Tropical Panther's Penance (Shifting Sands Resort 6)
“You didn’t propose,” Saina whispered back. “Your mommy and daddy made you promise to marry me. And this is even worse than that.”
Wrench stabbed a fork into a fancy egg. “Look, I know I screwed up,” he said. “I ain’t no poetry man or whatever Lydia was looking for. You can all be assholes, or you can actually fucking help me.”
There was a moment of silence, then Tex cleared his throat. “What kind of help are you hoping for?”
“I’m not writing poetry for you,” Travis said swif
tly. “Ask Jenny, I’m terrible.”
“It was sweet,” Jenny protested.
“I wanna know how to do my own sissy stuff,” Wrench said. “I’m not gonna ask someone else to do it.”
“It doesn’t matter what you do,” Saina said, putting aside her magazine. “It will just matter that you try.”
“It’s just showing that you care,” Jenny agreed.
Wrench might not have expressions of his own, but he was good at reading them on the faces of others; the men in the room did not agree.
“Flowers,” Tex suggested neutrally. “There’s a reason they’re a classic.”
“Just don’t pick your own without asking Graham,” Travis reminded him firmly.
“He could take her on a walk out to the waterfall,” Bastian mused.
“Oh, that’s a gorgeous walk,” Jenny agreed. “Take a blanket.”
“Just don’t fall down a cliff and collapse a lung,” Travis added.
Jenny sighed. “You could just bring Travis, he’s a wet blanket.”
Saina rose to her feet and walked into the kitchen. “You guys are amateurs. You have to figure out what it is she’d specifically enjoy,” she said. “The more personal the gesture, the more it’s going to mean. When Bastian was courting me, he went and got me the one thing I needed more than anything else in the world.”
“You called me an idiot,” Bastian protested.
“You were,” Saina told him with a dazzling smile. “But it was very sweet of you. What does Lydia like?”
The things Wrench first thought of were wildly inappropriate. He struggled to remember what she’d had in her room. “Yoga? Piles of rocks?”
Tex smothered a laugh. “That’s not much to work with.”
“She likes music,” Jenny said. “Can you play an instrument?”
Wrench gave her a skeptical look.
“Okay, maybe not.”
“She likes pretty things,” Bastian offered.
Everyone carefully didn’t look at Wrench.
“I could figure out her favorite dishes and you could cook her a romantic dinner here at The Den,” Saina suggested.
Wrench snorted.
“Maybe we should narrow this to things Wrench can do?” Travis suggested. “What are your skills?”
“My skills ain’t applicable,” Wrench said dryly. “Unless she needs a drain unclogged or someone persuaded.”