The Scenic Route (4 page)

Going to the after-party was a mistake. Maybe not on the scale of the Bay of Pigs. But Kennedy at least got Castro's attention. Austin couldn't get Naomi to look at him. Not that it mattered. Not that
she
mattered.

She didn't even stick around very long. She slipped out fairly quickly after the dozen or so diehards had followed Stu and Steffi to a small bar at the Crystal Cove Resort, where a rockabilly band was playing classic covers like “That'll Be the Day” and “Wake Up Little Susie.” Austin was the only person there who hadn't changed clothes. He was the only person who didn't need to.

He had hoped hanging out in the bar might be an opportunity to meet other single hotel guests, but there were a grand total of five other customers in the beachcomber-themed pub. And the sole female was sitting with two men, all three of whom seemed to be fading into their beers, which didn't stop Jack from introducing himself.

Austin was ready to call it a night. The high-thread-count sheets in his overpriced room were calling to him. Having imbibed numerous Scotch and sodas over the course of the evening, in addition to the initial glasses of champagne, he was ready to veg out and enjoy the sixty-inch plasma television and free HBO.

“Where you going?” Stu called out as Austin lumbered to his feet.

“Dude,” Austin said, “it's almost two in the morning, which means it's almost five in Detroit.”

“I'm only getting married once,” Stu said. Next thing Austin knew he was in a familiar headlock. Stu's specialty.

“Stu!” Steffi shrieked. “Don't strangle our guests.” There was some laughing, but Stu didn't loosen his grip. If they were back in Austin's old college apartment, he would have slammed Stu over a couch or a table to get free, but it didn't seem the best approach in the current location.

“Come on, Stu,” Austin said, feeling too old and wasted for wrestling in public. “Let me go.”

“Only if you promise to stay,” Stu said. “You're like my best man. If I could have had a best man, it would have been you.”

“Stu,” Steffi said, sounding forlorn, “you said you didn't want a best man. You said you didn't want a bridal party.”

“I said I wanted whatever you wanted.”

“So you wanted a bridal party?”

“No, honey,” he said, turning toward her, Austin still caught in his clutch.

“Well, it sounds like you did.” Steffi was slurring her words, but there was no mistaking the crestfallen tone of her voice.

“I swear I didn't want a bridal party,” Stu said. “I didn't even want a wedding.”

Jack laughed.

“Stu!” Steffi bleated.

“I'm joking.” He released Austin and embraced her. “What I wanted was to marry you. And I would have a dozen weddings, if that's what it took.”

“Aw, that's sweet,” she said, adding saucily, “but you couldn't afford a dozen weddings.”

“After the IPO,” he said, nuzzling against her while Austin rubbed his chafed neck. Austin was deciding whether he should give in and sit back down or sneak out, when the band shifted to a bluesy rendition of “House of the Rising Sun.”

“What do you think of the keyboard player?” Stu asked him.

The keyboard player was the one other potentially single female in the room. She had Bettie Page bangs and granny sunglasses that she didn't seem to ever take off. She looked a bit like Katy Perry, if Katy Perry were about ten years older and had about twenty years of hard living showing on her face. But this woman could sing. “House of the Rising Sun” was the first time she had soloed since they arrived, and it might have been the Scotch, but Austin thought she sounded like Janis Joplin mixed with Cyndi Lauper. And that was a good thing.

“She's kind of talented,” Austin said, thinking she was also kind of sexy.

“You should ask her out,” Stu replied.

But somehow the fact that she had talent depressed Austin. He watched her shake her long, dark tresses while belting a high, plaintive note. He looked around the room at the smattering of inebriated guests. “It's kind of sad,” he said, “to be that good and be singing night after night in some half-empty hotel bar. Probably getting paid peanuts.”

“Maybe it makes her happy.” It was Naomi speaking. She had reappeared, wearing a clean white camisole and carrying a large tray of white ceramic ramekins. “Maybe singing anywhere makes her happy.”

He had stuck his foot in it again. Before he could even think about qualifying his statement, Steffi started clapping her hands together. “Ooh! Ooh! There it is!” She was ogling Naomi's tray with an ecstatic look on her face.

“I present my official, much-delayed wedding soufflés,” Naomi said. “Or as Steffi prefers to call them: volcano cakes.” Steffi started clapping again and jumping up and down, as Naomi put the tray down on a driftwood table, revealing that each ramekin did indeed seem to contain a miniature chocolate volcano. “It's chocolate hazelnut with double chocolate blood orange lava. But, Stu, live and learn: all that matters to Steffi is that it's chocolate.”

Steffi nodded in enthusiastic agreement as she grabbed a soufflé and a spoon. Everyone else followed suit, and aside from the sound of scraping spoons, there were several minutes of reverential silence.

It was hard for Austin to describe what he tasted. It was like eating a cloud. A chocolate cloud. But a cloud with varying textures and densities. Just when the delicate sweetness seemed too ethereal, there would come a wallop of citrus, coating his taste buds with an earthy tanginess before sliding down his throat in a slow-moving river of molten cocoa.

“Out of this world!” Steffi declared, and several people concurred with murmurs of “amazing” and “extraordinary.”

For some reason, Austin was the only one who didn't know that Naomi was a bigwig Miami pastry chef. Well, actually for a very specific reason. It was because he'd missed the rehearsal dinner, where it turned out she had whipped up a chocolate-blackberry rum cake that people were still swooning over.

“You should open your own shop,” Steffi insisted, scooping out one last spoonful. “And forget Miami; you should come back to the West Coast and open a hip little place on Melrose.”

“Why not Rodeo Drive while I'm at it?” Naomi said with a laugh.

“Why not?” Steffi replied.

Austin wanted to second Steffi's suggestion. But he was thinking slowly. Responding slowly. He wanted to tell Naomi the soufflé was fantastic. But he didn't want to echo the same flattering words everyone else was using. He wanted to find a way to convey the quasi-religious experience he was having, and he wanted to show he wasn't the cultural Neanderthal she seemed to think he was. He wanted her to know he appreciated artistic endeavors and could be passionate about them.

“Last song of the night!” the keyboardist announced. There was
scattered booing, mostly from Stu. Austin caught Naomi's eye for a moment as she collected empty ramekins, but he couldn't read the expression on her face before she quickly turned away.

As the band launched into an intensely rocked-out “Hotel California,” Stu pulled Steffi to her feet to dance, but she made him wait while she finished licking her spoon. Others guests accompanied them, shimmying to the raucous music and creating a sort of small mosh pit in front of the band. Though Austin was rarely one of the first people on a dance floor, the combination of the sugar high and the hypnotic beat compelled him to his feet as he joined the dance free-for-all. One moment he was dancing with Steffi. The next with Stu. And somehow he found himself dancing with Naomi.

Well, not so much
with
her as next to her. They bounced up and down, swinging their heads from side to side, not really looking at each other. But he couldn't help sneaking glances at her half-closed eyes, her tangled hair, her nearly bare shoulders. And, yes, her breasts. Which made him feel guilty and uncomfortable after what had happened earlier. He still wanted to apologize. He leaned in to say something to her just as the band kicked things up a notch, cranking the volume and the tempo. As the guitar wailed and the bass line churned, Austin somehow found his arms around her waist, and with the crash of a cymbal their eyes locked and his lips found hers.

Welcome to the Hotel California.

Such a lovely place, such a lovely face . . .

The music kept playing in his head as they stumbled along a garden pathway, fumbling with their clothes. They were drinking each other in, their mouths mingling, their hands exploring. There were so many things he wanted to learn about her. So many places he wanted to touch.

One moment they were nearly horizontal in the hotel hallway; the next he was holding her in his arms with her legs wrapped around him. Somehow he managed to get his key in the electronic lock without dropping her. The light turned green. The door slid open.

And then she was his.

M
andy was disoriented. From the darkness of the seedy bar. From the weight of a man's hands resting on her thighs. And from the bourbon. Mostly from the bourbon.

“Who was that on the phone?” the man asked, shifting forward on his barstool. She thought his name was Al. Or Hal. But it probably wasn't his real name.

“My brother,” she answered.

“Your mother calls you this late?”

She leaned in closer to his ear, so he could hear her above the Fray. But she misjudged the distance and her lips brushed against his ear unintentionally. Mostly unintentionally.

“My brother,” she repeated. He looked at her, doubtful. But she nodded. “Really.”

She gave him what she hoped was a playful smile. Or maybe a sultry smile. Like an actress in an old movie. A black-and-white movie. She couldn't think of which particular movie. But women were always saying provocative things in old movies. It was instead of having sex. Back in the days of the Hollywood Production Code,
women didn't have sex. Well, no one had sex. But women weren't supposed to even want it.

His hands moved up her thighs. A warning light went off in the back of her head. But it was muted and flashing in slow motion, so that it actually made a rather pleasing, pulsing pattern in her mind. She knew she should probably stand or move his hands, but it seemed an awful lot of effort to make. And she kind of liked how it felt where his fingers were, lightly massaging her, just enough to be noticeable.

“You have a beautiful smile,” he said.

She never knew what to say when men said things like that. Was she supposed to return the compliment? He had a prominent forehead, a thick neck and broad shoulders. In the dark, he was handsome enough.

“A really beautiful smile.”

“That's very nice of you to say,” she said. And she meant it. He was making her feel good. He was making her feel attractive and wanted. That's what she had come for. That's all she had come for.

“You slay guys with that smile. And you know it. Don't you? You know that I'm defenseless.”

“You don't seem so defenseless.” She was Lana Turner. Or Lauren Bacall. Someone svelte and sophisticated. Someone whose nose didn't hook. Someone whose hair didn't frizz. Someone who didn't do Spin classes till she was ready to faint without ever getting rid of the last roll of fat around her waist.

If she were thinner, Tad would have treated her better. She didn't care about Tad. She didn't care where he was or whom he was with. She was with Al. Or Hal. She was having a good time.

She must have closed her eyes for a moment, because when she opened them, he was much closer. He spread her knees and stood between them. His hands were now under the hem of her skirt. She remembered kicking off her jeans at home and wriggling into the
skirt, and she remembered thinking, hoping that someone would want to put their hands exactly where Hal's hands were now. She decided his name was Hal. She didn't really like the name Al.

He was kissing her, and he was better with his hands than with his mouth. But what he lacked in technique he made up for with enthusiasm. This was probably the point when she should tell him that she wasn't going home with him. But it wasn't like she was making a commitment to him just because she was letting him put his tongue in her mouth.

“What do you want?” he asked, coming up for air.

That was the million-dollar question, and much too complicated to answer after twelve hours of primate observation in a basement lab and four bourbons.

“What do you like?” he rephrased the question. His hands were now sliding up the inside of her thighs. She kind of liked that. But she didn't necessarily want to say it out loud. She curled a forefinger under the waistband of his jeans, hoping it would make the point that he should just continue doing what he was doing.

“What do you like?” he asked again.

He was like a dog with a bone. Well, a dog with a boner. She smiled again, hopefully playfully, but more likely goofily. “I don't know.”

“You're a woman alone in this kind of bar after midnight on a Saturday night. You know what you like.”

She liked Tad. But where did that get her?

“Do you like to be tied up?” He whispered in her ear. “Do you want to tie me up?”

She kissed him again, partly to make him stop talking. She didn't want to talk. She didn't want to think. She wanted to forget she even had a brain. Just a body. Fingers. Nails. Teeth. Tongue.

“Do you want to go down on me? Do you want me to go down on you?”

So many questions. It felt like a quiz. She was losing some of her buzz. “What would
you
like?” she finally said, turning the tables on him.

He slipped one of his fingers inside her, and she gasped. She felt the wetness of his breath on her left ear. “I'd like to tie you spread-eagled to my bed and eat your pussy for hours.”

That was a shame. Because he was better with his hands.