Alyssa Goodnight - Austentatious

Sean smiled and asked, “Was your boss very upset that you dodged out?”

“Hard to say. I left a voice mail, and I haven’t checked my messages.” Except for Beck’s.

“Do you imagine he’ll be upset?” The question was fuzzy and faraway sounding. The rhythmic lap of the oar on the lake was lulling me into a pleasure-filled haze.

“Maybe not today ... but soon enough.” I almost had the urge to giggle.

The rhythm slowed. “You’ve lost me,” Sean said.

Closing my eyes, I tipped my head back and let the sunbeams dance over my face, let my thoughts play with possibilities. Dragonflies buzzed into the silence, and eventually I came back to myself. “I’m considering switching jobs. Maybe.”

“Why is that?”

“I’d thought to stick it out, hold out for management.” I was skimming the tips of my fingers through the water. “But I’m not so gung-ho anymore.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily peg you as management material.”

My eyes flashed open and my spine immediately abandoned its comfortable slump for a defensive, ramrod posture. The canoe rocked with the sudden movement.

“Before you settle into your grudge, you might hear me out.”

I was a fair person. He had a right to have his say before I tore into him.

“You’re relatively shy and rather intimidatingly competent with, I imagine, a desire to get your hands dirty. I suspect a management position would smother your sparkle with office politics and general tedium.” His eyebrow winged up, as if to say, “Fair enough?”

The fledgling grudge, hanging in the air between us, ready to do its worst, dissipated into nothingness. And I found myself with nothing left to say. I was used to people trashing The Plan; I was not used to people couching their objections in candid compliments.

“What’s the other job?” Good to know he wasn’t a gloater.

“It’s in failure analysis. Basically I’d be deprocessing the micro-controllers that fail in customer applications, then pinpointing where a failure occurred and how we can screen for it in production. Solid engineering work rather than the babysitting I’ve been doing. I’d have a new boss, a clean slate. And I’d get trained on all these cool machines ...” Out here, floating on the murky water with my cell phone switched off and responsibility far away, it was all starting to sound very nice indeed.

“So what’s the vote—pro versus con?” Sean asked. I flipped my sunglasses up to squint at him in disbelief. What a seriously mind-boggling turn of events. I rallied.

“I haven’t formally tallied things up, but there’s at least one con—a biggie. The whole point of getting my MBA was to get into management. And if I switch jobs now, it’ll be a considerable setback for my career. Not to mention The Plan,” I mumbled.

“What plan is that?”

I looked up at him, calmly rowing, passing the oar from one hand to the other, patently curious. Tipping my head down to stare at the puddle of lake water in the belly of the canoe, I told him.

“I’ve had my life pretty well mapped out since I was around thirteen years old. There’ve been a few changes here and there, but generally speaking, I’m on track.”

“I’d wager I was a surprise,” he interrupted, dimpling.

“You definitely were,” I admitted, nodding, feeling a bit bobble-headed, even without the helmet.

“Well, if something as stunningly perfect as this can just happen, then why bother with a plan that’ll just slow you up and limit your view?”

“Is this stunningly perfect?”

“It’s bloody damn close!” There was an edge of exasperation in his voice, and his perfect, lulling rhythm turned jerky. “You’re fighting it, but I intend to be merciless in my pursuit. I’ve discovered I have something of a thing for geeky girls—one in particular. And this is fate.”

Or possibly magic ...

Long moments passed, and neither of us broke the silence. The sun shifted, the light softened, and the sky switched from crisp spring blue to pale lavender. We drifted, watching the cars on the First Street Bridge speed over the lake and the city begin to switch on, incandescent and neon. We scrounged for chitchat, balking at discussing Us any further, at pushing too far.

Eventually crowds began to gather along the grassy banks of the downtown hotels, and chattering tourists mingled with Austin locals to wait: the city’s own bat signal.

Sean rowed us cautiously under the Congress Avenue Bridge, and the two of us stared silently up into the dark crevices that housed the city’s bat population. Despite the lively voices carrying over the water, this little stretch of lake seemed shrouded in creepiness. And as I glanced over at the small flotilla of boats passing under the bridge with us, I could tell I wasn’t alone in my impression.

“I’ve never actually been out on the lake to watch the bats come out,” I confided in a whisper, rubbing at the goose bumps that had sprouted on my upper arms.

“Makes two of us.” Sean’s answer was clipped—he was either still ticked at me or else he was distracted with trying to keep the canoe turned so that we both had an easy view of the bridge.

“It would be easier if we were both facing the same direction, wouldn’t it?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“It would, yeah.” Skepticism was clear on his face.

Damn. I really didn’t want to be shifting around in a canoe out in the middle of a lake, particularly with an audience, but I would. I didn’t know if this was my olive branch or what, but it felt like it was my turn to make an overture. It was my move.

So I made it. I started to anyway. Halfway there, karma decided to make its appearance in the form of five hundred thousand hungry bats.

I could hear the gasps and amazed outbursts from the gathered crowd, but I couldn’t turn, couldn’t look—I was immobilized in this ridiculous in-between position. And then I felt the canoe shift beneath me. Whether it was the wake from the other boats or a mini gust from a million vigorous little wings, I couldn’t say. But whatever it was, it was freakin’ me out big-time.

Before I could decide what to do, Sean snagged my hand and yanked me from my crouch down onto the hard middle seat of the canoe. Crisis averted.

“I didn’t want you to miss it,” he said, as a continuous frenzy of wispy black emerged from beneath the bridge to waft out over the city in search of dinner. Twisting my head around, I caught Sean snapping pictures of the bat-riddled sunset. When he finished, he pulled me back to lean against his chest.

“Smile,” he instructed, aiming the camera back on us and snapping a second picture of the two of us together. It occurred to me that this one could be classified as the “After” photo. Our recent chat had shifted things into stunningly perfect focus. I’d decided to take a chance on fate ... or magic—whichever. I’d decided to take my chances with Sean. 

Having definitively decided to seduce Sean within the hour, I should have been a nervous wreck. But evidently Weird Day was working its own magic, because I wasn’t the slightest bit nonplussed, even without a plan—I suppose you could say I was surprisingly plussed. I was lucky I didn’t jump him right there in the canoe and send us both tumbling into the water. Somehow I kept it together.

It was mighty difficult to sit patiently and keep my hands in platonic positions while we zipped up Congress Avenue on the last ride of the day. The vibe of Austin nightlife buzzed in my veins, and Sean’s words thrummed in my head. Just before he’d fired up the engine, he’d said, “Where to, your highness? I’m yours to command.” The answer was easy: “My house.”

By the time we glided up the driveway, I was a woman on a mission, poised to drag Sean into the house. The one thing getting through the fog of lust curling relentlessly through me was the knowledge that if I didn’t get Sean locked down in the next twenty seconds, Leslie was going to be out on the lawn looking for a piece of him. And I was hardly in a sharing mood.

Taking his hand, I pulled him along behind me, unearthing my house key on the way to the door. I thought of my cell and the possibility of text messages full of advice but figured I was past that. As of right now it was all me. Fairy Jane was right about one thing—this would definitely be an adventure.

“Should I be nervous?” he teased.

I turned to look at him, his face in shadow, and let a slow smile creep across my lips. “Uh-uh.” The key clicked, and I pushed the door open.

I kept a night-light in my kitchen for late-night forays in the fridge, but tonight it was being repurposed for a different sort of foraying. I didn’t want to turn on the lights—tonight I wanted to be a daredevil in the dark. Sean had pulled off his helmet on the path from the driveway and now set it on the counter, watching while I did the same, heedless of helmet hair. I admit I was a little curious to see what Fairy Jane might have to say by way of the calendar, but it was too dark to see, and I wasn’t about to ruin the moment by turning the light on to check.

“Have you come up with a plan yet?” he said, his curiosity clearly piqued. The element of surprise definitely had its advantages.

“Nope.” I grinned up at him, realizing I’d finally found my feet with him, and that I was on the verge of something amazing.

I stepped forward, closing the space between us, making a conscious decision not to second-guess anything, to just enjoy every minute. I settled my palms on his shoulders and looked into his eyes.

“It’s now or never,” I whispered before curling my left hand around the back of his neck, spearing my fingers into his hair, and pulling his lips to mine.

It was impossible to tell why this kiss trumped all the ones that had come before. Maybe because it was riding the heels of a thrill ride of a day. Maybe because of the kilt, what might or might not lie beneath, and my plan to do some sleuthing. Maybe because I’d decided one Wednesday wasn’t going to be enough, and The Plan was just going to have to get screwed. For whatever reason, this one was in a class by itself. Right up until it got tangled in a fine frenzy of mushrooming love and lust as I marveled at how we’d gotten to this moment—he’d picked me!

And today—tonight—it was my turn to return the favor.

Neither one of us was particularly chatty or inclined to tease, and no objections were raised—quite the opposite—so once we stumbled over to the couch and dispensed with tops and bottoms (the kilt stayed!), we were a very serious pair, striving to make up for lost time.

While Sean had most definitely been going commando, quite thankfully he’d had the foresight to pack a condom or two (crossing my fingers for two!) in the little leather pouch on top, which I’d since ascertained was called a sporran. I looked forward to a very educational evening.

“You wear a man out, luv. What with the hiking, the racing, the rowing, and now this? I hope you plan to feed me.” Sean was lying with his head beneath the coffee table and me sprawled alongside him, the pair of us having slid to the floor at some point during the festivities.

“I’ve only been calling the shots for the last forty-five minutes, luv. I hardly think I’m to blame,” I answered, nipping at his earlobe. “But I’m sure I can rustle up something. If nothing else, we could make cupcakes.”

“Cupcakes?” Sean queried, reaching for his T-shirt while simultaneously tidying the couch. “Would those be chocolate?”

“Could be,” I said, swallowed up for a moment inside my very own Weird shirt.

“You’ll likely not want my amateurish hands meddling—I’ll just keep myself busy.”

“Your hands are hardly amateurish,” I muttered, yanking my jeans up over my hips. I was working the snap when the rest of his words registered. My head jerked up as I realized that Sean had moved out of my peripheral vision. Curious, I shifted and watched him wander, examining the occasional knickknack that I’d displayed either for sentimental or aesthetic reasons, running his finger across the spines of my keeper bookshelves ... only two feet from where Fairy Jane was hiding. I held myself still, trying to think, then lunged for the TV remote, the perfect distraction.

“The TV can keep you busy! You’ve got your pick of ninety-something channels!” I scrambled for the cheat card that helped me keep track of which channel was which and waved it in the air.