The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)
She got him all right. She tucked her mat more firmly under her arm. “Go away.”
“I’m only doing this once.” He plucked at one of his long dreads. It was brown near his head but bleached blonde at the tip. “I won’t ask you again.”
“Thank God for that.”
He made small circles with his hands, describing his confusion. “You’re rejecting me?”
With bells on it. “I don’t think we’re a match.”
He looked her up and down, and his appraisal wasn’t kind. “You should try Pilates. You have no natural flexibility. You’ll never be any good at yoga.”
Or a passive aggressive shithead either. She almost said, “How do you like my ass now?” but stopped when she realized they had an audience of students for the next class. She was very conscious of eyes on that ass as she headed for the locker room, but an hour later having shoved it into cargo pants she was self-conscious in a new way.
Jack buzzed her apartment on time. He had an Uber car waiting and a file archive box in his arms. “Are we going to work?” He wore respectable jeans, a nice T-shirt, his glasses and a cap. He looked her right in the eyes, and it was more disconcerting than Yogaboy’s full body assessment because she wasn’t sure how to read it.
“I don’t own a picnic basket.”
He was just as bruised, but he’d shaved. “When was the last time you went on a picnic?” She wanted to touch him so badly.
“If I tell you never you’re going to feel sorry for me.” He opened the car door and she climbed in. He piled in after her, putting the box between them, and gave the driver the address of some park she’d never heard of.
“Is the answer never?”
“Only if that’s going to unfairly prejudice you toward me.”
“You want me to feel sorry for you?”
He sighed playfully. “I’m giving way to the inevitable.”
If the inevitable was a bed and a night together, she was giving it all away.
Where they were going was a good half-hour drive and took Derelie through parts of the city she’d not seen before. That might well be a metaphor for what they were doing, seeing each other in a new way, outside of work. The remainder of the questionnaire felt like it might be a map to where they’d end up.
They found a pond and a tree for shade and Jack had a blanket in that box and the sun was out and there were no long shadows and no concrete echoes. It didn’t smell like home, there were certainly no white squirrels, they weren’t sitting on the back of a pickup, there was no Ernest, all excited to be out, and there were lots of other people around, but it was a solid effort.
Jack paused in the process of unpacking the picnic and looked up. “I ordered birds.” He’d been to a deli and brought sandwiches, cheese and crackers, bottled water and soda. He had a couple of apples and a bunch of grapes and two slices of lemon meringue pie.
“For a guy who’s never been on a picnic, you did good.”
“Is this the part where you reconsider sitting in my lap last night?”
“Nope.” She considered that part of the night an outstanding achievement.
“You’re sure?” She hadn’t sighted a smile yet. She craved a smile.
“I broke up with Yogaboy this morning.” She had a sudden vision of ankles over shoulders—her ankles, Jack’s broad shoulders.
“I’m pleased to hear it.”
That was his signal to jump on her, or at least touch her with some sense of his intention to keep touching her, but he stayed on the other side of the blanket with the box between them. Yogaboy was obnoxiously forward, but Jack was the picture of reticence. Had she imagined his heart thudding into her palm for a second time?
“You want me to sign a waiver or something?” She held her hand up. “I, Derelie Honeywell, give full consent to Jackson Haley to ravage my body for the purposes of sexy times. I do solemnly promise not to kiss and tell.” She said it in jest, but the look on his face told her he wasn’t sharing the joke. “What?”
“Aside from everything else that’s happened between us—theft, lies and we haven’t gotten to the videotape part—I’ve been burned before,” he said.
Video. “You think I’d cause you trouble.”
“I hope so.”