Peachy Keen (9 page)

Looking down at Georgia, still with a dreamy look in her eye as she gazed up at the moonlit sky, I wondered what was going on in her head, what she was doing here. She was dressed up. Her eyes were rimmed in smoky black liner, a feathering of dark mascara, and her glossy lips looked shimmering pink. The hem of her dress had ridden up to mid-thigh as she lay casually on the pool chair; the quick glimpse I took made my ears flush with heat.

I claimed the chair beside her and stared up at the stars without a word, wondering what she was searching for up there. “How was your day?” I asked, feeling like an idiot the moment the words were out.

She hummed a sweet noise that gently pricked at my heart. “It was nice. Yours?”

I saw her turn to face me from my periphery and I rolled my head to the side, catching her eyes. “Good. What did you do? After I saw you, I mean.”

Yep, I was fishing. I’d seen her with the spewing Superman after we made plans for tomorrow. There was no reason for me to be jealous or mad, but he was a fucking douchebag. Everything about the way he looked at her—every time I’d seen them together—made me want to deck him.

“I went to a class in the gym and then I crashed in my room.” She laughed. “Kinda lame, I guess.”

The news relieved me and I kicked myself for the feeling. She wasn’t interested. She was hung up on our mutual friends and their happiness.

Thankful for the darkened sky and the soft glow of the lamplight around the pool, I hated feeling my face redden as I asked the leading question. “And now? Do you have plans?”

Georgia smiled softly as she sat up. “Not a thing. What did you have in mind?”

***

I suggested we go to the snack hut for some food. It was tame in comparison to what I actually had in mind. She filled a plate with nearly one of everything the buffet offered and giggled as she sat down across from me.

I made a quick trip to the bar to fetch a daiquiri for her and a gin and tonic for myself. By the time I got back, she’d inhaled half of the food on her plate. My eyes widened and she looked up at me with a half-smile.

“Hungry, eh?”

“I slept through dinner,” she squeaked sheepishly.

“No need to explain. I like a girl that can eat.” I gulped back a good portion of my drink after that subtle admission but she didn’t seem to notice as she continued to munch on her late-night meal.

“Okay, give me your story,” she commanded.

“I’m sorry?”

Her songbird laugh sounded again and her fingertips landed on my forearm briefly. “God, that accent.
Eh? Sorey?
Haven’t you lived in the States for a while? Evan doesn’t have an accent.”

I chuckled. “Evan’s paid multiple dialect coaches to rid him of his accent. I moved to LA a little over eight years ago. I started helping Evan with his mom when she got really sick and my job just kind of evolved from there over time.”

“So, where’s your family?”

Oh shit. This was happening. The
getting-to-know-you
night. I feared learning more about her the same way I’d feared never learning her name, but I couldn’t miss this moment. I couldn’t stop the trajectory we were on. With every breath I took in her presence, I unwound just a little more. I forgot about my emails and Evan’s to-do list and the things that would be waiting for me at home. I was living in the present with my new friend Georgia.

I cleared my throat and stole a french fry from her plate with a smirk. “They’re all over. Mom and Dad are still in the Vancouver area. I have four sisters. One’s in BC near my parents and the other three are in New Jersey, Toronto, and Seattle.”

“Four sisters, wow! No wonder you’re so sweet.”

A strangled laugh huffed out of me. She was fucking killing me.

“What about you? You don’t have an accent, but with a name like Georgia I assume you’ve got Southern roots.”

She tossed her blond hair with one hand and rolled her eyes despite the smile on her face. “You’d think. I’m from Philly, Mom lives in Pittsburgh now with her boyfriend, and my dad, stepmom, and stepbrother live in San Diego. My mother would love to be some Southern belle though, I mean, the woman named me Georgia June. I sound like a damn country singer, don’t I?”

She sucked back the rest of her icy drink and lifted her brows at me expectantly as I chuckled at the quip about her mother. Eagerly, I hopped up and obliged her with another trip to the bar.

Three hours and another plate of food shared between us later and I could’ve aced a pop quiz in
Georgia Trenton 101
. I knew everything from her birthday—February fifteenth—to her favorite cat’s name from when she was a little girl—Luigi. She’d pulled just as much information out of me. The way she rested her chin in her palm as she listened to me share anecdotes from my childhood and some of the more star-studded and impressive stories I had from working for Evan sent my head reeling. The feeling of knowing without a doubt that someone was truly listening to you was a powerful one. I hadn’t felt so assured that someone actually wanted to hear my voice in a long time.

She took a sip from her straw and waved her hands, coming down from a giggling fit the story I’d just shared had given her. If I didn’t know we’d switched from booze to soft drinks, I’d say she was tipsy, but a smile touched my mouth realizing she was just having a good time.

“Okay, okay.” She sighed the last of her laughter away. “Um…the music that you love but are too embarrassed to admit.”

It was the kind of information we’d been trading for the last hour. Things like most embarrassing high school story and most embarrassing sexual experiences, which for me were one and the same and the reason she’d been cracking up. Georgia’s mouth gaped before she burst out laughing when I told her about the time I got caught (by my choir teacher who also happened to be my Aunt Terri) getting my first blow job after school in a hidden corner of the gymnasium. God bless that woman, she never ratted me out to my mom…but holidays were never quite the same.

I stroked the hair at my chin before answering honestly. “Taylor Swift.”

“That’s not embarrassing! She’s cool,” Georgia balked.

“Not if you’re a grown man!” I countered.

Her lips twisted into a skeptical grin before she acquiesced with a nod and another faint laugh. It was ridiculous how beautiful she was. Every turn of her head or flash of her eyes made my guts tremble at the memory of having her in my bed, gripping me from within. I pushed the fantasy that continued to plague me away once again and prompted her to answer the same question. She dropped her head and covered her face with both hands.

“Michael Bolton.”

“Oh, wow. Georgia…that’s just…” Teasing her for her answers was becoming increasingly fun. She shook her head as I mock-shamed her for her secret love of the nineties cheeseball.

“I know!” she cried. “Don’t look at me. I’m so ashamed.”

Her grin spread wide and she pushed her hair back from her face before glancing around the snack hut. People had come and gone but we were alone at the moment.

“Oh, yikes, I think they’re closing,” she said gesturing to the two people clearing the buffet.

“I thought it was twenty-four hours,” I hollered over to one of the servers.

The man offered a toothy smile. “We close one hour,” he said in a thick accent. “For clean.”

My eyes swept to Georgia’s and she frowned. I shouldn’t have felt joy at that bummed look on her face, but I did. She was sad that we might be calling it a night. That our time together might be over until the morning.

“We could go hang in my room…” I suggested.

I watched her throat work to swallow thickly and her bottom lip creep into her mouth. While I would’ve loved a repeat of our first night—I’d be insane not to—that wasn’t what I was thinking. I was completely content swapping embarrassing tales until the wee hours of the morning, simply laughing with her near me.

Just when I was about to open my mouth to explain, she locked her gaze on me, stamping her teeth on that lush bottom lip for a beat, then blinked slowly.

“Okay.”

***

I can’t remember whose idea it was to dive into the mini bar. It started as a nightcap and turned into a drinking game with very few rules that seemed to change during the course of the night. I was feeling good and the looks Georgia'd been giving me didn’t hurt. We were sitting on the floor beneath the window I’d opened so we could enjoy the ocean breeze.

She set her eyes on me seriously and held her glass up. “What shall we drink to next, my friend?” Her lips curled up slowly and it took every ounce of my will not to grip her by the back of the neck and kiss her.
Drink to that.

My hand rose and I guided her drink back down beside her. “I have an idea,” I said. “Let’s figure out your next job.”

At the snack hut, she’d told me how miserable she was at work. She was desperate to quit but acted as though she didn’t know what she would do if she left her position at the law firm.

Her eyes lit up and the sight knotted my insides in a mixture of glee and longing. “Okay! That’s a fun game. What should I do?”

“We just need to find something you’re good at that you also enjoy.”

Her brow furrowed and her bottom lip made its way into her mouth. I had a sort of love/hate relationship with her lips. I hated how badly I loved them. She stared into the space in front of her looking contemplative for a beat longer, and then a little snicker came out of her. The slight laugh turned full-on and soon she giggled, her head titled back against the wall.

“What? What’s so funny?”

She shook her head before she buried her face in her hands with a deep sigh. “Nothing. It’s just…there’s only ever been one thing I was sure I was good at that I enjoyed.”

It took me a moment to get it. One side of my mouth lifted in a grin when it dawned on me.

“That’s illegal,” I said. “Unless you’re moving to Nevada.”

Georgia swatted me harder than I expected, right across my stomach. For as small as she was, she was powerful. I choked out a laugh to cover how she’d stolen my breath with the swift—and deserved—blow. She was still smiling though. I knew she would be.

“Shut up! God.” She laughed. “It’s bad enough the instructor from my strip aerobics class today told me I was a natural, now you’re ready to ship me off for a new career at the Bunny Ranch?”

My eyebrows shot up and I pinned her with a stare. “Your what class?”

“Strip aerobics. It was like a dance class—that’s usually what I do when I work out—but it was all these sexy moves while Pussycat Dolls played on the stereo. It was so much fun and I could tell for a lot of the women in there it was a real confidence booster. I…”

I was still trying my best to picture Georgia doing aerobics, let alone sexy strip aerobics, when I realized she’d trailed off. She was back to staring at nothing in particular with an absent smile on her lips. Searching for words, I opened my mouth right when she snapped her gaze to mine, pinning me with wide, sparkling eyes.

“That’s it,” she said.

“Huh?”

“That’s what I should do!” She squealed as she folded her knees underneath her, tucking her hair behind her ears.

I stared at her, watching excitement emanating off of her. “Become a stripper?!”

She smacked me again and I barked out a laugh, shrinking away from her where she knelt. “No! A fitness instructor! I love working out. I love dancing. It’s fun and social and…maybe I could even bring one of those striptease classes to Philly.”

She was positively glowing. Watching how elated she was at her idea, I took in a breath. I’d never been with a girl so confident—so perfectly in tune to herself.

Georgia’s shoulders hitched up then fell as she exhaled before she thumped me yet again, a few tendrils of her hair slipping out from behind one ear. “I’m bringing sexy back, Harrison!”

I chuckled and continued to gaze at her in awe. Her cheeks pinked with either excitement or slight inebriation—maybe both—as her eyes danced on me. I couldn’t stop my hand from moving toward her to brush the loose strands of golden blond hair away from her face.

My breath felt strangled as I watched her expression soften at my touch. We’d somehow inched closer to each other and my fingers gently rested against her jaw. She wet her lips and my need to kiss her only rooted deeper within me. Just as I planned to move even closer, her brows knit together and she touched her shoulder delicately.

“I’m wet,” she whispered.

My throat cleared loudly. “What?”

She pushed up on her knees a little and looked out the window. Brushing her bare shoulder again, she smiled and looked back at me. “It’s starting to rain. We should close this.”

I jumped to my feet and cranked the window shut while Georgia grabbed our empty glasses and the few remaining bottles of liquor from the floor. I took a mini bottle of rum from her and poured half in her glass and half in mine. She eyed me cautiously as I raised my glass.

“Here’s to your new path in life,” I said, still trying to drown my forbidden thoughts.

Georgia grinned and tapped the rim of her glass to mine. She was taking a sip when I muttered my addendum, “And to any lucky bastard who gets to see your moves.”

I slammed the rum and wished I’d poured a double when she met me with a sultry stare.

“You feelin’ lucky?”

Air evacuated my lungs and the English language vanished from my mind. She turned without a word and pulled the sheer curtains closed. I watched as she bent to the floor to dig her phone out of the little wrist wallet she carried.

“What are you…?” I started, not knowing what I was even asking.

“Finding some music,” she said easily.

I sucked in a deep breath, relieving my strained chest. “Georgia, you don’t…I mean, we…I was—”

Yeah, stumbling over an assortment of random words was a great way to show how uninterested I was. She smiled down at the screen and tapped a button before placing it on the windowsill. When she turned to me, I realized I’d backed away from her nearly ten paces.

“Sit down,” she ordered.

I couldn’t say no. I couldn’t say anything. My feet led me backwards to the loveseat that faced the window in the small sunken living room area of my premium suite. I took a seat on the plush cream sofa as music started pouring from her phone. When I saw her hips begin to sway, her perfect body backlit by the moon, I couldn’t focus enough to place the song that played.