“Yes.”
Declan’s green eyes are surveying my face, then glancing between Josh and the parking lot. “So you do have a car. Can we go for a drive together?”
I stuff the keys in my front pants pocket. “No.”
“Don’t worry, Shannon!” Greg says, trying not to laugh. “It’s fully insured. You can start driving it right now.”
I hate you.
“Company car?”
I nod, miserable. “Yes.”
“New cars today!” Amanda adds. She gives Declan a friendly little wave. She gives me a look that says, You have to face this sometime.
“I’m not really feeling very coffee-like right now,” I say.
“Are you ill?” my coworkers say in unison.
Declan leans in and whispers, “Am I intruding? Because I can leave.”
My grip on his arm tightens. “No! It’s just…the Turdmobile.”
“The what?”
I pull him by the arm toward the cars and point to my company car.
He reads the tag line. Takes in the car’s appearance, his eyes lingering over the roof’s distinctive…decoration, and finally says, “Is this an ad for civet coffee?”
“Civet what?”
“Civet coffee. it’s a delicacy from Indonesia. Collected from coffee berries that cats eat and then excrete.”
Josh walks closer and looks at Declan like he’s man candy. “Coffee from a cat’s ass?” He nudges me and whispers, “Coffee gets everything moving.”
I punch his arm hard enough to make him squeak, then pretend I didn’t do it.
Declan nods, his face inscrutable. No affect, no crazy attention-seeking demeanor. He’s telling the facts. “It’s a delicacy. Sells for well into the hundreds of dollars per pound.”
“You feed coffee berries to a cat, collect them out the other end, and people charge hundreds of dollars for the resulting coffee?” I ask, incredulous. My eyes flicker between the top of my new car and Declan.
Chuckles may need a change in diet.
“Have you had this coffee?” Josh asks just as his phone buzzes. He looks at it, eyes wide with alarm, then glances at Amanda, who is a few paces away tucking her phone in her bra.
“Excuse us,” Josh adds with a tight tone. “We have to go.” I wonder what Amanda said to make him leave like that, and make a mental note to send her my firstborn child as a thank-you for doing it.
“Did I scare them off?” Declan asks, laughing. “Cat-poop coffee too much for them?”
“They’ve seen worse,” I mutter.
Declan’s phone buzzes. He reads his text and mutters a curse under his breath. “They added a meeting. Dad’s coming right back with the limo.” His expression is pained. “I’m sorry. I only have about five more minutes with you.”
I can’t help myself. I have to say it. “Why me?”
“Why do you keep asking me that?”
“I’ve only asked once.”
He leans against the picnic table, one hip jutting out with a jaunty athleticism that makes his ass muscles tighten. It makes other parts of me clench, too. Yowza.
“You asked over and over on the ride home yesterday, Shannon. You really impressed my driver. Lance said you were the first date he’s ever driven who could sing every word of ‘Chasing Cars.’”
“I sang Snow Patrol songs in a limo?”
“And then you did an encore of Lady Gaga.”
I groan. He’s highly amused, and steps forward, scooping me into his arms. I’m caged by him, all heat and want.
“You have no pretense, Shannon. No fake affect, no shield. You’re real. Raw. Open. Yourself. I like that.” He touches the tip of my nose with his finger, then slowly slides it down my lips, opening my bottom lip a bit. I snatch his finger into my mouth, too timid to go for the overtly sexual gesture.
I just kiss it instead.
“You like it when I’m genuine and just Shannon.”
“You’re not ‘just’ anything, Shannon.”
Just then, the limo squeals into the parking lot. Declan grabs me in a kiss that bends me back, his arms strong and unyielding, the rushed taking making a flame light up inside that has to last me three days until I see him again.
And with that he breaks the kiss, jogging off to another world.
“Cat-poop coffee,” Greg says from behind me. “Dating is nothing like it was twenty years ago. Boy have pickup lines changed.”
Chapter Six
Friday. I am going out of my mind now that it is 4:14 p.m. and I have exactly one hour and forty-six minutes to transform myself into a hiking Barbie.
Steve won’t stop texting me, though he finally stopped texting Amanda and Amy when they resorted to texting him various pictures off 4chan and Goatse. I’m close to following suit, but that’s how I handled our breakup at the very end, and if there’s anything worse than being immature, it’s being immature in the exact same way twice.
I receive a text from Amy with a copy of the last picture she sent to Steve. Who knew that anuses could prolapse? Huh.
My phone actually rings. I know Amanda is next door in Josh’s office, talking animatedly to him about simplifying the password policy so we don’t need to use three non-standard Arabic characters when we change our monthly passwords, so it can’t be her.
Mom is with dad at an all-day Reiki training, so it much be Carol, my older sister.
I look at the number. Yup. Carol calls for one of three reasons:
1. She needs a babysitter.
2. She needs someone to come over and binge watch Orange is the New Black and pick up a pint of ice cream on the way.
3. She needs a babysitter.
“I’m busy tonight,” I say as I answer the phone. No preliminaries. Don’t need them. Besides, I’m a ticking time bomb right now, with sixteen minutes to go before I can race home and try to turn myself into a nighttime hiking phenomenon.
“You are?” She sounds disappointed. Panicked, really. I hear mayhem in the background. Random animal sounds that are, in fact, just boy sounds. Same thing, really. Until they’re ten years old or so, boys are just human versions of beasts.
“Yep.”
“Mystery shop?”
“No. Date.” The word rolls off my tongue with a delicious fluidity.
She bursts into a long, drawn-out giggle fest. “Good one. Hah! So which shop is it. Donuts? If you ever get another one for the chain of bars where you have to order the filet skewers and two margaritas, let’s get Mom to watch the boys!”