And then I show her how true that is.
* * *
“You could model with me,” I inform her in the morning as we wake up with bed head and hot abs. The slopes and valleys of her body deserve to be permanently preserved for antiquity. For future generations to gasp and admire. She’s warm and soft and best of all—mine.
She snorts. “I’m about as likely to do that as I am to learn how to ski.”
“You don’t know how to ski?”
“I like having intact knees and living without a traumatic brain injury. I’m weird that way.”
“Marie and Jason never took you?”
She gets quiet, a lazy finger making trails over my chest. “It’s expensive. Amy was on the school ski club, but no. Not me. We didn’t have the money back then. I tried once, with Steve. I’m still in therapy to get over it,” she jokes.
Steve. The Ex. Just who I want to have mentioned while we’re naked in bed.
“Besides, I’m a natural klutz.”
“You’re really not,” I stress. “No one who can use a tongue, lips, two hands, a nipple and a toe like you did last night all at the same time can be accused of having poor coordination of any kind whatsoever.” Her comment about money makes me resolve to have Grace book us for a series of ski weekends in Stowe at a place with good lessons, an oversized hot tub, a giant stone fireplace and room service. Shannon might even make it to the slopes for an hour a day.
She slaps my chest and tweaks my nipple before she’s off, ass all I can see, and then she’s gone.
“What are you doing?”
“Making coffee.”
It’s like I’ve been handed someone else’s good karma.
I slide my arms behind my head and stare at the ceiling fan, running through the day’s events. Tonight is it. Greg’s supposed to have set everything up, and we go to Le Portmanteau, but Shannon hasn’t said a word. As soon as she heads out for work I’ll give him a call.
Carrying two mugs full of steaming coffee, Shannon comes back into the room with a funny look on her face.
“So, about tonight. Are you free?”
This is taking an interesting turn.
I sit up and take the cup she offers me. Propping a bunch of pillows against the headboard, I pat the empty space next to me. She nestles in and we sit like an old married couple, starting the day with a leisurely cup of coffee and an awkwardly uncomfortable conversation about—
“—and Greg needs me to do that mystery shop.”
Our future.
“He what?” I ask, pretending to be angry. She brought this up the other day, the same day our dads decided to turn into pro wrestlers, but I feign ignorance.
“I know,” she soothes. “I know he promised and I promised I wouldn’t do any more mystery shops for him, but this is the one I mentioned earlier. Le Portmanteau.”
“I had children pee on me so I could get that promise,” I remind her. Last Christmas Shannon stepped in to cover for her sister, Carol, as a mall Santa’s elf. Greg had an emergency and roped me into playing Santa for an hour and a half. I’m still having flashbacks after having Shannon’s cat, Chuckles, claw my thighs while wearing a reindeer costume and getting into a fistfight with a Russian mobster.
Yeah. It was as weird as it sounds.
Worst of all, I still get #HOTSANTA messages on Twitter and a steady stream of pictures sent to me of various people in elf costumes.
Most of which involve candy canes in places you do not want to see.
“I know you did,” she says, contrite. “But Greg already set it up.”
“Have fun,” I say, taking a deliberate sip of my coffee.
“Oh, um...I thought you’d go with me.”
“Why would I want to do that? You need help counting the level of paint discoloration on the doorjambs of the coat room?” Mystery shoppers actually do this kind of crap. I only know because Shannon’s explained it to me a thousand times.
“I need help eating a delicious meal!”
A meal I’m paying for.
With my life.
I sigh, a sound of frustration that appears to be convincing enough to make her look at me with such earnest persuasion. “Please? It’ll be fun. And for once, I’ll be the one treating you to an outrageously overpriced meal. Greg says we can get two bottles of wine off the menu and they have to be priced over $100 each!”
Greg is a dead man.
I need to talk to Andrew about having Anterdec just acquire Consolidated Eval-shop so we can stop dealing with all of this mystery shop bullshit. Make him an offer he can’t refuse.
“Declan?” Shannon’s wide, warm eyes catch mine and I sink into them, her body lush and all mine. She has no idea that tonight is a set up. That I have all the food planned down to the flavored mint toothpicks. That a piece of tiramisu will be delivered with my mom’s ring resting at the bottom of a glass of Champagne.
And that by this time tomorrow morning she will be the confirmed future Mrs. Declan McCormick.
I can’t keep up the charade.
“Okay. Fine,” I say, pretending to concede. “But this is it. No more mystery shops.”
“Agreed!”
“And I need another cup of coffee,” I mutter. Might as well milk this for all it’s worth.
“I was thinking I might find another way to help you wake up,” she says as her head disappears underneath the sheet.
So much good karma. So much. I must have saved thousands of children or built a hospital in my last life.
I’m coming back as a rat in my next life, aren’t I?