“You have got to loosen up, Clara,” he chuckled as he adjusted his straw hat.
“Do I now?” His statement agitated me. I didn’t consider myself an uptight person. Not at that time anyway. Okay, maybe I was guarded. But I had just been through hell in the last few months and guarded was the only way I knew to survive. But I wasn’t stuck-up.
“I just mean you need to have some fun.”
“Is your definition of fun walking around a racetrack half naked? You want me to act like all of these women out here; desperate for attention?”
He let out a long sigh. I guess I was exhausting him as well. “No, not half naked. I just mean, it’s okay to flirt with a guy even if you have no interest in him.”
“Some men would call that a tease,” I pointed out.
“Only stupid ones.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “You mean flirt to sell?”
“And so what if you did? You’re the one always preaching about presentation. It’s not just the jump,” he imitated me, his tone high-pitched, mocking me. Do I really sound like that? “You can flirt without acting like a . . . ya know.”
I raised my eyebrows. “No. I don’t know.”
“Like you’re easy or something.”
“Jesus, Paul. You’re unbelievable.”
He laughed. “I know,” he said sarcastically.
“Should I go and flirt with those guys over there?” I pointed to a group near a jacked up Chevy truck.
“Well, we’ve made changes and tried new things that you’ve wanted to implement. Maybe you should try something of ours?”
“You want me to try acting like a ho?”
He took a long swig from his water bottle. “Jeez, Clara,” he groaned. “You’re being extreme. Obviously I don’t think you should go over there and rub your tits in their faces.”
“Then what do you want me to do?” I snapped.
“Can’t you just go over there and act like you like them and then slip in the fact that you own a skydiving business and how thrilling it is? Fuck.” Then he took a stab at me. “Not that you would know.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I don’t have to jump to know it’s thrilling.”
“Do you know how weird it is that you own a skydiving business but refuse to jump?” The answer to that question was yes. I did know. And even if I didn’t know, or I’d somehow magically made myself forget that fun little fact, Marcus went out of his way to remind me every chance he got how asinine it was.
“I will jump,” I argued. “One day.”
“It’s okay, Clara. If you can’t do it, you can’t do it.” He shrugged as if it was no big deal.
“What? Jump?”
He cut me a look that said, you’re an idiot. “No, babe. Flirt. It’s okay if you can’t flirt.”
I stopped on the dusty gravel path we’d been following and stared at him dumbly. Was he serious? It took him passing me a few steps before he realized I was no longer beside him. When he turned around and saw my expression, a wide smile spread across his face. “What’d I say?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said dramatically, throwing my hands up. “Apparently I’m a mutant incapable of seducing a man.”
He threw his head back and snorted out a loud laugh. “Wow. Got all that out of what I just said, did ya?”
“Shut up, Paul,” I mumbled as I walked by him, shoving him with my shoulder, which only made him laugh more.
“Are you saying you can do it?” he yelled after me.
Spinning around, I crossed my arms. “Of course, I can do it!” And I could. That’s not to say I could do it well, however, I had two things that men liked; ass and tits. Oh, make that three. I was breathing. Those three attributes were my key to success in the art of flirting.
“Prove it,” he challenged me. If a look could convey hatred, then the one I gave him did. Bastard.
Looking down at my attire, I twisted my mouth. I didn’t exactly look like the other women walking around. They looked sexy . . . well, some of them did. The ones that were trying too hard looked trashy. I mean, really. They were wearing bikinis for God’s sake. There wasn’t a body of water or pool for miles.
Modest.
That’s the word that came to mind when I thought of myself.