Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle, Pauline Jones [top 100 novels of all time .txt] 📗

options for ground war. A few weeks of television warfare and we were all armchair strategists. We agreed on everything but scud studs. When he paused to figure out what they were, I asked for Jerome.

“He’s out back in the garage.” He hesitated, looking at me in a way that made me wonder if I’d left something unbuttoned, only my sweater didn’t button and covered all relevant zippers. “There’s something different about you today, Miss Stanley.”

“Different?” Maybe it was the fear of imminent arrest. “Can't imagine what it might be. Mr. Jeffries—”

“Why don’t,” he went to an “at ease” posture and gave me a frightening smile that I suspect he meant to be friendly, but failed on several levels, “you call me Steve?”

Steve? I almost croaked with fright when he stepped closer. I stepped back.

“I don’t think—”

I might as well have not spoken. We were practically doing the Tango around the room.

“Jerome calls you Stan, I know, but that’s not the name for a beautiful woman.”

“That’s why they call me Stan,” I pointed out. Miss America I’m not.

“Isn’t your name Isabel?”

“Well, yes, but all my friends call me Stan.” I saw the door off to my right and started edging that way.

“Would you consider having dinner with me some night, Isabel?” Somehow he got hold of my hand.

I cleared the squeak out of my throat and said, like I’d never heard of it, “Dinner?”

He smiled. “A meal taken in the evening.”

He thought I was suffering from maidenly confusion, not a stupor of thought brought on by horror. I opened my mouth to say no, not ever, but out popped, “Well, okay, I guess I could think about it.”

My lack of enthusiasm brought on more of his frightening approval. He must think maidenly confusion had given way to maidenly modesty.

“Saturday night? We could take in the bingo tournament and dance a few polkas after. They have a gal that plays a brisk accordion.”

I felt for the knob behind me as panic put a choke hold on my throat. Bingo? Brisk accordion polkas? Was God punishing me for my near romp with Kel? If He was, He’d chosen the perfect vehicle for it. Or this was an episode of Candid Camera. I didn’t know which was worse. I choked, which he took for assent.

“Pick you up at four? You aren’t one of those modern gals who can’t eat until midnight, are you?”

I shook my head. If I were, I wouldn’t have a date with a man old enough to be my father. I made this gesture toward the garage where Jerome waited.

Steve stepped back. “No need to mention this to the boy.”

The boy. I almost moaned. I shook my head again.

In the garage, “the boy” looked up from his guitar.

“Yo, Stanley! What’s happening?”

I tried not to look hunted. “Nothing. Nothing at all.” I could feel a confession coming on and looked around in panic. “Where’s everybody? I thought I was late. Not that I was doing anything to make me late, you understand.”

“They’ll be along. I had a little business to discuss with you so they cleared off.” He folded up one leg, looking vaguely Jimmy Dean-ish and studied me, a look in his eyes that reminded me of his father. It wasn’t a reminder I wanted to have when it felt like I had guilt written all over my face. I had so much to feel guilty about, it had to be written in neon. I turned away. What could I say to him? I took a deep breath and turned to face him. “Jerome…”

He tipped his head to one side. “You look different.”

What was it with everyone? Flynn. Dag. Steve. And now Jerome. I wasn’t different. They were. He patted the crate next to him with a smile that, unlike his dad’s, was inviting.

“Park it and let’s shoot the breeze for a mo.”

Experience had taught me this was an invitation to sit down, so I took the indicated spot. “Okay. Shoot.”

“The thing is, we all think you’re fine.”

“Thank you.” I think. Had I missed something somewhere?

“You’re welcome. And we, the three of us, were wondering if you’d, like, like to go out with us?” he finished in a rush, then sat back relieved.

I’d definitely missed something somewhere. “I go out with you all the time.”

“For gigs.”

“Which are out,” I pointed out.

“Like we were wondering if you’d make it personal, or was it, like, against your code to mix extreme pleasure with business?”

Either Jerome was more like his dad than either of us suspected or I was suffering from the onset of menopause. I felt like I’d been going uphill and discovered it was downhill. “You want—”

“A date. We all do.”

First the father, now the son? Something was so wrong here.

“With me?” I had to be sure.

“With you.” Jerome grinned, but there was a tenseness about him that was, well, sweet. Still…

“Will there be cameras involved?”

“No cameras,” the grin widened into a smile loaded with youthful charm. “Unless you want some. Like I said, you’re fine.” He stood up, shoved his hands into the pocket of his tight jeans and paced away. Then he paced back towards me. Did I mention the jeans were really tight? Or that he had a world class butt? What was my problem? Just yesterday I’d identified a need to kiss men. Now here were men, or at least men in the making, willing to oblige me. Well, willing to take me out in public.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Everything of the most sensitive, I promise. We’ve been reading Cosmopolitan.”

That gave me pause. “Really.”

“We were thinking a club, like The Rad?”

“I’ve never been there,” I admitted.

“It’s fine. Thought we’d all go, like together, no pressure, and then after you can decide.”

“Decide?”

“Who you want to take you home. You know, the goodnight kiss. Can’t all huddle on your door step. Seriously not sensitive.” He looked cheerful and strangely business-like. Jerome was going to go far. “So, what do you say?”

He lacked the wattage of Kel, but made