The door closed, and Keith held his finger to his lips for a moment, then went to watch them leave via the peephole.
After a moment, he turned around and gave me a sheepish look.
“You’re crazy,” I said.
“Me? You’re the one who pretended to be my cleaning lady.”
“I had to protect myself. I can take down one mouthy bag of hair extensions, but not two at once.”
“That’s my sister you’re talking about.”
“News flash! Your sister’s a mouthy bag of hair extensions. I’m surprised she doesn’t have a reality TV show.”
“She got a callback for Big Brother.”
“Color me anything but surprised.”
“You’ll warm up to her, I promise.”
“No, I won’t, because I’ll never see her again.”
In response, he gave me a pouty look.
“Forget dinner,” I said. “Family drama is not what I signed up for.”
“If I take you out today on the best date you’ve ever been on, then will you come with me to dinner?”
I rolled my eyes. “Now I know why Mitchell warned me about you boy models. Those gorgeous brown eyes of yours are very difficult to say no to.”
He put his fingers under the edge of my jaw and tilted my head to face him. Tenderly, he kissed me on the lips. His gentle touch took my breath away, and with it, my resistance.
As he pulled away, he said, “Let’s unbreak these hearts. For the next nine days, let’s practice saying yes to each other, and saying yes to life.”
Another kiss.
“Say yes to me, Peaches,” he said. “Let’s experience utter happiness together, no strings and no baggage, for nine days. Just say yes.”
CHAPTER 6
Keith gave me another kiss, this one weakening my knees and softening my legs to the consistency of over-cooked carrots.
He said, “I’m all yours, body and spirit, if you say yes.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Good.” He kissed me again.
Muffled by his mouth on mine, I mumbled something about breakfast.
He pulled away and said, “Let’s go to this great pancake place I know of.”
“I don’t know,” I said with a sigh. “First you make coffee that we don’t drink. Then you have sex but don’t come. Please promise me we’re not going to order breakfast, then leave as soon as the food hits the table.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“If I get a forkful of pancakes and you knock it on the ground, that would be very Keith Raven of you.”
He chuckled and leaned down to pull on a pair of shoes. “And if you took off running when I was in the other room, that would be very Peaches Monroe of you, wouldn’t it?”
I gave him an innocent look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You were scrambling to get out of here when my ex and my sister showed up. I bet you do that a lot—run away when things get intense. We should work on that.”
To change the topic, I grabbed the red broom and started sweeping around the entryway. “I clean house real good.”
“More pancakes for me.” With a shrug, he opened the door and started to leave. “C’mon, Ursula.”
I let the broom clatter to the floor and put my hands on my hips. “What the hell was that about, with that name? Ursula is the fat, ugly sea witch from The Little Mermaid. Thanks a lot.”
“Ursula is a beautiful name, and I’ve never seen that movie. I never liked cartoons.”
I grabbed my purse and followed him out, muttering that he was the weirdest guy I’d ever met. Who doesn’t like cartoons?
We had breakfast at a diner, where the ridiculous waiter acted like he didn’t know what a mocha was, so I had to order a coffee plus a hot chocolate, then make a dribbling mess as Keith laughed at my dumb ass.
“You’re making fun of me,” I said. “Which makes this more of an average or typical date for me, and not the best date ever. I guess I won’t have the pleasure of seeing your bag-of-hair sister again.”
He reached under the table of the booth and squeezed my thighs just above my knees. “You’re going to have many pleasures today.”
I pulled some napkins from the silver dispenser on the table and sopped up the mess I’d made. Which reminded me… that morning’s bedroom sporting hadn’t turned me into a water feature. Perhaps that squirt-o-rama had been a one-time event, just to clear the ol’ peri-urethral ducts.
Looking across the table at Keith, I had the urge to ask him what he knew about the phenomenon. He seemed like the kind of guy who read books about sex. On second thought, he also seemed like the kind of guy who’d be obsessed with making the squirting happen again, just for the experience. Nope, this secret was going into the vault with the others.
“Where to after breakfast?” I asked. “Cruising Mulholland Drive in the green van?”
Keith smirked. “The van does have a sun roof. I have a few ideas in mind. How do you feel about roller coasters?”
“How do you feel about getting barfed on?”
“No Knott’s Berry Farm, then. Okay, Plan B it is.” He pulled out his phone and mumbled about making arrangements.
The waiter brought our food, and at the same time, the music cranked up a few levels. Free Fallin’ by Tom Petty was playing, and I could hear the faint sound of people back in the kitchen of the restaurant singing along like it was their favorite tune.
Hearing Free Fallin’ like this, I experienced something not unlike déjà vu. My mother loved the song, and the video played in my mind as Tom Petty sang about places in LA, including Ventura Boulevard, which had always sounded so magical to me, a girl in small-town Washington. He sang about good girls, bad boys, and broken hearts.
As I looked over at Keith, a chill went through me, giving me goose bumps all over. I was a good girl with a broken heart. Had I simply jumped from one bad boy to another?
“Yum,” Keith declared as he dug into his low-carb breakfast. With his young-looking face, he didn’t seem that dangerous, but I would have to be careful around him and guard my heart.
After breakfast, we drove to world-famous* Rodeo Drive.
*Their marketing and branding efforts must be working, because I can’t say or even think about Rodeo Drive without the world-famous modifier in front.
As we drove past Gucci, Prada, and stores I’d never heard of but imagined were equally pricey, I said, “Keith, I don’t know how much they’re paying you to stand around looking sexy in your underpants, but I’m sure not getting Gucci money.”