“I’m just getting started.” She picked up another brush and started spattering her work, Pollack-style. She slapped paint on the canvas, splattered it, even smeared it with her hands. Elliot would be horrified at the mess, which made it even more fun.
By the time she was done, the canvas was dripping, and she had to imagine it would take days to dry.
“How are we going to get these home?” she asked.
“They should fit in the plane,” he said.
“Oh right. Private plane,” she said, rolling her eyes.
She eyed Zach’s painting. Still too perfect. Just lines and the squares the intersections made, clean and even. She reached across and slashed a big orange swipe across his perfect navy blue checkerboard pattern.
“Hey! You ruined it!”
“I think you mean I improved it,” she said, grinning. She leaned over to swipe her paint-covered hand across another portion, but he grabbed her wrist before it could make contact.
“You have a canvas,” he said. “Why do you want to decorate mine?”
“Because it was too perfect,” she said. “Now it has character.”
“Right.” He squinted at her then tapped the paintbrush he was holding on the end of her nose.
“Hey!”
“Fair’s fair,” he said, releasing her wrist and dancing out of the way. “Your face was just too perfect. Now it has character. And a big blue splotch.”
She wanted to wipe the paint off her nose, but both her hands were covered already. “At least get me a paper towel or something,” she said, trying to rub at the spot with the back of her wrist. “This itches.”
“Fine,” he said and grabbed a roll of paper towels off the table. He came back and, ripping a towel off the roll, started to dab at her nose.
He smelled amazing. Jenna used the same hotel toiletries he had, but somehow on him, the gently scented soap smelled stupid sexy.
“There, perfect once again,” he said, smiling at her.
“Thanks so much, Zach,” she said sweetly and swiped her paint-smeared hands down both sides of his face, leaving a trail of multicolored streaks behind. A way bigger blotch than he’d given Jenna.
The look of utter shock and confusion made her laugh. “Fair’s fair,” she sing-songed and tried to dart away, but Zach was faster. He caught her around the waist and painted her whole cheek blue while she squirmed and squealed. And when she managed to slip out of his grasp, she grabbed a small cup of paint and tossed it at him. She got his apron a little but mostly his canvas.
“So it’s to be war between us,” he said in an ominous tone. But Jenna could see the light dance in his dark eyes as he stalked her, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed so much.
He grabbed a cup of pink and tossed it at her, getting her bare legs and part of her canvas. Then she returned fire with yellow, and before she knew it, both of them were covered in paint, as were their canvases, the floor, the table, and the radio. Even the walls had splatters.
At last she was laughing too hard to catch her breath. “Stop,” she said, “I surrender.”
Zach raised his hands, raising two dripping brushes over his head in a victorious pose. “I knew you couldn’t last forever.”
Jenna hopped up on the table, still breathing hard, and uncorked the bottle of wine they’d left there. He stopped in front of her, and she passed him the bottle after she’d taken a deep pull.
“You’re a mess,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“So are you.” He had spatters of yellow in his hair. “I think we turned out to be the Jackson Pollack art.” She picked a couple flecks of drying paint out of his hair.
“Mrs. Reynolds is not going to be happy,” he said.
Jenna surveyed the damage and stifled a giggle. “I don’t expect we’ll be asked back.”
“No, and I’m sure I’ll be charged a hefty clean-up fee.”
“Totally worth it. This was so much better than towel animal making.”
He was close now, his voice barely a low-pitched rumble in his chest. Jenna’s pulse was trying to escape her body, and her breath still wouldn’t come evenly. It felt like it was a hundred degrees in the room all of a sudden.
“I think we’re going to need those towel animals to clean up,” he said, wiping something off her cheek bone with his thumb.
With him standing and Jenna sitting on the counter, they were pretty much at lip level. The Smolder was in full effect, and the warm thrum of desire pulsed low in her belly.
Danger lights went off in her head as his gaze dropped to her lips. Zach was going to kiss her. And as terrible an idea that would be, she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more at that particular moment.
“Jenna,” he whispered, certain he was going to lean in and—
“You have paint on your mouth.”
He wiped it away with his thumb. “There,” he said softly, but he didn’t move back. Neither of them was laughing now. Breath mingled between them. She put her hand on his shoulder and felt the muscles go tense beneath her palm. He leaned forward. She leaned forward—
“What the hell happened in here?” Mrs. Reynolds’ shrill yell made them startle apart.
Zach recovered first. “We, uh, had a little accident,” he said.
Jenna hopped off the table. “We’re so sorry.”
Mrs. Reynolds was still speechless, looking at the ceiling, the walls, the floors, and them.
Zach very calmly removed his apron, folded it, and laid it on the table. “Charge the card I gave you over the phone whatever you think is fair,” he said.
Mrs. Reynolds still wore a look of horror.
“Plus twenty percent,” Zach added.
Jenna leaned in to whisper to Zach, “I think we broke her.”
Zach edged toward the door. “Thanks for accommodating us.”
Jenna was already one step ahead of him.
“I’ll send someone to pick up the canvases in a couple days,” Zach said. “Once they stop dripping.”
When they crossed through the main room toward the door, all conversation stopped as thirty pairs of eyes took in their ruined clothes, paint-specked hair, and multi-colored faces. “Drugs,” one woman whispered loudly to the lady next to her.
“Probably meth,” her neighbor whispered back. “Or bath salts. That’s the thing now.”
Jenna tucked a paint-matted strand of hair behind her ear and strolled out as if she was perfectly coiffed and dressed in Vera Wang.
“Ladies,” Zach acknowledged as he hurried out the door behind her.
She cracked up again as soon as they hit the sidewalk.
Zach took her hand and led her down the covered sidewalk toward the far end of the strip mall. “And that’s why we can’t go anywhere nice,” he said. “You’re trouble.”
“No, I was always the good girl,” she said. They slowed to a walk, side by side. “You’re the bad influence.”
“I think you have that the wrong way around. I was always the good kid.”
She stopped and tilted her head back, looking at him. “Yeah, I can see that,” she said. “I think you’re probably a pretty serious guy in your normal life. All the numbers and such. Strait-laced. By the book.”
“Guilty.”
“I’ll probably have to go back to being boring old Jenna, too, once you go back to the city tomorrow. It’s no fun being bad all by yourself.”
The crease appeared between his brows. “What will you do the rest of the week? Have you decided what kind of anti activities you’re going to do to finish the list?”
“Actually, my main project will probably be deepening the ass groove in the sofa and mainlining M&Ms.” His frown deepened. “But don’t worry. I’ll be all right. Promise.”
“I’m afraid stage four is coming
on,” he said, still frowning.
“Oh jeez. I’m afraid to ask.”
“Depression,” he said, shaking his head.
“Ah, yes. That, I remember.”
He looked blank for a moment, and she knew the exact second everything clicked and he wanted to shove his entire foot into his mouth. “Your parents,” he said softly, and she nodded.
“I don’t remember the other stages, though I guess I must have experienced them. But the depression.” Jenna sucked in a deep breath, remembering the pain. “I remember that. I wasn’t sure for a long time I’d see the light at the end of that awful tunnel.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to joke about something so…I’m terrible with people.”
“No, it’s fine,” she said, meaning it. “It seems so long ago now. I haven’t really thought about it in a while. I mean, of course I miss them, but it’s not like it was at first, that empty gnawing hole. The wedding stuff kind of brought it back, though, you know? I always thought my dad would walk me down the aisle and my mom would be in the dressing room helping me get ready.” She shrugged. “Things don’t always work out the way you think they’re going to.”
He was still just staring at her like he wanted to say the right thing but was afraid to open his mouth again.
“You’ll go back to work and I’ll…be fine here.” She smiled at him, but she was sure he would know it was fake. The truth was she was kind of dreading to be alone. Zach was fun and sweet. And she felt like she could be herself around him, not always worried that she wasn’t living up to what Elliot wanted her to be.
She was going to miss that. But Zach had already taken time out of his busy life for her, a virtual stranger. Plus, there was that whatever it was that had just happened between them at the art studio. Now that there was a tiny bit of distance between them and the Smolder was stored away, she acknowledged that Mrs. Reynolds had probably saved them from a huge mistake. Because the truth was that kiss would have been hot. And they would have ended up with handprints in places paint should never be applied. There was this sizzling something between them, like a campfire spark just waiting until someone let her guard down for half a second before it jumped out of the safe stone fire ring and set half the forest ablaze.
Jenna couldn’t afford to start a fire, forest or any other kind, with Zach. It would be way too hard to put out again.
“Seriously. You can go back to work with a clear conscience. I’ll be absolutely fine.”
And maybe, she thought, she would be. Eventually.
Chapter Eleven
Go back to work.
Yeah, that was the plan. That’s exactly what Zach needed to do. Tomorrow. Tonight, he needed to make sure Jenna was okay and would still be okay when he left her. Bringing up her parents? Not a big advancement toward that goal.
“You hungry?” he asked. “We could go back to the resort and order room service.”
“What about that place?” Jenna asked, nodding to a bar across the street. He could see neon beer signs in the windows. “Maybe they have food.”
He looked at Jenna’s face and clothes. “They’ll have a washroom at least.” The paint was drying on his skin, and it really was getting itchy. “No cab driver is going to let us into his car like this.”
“Good point,” she said. “Let’s check it out. We can wash up, have a drink, and see if there’s a menu.”
They crossed the street and crunched across the gravel driveway of the bar. There weren’t many cars in the lot, but then again, it was Monday night. He would have used his phone to check the reviews if Jenna hadn’t already been pulling the door open.
Inside was pretty dark, and classic rock played on the jukebox. An L-shaped bar took up the left side of the room, but there were tables and a small stage to the right, and through a doorway, there looked to be a pool table and maybe dart boards. A few people lounged at the bar. They looked like locals rather than tourists, dressed in jeans and old T-shirts instead of what Marcy had called resort wear. The smell of grease was just as strong as the beer smell, so he assumed they did have food. Even though they were covered in paint, they didn’t even score a sideways glance from the other patrons.
“There’s the bathroom,” Jenna said, gesturing to a doorway leading to a short, darkened hallway straight across from the door. The doors were marked “chicks” and “cocks.”
“Awww. You’re a cock,” she said, grinning. “Be careful in there.” She pushed through the “chicks” door and disappeared.
Zach cautiously opened the other door and took a whiff. So far so good. He went straight to the sink, washed his hands, and then got a paper towel from the dispenser, wet it, and went to work on his face in the age-blemished mirror. His shirt was beyond hope, and his hair would require a significant amount of shampooing, but at least the paint was off his hands and face.
When he finished, Jenna was still in the bathroom, so he picked out a table near the jukebox. The place was kind of shabby but seemed to be relatively clean. Plastic-covered menus were pinioned between the napkin dispenser and the salt and pepper shakers, and he plucked one out.
“Anything good?” Jenna asked, drying her hands on her skirt. The paint was gone from her face, but flecks of it still rested in her curls. Her lips were a little pink, like she’d put on some gloss or something. Her eyes were bright and laughing, despite his verbal stumble bringing up her dead parents.
Jenna shrugged out of the little white sweater she’d been wearing, and Zach couldn’t help but stare. The casual dress had gone from cute and sweet to pure sex within the space of a heartbeat. The thin straps and plunging neckline exposed her neck, shoulders, and a good part of her chest. It was low cut enough for him to realize she wasn’t wearing a bra. On a delicate silver chain, a tiny diamond hummingbird hovered between her breasts. That was as much as his brain registered before it short-circuited.
“Zach?” she asked, and he realized she’d probably figured out he’d totally been staring.
He swallowed hard, really trying to get it together. The near-miss kiss back in the studio had been a close call. If she’d taken the sweater off back there, well, there was probably no amount of money he could have passed Mrs. Reynolds that could make her unsee what Zach and Jenna would have gotten up to.
“Nice necklace,” he said in a hoarse croak, admonishing himself not to stare.
“Thanks,” she said, touching the delicate chain. “It was my mom’s. She loved hummingbirds, and I do, too.”
Well, hell. He’d stumbled right back to the dead parents again. He really should not leave his office. Ever.
“What about your family?” Jenna asked. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“Yes,” he said, glad to focus on something besides Jenna’s breasts and the lucky little bird hovering between them. “I have two brothers and a sister. My sister just had a baby, so I’m an uncle now.”
“Lucky,” she said. “I’m an only child.”
“One bathroom,” he said. “And my grandparents lived with us, too. Aba and Tito.”
“Those are their names?”
“It’s a shortened version of the Spanish for ‘grandma’ and ‘grandpa.’”
“Must have been nice to have so much family around, though,” she said. “I’ll bet you were never bored. Or lonely.”
“You can be lonely in a room stuffed with people,” he said. “Population doesn’t necessarily determine that.”
“You’re not close to them, then?” She frowned, as if disappointed in him.
“We’re not, not close,” he said. “I just…I left home at eighteen for college and haven’t ever really spent a lot of time at home since. I love them all dearly. They all live near Phoenix, and I do miss them. I’m just…busy.”
“Holidays?”
“Always had to work holidays in college,” he said. “My family wasn’
t wealthy, not like yours or Elliot’s. I was a scholarship kid. I needed every dollar I could scrounge.”
“What do your parents do?”
“My grandparents on my dad’s side immigrated from Chile when they were first married. Tito opened a garage where he and my dad worked until Dad retired a few years ago. Mom was a teacher. Fourth grade.”
He wasn’t ashamed of his parents. They were good people, hard-working and clever to make their income stretch to feed and clothe four kids. But it wasn’t exactly something he talked about in the circles he’d been frequenting since starting IDS with Elliot. It made wealthy people uncomfortable to discuss working-class struggles, as insane as that was.
“It must be fun to work around all the kids,” she said wistfully. “My dad was an investments guy. Mom was the typical socialite, involved in charities and such. They were good parents. And I know they loved me, even though I spent a lot of time with nannies and tutors and household staff. They were just kind of busy with their own lives, you know?”
Zach nodded. He did. Only his parents were busy working to put food on the table, not jet-setting around the globe.
“Are your grandparents still living with your parents?”
“No, they moved into a retirement home last year. And they are loving it.”
“You should visit more,” she said, not meeting his eyes as she studied the menu. “You never know when—well, you should visit more.”
“You’re right.” She was. Just thinking about what Jenna must have gone through…it must have been awful.
“They have cheese curds,” Jenna squealed. “We have to order them.”
“Whatever you want,” he said, putting his menu back.
They decided on a pizza, the cheese curds, and beer. Bottled for Zach, tap for Jenna.
“So about the list,” he said, pulling it out of his wallet.
“I can’t believe you kept it.”
“Kinda hard to check things off the list without a list.”
The waitress delivered their beers, and Zach borrowed a pen from her.
The Anti-Honeymoon Page 9