The List (The List #1)

by Tawna Fenske

  “I do. I’m supposed to help Lisa polish the white porcelain serving dishes so she can set out all kinds of white candy. And then I’ll help blow up a bunch of white balloons and string up white streamers so we can all ooh and ahh over them while we eat our white cake over a table covered with a white tablecloth.”

  “This is sounding very—”

  “Pretentious?”

  “I was trying to come up with a less judgmental word, but yeah. I guess that’s it.”

  “They don’t mean it to be,” she says. “It’s just how they are. It’s just what they’re into.”

  “So, you can’t blow it off?”

  “No. I want to help. I promised I would, even though it’s not really my scene. Besides, my sister loaned me her car two weeks ago when mine was being serviced. I owe her a favor.” She hesitates, and I listen to the silence, wondering if she’s about to change her mind.

  But that’s not what’s going on in Cassie Michaels’s head.

  “I really do love them,” she says at last. “They’re a challenge sometimes, but my sisters are the best people I know. They’d each give me a kidney if I needed one, and I’d do the same for them.”

  “Ah. That makes sense.”

  And it does. I consider telling her about Junie. About how I started the WorkAbility program so adults with disabilities—people just like Junie—could have opportunities to be productive. To know they have value in society.

  But I clamp my mouth shut and bite back the words. I can’t afford to go there. I don’t mean financially, though money is certainly a factor. It’s been a factor in every relationship I’ve had, starting when the woman realizes I’m stupidly wealthy, and ending when she discovers life with me won’t be like an episode of the Kardashians.

  I don’t say any of this to Cassie. Instead, I offer up a perfectly bland remark. “Sibling relationships are complicated.”

  “That they are.”

  I wait to see if she’ll volunteer more. If she’ll offer further intimate details about her life or her relationship with the siblings. I hate how curious I am. How much I’m enjoying getting to know her. I know I need to keep a rein on things, to keep this whole thing in the ballpark of a sexual relationship. It can’t be more than that. We’ve both agreed.

  But still, I wonder about her. I want to know more.

  “How about another time for the pokey wheelie thing,” I suggest.

  “Good idea. A pokey wheelie rain check.”

  “Actually, what would you say to a date?”

  “A date?” She sounds skeptical, and I hope I haven’t crossed some line in our agreement to keep things purely sexual.

  “Not a date, exactly,” I tell her. “I just think we should sit down together and make a plan for the rest of The List.”

  “Oh. That sounds smart.”

  “We could even keep our clothes on. Maybe grab a bite to eat or something.”

  “Okay.” I can’t tell from her tone if she likes the idea or hates it. But when she speaks again, I hear the smile in her voice. “I’d like that. I’d like it a lot.”

  So do I. And that scares the shit out of me.

  Chapter Eight

  Cassie

  This is the weirdest business meeting in the history of business meetings.

  I’m sitting with Simon—whose last name, embarrassingly, I do not recall—eating dry-rubbed pork ribs, smoked fried chicken, beef belly, and huge mounds of collard greens and potato salad.

  It was my idea to hit this hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint on North Williams. The food is excellent at The People’s Pig, and I wanted to avoid any sense that this is a date-date. I’m not looking for a relationship and neither is he, so I’m pretty sure a restaurant with “pig” in the name says “we’re fuck buddies” and not “I want to marry you and have your babies.”

  That’s just a guess.

  There’s another reason I picked this place. I get the sense Simon doesn’t have much money. He’s always walking everywhere, and I’m not even sure he owns a car. I can’t imagine his job pays all that well, so it seems wise to keep things casual and cheap.

  As I pick up another rib and smile at him across the battered wooden table, I pat myself on the back for choosing the right locale. This feels like the perfect spot to discuss strategy for the rest of the Fucket List.

  It’s strange to call it that now. It started as a way to remember all the lies I’d told—to commit them to memory for retelling at the bachelorette party. But now…I don’t know. Is it weird that it took me this long to realize all those naughty fibs were really my secret sex fantasies?

  “Tell me about item number eight,” Simon says.

  I wipe sauce off my chin with the back of my hand and take a sip of my sweet tea. “Item number eight,” I repeat. “Was that the roleplay one?”

  He laughs and shakes his head. “No, that’s number nine. How is it that I know your list better than you do?”

  “Because I was drunk when I wrote it, and it’s comprised entirely of fibs I kinda wish I’d never told?”

  “Do you really? Wish you’d never told them, I mean?”

  I hesitate a moment, not sure how to respond. If I’d never made up all those sex stories, I wouldn’t be sitting here now eating barbecue with a hot guy whose handprint I swear I can still feel on my ass. That would be unfortunate.

  “There was probably a better way to convince my sisters I wasn’t boring or pathetic,” I say at last.

  “Fair enough.” He sips his own soft drink, then gives me a thoughtful look. “Still, it seems like you put a lot of thought into each experience. Even if it was all made up.”

  I shrug, not sure how much to reveal. “I guess so. I mean, some of them are a little cliché.”

  “Like what?”

  “The girl-on-girl thing.” A waitress glances over at me, and it dawns on me how close together these tables are. I lower my voice and lean closer to Simon. Not much of a hardship. “Aren’t most millennial women at least a little bit bi-curious?”

  He laughs, but the look he gives me is thoughtful. Like he’s really considering it instead of making sexual wisecracks. I admire the hell out of him for that.

  “That’s a good point,” he says. “It’s certainly more prevalent in pop culture these days. Katy Perry heralded in a whole movement with ‘I Kissed a Girl.’”

  “Exactly.” I’m charmed that he even knows who Katy Perry is, or that he’s interested in having conversations about my desires. That he seems to care whether the experiences on The List mean something to me or if I cobbled them together on a drunken whim. Most guys would be whipping through my sexy checklist with a boner in one hand and a Sharpie in the other, eager to mark off one salacious act after another. But Simon’s really giving it some consideration.

  I fork up a bite of collard greens and chew carefully. “I read a study last year that said forty-three percent of eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds indicated some level of fluid sexuality.”

  “Fluid sexuality,” he repeats. “I’ve never heard that term before, but I like it. Seems more accurate than bi-curious.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” I take another sip of tea. “Also, twenty-nine percent of respondents in the twenty-five- to thirty-nine-year-old age range said their sexuality was fluid to some degree.”

  He laughs and takes a bite out of a pork rib. “I love that you know the science behind it. That’s sexy as hell.”

  There’s nothing mocking in his tone. Actually, there’s a hint of admiration. The fact that we’ve agreed there’s no plan for a relationship here has lent a certain comfort level to this connection. I’m not trying to impress Simon, and he’s not trying to impress me.

  Hence the barbecue sauce up to my elbows.

  “I suppose reading that study is what gave me the idea for the fib I told my sisters,” I say. “That, and Katy Perry. I guess it’s a little out there.”

  “So, are you wanting to skip that one?” He pushes a pile of napkins acro
ss the table, and I take one with a nod of thanks. “It’s okay if you’re not really into it,” he adds. “There’s no rule that says you have to cross off every experience you wrote on The List.”

  I think about it a moment, dabbing my mouth with a napkin. The truth is, I’m curious. I’m not sure I would have realized that if Simon and I weren’t sitting here talking through the details like a pair of overachieving academics determined to analyze a situation from all angles.

  But the truth is, I really want to do it.

  “I’d like to go ahead with it,” I say. “I want to know what it feels like to kiss another woman. To have her hands on my body.”

  “I can’t tell you how much I enjoy that mental picture.”

  I laugh. “Pig.”

  “Oink.” He grins and bites into another pork rib. I lose my train of thought for a moment as I consider how hot it is to see him gnawing on a rib bone like some sort of caveman. Don’t get me wrong, he has perfect manners. Better than most people in this funky little barbecue joint that doesn’t even give you plates. Just a big platter of meat and sides and a massive pile of napkins.

  Simon licks sauce off his finger, and the sight of his mouth in action reminds me of how much fun we had the other night with the spatula. I’m not planning to go hardcore BDSM anytime soon, but this man certainly knows the secret to combining pleasure and pain.

  “So back to The List,” he says, jarring me into the conversation again. “You didn’t just say, ‘sex at a spa,’ like a lot of people would do. You wrote, ‘Naughty spa day at super-snooty place for rich assholes.’ That’s kinda specific.”

  “And kind of embarrassing, now that I’m sober,” I admit. “It makes me sound like a Kardashian.”

  Something flashes in his eyes, and I wonder what that’s about. He recovers quickly, leading me to think maybe I imagined the whole thing.

  “Not a Kardashian, exactly,” he says slowly. “Just a woman who knows what she wants.”

  He’s studying me a little too intently, so I grab the coleslaw and shovel up a few bites, buying myself a little time to figure out how to respond. Finally, I set the salad down. “I guess like everything to do with this list, it’s about my sisters,” I say at last. “They’re always jetting off on these romantic vacations and splurging on luxury experiences. They have kind of expensive taste.”

  There’s that flicker again, a flash of something in his eyes. I’m pretty sure I’m not imagining it, and I make a mental note to tone down any conversations about money. Clearly, it’s a touchy subject for him.

  “Anyway,” I continue. “I guess it’s about wanting to fit in with my sisters just a little, but maybe doing it my way. Like I’d still enjoy getting pampered at a place like that, but I’d like to do it on my own terms. Like instead of a fancy pedicure, I’d like to do one of those mud baths I’ve seen on TV. And I’d like to do it with someone. And after we’d gotten all muddy, we’d get cleaned up together, and then get really dirty.”

  “Jesus.” Simon wipes his mouth with a napkin and grins. “You do have an impressive sexual imagination.”

  “Thank you.” The compliment means more to me than he probably realizes. Usually people praise my skill at preparing slides or cleaning the centrifuge, so I enjoy being acknowledged for something sexy. “Anyway, my sisters ate it up when I told them the story about the naughty spa day. You should have seen the look on their faces.”

  I hate how wistful my voice sounds, but Simon doesn’t bat an eye. “So you’re hoping to make it true now.”

  “Something like that.” I take another sip of tea. “It’s not that I want to have their lives. I don’t want to host garden parties and wear Lilly Pulitzer.”

  “You just want your own version of their lives,” he says slowly. “The Cassie-fied version.”

  I blink at him, not sure whether to feel understood or creeped out. We agreed up front this was a no-strings-attached thing. How deeply should I allow him to tunnel into my brain?

  I settle for throwing him a casual laugh. “Maybe. So how about you?”

  Hey, if he’s opening the door to this game of get-to-know-the-person-I’m-fucking, I’m happy to step through it. He’s seemed reluctant to share a lot of personal details up to this point, but maybe that’s shifting.

  “What about me?” he asks.

  He’s probably braced for me to ask him a sex question—how many of the things on my list he’s done with other women already or something along those lines.

  But that’s not what comes out of my mouth. “Tell me about your job.”

  He seems to hesitate. “What do you want to know?”

  I take a sip of lemonade and consider why I asked the question. “What got you interested in computers? In repairing them or selling them or anything else you do?”

  It’s a standard get-to-know-you question, but I realize after I ask it that I really want to know. I’m interested in hearing what makes Simon tick.

  “I like figuring out how things work,” he says carefully. “How to diagnose problems and fix them for people. I love troubleshooting and educating people about how to make their machines run better. I also like the mystery element.”

  “Mystery?”

  “Yeah. I like when people come to me with a problem. I like picking up on clues and asking questions to determine what’s wrong and how to fix it. There’s a surprising amount of people skills required to do the job.”

  I’m taken aback by his answer. I expected him to say something about being a lifetime computer geek or loving video games. But this level of thought is commendable for someone with a job I’m guessing doesn’t pay all that well. Then again, what do I know?

  “I’m impressed,” I tell him. “It seems like you really enjoy your work.”

  “I do. And I like the people I work with.”

  “How many people work at Hot Swap?”

  “We have more than six hundred employees at twenty-six locations around the Pacific Northwest.”

  “Wow. I had no idea. Do you work at more than one Hot Swap location?”

  He looks down at the pork rib in his hand, taking a slow bite and chewing it before he answers. “I float around a bit.”

  I get the sense he’s uncomfortable with this line of questioning, though I’m not sure why. Maybe he’s self-conscious about his job? About his assumption that my career probably pays more than his does?

  While soil scientists don’t exactly kill it financially, I do okay. I worked hard for my PhD, and my employer pays accordingly.

  I decide to let the whole subject drop. There’s no point in discussing money or career choices with a guy I’m just seeing temporarily. Not even seeing, exactly. Not in the dating sense.

  We’re just sleeping together, I remind myself, in case I’d started to forget.

  I start to reach for another rib before realizing it’s the last one on the table. “Are you going to eat this?”

  He grins at me. “You have quite the voracious appetite, Miss Michaels.”

  His voice makes me shiver, or maybe it’s the suggestion in those words. I pick up the rib and bite into it, hoping I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew with Simon.

  …

  My sisters stop by later that night. I’d asked them to come, but still. I’m never quite braced for how they overwhelm any room they march into with their startling efficiency and clouds of expensive perfume.

  “Cassie,” Missy says, squeezing my hand. I’m relieved to see she’s abandoned the double-cheek-kiss habit she picked up in Europe last month. “So good to see you.”

  “I brought the exercise ball you asked for,” Lisa says. “They were selling them in the gift shop at the country club, so I bought you one of your very own instead of lending you mine again.”

  “That’s so thoughtful,” I tell her, accepting the flowery gift bag with a little orange ribbon tied to the handle.

  “Yes, well, I was excited when you said you wanted to try Pilates,” Lisa says. “For real thi
s time, instead of having kinky sex on it like you did before.”

  Both sisters giggle, and I feel a sharp stab of guilt. When they first showed me how to lie back on the oversized exercise ball for a series of ab exercises, I was intrigued. Then they dragged me to their prissy gym filled with immaculately-coiffed trophy wives and supermodel soccer moms, and all I could think about was fleeing the place as fast as possible.

  Or fucking someone on the ball. That’s where the fantasy started.

  But since I didn’t have anyone to partner with on that endeavor, I borrowed Lisa’s ball for a few halfhearted ab crunches at home. I popped it by accident when I left it sitting too close to my iron, then made up the sex story to avoid a sisterly lecture on proper ironing techniques.

  “Thank you,” I tell my sister as I set the gift bag aside and give Lisa a hug. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “I don’t suppose you have any lavender lemonade?” Missy asks.

  “No.” I try not to grit my teeth. “No lavender lemonade. How about wine, beer, or water?”

  “Perrier?” Lisa asks hopefully.

  “No,” I tell her. “Water. Like from the tap. Portland has some of the best drinking water in the country. I can even add ice to it if you like.”

  My sisters exchange a look, and I can’t tell if it’s disdain for my drink selection or a silent observation that Cassie is being “that way” again. I’m never entirely sure what “that way” is, except that it’s not their way.

  The story of my life.

  “We’re fine, thanks,” Missy says. “Actually, we just wanted to make sure you’re still up for our girls’ wine getaway in a few weeks. We know you have a lot of travel scheduled for fieldwork, so we were afraid you might bail.”

  “The girls’ getaway,” I repeat. “Right. Of course. I’m looking forward to it.”

  Or I forgot about it. There’s no way I’m admitting that, though. I guess I’ve been a little busy, what with all the plant-soil microbe research and kinky sex.

  “I’m so excited for it to be just the three of us,” Lisa says. “No parents, no friends, no men.”