Page 43 of Good Vibes Only
It waswaytoo early to be throwing words like that around.
“Hey!” I laughed, yelling after her. “I wouldn’t be able to handle that either, okay!”
And yet I found myself turning that word—relationship—over and over in my mind. It put a flutter in my tummy, which scared me—because it told me Raven might be right. Maybe Ididlike him.
And maybe that wasn’t the worst thing in the world?
I found myself staring out the window, a smile on my face, wishing it was lunchtime already …
10
Brett
Freshly showered and straight from practice, I pulled up on Valley View Boulevard and parked my G Wagon in the open spot between our two stores. One a smoke break out front, one of my brewery’s construction workers spotted me.
“Yo, it’s the big boss!” he said, his spine straightening. “How ya doin’, chief?” He had a big, bushy red beard. I didn’t know his name, but I’d met him before and knew him as the leader of the crew.
I gave him a wave. “Hey, man. How’s it going today?”
“Great.” He stamped out his cigarette and rushed to open the door to BarDown for me. I waved him off. “Thanks, but I’m actually headed this way.”
“Oh?” He seemed surprised. But when I walked past and grabbed the door for Good Vibes Only instead, he laughed and said, “Oh-kaaay.”
Whatever, man.
I won’t lie. My heart hammered in my chest as I stepped into McKayla’s boutique. Brock’s pump-up speech aside, I wasnervous and filled with doubts—what was I after here, anyway? And what kind of chump move was it to ask her out to lunchtoday? I didn’t know. All I knew was I’d wanted to see her again, badly.
And my heart wasn’t theonlything hammering, either.
“Damn, it reallyisloud in here, isn’t it?” I said aloud.
“Yeah, man,” McKayla’s employee said. She was the same girl as the last time I was here, and she stood behind the sales counter. “You didn’t believe Mac when she told you?”
“I believed her,” I said, and I had the urge to plug my ears. “I just didn’t think it’d bethisbad.”
“Some days, it’s even worse. But it’s more about the fact that it’s all day long, ya know?” She came out from behind the sales counter and stepped closer. “I’m Raven, by the way.”
“Brett,” I said, and shook her hand. I scanned the shop. Raven was the only person here. “Is McKayla here?”
“Yep. She’s in her office. I’ll go grab her.”
“Thanks.”
Looking for a conversation piece or an icebreaker, I poked around the vibrator aisle while I waited. It didn’t take long for me to spot one: a pink vibrator shaped like a hammer.
It was called Love Hamma.
“No way,” I murmured, picking the hammer-shaped vibrator off the shelf. “This can’t be real.”
But yes, seriously, it’s real.
Man!I could barely contain my smile.This is gonna be perfect.
McKayla didn’t keep me waiting for long. “Hiiii,” I heard her say as she approached from behind. “Sorry about that, I was just writing emails—”
Eager to make McKayla laugh, I spun around with a hairpin twirl and swung the toy as if it were a real hammer. “Stop! Hamma time!”
Humming the rhythm fromU Can’t Touch This, I shuffled from left to right in front of her. It was a perfect recreation of “The Hammer Dance,” and Idareyou to find someone who does it better, besides maybe the man himself, MC Hammer.
