Page 31 of Afternoon Delight
“Sure. Oh, hey Zak.” Zara looked past me and bit back her smile.
Chapter 16
Zak
Meg turned with a kill-me-now expression. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I bit back a chuckle, gave a group nod to my sister’s friends—all of whom I’d met before—and looked back at Meg.
Her hair was in a ponytail and she hadn’t changed, which meant she’d been here all day without a break. That made me feel pretty dumb for showering, trimming my beard, and putting on my best jeans.
“Are you going on a date?” Zara asked, puzzled. “You look nice.”
“Did Meg not tell you? She’s going to demonstrate the vibrators on me. Where should I undress?” I asked Meg.
She threw her head back in a big laugh, which I enjoyed way too much. Zara’s friends chuckled too, while Zara frowned at me.
“Is Dad next door? Alone?”
“No.” Why couldn’t she trust me? “Carl came over to watch the game with him.” I usually tried to get work done when Carl visited, but tonight I’d come back to open the shop, like I said I would.
“I’ve been over there listening to this party for an hour,” I said to Meg with mock annoyance. “Can you keep it down? I can hardly hear the clocks tick.”
“You here with an eviction notice?” she guessed.
“Not until I’ve browsed the erotica,” Zara said. She held up a halting finger and started toward the book rack, pausing to ask Meg, “If we pick a title, would you order one for each of us? And join the group read?”
“An alcohol-fueled discussion about sex?” Meg brightened. “Sign me up. Be sure to enter the raffle while you’re here.”
“Oh, right. Kyle told me to do that.” Zara glanced toward the counter, then shuffled toward the book rack with the other women.
“I thought you said you were getting offers for the skin mag.” I noticed her jar of entry slips only held about a dozen pieces of paper.
“I’m shamelessly misrepresenting the odds. My post online has a QR code. I’ve had at least a hundred entries.”
“And you got people in the door.”
“I know.” She glanced around with a little smile of pride, then wrinkled her nose at me. “But I should probably pay attention to the real customers.”
“I am a real customer.” One who had put conditioner in his beard. I clearly needed to get laid. “Sell me something.”
She lifted her brows, skeptical, then said in a smoothly professional tone, “Did you have any thoughts on what interests you? Do you have a budget in mind?”
“You’ve been practicing. That sounded great.”
“Thanks,” she said dryly.
“Money’s no object.” I was helping Dad with some bills, mostly so I knew they were actually getting paid. There was no mortgage on the house or this building. I was only working on a casual basis at a considerably lower pay scale, but my programming take-home was still very comfortable. “I’m curious about the prostate stuff, but I’m not ready for that.” I let my eyes skim past that section toward the masturbation sleeves.
“Do you know what I find is the oddest thing about this job?” She leaned closer to speak more quietly as we walked to the Penis Pleasures shelf. “People share very openly, like I’m a doctor. I don’t mind, but it’s disconcerting.”
“Is it weird that I mentioned ass play? It felt weird as I said it.”
“It’s weird that I have such intimate conversations with complete strangers.” Her eyes widened in amused perplexity. “It puts a lot of responsibility on me. I wasn’t prepared for that when I signed up for this.”
“You think of me as a stranger? You’re getting such a pumpkin-spiced latte tomorrow.”
Her mouth twitched. “My safe word is Frappuccino. Macchiato means keep going.”
