Fast & Loose by Elizabeth Bevarly (the giving tree read aloud .txt) 📕

had had him dressed in a Speedo and passing a piña colada to her from the neighboring beach towel. And the rest of her reflections about him had sort of been lacking the Speedo altogether.

But she wasn’t concerned about the errancy…errantness…errantularity…waywardness of her thoughts tonight. She wasn’t. Really. Honest. She wasn’t. Thinking about the guy from the realty office in a Speedo just meant she’d gone way too long without a beach vacation, that was all. And “beach vacation” wasn’t any kind of metaphor for anything sexual in nature. It wasn’t. Really. Honest. It wasn’t.

Um, where was she?

Oh, right. The man at the realty place in a Speedo. No! The man at the realty place on TV. Which he wasn’t. Was he?

But no sooner did that question erupt in her head again than his face did indeed flash on the screen. She knew it was him, because there wasn’t a man alive who had a smile that oozed sex and charm and made women’s thoughts go all errantular the way his did.

“That guy,” Lulu said again, wagging her finger at the TV once more. Before Bree had a chance to respond, Lulu grabbed Doug the bartender by the sleeve and said, “Turn up the TV, quick.”

Doug arched an elegant dark brow at her, doing his best to ooze the kind of sex appeal that Realty Office Guy came by naturally…and coming in way under par. In fact, Doug’s rating on the sexy odometer hovered somewhere between Dwight Schrute and Larry the Cable Guy. Except he didn’t dress as well as either of them.

“Say please,” he purred to Lulu like a rusty jackhammer.

Instead, Lulu rolled her eyes and reached across the bar for the remote control herself, pointing it at the TV, and pushing the volume button. Hard. Fortunately, the band was taking a break, but there were still a few disgruntled grumbles from other bar patrons when the man on the screen’s voice usurped the canned music. Without hesitation, Lulu shushed all of them with a wave of her free hand and a hasty, “C’mon—it’s only for a second.”

The minute she heard the man’s voice, though, she knew without question it was him—not that she comprehended a word of what he said, because her thoughts were zinging in a million different directions by then. And not that she’d even needed to hear his voice to cement his identity to begin with. Or even the reminder of the curious green hue of his eyes. All she’d needed to confirm her suspicions was the zinginess of her thoughts and the warmth spreading throughout her midsection. That warmth turned to an explosion of embarrassment, however, when she saw letters scroll beneath his name, letters that her muzzy brain was just coherent enough to understand spelled out: COLE EARLY, TRAINER OF DERBY ENTRY SILK PURSE.

Then the remote control slipped from her numb fingers, and she muttered, “Oh. Hell.”

“What?” Bree said again, her gaze ricocheting from Lulu’s face to the TV screen.

Lulu held up a finger in the internationally recognized body language for “Hang on a sec.” Although Bree clearly wanted to ask more, she closed her mouth and, along with Lulu, watched and listened to the man on TV.

“Of course I’m confident,” he was saying in response to whatever question he’d been asked, sounding vaguely insulted by whatever it had been. “Silk Purse is not only going to win the Kentucky Derby, she’s going to win the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, too. That filly’s taking home the Triple Crown, or my name isn’t Cole Early.”

Well, so much for that last futile hope that WAVE had scrolled the wrong letters under the man’s name. Or the more likely hope that Lulu was too addlebrained to have read them correctly. Well, okay, so the addlebrained part wasn’t in question, since she was clearly that, and had been since running into Cole Early, Trainer of Derby Entry Silk Purse.

The camera cut back to the interviewer, a young perky blonde Lulu recognized as a newly minted correspondent for the station, since the newscast was the one she watched nightly. For some reason, though, tonight the woman looked even younger, perkier, and blonder than usual. And although Lulu was by no means an expert on the subject, the correspondent also looked vaguely orgasmic at the moment. Then again, Lulu remembered well that shimmying-out-of-your-underwear effect that Realty Office Guy—no, Cole Early, she corrected herself—had on a woman.

“There you have it, Scott and Dawne,” she cooed into the camera, licking her lips as if trying to savor some leftover bit of cotton candy. Or, more likely, Lulu thought, she was picturing Cole Early in a Speedo, too. “The first trainer to officially arrive in Louisville for the Derby, even though his horse was the last entry for the race.” Something must have caught her eye over the camera operator’s shoulder, because she smiled and said, “Ronnie, can you get a shot of that?” after which the camera swung wildly in a one-eighty to reveal Cole Early standing at what looked like a very crowded bar, surrounded by young women thrusting pieces of paper at him.

Then the correspondent’s voiceover said, “And just like he is when he’s at home in southern California, he’s already surrounded by fans. All of whom, not too surprisingly, are female.” The camera swung back to her again, but instead of looking into it, the way any self-respecting, self-absorbed TV personality should, she was still gazing over the camera operator’s shoulder at Cole Early. She identified herself for the viewers, said she was reporting from Fourth Street Live, and, almost as an afterthought, concluded, “Back to you, Scott and Dawne.” She was already tossing someone her microphone and walking away before the camera shot cut back to the studio.

Then the news anchor was back on the screen, smiling his news anchor smile, which was pleasant, sunny, and safe, and nothing at all like Cole Early’s.

And Lulu repeated, “Oh. Hell.”

She turned to Bree, who was looking at her