Falling for Mr. Wrong(6)
Yet now here she was, just like riding a bike, only it felt a bit as if the bike had a flat tire. Maybe it took some working up to get to the good stuff.
As she released her lip-lock with Danny, she giggled, knowing it would make Noah crazy. Danny nuzzled her neck, and Harper caught Noah staring at the unfolding drama in the back seat with a look that was both pained and angry, his lips pinched but his eyes achingly sad. It almost made her feel bad for him.
“That was a pleasant surprise,” Danny said, oblivious to the elephant that had plunked his ample ass smack dab in the middle of the car.
“Pleasant being the operative word,” she said loud enough for Noah to hear. “That was quite nice.”
“This is our stop,” Danny said, coaxing his fingers through Harper’s hair. “You still up for that nightcap?”
“Wouldn’t dream of not coming in,” Harper said, pasting on a hyperenthusiastic smile that she knew far exceeded her desire level. Sure, Danny seemed nice and all, but maybe this was going a little fast, and maybe she’d be better off going home. Better yet, maybe she’d be better off if Noah Gunderson had stayed the hell out of her life once and for all.
Chapter Five
Nightcap? Noah grumbled quietly as he guided the car toward the curb in front of the cute little cedar shake beach bungalow that was the destination of his fare. One of whom was fair. The other of whom wasn’t playing fair. Then again, what was that saying? All’s fair in love and war? Doofus probably didn’t even know there was a war going on. Doofus? More like Dean Martin, what with that cheesy “nightcap” line. Noah felt as if he was carting around part of the damned Rat Pack in the back seat.
Who even used the word nightcap? Maybe that guy who wrote “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” but that was written a couple hundred years ago, wasn’t it? Then again maybe that was “kerchief,” not a nightcap. Kerchief, nightcap, whatever. No matter the word, it was plain weird. What bozo lured women in with nightcaps in this day and age?
As Harper unfastened her seatbelt, Noah quickly stepped out of the car and scurried around to open her door for her, hoping the yahoo next to her would walk out the other door and keep on walking into the nearby ocean. It was high tide, after all. It wouldn’t take long for him to fully submerge. A man could fantasize, couldn’t he?
He reached a hand out to help Harper over a puddle next to the curb. Surprisingly, she accepted it.
“Can I call you sometime, Harps?” Noah’s eyebrows ski-sloped down toward the center of his face. God, he hated leaving her here to do whatever she might be about to do with this yutz. But what else could he do?
Harper shook her hand free of his and walked into the waiting arm of her dreary date. She turned her head toward Noah. “You’ve got to be joking.”
With that, she followed the man up to his front door without a backward glance.
And Noah knew he deserved that.
*
Noah sat in front of the house for a few minutes longer, waiting to see which lights were turned on, and worse still, to see if any then were turned off, like a damned second-floor bedroom light. It killed him to imagine what might happen. That said, he didn’t even want to think if they were too busy to bother flicking off the switch.
One thing was for sure: he was damn well turned on seeing Harper for the first time in so many years. He thought it impossible she could be even more gorgeous than before, but she was. Beautiful beyond words. Which only led him to question his own stupidity and cowardice all the more. Except that was water under the bridge at this point. You can’t bring back yesterday, so why dwell on it? His mom always told him if you’re busy looking back, you might miss what’s ahead of you.
He decided it made more sense to focus on clues Harper had left behind. Little tiny verbal breadcrumbs scattered in the back seat of his car.
“Nice,” he said, warming his hands in front of the car heater. He’d turned off the AC, allowing his windows to steam up a bit. He hated that you had to keep it on even when the weather was cold. What a stupid design flaw that was, having to blast the heat with the AC on.
“Nice,” he said, pressing his pointer finger to the condensation on the window and tracing the letters. N-I-C-E. “‘Nice’ works great if you’re describing your favorite cousin Ginny. Or maybe a teacher you particularly liked in the third grade. As in, ‘Oh, I thought Miss O’Grady was so nice!’” He laughed out loud at his dumb joke.
But nice? About a kiss? Hell no.
“Clue number two?” he said aloud. Then he drew the next word on the front windshield. “Pleasant.” He underlined the word twice. “No woman who’s horny and passionate for a guy says his kiss is ‘pleasant.’ You might say to your minister ‘that was a most pleasant sermon.’ Or you might discuss the temperature and say it was pleasant. But if a woman is hot for a man, pleasant is not in her vocabulary. At that point, she’s not interested in talking. Rather she would be tugging up his shirt and grasping for his belt buckle and fumbling with the pants button so she could get her hands down there as soon as humanly possible.” Pleasant my ass.
What this told him was that she was not serious with this wanker. One thing was clear: this was a first date. They obviously hadn’t even kissed until she put on that little show for him. He was shocked she’d described it in such tepid terms. This was all good news. It gave Noah some breathing room, a chance to figure out a strategy to win Harper back.