Free Just A Small Town Girl: A New Adult Romantic Comedy by Jessica Pine Page A

Schrödinger’s box or something."
     I followed her inside. It was quiet and warm, and the air smelled of stain and pine shavings. I caught up with her as she hit the light-switch and for a moment I had her against the wall, her mouth tasting of sugar and coffee. My hand bunched up her skirt behind her, but she covered it with hers. "Nuh uh," she said. "I want to see the master stripper in action."
     "I told you," I said, nuzzling down into her neckline. "I'm not that kind of stripper."
     "So learn."
     She pushed me away and settled on a fainting couch that was due for reupholstery. There she swung her legs up and lay there like a Roman Empress, awaiting entertainment.
     "You're not kidding, are you?" I said. Part of me wanted to do it - humor her and give her a good old school bump and grind right there in the middle of the workshop.
     "It's not the usual kind of Chippendale action we see around these parts," she said. "But you see what I have to work with; I'm starved for entertainment."
     "No music," I said.
     "I guess one of us will have to sing," she said. "And I should warn you, it would better if it were you."
     "So you want me to sing?"
     "Yes."
     "And take my clothes off?"
     "Yes please."
     "For your entertainment?"
     She nodded. "That's about the size of it, yup."
     It was a good thing she was cute. "You are not even ready for the size of it," I said. I wished I'd at least had a drink before she dragged me into this, but she giggled and somehow that made it easier to strike a pose. I started humming the old 'Stripper' tune as I moved towards her with an exaggerated, hippy stride. She laughed too loud and I shushed her, before starting over at lower volume, waving my ass around like a lunatic as I fumbled with my shirt buttons.
     When I got it off I sent it flying across the workshop into her lap. I'd never done this before and when it came to my jeans and t-shirt I knew why strippers had those special Velcro pants they could just tear off in one go; there is no easy way to get out of a pair of jeans and there is simply no sexy way for a man to remove his socks. Not one.
     I tossed my jeans at her feet.
     "And the rest," she said, when I was down to my underwear.
     "No," I said, walking towards her. "You take 'em off."
     She knelt up on the couch in front of me, her hands on my waistband. "What happened to the music?" she asked.
     I sang a couple of bars of that old Bobby Darin tune - If I Were A Carpenter - but my voice cracked as her fingers curled around me. It was a low couch and her face was far enough below me for my heart to beat faster when she licked her lips. "You're wearing way too many clothes," I said.
     She grinned. "Not where it counts," she whispered, and raised the hem of her skirt.

 Chapter Five
     
    Lacie
     
    There were frogs singing down by the water and the sky was darkening from mood indigo to deep blue-black. We were lying on the top of an old car, side by side, slightly buzzed. When there's nothing much else to do it's funny how you fall back on the Tom Sawyerish places of your youth; the pond where you learned to swim, the bramble paths where the best blackberries grew, or the field that bordered on the junk yard, where the wrecks that peered over the tops of the long grass used to play the roles of dinosaurs and sleeping dragons, in an imaginary land that time forgot.
     "So peaceful," said Clayton. I could feel the warmth of his hip against mine.
     "For now. Before tourist hell comes to town."
     "It's not so bad," he said. "Once a year. And they spend money."
     "I guess."
     "You shouldn't begrudge them a few leaves and a look at the sky. Some of these poor city pricks probably never even seen a sky like this."
     "The sky is the sky; what's to see?" I said. I wanted to look at him but the roof of the car was slightly curved, so that I lay concave to the sky like Prometheus on the rocks. I vaguely recalled something they called a sky burial - the body draped face