Anytime, Anywhere

186 Pages·2016·0.4 MB·English

by  McKenna Shannon

ANYTIME,
ANYWHERE

Shannon McKenna
1

The phones had gone nuts, and she was following right behind. Robin
MacNamara stabbed the buttons, repeating, “Crowne Royale Group,
please hold,” in her best cheerful chirp until she’d gotten the whole
pesky lot of them distributed onto the switchboard and waiting their
own freaking turns. Whew. She cracked a mental whip. Take that.

She stared at the row of flashing lights and sighed. A woman needed a
cool head, a detail-oriented brain and nerves of steel to work a crazy-
busy switchboard. She herself had none of those things. A fact which
she repeated constantly to her stubborn brothers, in her ongoing
campaign to get herself honestly fired. Which was to say, liberated.

So far, they ignored her, and she hadn’t yet worked up the nerve to tell
them she was quitting for good. Soon. Danny and Mac were an
intimidating pair. Particularly when they ganged up on her, which was
always. And worse, agreed with each other, which was relatively rare.

On this point, though, they were as one. They wanted their little sister
to discover a calling for the hotel industry, and they were willing to
bully and nag without rest until it happened. Forever, if need be.

They would not accept what she really wanted to do. No, rephrase that.
What she had decided to do. They thought being a professional clown
was a joke. Ha ha. That wacky Robin. What will she think of next.
She had yet to find the nerve to tell them her amazing, stunning, nerve-
tingling career news that they so would not get. She’d auditioned six
months ago in San Francisco, and hooray, she’d been accepted into the
Circo della Luna Rossa, a hot, sexy, new circus show from Italy that
was getting rave reviews and sold-out crowds the world over. That she
was starting the training program in San Francisco in less than a month.
That it was a coup, an incredible accomplishment, an amazing
opportunity. That they should be proud of her.

Uh-huh. Like they were going to see it that way. But even so. Until she
told her brothers, it was not going to seem real. Or be real.

She took a deep breath, stabbed Line 1. “Thanks for holding, how may I
direct your call?” Stock phrases singsonged out of her. “I’m sorry, he’s
out of the office, would you like his voicemail? I’m sorry, she’s in a
meeting, may I take a message?”

She was so not made for this. She would rather wait tables, wash
dishes, walk dogs, scoop poop for her day job, until she could make it
as a full time clown. Anything but this. Anything at all.

She plodded all the way down to the last one, Line 10, and hit it.
“Thanks for holding,” she sang out. “How may I direct your call?”

“Danny MacNamara, please. Jon Amendola calling.”

She froze, and then her stomach flip-twirled and did that weird, freefall
thing. Jon. Oh, God. His deep voice sent pulses of excitement up her
body. “One moment, please,” she squeaked, and hit Hold again.

Don’t be the receptionist from hell. He’s already been waiting for five
minutes, she told herself, but she was so rattled, she had to hug herself
to squeeze that stuttering-fluttering-breathless feeling that any fleeting
contact with that guy set off in her body. One…two…three breaths.
OK. Get a grip. She was a big girl. She buzzed Danny’s office.

“What is it, Robin?” Danny’s voice was crabby, which was normal.

“It’s Jon,” she told him.

“Put him through,” Danny rapped out, as she knew he would.

Danny never kept Jon waiting. They’d been roommates their freshman
year in college, and best buddies ever since. Danny had brought Jon
home for the Christmas and spring breaks, he being an orphan, just like
the MacNamaras. She’d been eleven—and smitten.

Jon was tough, cynical, foul-mouthed, funny, and flat-out, drop dead
gorgeous. He’d grown up knocking from foster home to foster home on
the mean streets of North Portland, but he was smart and ambitious.
He’d wangled himself a scholarship to U-Dub, studying criminal psych,
and now he was Detective Amendola of the PPD.

And she’d been in love with him ever since she laid eyes on him.
Hopeless puppy love, impossible to hide. She’d never been able to hide
her feelings. She was a blusher. But it didn’t matter. They hadn’t taken
her seriously. She was just wacky little Robin, the clown, to them.

But she wasn’t. Not anymore. Even if her brothers couldn’t see it.

She was nine years younger than Jon. Twenty-five now, and all grown
up, but probably he still thought of her as a gangly adolescent with
glasses and orthodontic problems. The adult braces had been a big, fat
fashion challenge. She’d been so glad to bid farewell to them forever
last year, in exchange for straight, lovely teeth. So glad.

And that fluttery, stuttering thing was not abating, not while Line 10
was lit up. Not that she wanted it to. She actively sought out that feeling
by sneaking often into Danny’s office whenever possible to peek at the
photo of Jon, Danny and herself, taken a few years ago, one of the
times the guys had climbed Rainier. All of them grinning. Sunlight
flashed off her braces. Other than that stupid detail, the picture rocked.

And if she didn’t want to walk that far, she could just flip open her
wallet and fish out the color photocopy she’d made of that same shot.
She’d cut out herself and Danny, and slipped the Jon part into a plastic
envelope. Just his face, laughing open-mouthed, head thrown back.
Those perfect white teeth flashing, the crinkles around his electric blue
eyes creased from laughing. The man was crazy gorgeous.

She could moon over that picture for hours. And sometimes did.
She stared down at the lit-up Line 10. Her finger hovered over it.

Oh, no. Of course she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Eavesdropping was
unethical, despicable. That she was tempted to do something so dumb,
so contemptible, just showed how crushed out she was. Way too old for
this silly juvenile crap, and no way was she going to—

Her finger came down, against her volition. Hit the button. Tap.

“…would be great,” Jon was saying. “This case I just closed did me in.
I’ve been neck deep in shit. My boss doesn’t want to see my face for
two weeks, minimum. Gotta park my ass somewhere where I can’t get
into any trouble. You sure you or Mac won’t be needing it?”

“Nah,” said Danny. “Mac and Jane have the twins to deal with, and I’m
taking up the slack at work. I won’t be able to get up there until July at
the earliest, so you’d be doing us a favor it you aired the place out,
chased off the animals. Otherwise we’ll find it full of raccoon shit.”

“Good, then.” Jon’s voice was dull and heavy, not vibrating with its
usual brilliant manic energy. “I appreciate it.”

“You’ve still got the keys to my place, right? I’ll be in meetings til nine.
Keys to the cabin are hanging on the board next to the kitchen door on a
red canvas strap. Sure you don’t want to crash with me, and drive up
tomorrow morning? We could order out. Do some catching up.”
“Nah, sorry. I’ll pass this time. I’m kind of fucked up right now. I
wouldn’t be very good company,” Jon said. “Maybe on the outswing.”

Mary Ann from accounting came bouncing by, and Robin hastily
pushed Line 10 and flashed the woman a huge, guilty smile.

Another storm of phone calls came through, and Robin passed them all
to the appropriate lines with a flurry of organizational energy that
startled her. When she finished, Line 10 was dark and desolate.

But she buzzed with the new info. Her heart thumped. Jon, going up to
Danny’s cabin on Kerrigan Creek. All alone…and defenseless.

The idea that popped into her head was nuts. A recipe for total
humiliation and embarrassment. But still, that lonely-cabin-in-the-
woods scenario was a whole subcategory of classic Jon fantasies, right
along with shipwrecked-with-Jon-on-a-desert-island, or snowbound-
with-Jon-in-the-Himalayas. Jon as the sexy pirate, she as the cheerfully
ravished maiden. Jon as the macho Texas Ranger, she as the spunky
saloon girl in low-cut black and red ruffles. Always Jon, Jon, Jon. She’d
tried to plug Brad Pitt and George Clooney in, just for variety, but Brad
and George didn’t ring her bells like Jon did. A girl had to go with what
worked, when it came to orgasms. And Jon—well, he worked. Bigtime.

And she was going to do a double backflip right out of the reception
desk if she didn’t move. She buzzed Eliza, the secretary who covered
her potty breaks. “Eliza? Would you let me run to the ladies’?” she
begged.
“Sure thing, Rob. Be there in a sec,” Eliza promised.

Liberated from the monster console, she raced for the bathroom and
locked herself into a stall, where she proceeded to rock back and forth
and make terrified keening sounds that only dogs could hear. Oh, God,
oh, God. This could be her chance. Could she…really?

Ever since she’d turned fourteen, Jon had ruffled her hair when he saw
her and teased her about boyfriends. Were they behaving, and if not, did
she want him to kick their asses. Boyfriends, hah. What a joke.

It was a sore spot. What with late blooming, and unbelievably
overprotective older brothers, she’d had precious few boyfriends. While
she was living at home, the only guys who could get near her were ones
that Danny and Mac deemed “safe.” Which was to say, total nerds. All
the guys with sneak-into-her-pants erotic potential had been duly scared
away by dire threats of death and dismemberment.

To be fair, though, she hadn’t had much time for guys even when she
moved out, what with all the gymnastics competing she’d done in
college. She’d been training like a fiend when she wasn’t studying, or
doing clown gigs. Besides, knuckle-dragging, inarticulate jocks didn’t
thrill her. Neither did alienated intellectuals with goatees. And the rest
of them were gay. Or else madly in love with themselves.

The truth was, her monster crush on Jon had raised the bar impossibly
high and made her insanely picky. The end result being a horrible state.
Too dreadful to contemplate. Too shameful to confess.
A virgin, at twenty-five. And climbing the flipping walls.

She wasn’t sure how it happened. She wasn’t the virginal type. Really.
It wasn’t a moral thing, or a lifestyle choice. She had no hangups that
she knew about. She had stacks of sexy romance and erotica books.
And she definitely knew how to be her own best friend.

It was more a matter of poor timing, too much athletic training, and
some regular, old-fashioned bad luck. She’d swung in close a few
times, but always veered away at the last minute, never sure if it was
the right moment, the right guy. So she never broke the ice, and the ice
kept getting thicker, and…well, crapola. A very bad state of affairs.

She strongly suspected that one of the reasons she’d stayed untouched
was because she’d dreamed for so long of having that first time be with
Jon. She didn’t have any illusions about him falling in love with her, or
anything dumb-ass like that, but still. It would be great to have the guy
she’d fantasized about since before puberty do the honors.

So she’d better get cracking, before he got another girlfriend. Which
would happen in, like, five minutes? Jon always had a girlfriend. He
went through women like popcorn. Worse yet, he could get married
again. His marriage to Vicki the blond bombshell had shattered Robin’s
heart. The subsequent ugly, vicious divorce had promptly mended it.

She left the stall, and stared at herself in the mirror. Danny and Mac
went ballistic when she showed off her navel, so she made a special
point of it. Still, she wasn’t glamorous enough in the snug, lime green
blouse and mini, bare midriff or no. She’d have to do better than this.

And she’d been in too much of a rush this morning to do anything
interesting with her hair that would bother her brothers, like a towering
neo-punk beehive, or the purple and lime green streaks with matching
eyeshadow, or the space alien checkerboard of knobbly buns. It was
just pulled up into a fountaining brown ponytail. But for this, she’d
wear it down and loose. Down was sexiest, or so she’d been told.

She gave her body a critical once-over. She’d been working out like a
freak to get ready for the Circo della Luna Rossa’s training program, so
no problems there. She was lithe and trim. Had the taut tummy and the
boobs happening, thank God. They weren’t excessive, but they were
perky and cheerful, and they did their divinely ordained boobly duty of
filling out her bra and dragging mens’ eyes away from her face. Jon had
never looked at them yet. So she’d wear something sheer. Put those
boobs to work. About time they stopped bouncing aimlessly around on
her chest and started earning their keep.

She smiled experimentally as she studied her own face, trying to see
what Jon would see. Hmm. She knew, objectively at least, that she was
relatively cute, particularly with some cosmetic help, but she still saw
her awkward younger face superimposed over her actual face, in spite
of all the changes. The glasses, now exchanged for contacts. That thick
dark mono-brow, now carefully shaped into normal eyebrows. The
buck teeth, finally, blessedly, fixed. And of course, her embarrassing
emotions. Sprawled out there, for all to see and marvel at.

That was one of the reasons she’d been attracted to clowning in the first
place. Facial transparency was an actual asset. Expressions had to be
exaggerated and super-readable by necessity. Once she stuck that red
nose on her face, something kicked in, and set her free, like a bird in the