She found herself staring at the Nike logo on a t-shirt. Even through the cotton, she could see the outline of a muscular chest.
“Whoa! Mademoiselle, slow down.” The voice had a French accent.
Maxine looked up—way up—something she was not used to doing. The guy must have been six-foot- five. She stepped back and took in the whole package. Lumberjack came to mind, but instead of a plaid shirt and bushy beard, this guy was clean faced with a hint of stubble. The ball cap was pushed low on his head; ACE Towing was printed across the front in bright yellow. It wasn’t a wall she’d run into, it was this towering man.
“Est-ce que ça va?” he asked, bending down closer to her ear.
“Excuse me?”
His look of concern melted into a wide-eyed stare. “Belle rousse?” he said.
“Bathrooms?” Maxine shouted up at him. “They’re down the hall.”
He gave her a mischievous grin. “Are you okay?” His gaze wandered her face, then lowered and fixated on her chest.
She looked down and saw her green dress was stained, and the extra mint leaves from her drink had settled in between her ample breasts like some kind of cleavage dam. A wave of mortified embarrassment collapsed over her. And in addition to everything else, the outfit was ruined. Carmine would be so upset. “It’s vintage Dior,” she said, her voice crumbling a bit.
A complicated series of frowns played across his features. “I can pay for dry cleaning,” he offered. There was a pause, then he added, “Ms. Dior.”
“No,” she said, trying to discretely pick mint leaves from her cleavage. “I meant the dress, it’s—” her sentence ended abruptly. To her horror, the divorced high school teacher was making his way closer. Maxine looked up at the handsome stranger, the only thing between her and certain humiliation.
“Pardonnez moi, Ms. Dior,” he started. “The park, do you—”
“Hide me!” Maxine blurted out.
He frowned back at her, not understanding.
The crew cut was about to pass them, he was only seconds away from seeing Maxine in her stained dress, her breasts covered in food.
She panicked. What would Alexis Colby do? “Est-ce que—”
Maxine never heard the rest of his question. His words disappeared against her lips as she grabbed him by the t-shirt and pulled him to her, pressing them both against the wall.
She breathed in a spicy scent, and his stubble grazed her chin. Shocked by her own actions, Maxine stayed locked in the embrace. The kiss was chaste, but as the seconds passed with neither one moving from the other, the moment changed, becoming heavier, more charged.
She was all too aware of the warmth of his lips, the pressure of his mouth against hers. Then he leaned back. His surprised expression matched her sputtering pulse. “Merci, Ms. Dior,” he said.
Maxine blinked a few times, her footing felt wrong, like the floor was tipping. “I…uh,” she started. “Sorry about that. I must have slipped.”
His gaze darted over Maxine’s shoulder to the dance floor. His eyes focused on something in the distance, then he turned back to her. “S’il vous plait, je vais revenir.”
Standing against the wall in a daze, Maxine watched his broad form cut a path through the crowded bar. What the hell had she just done? Maybe he was going to tell a bouncer about her. She could imagine the conversation. “There’s a large woman in an old tight dress grabbing guys by the bathroom.”
“No problem, sir, we’ll have her contained immediately. Grab the tranquilizer gun!”
Snickering to her left snapped her back to attention. Two girls who looked barely old enough to drink were standing in skintight dresses with their heads together laughing behind manicured nails, cutting glances across the way. Maxine stood wearing her stained vintage Dior that now seemed musty and antique.
Expecting to be tossed for violating hot lumberjacks, Maxine rushed to the closest exit, not even bothering to get her coat. The sharp winter air almost took her breath away.
The cabbie didn’t even bat an eye when she barreled into the backseat, stammering her address. She began to rummage through her small clutch. Her phone had two unanswered messages from Crosby. Maxine shut off her phone; there was no emoticon to describe this situation. You know those creepy groping guys Rose always warns us about? Hey, I’m one of them!
Maxine decided to wait and call Crosby with a story about getting cramps or something just as lame.
The cabbie beeped his horn and swore at the traffic, unable to pull into the lane.
“I have no place I need to be,” Maxine said, picturing her bed and laptop. She thought back to the kiss with the stranger and how foolish she must have seemed to him. “Alexis Colby never looks like a fool,” she whispered to herself. “She would have kissed him again—no that’s not right. She would have slapped him first, then kissed him back hard, and then left him wanting more.”
The cab driver narrowed his gaze at her in the rearview mirror.
“Wouldn’t it be great if life was like 80’s TV?” Maxine asked him. “Everyone was in shoulder pads and size double zero didn’t exist.”
He shrugged then turned up the radio.
Maxine hugged her elbows. The traffic lights reflected off her fingernails.
One Knight Stand.
She said to the driver, “If I can’t trust my makeup, what the hell am I going to do?”
He shrugged again, not bothering to look in the rearview mirror.
A sharp blast of frigid air ripped through the backseat. A massive upper body wrapped in a thin cortex jacket jumped in the backseat. Before the cabbie could protest, Maxine turned and was face to face with an ACE Towing ball cap.