Page 16 of Unexpected Pickle
I duck into my SUV. I don’t plan to wait for Jeannie to come out, but I do. It’s night in LA, and I don’t know how safe this community college is.
I watch her cross the parking lot. She pulls off her chef cap, and long silky hair spills down her back.
Oh, man. I’ve never seen her with her hair down.
She unbuttons the chef coat, and I’m like a man watching a striptease. A bear could attack, and I would not take my eyes off this woman.
She shrugs off the chef coat, and I get my first look at ordinary Jeannie outside of her element.
She wears a shiny black shirt that follows every generous curve of her body, tucked inside black chef pants.
When she bends over the driver’s seat to place the hat and coat on the other side, I’m on fire, looking at her gorgeous ass.
Good God. I only thought I was obsessed before.
This is way worse.
She slides behind the wheel, and the closed door cuts off my view of her body.
Her little red Mazda fires up, and she backs out of the spot, none the wiser to my witnessing of the real her.
Or the rock-hard part of my body that has decided that I am getting to Montreal, no matter what it takes.
6
JEANNIE ALMOST CAVES
Hex doesn’t come around the deli the next day. Then it’s the weekend, and I assume he has his mixed martial arts match.
I try to resist looking up the fight, but when a girl finds herself alone on a Saturday night, and a man who keeps pursuing her does something public, it’s too big of a temptation to resist.
It only takes a single search to realize that Hex is a big deal. He won his match a few hours ago, putting him in the running for some big MMA title.
There are clips from the fight. I turn one on, expecting to feel squeamish watching two men strike each other.
But I find myself rapt. Hex is ungodly beautiful in black shorts that are looser than I expected, based on what he wore to the commercial. That was Adriel’s idea, I bet, along with the sheer tank top.
His auburn hair is newly trimmed close on the sides, with a wild wave over the top. He shines, like he has a gloss on him, and I wonder if that helps deflect blows, the same way greasing a pan keeps meat from sticking.
The men are barefoot and shirtless, and they circle each other in a way that feels primal.
I pick up a piece of junk mail and fan myself as I watch. They use every part of their body to fight. Arms, hands, legs, feet. They try to pin each other, writhing on the floor of the octagon-shaped ring.
Hex wins, his body tight on the other fighter, holding him in place until the other man taps the floor. When they stand, he’s sweaty and glistening, and I can’t even believe he’s the same person who washed bowls with me two nights ago.
I close the lid.
What am I afraid of?
But I know. The words of the last three men I dated.
You’ve got some meat on you.
You must like sampling the things you cook!
And the worst, someone I dated for months before we started getting intimate:Are you going to squash me like a bug?
He hadn’t meant to be unkind. He was joking. But it stung. I left his place and broke things off.
