“She wants to know.”
Holy crap. She didn’t just want to know, she needed to know. “I do!” She clapped her hand down on Roger’s shoulder. “I want to know how to make him pass out from my blow job.”
“Of course you do,” Doug agreed. “Everyone wants that.”
“Roger?”
He cleared his throat. “Okay. All right. Fine. You have to…um…at the moment of truth…you have to go for the…A-play.”
“The A-play?”
He coughed, cleared his throat again, and reached for his phone. A few screen taps later, he handed it to her. “The A-play.”
A world of information stared back from the phone’s screen. Hers for the Googling. She read the description and raised her eyebrows. “You sure that’s not strictly a gay thing?”
Doug shook his head. “It’s a guy thing. Don’t ask permission. Just do it. His body’s reaction will be all the thank-you you can handle.”
Roger nodded.
“Jeez. What else?”
Doug leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “Roger showed me your high school yearbook. Do you still have your cheerleading uniform?”
“It’s in the back of my closet. Why?”
“And the pom-poms?
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’d have to dig through some boxes.”
“Take him back to high school. Put the uniform on, shake the pom-poms, and do a cheer for him. He’ll roll over and beg like a puppy.”
“Are you serious? The Bluelick Buffalos home team cheer will turn him on?”
“Not the cheer. You. Roger, hon, is your yearbook handy?”
Roger got up, crossed the room to one of the bookshelves lining the opposite wall, and retrieved a large blue-and-white book. He flipped it open and placed it on the coffee table.
“The sight of you”—Doug gestured to her—“in this tiny skirt”—he pointed to a picture of her leading a cheer at a football game—“with the tight sweater and those swishing pom-poms? Please. He won’t stand a chance. Bonus points if you meet him behind the bleachers at the high school and surprise him with the whole performance. Put your own twist on it.”
She looked closer at the picture in the yearbook. Her senior-year self stared back at her, painfully young, smiling wide, with a life-is-wonderful expression on her face. And it had been, right then. She’d won the Miss Bluelick crown earlier that year, she’d made head cheerleader, and on graduation day she’d gotten engaged to her high school sweetheart. Senior year had been the pinnacle of her life. The poor, stupid girl smiling in the picture didn’t know she’d be starting over ten years later.
Who’d have guessed a fresh start required pom-poms?
Chapter Six
Josh walked up the steps to Melody’s front door with a smile on his face for the first time in hours…possibly in the seventy-two hours since he’d last seen her. He’d teased her about not going for instant gratification, but when it came right down to it, he didn’t have much—okay, any—experience with delayed gratification. Consequently, he’d been cranky, and edgy, and irritated as hell for the better part of three days. Plus, his shift had ended on a particularly annoying note thanks to a call from his old chief in Cincinnati, asking him if he was enjoying shining trucks and rescuing kittens from trees. It didn’t help that he had actually shined the trucks and rescued a cat during his shift. The only fire he’d extinguished today—or all week, for that matter—consisted of the flaming bag of poop someone had left on crotchety Mr. Cranston’s doorstep that afternoon. He’d tossed his coffee on it. Emergency averted.
The chief’s social call had smacked of a secondary agenda, but all the man had hinted at was that the department was planning a party next month to celebrate his twenty-fifth anniversary with the CFD, and he hoped Josh would be able to tear himself away from his grueling schedule to hop up to Cinci and attend. Josh had assured his mentor he wouldn’t miss the fun.
Tonight, however, he anticipated fun on a much more intimate scale. He hadn’t been able to get Melody out of his mind. Damn inconvenient, because as soon as his thoughts turned to her, the rest of his body followed, and next thing he knew he was standing in the local senior center discussing fire safety with a boner the size of Class AA hydrant in his pants. Even more disturbing, he’d caught some appreciative looks from the bingo crowd. Those ladies didn’t miss a thing.
He knocked on the black-painted door of Melody’s traditional brick townhome.
A series of skull-splittingly high-pitched squeals sounded from the other side, growing louder as a herd of small-footed buffalo approached. The door swung open and three pint-sized…hookers…stared up at him, their glitter-glossed smiles slowly disappearing from their over-painted faces.
“Dada?” This from the shortest one—the one wearing a fairy princess diaper, a halo of blond curls, and a shitload of makeup.
“Uh…not as far as I know.”