Offensive Behavior

The earnestness in his voice had a loveliness to it. It wasn’t his natural way of speaking. This was Reid doing all he could to please her. “I was thinking we might go further.”

He found her hand and wrapped it with his own. “I’d go with you to the moon. You name the star system.” He was letting her choose.

It was enough to make a girl love a man.

She uploaded her audition tape to Madame Amour’s website.

The next afternoon Cara moved in to Reid’s apartment, taking over the spare room and setting her sewing machine up in his office, and she and Reid were on a flight to Paris. Business class because he liked the extra legroom. Zarley hadn’t bothered arguing cost sharing with him. There was time for that. In another year she’d graduate, get a job that used her degree, she’d find a way to pay her share even if it meant continuing to dance nights. Or she’d win the Madame Amour prize and there’d be different options open.

Surprising how quickly her old competitor instincts kicked in. It was easier to imagine winning the prize than it was having a real-world day job. Post college work was a hazy notion. She was supposed to know what she wanted to do with her degree. She couldn’t see past graduation and yet all her classmates had concrete plans. Starting their own businesses, joining companies they’d done internships with, looking for work in a variety of industries all over the country. She envied them the certainty of their ambition. She’d once been like that.

But sitting beside Reid on the Paris flight, she felt that old ambition stirring. She’d packed her sexiest costumes and favorite music, but had to narrow her performance down to one three-minute selection. That was going to take some thought. But until she heard from the Madame Amour contest organizers, she was a woman in Paris with her boyfriend. There was sightseeing to do and salted butter caramel crepes to eat.

“Doing okay?”

She should’ve guessed Reid was a nervous flyer. He shifted and twitched and fiddled and projected his discomfort onto her.

“I’m great. I like this business class thing.” Legroom galore. Travel for gymnastics competitions had been coach. “Have you always hated flying?”

“I don’t hate it.”

She laughed at him. “You hate it.”

He screwed up his face. “I don’t hate it. I prefer teleporting, but the Tardis was in for repairs.”

She reached for his hand. “You hate it.” She leaned against the console they shared to get closer. “I could make you feel better.”

He leaned in. “How?”

“Take your mind off the fact you have absolutely no control for the next nine hours.”

“Nine more,” he grumped. “What’s your plan?”

“Mile-high club.”

He reeled back into his own seat laughing. Exactly what she’d hoped he’d do. Job done, now to bring it home.

“I’m perfectly serious. You’re tense. I’m small and bendy. We can fit in the lavatory cubicle.”

“That wasn’t on the list,” he choked out from beneath the hand he’d plastered over his face.

“That list was a jumping off point. It didn’t include dining room tables or baths.” Or public galleries or popular parks.

“It’s not going to include a passenger airline.”

She unclipped her belt.

He twisted to face her. “What are you doing?” If she could only bottle his expression to drink on days the serious was too damn high.

“I thought a nice blow job would work for you.”

Although she whispered it, he must’ve heard it like a shout. He reached for her and brought her face close. “Are you trying to get me arrested?”

“You’re the gate-crashing hacker.”

Reid’s eyes widened.

While they’d waited at the gate lounge to board, a man with a child on his hip and a waiting wife and baby approached Reid. He wanted to present a business opportunity, started straight in, telling Reid how great his app was while shifting the grizzling toddler hip to hip. Reid had been desperate to shut the man down but he persisted, making every eye turn their way, using an outside voice in the crowded space and outright asking for a large sum of money. That’s when Reid cut him off very deliberately, only to have the man loudly proclaim Reid was an egomaniac asshole, gate-crashing talentless hacker who shouldn’t be allowed to leave the country.