Page 33 of Just a Plot Twist
I swallow hard. He’s right. I realize now he did try to tell me and couldn’t speak over my talking.
My embarrassment has reached new heights, my cheeks scalding like two baked apples. I squeeze my eyes shut.
“You’re right. I didn’t give you a chance to tell me.”
“So, an extravaganza, huh?” His voice is just barely syrupy. Teasing. “With swans?”
I open my eyes. He’s smiling a little. Well, that’s something.
“It’s grown to these epic, crazy proportions. If my grandmother wants swans, she gets swans. It is what it is.”
I rub my lips together—they’re uncommonly dry, which is probably just a natural response to my Oscar-winning performance of a red-carpet starlet. That’s me, breaking hearts and taking names at the city offices here in Longdale, CO.
“Sounds like quite the party.”
“Extravaganza.”
He raises his brows.
“Sorry, force of habit. You can call it whatever you want. My grandma just likes calling it that.”
He takes a step towards the door. I should release this guy from the cringiness that’s been happening so we can both get on with our lives.
“Well, it sounds like a big deal. Good luck with the swans.”
“It’s going to be great,” I offer. “We’re going to party it up!” I try to infuse my words with an enthusiasm I don’t currently have.
His laughter is rich. “You mean,extravaganza it up,right?”
At my groan, he winks.
“It’s all of the above,” I say, shifting so I can look at my computer screen. I’m a spectacle, on stage in my unmentionables, with nary a covering to be found. He saw my bra and more cleavage than probably any man before in my life.
Even my swimsuits have higher necklines.
I’ve mentioned that I haven’t prioritized any sort of dating life, not that there’s ever really many good guys around town. The best eligible bachelors have been the Tates and they’re all in relationships now.
And they’reTates.
Benson saw my cleavageandtouched my butt on the way down from the hike. It’s not like he was all handsy—he was professional about it. But yeah. With the mechanics of piggybacks, he sort of had to touch my butt.
I haven’t been this up close and personal with a guy in…well…never. I’ve only kissed exactly two men in my life. One was named Chad. I met him my freshman year of college when we both worked at the on-campus KFC. All I could think about when we kissed was how much he smelled like the fryers in the back. It was hours after our shift! And? He’d told me he’d showered.
Sothatwas disappointing.
And the next guy I kissed was named Tad.
Yep. Chad and Tad.
Tad was in my senior cohort. We made out a few times on our senior trip to New York and then again a couple of years later when I ran into him at a conference for work.
I was so concerned about whether or not I was doing it right that the whole thing was far more stressful than enjoyable.
So, should I feel an odd sort of kinship to Benson?Hey, Benny, you’ve seen more of me than any guy ever!
Several seconds tick by. His musky, clean scent is going to linger in here after he’s gone. And my coworkers are going to ask questions, if not from the manly scent in my office, then because of the flowers or his very presence. They’ll think there’s something going on between us and that I, like Inez and other city managers before her, am going to fall in love and quit to have babies, like it’s the early 1900s or something.
And then it hits me. “Thank you for the flowers,” I finally say. Had I really not thanked him yet? Geez.
