I wanted a good one. I wanted to experience what it was like, just once in my adult life.
Just once before I finally gave up.
Thirty, but I figured if no man had been interested in the real me by now, I may as well throw my entire existence into my career, rather than waiting around for someone to rescue me from my castle.
"Dick!" Grandma yelled at the top of her lungs.
Horrified, I looked up.
The barista's name was Dick.
Heat flooded my face.
"Dick! Dick! Dick!" Grandma kept repeating as I slowly stepped away from her embrace. Only her wiry arm came out and pulled me against her body like glue. "It has been an age! An entire age! How are the kids?"
"Good." Dick smiled and shrugged. He looked around forty. "I can't complain. Now what can I get you lovely ladies?"
"Two GNs, extra shot of you know what."
"Got it." Dick grabbed two grande cups and began making the drinks. Then when the other barista wasn't looking, pulled a flask out of a cupboard and put a shot in each of the drinks.
My mouth dropped open. I'd thought she'd been kidding. Joking. As in, Hey, let's get wasted. Ha ha. Not seriously wanting to drink vodka!
He topped the drinks with whip and scooted them toward us.
"What's the damage?" Grandma leaned over the register and smiled.
"You know the special's always free, Nadine. Always." He winked and grabbed her hand, kissing it gently before nodding in my direction and asking for the next person's order.
Grandma handed me my drink and took a long swig of hers.
"How is it possible that you just ordered something that doesn't even exist on the menu?"
"Oh, but it does." Grandma placed her hand on my arm. "It's just complicated. It's like a hidden menu only for me. Howie knows what I like."
"Are you talking about Howard Shultz?" She was kidding, right? Was I getting punked? Light bulb. I was on the show Off Their Rockers! It was the only explanation.
"Oh look, there they are! And just in time."
Grandma took another sip as Travis, Kacey, Jake, and Char briskly walked through the airport, all of them totally oblivious that shit was about to not only hit the fan but fill the airport to the brim, until everyone within the vicinity suffered a slow smelly agonizing death via Grandma.
"And there he is…" Grandma's voice dropped as Jace walked briskly behind them, paparazzi taking pictures of him until Travis and Jake basically rescued him. Airport security removed the remaining paparazzi.
"What did you do?" I asked.
Grandma took another sip of hot coffee. "He still don't want me."
"Who?"
"The man upstairs." She sighed. "It seems my work isn't yet done. You'd think He'd be pleased. I mean, I basically saved the world."
"How do you figure?" This I had to hear. After all, I was curing cancer, how could what she'd done be any better than that?
"I saved the world from STDs. The way that grandson of mine was going, he was going to be solely responsible for coming up with a new strain. Mark my words. The little slut." She sighed. "But I love him. I may have ruined him, but Grandma fixed all the broken, whorish little pieces, and now look at him." She pointed. "Happy as a clam."
"Right." I backed away slowly.
Grandma's hand shot out and grabbed my arm. "Now drink your coffee and follow me."
"Do I have a choice?" I asked, looking around for a quick escape that wouldn't end up with me being hit by oncoming traffic.
Grandma paused and looked directly into my eyes. "My dear, we always have a choice. The question is never if you have a choice. It's whether your options are better on your own or with my help. Choices come and go. But chances? Only once in a lifetime." She winked. "So why don't you jump?"
"I don't like heights."
"I don't like loud breathers. Doesn't mean I smother people with pillows when I'm irritated," she joked. "Sometimes, my dear, we need a little push."
"Is that what you are? A little push?"
"Hell no." Grandma snorted. "The little push is your conscience. I'm a damn atom bomb. Now are you coming or not?"
I could go home. I could choose safe. I could choose white walls and a sterile environment. What I should choose was the exact opposite of what she was offering. But she was right about one thing: I'd probably regret not taking that old wrinkled hand in mine. So even though I was pretty sure I was making the biggest mistake of my life, even counting the time I tried to dye my hair bleach-blond, I grasped her like a lifeline and prayed to the Man upstairs that I wasn't going to be sent home in a body bag.
****
"I need to disappear for a while." Shaking, Jace let out a loud curse and looked like he needed Grandma's special coffee more than I did.
Grandma released my hand and pushed through her grandsons. "Did I hear someone say something about escape?"
A resounding groan was followed by four horrified faces as Grandma walked up to the ticket counter.
Grandma started firing off questions about her grandsons' honeymoons. I say honeymoons because Travis and Kacey had just gotten married, and in a very strategically set of planned events, so had Char — to Jake, the one she constantly referred to as the whorish grandson. Money had exchanged hands; a preacher, who will have to face consequences once he gets to heaven, married the couple without their knowledge. And the weird part? Jake and my sister Char were so happy it made me a little nauseated.
Char had gotten fired from her job, not that it mattered since the Titus family had more money than God, and now she was taking a honeymoon with Jake Titus, reformed playboy and GQ's Man of the Year.
Clearly, she'd gotten the looks in the family.
Whereas, I'd gotten the brains and less-than-stellar vision. Yay me.
"Beth! Beth dear! Come over here. I need your ID."
All eyes turned to me. Whoever said doing the walk of shame was, well, shameful, lied. This? Walking by both Titus brothers the morning after the wedding, looking like I hadn't slept and being with Jace? Let's just say it wasn't something I ever wanted to repeat. I felt naked. And not a good naked, where you feel free and happy and at peace with the world. No, it was a bad naked. The type of naked where people point and laugh, and you have nothing to cover yourself up with but your hands, and even then you only have two of them, so where's the justice in that?
I took a few steps toward Grandma and Jace. He looked too worried to be irritated that Grandma was manipulating. Maybe that's how she worked. She wore you down so much by the time she offered the little crumb that I'd like to refer to as the gateway drug into crazy land, you were so desperate to escape you didn't just take it and examine it. You freaking ate it and asked for more.
Damn.
I was eating her crumbs.
So was Jace.
"ID?" Grandma snapped.
I pulled my driver's license out of my purse and handed it over.
Jace rubbed his face with his hands.
"It seems the only seats we have next to one another that are available are in the back of the plane."
The ticket lady's pinched expression gave me the impression that they were bad seats.
"We'll take them," Grandma announced. "And I'll take first class with the honeymooners."
I wasn't really sure what was so bad about the back of the plane. I looked to Jace for help, but he was busy scrolling through text messages like someone who'd just taken a shot of espresso and didn't know how to handle the jolt of adrenaline that followed.
"Thank you, Ilene. As always you're so helpful." Grandma patted the lady's hand and smiled.
"Do you know everyone?" I whispered so only Grandma could hear.
"Oh, honey," Grandma handed me my ticket, "what's the use in doing the Lord's work if you don't have the connections needed to pull it off?"
Sound logic. Damn her.
"Yoohoo!" Grandma called and then whistled.
I winced. Travis cursed. Jake shook his head and
seemed to be speaking in a different language, and Kacey just laughed.
"It's time to go through security." She turned her attention to Jake. "Son, hide your drugs."
"What?" His eyes widened.
"Kidding." Grandma pinched Jake's cheek and let out a giggle.
Nobody joined in. That shit could get you arrested.
"Sense of humor!" Grandma slapped her leg and laughed again. "Oh sometimes I just kill myself."
"I've tried," Travis grumbled. "No cockblocking."
Did he really just say that? Out loud? To his grandmother.
Embarrassed, I looked away. Who spoke to an elderly woman like that? Did she even know what that meant?
"Sweetie," Grandma dug through her purse and pulled out a tube of red lipstick, "I'm already finished with you. You can have all the sex you want. You too, Jake."
The last time my face had felt this red was when I was in the sixth grade and accidently tucked my skirt into my tights.
"Uh, thanks?" Jake answered.
"Besides, I'm finished with you two. My work is done. Now your wives can continue in my footsteps. Actually, that's not true. If I don't see great-grandchildren in a year, I may have to re-evaluate my five-year plan. At any rate. My eyes or the eye of Sauron—"
"Ah, Lord Of The Rings' quotes… of course," Travis interjected and pointed a finger at Jake. "That's what you get for making her watch all the movies after the wedding. You get an eighty-six-year-old woman thinking she has some sort of wizardly magic."
"As I was saying, the Eye is on these two."
Grandma pointed in my direction, and I could have sworn I felt the laser beam from her polished nail.
I stepped behind a very pale Jace, hoping that the whole finger-pointing magic would drain directly into him and leave me the hell alone.
I peeked around him, only to find both Titus brothers giving Jace knowing grins.
"Word of advice." Travis walked up to Jace and slapped him on the shoulder. "Don't drink it if it tastes funny."
"Also," Jake chimed in, "the law doesn't apply to her. So if you call the cops, know it will probably be you behind bars before it will be her."
"She likes Benadryl," Kacey added.
"And she will win." Char nodded.
"This game isn't about skill." Jake put his arm around Char. "It's about knowing when to admit you've failed."
"And failure?" Travis laughed. "To that one?" He pointed to a silent-yet-smiling Grandma. "Isn't an option."
"Best bet." Jake sighed heavily. "Put all your chips on the table."
"And then what?" I asked, curiosity killing me from the inside out.
"Oh that." Travis grinned. "You still lose. But at least by putting it all out there ahead of time, you know what you're losing."
"And what's that?" Jace spoke for the first time since getting his ticket. "A shitload of money?"
"Nah," Jake answered for Travis. "Something a lot more valuable."
"The question," Grandma piped up as she strolled toward security, "is never what you lose. But if you care that you're losing it in the first place."
"I think you've all lost your damn minds," Jace said, his voice hoarse. His panic-stricken eyes found mine as he rubbed the back of his head and cursed.
Chapter Six
"I'd rather not make a bet with a convicted felon."
"Convicted?" Grandma gasped. "Bite your tongue! I'm just visiting until this little misunderstanding is over."
"I wouldn't call a white van with no license plates, a ransom note, and enough rufies to put out a gorilla a…" he put up his fingers in air quotes, "misunderstanding."
"Call it whatever you want. But I'm innocent."
"And I'm Charlie Sheen."
"I knew you looked familiar!" Grandma giggled. "Tell me, how's that sexy father of yours?"
Jace
The first thing I thought of when I got on the plane was alcohol. The second? All the sex I wasn't having that the media was convinced I was. Funny, because at this point,if I was engaging in said extra-curriculars with prostitutes, I sure as hell wouldn't be so dumb about it.
The only evidence they had was a scorned ex-girlfriend and Beth showing up at the airport with me. My publicist had sent me a text and said not to worry — as far as everyone's concerned, I've been meaning to take a vacation. All they'd needed to do was explain I was at a wedding and catching up with an old friend. An old friend that I hadn't seen in over ten years and had seduced right out of her bridesmaid dress. Funny, because I doubted anyone but Beth and I really knew that we'd met before. And even then, why was I vain enough to believe that, out of all the guys Beth most likely had had pawning over her in high school, that I'd be the one kiss she'd remembered.
I groaned. The truth was… I had been holding on by a thread already. I'd worked my ass off to get where I was, and it terrified me to think that it could all be taken away. I'd graduated from college early. Completed my masters in less than a year. Studied through endless nights. Spent millions of my trust fund on campaigning, and for what? For people to wait for me to fail? And then throw me out of office onto my face? All because they believed a woman who had… my heart clenched. I could still smell the house.
I'd come home from a meeting in DC.
A fire had been lit in the downstairs, and I could smell a roast and potatoes cooking in the oven.
I'd taken the stairs two at a time. Eager to see Kerry, to hold her in my arms and forget about life for just a few minutes. Really, that's all I ever asked of her. I'd used her to relax and, in return, she'd looked good on my arm.
My time was precious. After dating awhile, we'd joked around that two minutes was like me handing her hundreds of dollars.
To me, time was the most valuable thing we had as humans. I wanted to make the most of every moment.
Maybe I shouldn't have.
Because if I hadn't taken two steps at a time.
If I hadn't come home early.
My life would be different. Granted, I'd be living in ignorance, but still. I wouldn't be carrying around scars, and I wouldn't want to run the other way every time a woman smiled at me.
I cleared my throat and snuck a look at Beth. She was reading People Magazine.
What did I really know about her? Good kisser. Nice ass. And a hell of a laugh. Unless she'd somehow turned into a chain smoker, causing her laugh to sound more like a hack. But that was it. For all I knew, she really had been a prostitute at some point in her life. Maybe she had dirty little secrets just waiting to pop out. Who didn't? Furthermore, how else did she put herself through med school? I didn't say my logic was sound, but I was also under an extreme amount of stress, which is probably why, as the plane took off, I blurted out, "Are you a prostitute?"
Unfortunately, when they seat you at the back of the plane, what they really mean is they're seating you next to all the crying and screaming kids that nobody else wants near first class, where Grandma and everyone else was drinking and laughing.
If I breathed hard enough, I could imagine that the shit I was smelling wasn't from the little kid in front of me, but some sort of —.oh, who was I kidding? I was in hell. And I had five whole hours to wallow.
A few parents turned angry eyes in my direction. I was too tired to care. So what? I'd said prostitute.
"Prostitute?" Beth repeated, louder than I'd initially said it. "And just how did you come to that conclusion Mr. Senator?"
"Okay, if you keep calling me that, I'm going to start calling you cookie monster, and we both know how you feel about that."
"Bastard."
"I'll take it. Anything's better than Mr. Senator."
Beth rolled her eyes and looked back at her magazine.
"Are you going to answer my question, or do you want me to see if the flight attendant has any cookies?"
"Do I look like a prostitute?" Beth snapped.
"Well..." If I said she did, that basically meant I was calling her slutty, and if I said she didn't, I had an inkling
she'd take that as me saying she wasn't attractive enough to be one. Maybe I was overthinking things a bit. I tugged at the collar of my shirt,. "No."
"Exactly." Beth's face fell, just enough for me to notice. She turned away and looked down at her magazine but didn't turn the page. Because she wasn't reading or looking, she was hurt. Somehow me insulting her had turned into me hurting her, and I hated hurting people, especially ones who didn't deserve it.
"Look," I closed her magazine and whispered in her hear, "I'm not saying you couldn't be one if you wanted to be. You're sexy, alright? I'm not asking because I'm trying to insult you, and I'm not trying to be a complete asshole. I just need to know about your past. If you have any dirty secrets, if you as much as sneezed on your high school teacher and accidently fell over and exposed your pink underwear to a punk in your class and got a detention for sexual harassment. I need to know these things. Because they won't just attack me, they'll attack you too."
Beth's lower lip trembled.
I was fascinated. I hadn't ever been a lip guy. I was more of a full package type of man. But her lips looked like soft pillows, and I hated myself that I couldn't remember the sensation of my tongue parting them last night.
"Well, no worries on that end, Jace." Beth's voice shook a bit. "In high school my nickname was Boring Beth. I had exactly three friends, including the lab rat that I had to train for my AP psychology class and was a pity date for my senior prom. So, sexual harassment? Prostitution? Selling my body or my wares or whatever you call it? Nothing. Not even a freaking parking ticket. Or a speeding ticket for that matter."
What? How was that even possible? She was freaking gorgeous, and even in high school I'd been intimidated.
I shifted uncomfortably and tried to open my mouth to speak, but she kept talking. Was she talking about the same girl I danced with all those years ago?