Beefcakes

by Katana Collins

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re complaining because they talked about your big dick?”

  “No, I’m complaining because the entire world thinks I’m dumb.”

  I sighed and shook my head. “I can’t believe we’re arguing over whose gossip was more insulting.”

  His jaw twitched, and he smiled once more. “All I’m saying is that at least people thought you were smart.”

  “At least people thought you had a big dick.” I gave him a goofy smile and two thumbs up. He laughed and shook his head. With a sigh, I stood and put a hand on his arm, looking him seriously in the eye. “I’m sorry people talked about you like that. You are smart.”

  He shrugged. “I mean, I’m normal people smart. Not Elaina Dyker smart.”

  I winked. “Not many people are.”

  “And humble as ever, I see.” Grinning, he shook his head and then started pacing the floor. “I know I’m smart. I don’t need people to say it for me to know it’s true. I tested high on the GED with barely any studying and managed to secure my spot in college without a high school diploma. You don’t do that if you’re not a smart kid. But it bothers me that people still think I’m just some meathead.”

  “Um, isn’t ‘Beefcake’ the term you prefer?”

  He huffed a laugh. “Hardly. Look, there’s something else you need to know about the day I left. It wasn’t that I chose not to graduate…”

  I sighed and held up my hand. “I don’t think I can handle any more confessions before coffee, Neil.”

  He opened his mouth to say more, but after a moment of thought, he simply nodded.

  “That reminds me.” He handed me the paper cup in his hand. “Caramel latte, just how you used to like it. Hopefully it’s not like the midori sour and something you’ve grown out of.”

  I took a sip of the heavenly caffeinated beverage and sighed. It definitely was not something I’d grown out of. “Thank you. But I assume you didn’t just come over to bring me coffee, right?”

  “Abby Sumner called my mom last night and told her she was coming up for a meeting. Abby invited my mom to join her, but we wanted to make sure it was okay with you first?”

  That was a great idea. Having a friendly face in the meeting to be on my side and help field questions? How could I object? “Sounds perfect,” I smiled.

  “Great,” he said. “And…” His voice trailed off, and my glimmer of excitement quickly faded as I realized there was a catch.

  “And what?”

  “Elliott got wind of it and is sending one of his cameramen and boom operators to follow us while he does video interviews with the other girls.”

  I cringed. “Does this mean this is our date?” Because that’s a pretty lame date.

  “Oh, hell no,” Neil said. “Get ready, Dyker. Because you’re gonna be wined and dined.”

  I snorted. It was so cheesy. So adorable. So… Neil.

  Two hours later, I had shown Abby the old mill, site plans for the prospective redevelopment, as well as projections for the profit of the outreach clinic. We were now sitting at the café, drinking coffee and taking a closer look at the sketched-out plans. “You can see,” I said pointing at the numbers listed in front of us, “Because we are one of five Lakes Region towns, this wouldn’t just benefit our small community. All in all, the five towns equal the same population as Portland, Maine.”

  Abby tapped her finger against her lips. Her curly, brown hair was pulled into a high bun with tight tendrils falling out of the hair tie. “But is that just the summer population? A large portion of residents are in summer homes, right?”

  I smiled at her. “I guess that depends on your definition of large. Certainly, we are more populated in the summer. But overall, tourism is only about thirty percent. The other seventy percent live in this area year-round. As we learned with the 2010 census, some of the people who own lake residences still live close by in what we consider inland towns that are only thirty minutes away, such as Derry and Concord, but they are still close enough to benefit from this outreach center.

  The cameraman and boom operator sighed heavily beside us, and I shot them a glare. I get it… this was boring for television. But it was my job. My town. My dream.

  “This is really interesting,” she said. “I’ve never seen an outreach center double as an events center.”

  “And yet,” I tapped the plans that Matteo had drawn up for me the other day. “How many conferences and retreats are your doctors and nurses sent on each year? At least two, right?”

  She nodded. “Yep, that would be the minimum required for state certification and learning about drug trials in oncology.”

  “By holding them here, both the clinic and the town would benefit. You get the space for free. You could even use the clinic as a teaching hospital. And, let me just say, as a girl who was born and raised right here in the Lakes Region, there’s no better place to grow up.” I grinned at her and from the corner of my eye, Neil’s mom winked at me.

  “Good schools?” Abby asked.

  “Great schools,” I said.

  “Elaina would never brag,” Neil cut in, “but she went to Harvard for her undergrad.”

  Abby’s eyes widened. “Good on you.”

  I laughed. “I think what Neil is trying to say is that, while I can’t speak for the other Lakes Region towns, I can tell you that Maple Grove values its education budget.”

  Abby smiled and stood, holding out her hand to me. “It was lovely meeting with you. I’ll take this to the head of oncology and see what he thinks. But, honestly, I can’t see a reason not to do it. You’ve crossed all your t’s and dotted all your i’s, and fiscally speaking, we would earn back the cost very quickly.”

  She grinned at me before turning and giving Linda a hug. “I’ll be in touch,” she said and left the coffee shop.

  I waited until I saw her car pulling out of the parking lot before I jumped up and down, squealing. “I think we did it!”

  Neil grabbed me, hugging me close and swinging me around. “You did it,” he clarified. “Dinner tonight? Let’s celebrate.”

  The cameraman cleared his throat as the boom operator dropped the mic and shook out his arm. “You have your dinner date with Gretchen tonight,” he said.

  Neil muttered a curse. “I’ll make it an early night with Gretchen. We’ll just do a slice of pizza and a beer, and then you and I can go to a real dinner after. A nice dinner. Yes?”

  I swallowed. I didn’t love that I was getting her sloppy seconds… but then again, he did just spend all morning with me. I grinned back.

  He clasped his hands together and gave me puppy dog eyes. “Greico’s? Say, eight o’clock?”

  “I’ll be there.” I nodded. “And Neil?” I balanced myself by putting my palm on his bicep and pushed up on my toes. “Thank you for coming today.” Then, I leaned in and brushed my lips against Neil’s cheek.

  “Aw, fuck,” the cameraman said. “I just stopped filming. Elliott’s gonna kill me that I missed the kiss. Can you guys do that one more time?”

  I smirked and exited the coffee shop. Of course they had stopped filming… that’s why I did it.

  Because Elaina was living at home with her parents… for reasons that I could only assume had to do with her recent breakup… the show didn’t want me to pick her up at her house. They said viewers would see her differently, almost childlike, if they found her still living with Mom and Dad.

  While I didn’t agree with this at all, I also didn’t want to do a damn thing that might cause Lainey to get voted off and land me with one of my other ex-girlfriends. If you could even call them that. The only one of the remaining three that I had been remotely serious with was Gretchen… and what the hell had I been thinking there?

  My “date” with Gretchen had been as brief as I could get away with. A slice of pizza for each of us and a beer… both of which I had scarfed down in an effort to end the date faster. Unfortunately, as I tried to wrap things up, she had lunged in for a kiss. I kep
t my lips firmly pressed together, stopping her tongue from invading my mouth, and I pushed her to arm’s length as quickly as possible.

  I was tired. This date with Lainey was my fourth today after roller blading with Shayla, a picnic on the beach with Margarita, and the pizza with Gretchen.

  It was also the date I’d been most looking forward to… for ten years.

  I sat alone on the outdoor back patio at Greico’s, barely hungry. I guess the show had managed to reserve the entire back area just for us. And, I wasn’t really alone. We had Ben, the camera guy. Ricardo, the boom operator. A handful of other assistants. And of course, Elliott.

  The white table cloth brushed the tops of my thighs, and I stared at the candlestick burning in the center of the table, gold wax dripping down its length, and gulped.

  What if she doesn’t show up? What if she realizes that this show isn’t worth it? That I’m not worth it?

  Just then, the door to the restaurant swung open, and Elaina stood there in front of me, backlit, with the yellow glow of ambient light behind her countering the cool blue of the night against her skin. After staring for what felt like a moment too long, I tried to stand up quickly, and my knees knocked into the table, nearly sending the wine glasses spiraling to the ground.

  “Jumpy?” she asked.

  I crossed over to her and touched my lips to the soft apple of her cheek. “Around you? Always.”

  Silence pinched the air in the seconds that followed. Silence that held so many more words than either of us could or needed to say. A ghostly connection sizzled between us in that moment, and I could feel traces of our past lingering in our gazes.

  “I missed you today,” I said, taking a step closer and brushing a fallen piece of hair off her face.

  Her perfectly manicured brow arched. “You just saw me a few hours ago.”

  Smirking, I led her over to our ‘private’ table and held out her seat for her. As she slid in, I placed my mouth near her ear and whispered, “A few hours apart are a few hours too many.”

  I watched as goosebumps lifted on her shoulders and raced down her arms. I loved that my proximity could affect her physically.

  “Being here with you is like high school all over again,” she said, laughing a breathy giggle. “Are you planning to skip out on the check like you did back then, too?”

  I snorted a laugh as I slid into my seat across from her. “Not a chance. This meal’s on the studio.” I winked at her.

  “It must have been the stupidest idea in the world, dining and dashing at one of the few, and most popular, places to eat in town. They called your mother that same night—”

  “I know,” I laughed, shaking my head. “And I got stuck washing dishes for six weeks without pay.” My face felt fire engine hot and as our laughter faded, I was left feeling weak, staring at her flushed face. Suddenly, it felt like all the air had been sucked from the room.

  My gaze slipped to her cleavage and I couldn’t help but notice the swell of her breasts pushing against the silky material.

  I cleared my throat, opening my napkin and placing it across my growing erection in my lap. Was she not wearing a bra? Her outfit itself was sweet… silk, understated shirt and the kind of skirt some girls could wear to church. But tonight, on Lainey? It looked downright pornographic, and if I looked hard enough, I could just barely make out the outline of her hard nipples through the material.

  “Hey, Evans,” she said, snapping—literally snapping her fingers in my face. “My eyes are up here.”

  I cleared my throat, a flush burning my cheeks. Not only didn’t I mean to gawk at her… but I definitely didn’t mean to do it on national television.

  “Sorry,” I muttered.

  The waiter came by and deposited an IPA for me and a glass of red wine for her as we both studied the menu in silence. Nervous silence. Awkward silence. I wasn’t accustomed to any of those things. Elaina Dyker was a lot of things, but quiet was never one of them.

  I cleared my throat. “How was the rest of your day?”

  “It was really great, actually. I think Abby worked her magic because it seems like Rob is willing to sign on. As long as we agree to a minimum of three private events yearly for their oncology department.”

  “That’s great, Lainey.”

  She beamed at me, and I noticed that, for the first time, she didn’t correct me for calling her by her high school nickname.

  But the moment was short lived. More silence took over until we placed our orders and sipped our drinks to keep our hands and mouths doing something. Anything. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see Elliott waving his arms like a lunatic, mouthing say something.

  “When is your city council meeting?” I asked.

  “Friday,” she answered quickly, her eyes slipping to the cameras. She fiddled with her napkin. “So, uh, what’s it like being around four of your exes?” Elaina asked.

  “It’s… really weird. Uncomfortable. Honestly, we all broke up for a reason, you know?”

  She snorted. “Oh, I know.”

  “Well, except us,” I added.

  Her gaze snapped to mine. “Oh, there was a reason.”

  I shook my head. “It was a stupid, impulsive act on my part. That’s not a reason.”

  She took a bite of her Bolognese, twirling her fork in the noodles. “Some might say it is. Impulsiveness is a reason to break up.”

  I nodded, stabbing my fork into one of my meatballs. “It can be. But not when you’re eighteen. Lots of people are impulsive when they’re that young, but they grow out of it.”

  She held my gaze, her blue eyes like steel. “And some don’t.”

  Again, her eyes flicked to the camera, and she licked her lips nervously, dropping her attention to her food. She wasn’t used to the cameras. She was unnerved by them, it seemed. She wasn’t my Lainey from earlier. She was reserved. Scared, almost. If I was going to have only one shot… one more date with her… I wasn’t going to waste it here with cameras surrounding us, making her uncomfortable.

  I pulled out my phone and texted Lainey beneath the table.

  Find a reason to step outside, then meet me at our old spot by the lake in fifteen minutes.

  Her phone buzzed, and though she glanced at her purse, she ignored it. I tipped my head toward her phone. “Do you have to take that? Maybe it’s a work call.”

  She gave me a strange look, but then seemed to catch on. “Um… yeah. Let me see.” I saw her eyes light up momentarily, and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth, suppressing a smile. “I, uh, I should take this call,” she said, waving her phone. “It’s for the mill renovation. I’m sorry, I’ll be right back.”

  Elliott groaned. “Cut,” he said. As she left the patio, I couldn’t help but grin. My eyes followed the swing of her ass with each step… which, if I wasn’t mistaken, seemed to have a bit more strut to it than usual.

  Once she was gone, Elliott fell into her chair across from me. “Dude. This is the most boring date ever. She’s never going to get the popular vote if this continues.”

  “I thought you implied that you, Jude, and Ash can maneuver that without the popular vote?”

  His teeth gnashed. “We can, but we prefer not to need to do it. God forbid someone like Gretchen questions us on it…”

  I sighed. “It’s the cameras, Elliott. All three other women are used to performing, but she’s not.”

  “Well, she’d better get comfortable quickly. It’s going to be a long month and a half if she can’t stand to be on camera.”

  He wasn’t wrong. But it didn’t change the fact that, for our first date, this wasn’t ideal. I wanted alone time with her. Real alone time. Not pseudo-reality-show alone time.

  I tossed my napkin onto the table and took a final swig of beer. “I’m going to hit the head. Be right back.”

  “Hurry up,” Elliott snarled. “It’s been a long day for the crew, and we want to wrap up soon.”

  On my way to the bathroom
, I caught our waiter and slipped him forty bucks. “Hey,” I whispered. “Can you pack a slice of tiramisu to go and a bottle of prosecco and meet me outside by my car? Discreetly, without the cameras seeing you?”

  He pocketed my forty bucks and nodded. With that, I went to the bathroom and popped out the window in the back stall—just like I’d done ten years ago, the night we dined and dashed. Grunting, I pushed myself up and out the window. It had been a lot easier ten years ago when I wasn’t so bulky and muscular. I barely fit through the small bathroom window anymore. But I managed to free myself and ran around the building to the parking lot where my car was parked. I smiled as I saw the tail lights of Elaina’s car pulling out.

  Now this was like high school all over again.

  Neil could have had a better date with a wet towel. I’m not usually such a total loser when it came to dating. I’m smart. And funny. And I can carry a conversation that consists of more than five words despite the display that just happened on freaking camera fifteen minutes ago. But that dinner? It was rife with uncomfortable silence in a way that I wasn’t accustomed to with Neil. We were combative, sure. Passionate, yes. But uncomfortable? Never.

  I sat on the edge of the dock behind the Maple Grove Inn, where Neil and I used to sneak to and make out in high school. I kicked off my wedge heels and let my feet dangle into the lake water. The warm, summer air smelled sweet as I inhaled deeply and sighed, the cool water churning around the circled movement of my feet.

  Tonight was the first night in a long time that I missed the old me. The party girl. The fun girl. Who the hell had I become that I couldn’t even have an enjoyable date… let alone an adventure? Carrying on interesting conversation over dinner shouldn’t be laborious. Yet… it was. And not by any fault of Neil’s.

  Tears stung the back of my eyes. In ten years, I hadn’t once missed the girl I once was. But Neil was back in my life for … what? Two weeks, and suddenly I was yearning for those wild, fun days of the past.