Driven To Distraction: Driven To Distraction / Winging It

7

STACY STOOD at Barrett’s door early that evening looking very serious in blue jeans and a pink short-sleeved sweater. “Barrett, we have a problem.”

“Does it have something to do with the can of dog food you’re holding?”

She lifted the can. “This is dinner.”

At his horrified expression, she followed his gaze to the hand she held up. “This is for Elmo!” She lifted the bag in her other hand. “This is our dinner. Subs from the deli. Not a hint of processed ham or cream of mushroom soup anywhere.”

She smelled fruity again, and he forgot about her declaration of impending doom. He followed her into the kitchen where she found a bowl and scooped something foul-smelling into it. It reminded him of the Tater Tot casserole.

“How’s it going between you two?” she asked, nodding toward the dog.

“We have an understanding. I let him sit on my lap, and he doesn’t whine.”

She set the bowl on the floor and gestured to Elmo.

He didn’t budge.

“Come on, it’s your favorite. Savory salmon.”

Elmo looked at Barrett.

“Go on,” he said, and Elmo dashed forward and consumed it.

Stacy placed a plastic lid on the can. “How does it feel to be adored like that?”

“I’m growing to like it.”

She looked at him, and he felt that strange tickle in his stomach.

“I’ll bet you are.” Her gaze shifted downward to his shirt. “You’re misbuttoned.”

She was right. “After my shower, I was deep in thought…about the tree snails,” he lied. “Sometimes I don’t pay attention to what I’m doing when I’m immersed in thought.”

She started unbuttoning his shirt. “We have a problem that might affect your uninterrupted time. You see, they don’t believe we’re attracted to one another.” She stopped when she finished undoing the buttons and was staring at his chest. She made a funny sound deep in her throat and quickly started buttoning the shirt. “Jogging. We have to go jogging together. That’ll be easy. And we should probably hold hands a couple more times, just to show them. Why am I buttoning your shirt for you? I don’t know.” She took a step back.

“Because you’re nice?” he offered, though he hoped it was more than that.

“Yes, that’s it. I wasn’t even thinking…” She glanced toward his chest again and then shook her head. “What I was thinking was we could go for a stroll together and eat dinner in the park. You, Weasel Boy and me. Holding hands. Think you can handle that?”

“Sure.”

She studied him for a moment. “You don’t seem very bothered by it. I thought, because it’s going to cut into your work schedule, you’d be annoyed.”

He shrugged. “I can work all night if I need to.” Besides, he’d become immersed in a side project, and that was what he’d been thinking about when he’d put on his shirt. He’d pulled up his study on romance and found it dry and lacking in actual fieldwork. He’d gone over his notes on his subjects, the feelings they’d talked about having—tickle in the stomach, distracted, fantasizing—all things he’d been experiencing since meeting Stacy. He’d decided that even with all his interviews, he hadn’t come away understanding romance at all. To be accurate, he needed to do hands-on research. Posing as a couple was perfect fieldwork.

Her expression lightened. “Well, okay then. I’ll try not to let this interfere too much with your work.” Her face crinkled with worry again. “Were you able to decipher those notes I ruined?”

“I just reprinted them. Really, it’s not a problem,” he assured her when the worried look didn’t go away.

“All right. Good. Let’s go then.”

She snapped the leash onto Elmo’s collar and they walked to the front door. She took a deep breath and shored up her shoulders. “Okay, here’s the game plan,” she said, using that sporting term again. “I’ll hold Weasel Boy’s leash, and you’ll hold my hand. Like this.”

She slid her hand against his, and their fingers entwined automatically. Which was strange since his reaction shouldn’t be automatic at all. Before he could analyze that, though, he was overcome by that elating sense of connection. And an odd sense of anticipation.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Very.”

They stepped out into the cool evening air. They had only reached the end of the walkway lined with the glowing pink flamingos when it became evident that he should be the one holding the leash. Elmo kept crossing in front of them to get to Barrett, tripping Stacy in the process. She carried the bag with the sandwiches.

The sun had just set, casting an orange glow across the western horizon. The rest of the sky was a brilliant indigo blue. Instead of thinking about how the colors were created, he took in the scene like Stacy obviously did. He’d never noticed the way the colors melted together before. Now he noticed not only that, but the way the light cast a glow across Stacy’s face and made her look beautiful. The way her hand felt in his also cast a warm glow over him, though he knew that was scientifically impossible.

Several of the Sunset City residents smiled and waved, then turned and whispered to each other.

“This should go a long way toward convincing them we’re madly in love,” she said. “We can walk around to the lake, sit on a bench and pretend to enjoy each other’s company.”

Pretend? Perhaps she was pretending, but he was definitely enjoying her company. He didn’t like the thought of her pretending.

“I appreciate you going to all this trouble for me,” he said.

“It’s no trouble.”

Okay, that was better.

“You’re sure?”

“Positive,” she said, a content look on her face. She met his gaze. “Is it hard on you?”

To his surprise, he wanted to say yes. It was hard to look at her mouth and not kiss it, hard to understand why he wanted to kiss her when they were only pretending and the last thing he needed was someone like her in his life.

She was waiting for his answer, as though it mattered to her.

“No, not at all.”

When they reached the small park area, he released Elmo to explore. The dog sniffed the ground as he traveled in circles, though he never took his gaze off Barrett for more than five seconds. If that was adoration, well, he did like it. He glanced at Stacy, who quickly shifted her gaze to Elmo, as well.

“Have you ever been adored?” he asked, making her snap her gaze toward him again.

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

For some reason, she tried to pull her hand free of his. He held on tighter, not ready to relinquish the charade.

She looked at their linked hands. “I…well, Granny adored me, though I’m not sure it counts when it’s family. Not that they have to adore you or anything, but…” Her gaze lifted to his. “No,” she finished with a soft sigh. “Not even by a dog. I’m sure my time will come.”

He led her toward the bench that faced the lake. The surface reflected the sky and the palm trees that swayed in the breeze. Only the occasional ripple marred the mirror image. It amazed him how something so simple could be so beautiful. He looked at Stacy, who looked beautiful, too, even if she looked a little sad.

They ate, the wrappers making makeshift plates in their laps. Stacy kept dabbing her face, reminding him of the chicken crumb episode. At one point, she left a smear of mustard by her mouth, which she licked off with a swipe of her tongue. He heard himself make a small sound between a choke and a groan.

“Did you say something?” she asked.

He crumpled his sandwich wrapper. “Not me.”

She stuffed the rest of her sandwich in the bag.

“Should we…” He gestured, then took her hand. “Tell me about hand holding.”

“What?”

“What other uses does it have? Besides just being romantic.”

He set their linked hands on his thigh and traced his thumb over her skin. Her breath hitched as she stared at their hands.

“Didn’t your parents hold hands?” she asked.

“No. I’ve seen my sister, Kim, and her husband, Dave, hold hands. I was just wondering if it served some practical purpose.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“If we’re going to be a couple, I should be aware of all the nuances, right?”

“Well…it’s a friendly gesture. But it doesn’t last very long in that context.” She demonstrated, loosening their hands, giving his hand a squeeze, then retracting her hand again. “It’s a gesture of support, too. If you were going through something sad or trying, I might hold your hand for a while.” She took his hand again. “I might even place my other hand on top of yours, just to give you extra support.”

He was supposed to be cataloging all this for research purposes, but the feel of her hands enveloping his was making it hard for the information to register.

“What about this? I’ve seen men kiss a woman’s hands before.” He turned her hand over and kissed her moist palm.

She shivered. “You kiss the back of the hand…in greeting.” She took his hand and planted a kiss on the back of it. “Like that. Only women never do it to men. It’s a romantic gesture. Sometimes it’s a classy greeting. I think the French do it.”

A trace of moisture remained on the back of his hand from her kiss, skewing his thoughts. He’d never had trouble focusing before he met Stacy. “Have men kissed your hand before?”

“No. It’s not an everyday sort of thing.”

He kissed the back of her hand. She didn’t react the way she had when he’d kissed her palm. “You didn’t like it when I kissed your palm?”

“Well, actually…I did. No one’s ever kissed my palm before. It was…interesting.”

“Tater Tot casserole interesting?”

She laughed, and a warm, satisfied feeling flooded through him.

“Definitely more interesting than that.” She took a quick breath. “It was arousing. Like this.”

She took his hand, faced it palm up and kissed the center of it. Her mouth lingered there, hot and moist against his skin. She was right—it was arousing. And not just the legal definition of inciting to action, awakening…No, this was arousing in a different way. More than physical.

But very, very physical. His body was awakening, rising. If she asked if this charade was hard on him, he couldn’t honestly answer no this time. Heat flushed through him. Was it dopamine or norepinephrine? All he knew was that it was way more interesting than Tater Tot casserole interesting.

She abruptly stopped pressing her mouth against his palm and sat up. “We’d better stop.”

“But we’re doing so well. I’m aroused. Aren’t you?”

“Yes, but we’re only supposed to pretend to be…aroused.”

“Oh…right.” That pretending thing again.

“Geez, look. No, don’t look. There’s Nita and Jack. And Arlene. Look at them, they’re like vultures, moving in for the kill. No, don’t look!”

He was getting dizzy with the looking and not looking. “The people we’re supposed to be fooling,” he whispered.

“Exactly.”

“So, if I did this—” he kissed her palm again, very slowly, the way she’d kissed his “—it would help our defense position. Right?”

Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she whispered, “Exactly.”

He’d never had this effect on a woman before, at least not that he’d noticed. He was noticing now, cataloging every action versus reaction. When he flicked his tongue against her skin, she inhaled sharply. When he traced his tongue across the lines of her palm, her breathing increased threefold. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elmo watching them with interest. When Barrett’s tongue dipped into the crevice between her fingers, he didn’t care what Elmo was doing anymore. She let out a long, low moan.

Her eyes snapped open, and she pulled her hand back. “Okay, that’s good. I think we’ve got them fooled now, yes, indeedy.” Her voice sounded shaky.

He was surprised to hear a quiver in his voice when he said, “Are you sure?” He leaned closer to her face. Her lips glistened after she licked them. He wanted to kiss her—just for show, of course. Mostly for show, anyway. All right, forget the show. “Maybe we should—”

“Go home. Yes, that’s what we should do,” she said in a breathless rush of words. “Our mission here is done.”

Done, Barrett thought. But not over. He was a research scientist, after all. And he had a lot more research to do on Stacy.

THIS ENTIRE SITUATION was unfair, Stacy thought as she readied herself for a jog at six-thirty in the morning—sixthirty! After which, she had to teach her workout class. If she’d slept well, that would have helped. She couldn’t even blame Weasel Boy. Barrett had kindly offered to keep him so she wouldn’t have to abide his whining all night.

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