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I placed one last kiss on her lips. “Yes we do. But we can take a few more breaks. After all, we have five hours left.” I glanced at my watch. “Well, a little less than five now.”
She groaned. “Don’t remind me.”
“Jude,” a perky voice said. “I was looking for you.”
Chantal came charging for us, her outfit inappropriate for the setting, as usual.
I pulled Ariel into me, then released her hand to put my arm around her. “We were just taking a break.” Placing a kiss on her head, I reluctantly turned back to Chantal. “What can I help you with?”
Staring at my hand cupping Ariel’s shoulder, she blinked a few times, then answered, “I was hoping you could look at the dunk tank. There’s something wrong with the mechanism.”
I squeezed Ariel, then released her. “Sure.” Turning to Ariel, I took her jaw between my finger and thumb in a gentle caress, tilting her head back. “I’ll be right back, sugar.”
After placing a kiss on her lips, I followed Chantal.
Ariel watched us walk away, her bottom lip caught in her teeth, her eyes narrowed.
Chantal’s arm brushed against mine, and she looked at me from under her lashes. “So, you and Ariel, huh?”
Not moving my gaze from where I was going, I nodded, then put space between us. “Yup, me and Ariel.”
“Isn’t she a little inexperienced?”
I didn’t think experience mattered if you liked someone. The chemistry would still be there, whether or not they were a virgin. The feeling of coming home, of rightness when they were near, wouldn’t change.
Ariel might have been young, but she’d grown up fast to take care of her brother. And I admired her grit and determination. And her banging body, of course.
Not bothering to reply since I didn’t see the point in continuing this conversation, I sped up. Stopping at the back of the tank where the panel housed the tipping mechanism, I opened it. “What part’s not working?”
Chantal leaned in close, her breasts pressed against my arm. It was the oldest move in the world of moves and also the most obvious one. I should know, since I’d either tried them all out myself or been the recipient of them.
“There was a smell. And a noise.”
Leaning into the box, I checked to see if there were any loose connections. Not spotting anything obvious, I stepped back and out of reach of Chantal. “I can’t see anything, but I’m no expert. Can you show me the noise?”
“I’d have to dunk Roger to show you. And I don’t think he’d appreciate the extra swim. But why don’t you wait here until someone dunks him?”
That could take hours if nobody had a good aim. And I wanted to get back to Ariel. It was my fault she got sucked into volunteering in the first place. The PTA meetings had been a great place to get information on the area and everyone who attended the school, plus their parents. It was why I’d started going to begin with.
And of course, there were the cupcakes, which meant I continued to go.
Now I only went because Ariel was there.
Stepping back, I closed the panel again. I was wasting precious time on a tank that I suspected wasn’t broken. “You should ask your husband to have a look. Isn’t he an engineer?”
Chantal put her hand on my arm, leaning in as if she was telling me a secret. Which I doubted since nothing stayed a secret for long around here. We might be in a big town, but the area was almost like its own little village.
And everyone knew everyone else’s business.
“He’s with his girlfriend.”
Yup, no new information to be found there. Everyone knew he had a girlfriend. And that Chantal didn’t care as long as she got to do what she wanted.
Which wasn’t going to be me.
“Right. Well, since there’s nothing I can do here, I better get back to the ticket booth.”
Shooting her a wink, I turned on my heels before she could come up with another excuse to keep me there.
