Trish’s excitement to gravitate toward anxiety. She’d committed to an entire weekend with Adam in a foreign country without an easy getaway plan. Their previous dates had been on her home turf. At any moment she could’ve stuck a fork in their date and called it done. She worried about feeling trapped.

  Upon exiting the plane, she scanned the collection of people in the waiting area and the hallway beyond. A new source of anxiety set in—what if Adam had changed his mind and didn’t even show? His flight was supposed to land forty-five minutes ahead of hers. He’d told her he’d locate her arrival gate and meet her there.

  “Looking for someone?”

  The rumble of his smooth, deep voice had come from directly behind her. In the few seconds it took to whip around to face him, her apprehension subsided. Hooking her free arm over his shoulders, she pulled him to her for a kiss. It was a quick, sweet peck, but they kept their faces close, touching their lips together again and again as they said hello and asked trivial questions about their respective flights. Surrounded by his soothing scent, Trish felt cradled, not trapped and dismissed her earlier worries.

  When Adam cleared his throat and straightened, Trish dropped her arm from around his neck. She stepped back to admire the way his wheat-colored button-down hugged his slim but athletic frame. “Shall we find that departure gate before the plane leaves without us?” he asked.

  A few days earlier, he’d confirmed Trish’s guess of Guatemala as their destination. They made their way to the departure gate, arriving with twenty minutes to spare.

  “Will you be working while we’re there?” Trish asked.

  “A very little bit. Just checking in, really. I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity to mix business with pleasure. Do you speak Spanish?”

  “Only what I can remember from three years of classes in high school.”

  “That’ll help. In Guatemala they have their own variation of the language, so no matter how many years someone has studied proper Spanish, they often struggle down there.”

  “You don’t struggle?”

  “I very much do. But the locals are forgiving.” He smiled, setting off an affectionate spark in his eyes—they had a sea-green cast to them against the light shade of his shirt.

  For the rest of their wait, he filled Trish in on nuances of the language and culture. After takeoff, he asked how her past month had been. She entertained him with the most amusing anecdotes she could
think of. When she volleyed the question back to him, he told her business had filled his month and that making arrangements for this trip had provided a nice diversion.

  “So what’ll we do once we land?” she asked.

  He gave her a sly smile. “Do you really want to know or would you rather be surprised along the way?”

  “Hmm. Surprise worked out pretty well last time. Let’s go with that.”

  As they neared their destination, the plane lowered beneath the sheltering cloud cover. Trish gawked at the lush wonderland of lakes, mountains, and vegetation. Adam pointed out a volcano. Her eardrums swelled with the change in air pressure, enhancing the sensation that they’d flown into a new dimension.

  A car and driver picked them up at La Aurora International Airport, transporting them from the surrounding urban development to a road lined by bright green tangles of flat, rounded leaves punctuated by intermittent spiky ones. Mountains loomed in the distance. The day was mostly cloudy, but the sun occasionally blinked through.

  Trish didn’t realize she’d been pressed to the window, taking it all in, until Adam pulled her away from the view, cupping her face in one hand and turning her toward him. Without ceremony, his mouth was hot and heavy on hers. Her surprise kept her from reacting immediately. There was something desperate in his touch, reminding her of their very first kiss on the rooftop.

  Thoughts of that night and of how much she’d missed him these last few weeks brought her past her initial surprise. She pressed into him, and they hungrily fed on each other, oblivious to the driver only a few feet away. Eventually, jaw-lock set in, and Trish whimpered, slowing her pace.

  “Sorry,” he breathed, lifting his mouth from hers. “I’ve been waiting to do that for a very long time.”

  “As long as I have.” She brushed the tip of her nose against his. “We’ve got the whole weekend to make up for lost time.”