Secret Shared: A S.E.C.R.E.T. Novel (17 page)

“Oh …
yes
.”

“
Hermosa
,” the singer murmured.

My partner clutched me tight, his hand cupping me as I shook, then subsided. I felt faint as he kissed my shoulder and gently released me to the floor in a spent pile next to my beautiful dress.

As the band struck up a new tempo, the blonde tugged the singer into a stiff tango silhouette and they danced away from me, into the dark wings of the stage. My partner exited behind them, blowing me a singular kiss, stopping to touch the stage once with his hand, as if in gratitude.

Then he too was gone.

Good lord, what just happened?

I blinked, breathless, hearing the blindfolded band still playing as though to a full house. I felt coated in bliss, warm beneath the spotlight, my red swan dress sleeping next to the singer’s ebony feather mass. Then I saw it, small and round and glinting on the floor of the stage where my partner had placed his hand: my Step Four charm.

Hermosa.

MARK DRURY LOOKED
like I’d just rolled up a newspaper and hit him on the nose.

“You don’t want to see me anymore?”

After he called twice in three days, I agreed to meet up with him at Washington Square Park after my shift. Despite a sign banning dogs and bikes, the park was a perfect place to bring both on a hot summer’s day.

“It’s not that I don’t want to see you …” I said.

“I thought we had a good time.”

“We did.”

“Then what’s up with you?”

I squinted into the middle distance, keeping my eye on a cocker spaniel puppy nipping at the leg of its owner, thinking that if Mark were a dog, that’s the breed he’d be. Will would be the stalwart chocolate lab over by the sandbox, Tracina the yappy alpha beagle holding court nearby. I’d be the flat-coated retriever under the stand of palms, the one chasing its own tail.

“Mark,” I said. “I think … you’re great.”

“Is it this Will guy?”

My shoulders sank. It
was
Will. Every time I made strides away from him, one look, one touch, one kiss and I was infected again.

“That’s part of it.” But the other, the part I didn’t want to tell him, was that outside of bed I thought of him as my bratty brother.

Mark placed a tender arm around me.

“Love is hard, Cassie. I know. I’m a musician.”

I almost snorted, but he was so damn endearing. I just accepted the gesture and leaned into him a little.

It had been three days since my interlude with Will in the new restaurant, since he’d pulled me into that kiss. In those three days we had sheepishly avoided each other at work, both of us over-apologizing for every awkward hallway passing, over-thanking each other for every favor of a poured coffee or a hammer handed over. Alone with me briefly in his office during a shift change, Will whispered that he wanted to get two things straight—and that it would be the last time he’d bring up what happened.

“One: I have no regrets for anything I did or said. And two: I still want you to take the job upstairs.”

“Fine,” I said, “I will. I’ll take the job, but the other? That can’t happen again. It’s not fair to me, it’s not fair to Tracina, or the baby.”

In hushed tones, both of us listening for sounds of footsteps coming down the hall, he promised no more drama,
no more stolen kisses, no more sneaking around. We even shook on it, the shock of his skin electric as always. And today, looking at Mark’s attractive profile as he sat on the park bench next to me, I realized that since I didn’t have the ability to keep away from someone I really wanted or to be compelled by someone I didn’t want, I needed a man in the middle. I needed a wedge between me and Will, and me and Mark.

But the only other person who tweaked both my mind and body was Jesse, and he was cued up for a final go-around with Dauphine. Unless I could recruit a substitute. And that’s when it struck me like a marvelous bolt of lightning.

“… anyway, look, I’m just gathering adventures too, Cassie, and maybe you’re one of them. But if you’re not into this, that’s cool. No skin off my nose.”

My thoughts drifted. They were both young and brash and lanky. They both had sexy smirks. They both looked good in a white tank top, a rarity for any man other than a ’50s Marlon Brando. But while Jesse had a warmth, a kindness to him, maybe because he was a single dad, Mark was bratty. Jesse had tattoos, though I was still surprised Mark didn’t. I tried to calculate exactly when Dauphine might have her Jesse fantasy. She got back from Buenos Aires in a few days, so it would take place within a month. A wave of nervous energy ran through me. S.E.C.R.E.T. recruits were put through a battery of tests that took weeks. I had to act fast—

Mark snapped his fingers in front of my face.

“Where are you, Cassie?”

“Sorry. I’m here. The dogs … they’re so cute. I got distracted.” I turned to fully face him on the bench. “You know, I liked what you said about gathering adventures. You’re young. That’s precisely what you should be doing. You shouldn’t be tied down to one woman right now, right?”

“I guess,” he said. “But I’m a musician. We like having girlfriends. They ground us while we create.”

“Right.”

The dogs were circling each other, sniffing. I turned to look him in the eye, my mouth set in a determined line.

“So if you’re serious about ‘gathering adventures,’ I think I have one for you. It’s a big one. An incredible one. The kind of adventure you’re not going find anywhere else.”

“Or
with
anyone else?” he asked, leaning in to kiss me.

I held him off. “This is an adventure you’ll have … with other women. More interesting women than me. Adventurous women. If you are open to it.”

And just like that, a slow smile spread across Mark’s face.
Men
do
have it easier
, I thought. He didn’t need a preamble or assurances before taking in my proposition, the same shocking one Matilda had dropped on me, the one I had offered Dauphine a few months ago. He didn’t need to be warmed up, comforted or cajoled. He didn’t need to be gingerly approached. He didn’t have deep psychic obstacles to overcome or social conditioning to fight against. My offer didn’t cause him to question everything he had been taught about his role in the world or his sexuality. When I
dangled the possibility of more sex,
interesting
sex, lots of sex, exactly the way he liked it and the way women liked it, he simply clasped his hands behind his head and said, “You have my attention, Cassie Robichaud. My
full
attention.”

Matilda wasn’t as easy to convince.

“He has to go through a vigorous screening process, Cassie. That means medical, psychological, physical—”

“He’ll pass,” I said, tearing the label clean off my beer bottle.

“That’s a sign of sexual frustration,” she said matter-of-factly, pointing out my fidgeting.

“So is this request, believe me!”

Our usual meet-up spot, Tracy’s, was quiet for a Friday afternoon. Come to think of it, my shift at the Café had been pretty dead too. Tracina was glad for it, so pregnant now that people didn’t really feel comfortable having her wait on them because she looked like she could drop the baby right at their table. It was only a matter of weeks before she’d be off her feet entirely.

Will had posted for a replacement, but then his brother Jackson from Slidell asked if he’d take on his oldest daughter, Claire, a quirky, dreadlocked seventeen-year-old who wanted to finish high school at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, which had a campus not far from the Café. Between piercings and poetry readings, she promised she
could work two nights a week and weekends, more shifts during the summer. Will was reluctant at first to have his unruly teenage niece also living with him, until Tracina pointed out the convenient babysitter possibilities once their child was born. So Claire started immediately, and immediately fit in at the restaurant by pissing off Dell and getting underfoot.

Matilda wasn’t finished listing all the caveats of recruiting Mark.

“
If
Mark passes all the tests, he’ll still have to be trained, Cassie. And the other women have to weigh in. It has to be unanimous.”

“He’ll appeal. And Dauphine has a thing for musicians.”

“And then there’s the matter of you and Jesse. He could turn you down, you know. I mean, he has one last go through S.E.C.R.E.T. and he may want to savor that opportunity. Are you ready for potential rejection?”

“Sure. Yeah. Of course.” I shrugged, taking a sip of my beer.

I flinched because I was lying. S.E.C.R.E.T. had given me many gifts, but the ability to withstand rejection wasn’t one of them. After all, there was no possibility of being rejected in S.E.C.R.E.T., only of turning others down. Of course Jesse could turn me down, and why wouldn’t he? What was he going to be offered, anyway? A plain old date with me, a woman he slept with once in a fantasy scenario, more than a year ago, one who balked when the possibility of more presented itself. Or the thrill of a new fantasy and new flesh pressed against his skin. Given the choice, wouldn’t most
men want the novelty? Wouldn’t
I
? Well, no. I had had that novelty with Mark, and more than that with Will. Mark I didn’t want. Will I couldn’t have. And so, in my mind, that left Jesse.

“I’ll meet with Jesse tomorrow,” Matilda said. “If he says yes, you’ll hear from him. If he says no, you won’t. Either way, we’ll pull him off Dauphine’s roster this time, just to prevent any tension between you and Dauphine. That relationship is sacred. And whatever happens, she does not need to know about this conversation.” Matilda paused to let this sink in. “Oh,” she added after a few seconds, “by the way, Dominic passed. He’ll be a new recruit.”

“The soccer player?”

“He’s actually a contractor. He’s taken the tests and he’s almost done with his training. If Mark doesn’t work out, we can put Dominic next.”

“What about Ewan, that sexy redhead friend of his?”

“He didn’t pass the initial round. Funny that. We rarely get a unanimous vote on a ginger, which as a redhead I find rather bigoted. Marta just wasn’t that into him.”

“But he was so cute.”

“Well, if you’re on the Committee next year you can resubmit him, if he’s still interested.”

After splitting the bill and saying goodbye to Matilda, I decided to walk home. It was a balmy night, but spooky—no moon in the sky. I could hear sirens in the distance, discordant jazz pouring out of every other door, which got louder and stranger when Magazine became Decatur in the
French Quarter. I shivered. Fall was coming; I could feel it in my bones. In fact, the whole city felt suddenly as dark and unsettled as did I.

The next morning, I was barely out of the shower when the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hey, lady,” the male voice said in a sweetly familiar Southern drawl.

It truly didn’t occur to me it would be Jesse. Not so soon. Not at 10 a.m. Surely Matilda would have only
just
called him, would have only
just
offered him his options. Surely he’d need some time to think.

But it was him. My nerves ricocheted through my body, making the receiver go instantly sweaty in my hand.
Now what?