Jerry's words felt like fingernails on a chalkboard right now, though, because "virgin" was to Mike as "intelligent" was to Snooki.

Lydia had turned him into a raging hormone wearing dyed hair and green contacts.

As he joined the crowd and made his slow descent to the street level, he was grateful for the flights of steps, for his erection faded in time, replaced with a hollow, gnawing need for something he couldn't have.

Chapter Five.

"You kissed him? You kissed your boss the first week he's there? In a supply closet?" Krysta grabbed Lydia's shoulder, nearly tipping the spoon out of her hand and splattering Rocky Road ice cream all over Lydia's pants. "Who are you and what have you done with the real Lydia?"

"I know!" Lydia wailed, shoving a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth to cut off her own sound. The cold blast of thick, creamy chocolate made her close her eyes and groan as her lips met over the spoon, her tongue laving the sweet, luscious treat, her mind floating to hot, warm, delicious treats on Matt's body that she might a "You don't kiss guys on the first date! In fact, you have ranted since our freshman year of college about male hegemony, s.e.xual politics, and how gender discrimination is a worse evil than, than a than even not composting!"

Lydia laughed silently, her mouth busy with the flavor and slow melt of the pool of chocolate delight. Ice cream was no subst.i.tute for his mouth. Given that his lips weren't an option right now, she swallowed and shoveled another spoonful in, trying to figure out what to say as Krysta ranted on.

"Lydia, you're going to lose your job if you keep this up. Someone at Bournham already gave away the job you wanted a now you're clinging to the one you have." That made Lydia stop short. Krysta wasn't the practical one. Lydia was. The role reversal made a small pain form behind her right eye. Oh, great. She needed a migraine like she needed to be fired.

"I won't lose my job. It was just a harmless, casual," she inhaled deeply, nearly swooning with the tactile memory of his hands on her waist, how they roamed down to her hips and then brushed up against the bottoms of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the exploration a a She looked up to find Krysta tapping her foot. "You can't even finish sentences, now. This from the woman who wrote a 115-page master's thesis on gender politics in the Information Age."

Ouch.

This is different, she nearly said, her internal editor scrambling to stop her. Every woman said that. Every single one, always at the beginning of an affair. Matt wasn't married a at least, he didn't wear a ring a so it wasn't really an affair. It was one kiss. Just one.

"It was just a kiss!" Lydia retorted, her face flushing furiously.

"Is he married, Lyd?" Krysta asked softly, alarm coloring her features, her expression so prudish Lydia would have laughed if she weren't the potential transgressor and home wrecker in this conversation.

"He doesn't wear a ring."

"That doesn't mean jackall, and you know it."

"You're right." Lydia threw the now-empty pint container in the trash and tossed the spoon in the sink. She threw up her hands. "I don't know anything. Here's what I do know: I came to work today like any other day. I sat in the parking lot reading Fifty Shades of Grey to kill time because the commute was faster than usual. Some guy I had never met insisted I give up my parking spot and oh, yeah, by the way, he's my new boss a hired into a job Bournham Industries never advertised, and one I've been pushing to get for nearly two years."

She huffed with indignation as she felt Krysta's attention shift from judgment and skepticism to deeper empathy. "Once the shock of that wore off, I got to make a fool of myself in front of Dave a again a and went and had myself a good cry in the closet, where Matt found me. Nice guy. He comforts me, and then puts the moves on me, kissing me." Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, willing away the memory of his hands on her, how his fingers dipped under her shirt to find flesh, his caress burned into her.

"He took advantage of you!" Krysta shifted her hands to her hips, chin jutted out, back on Lydia's side. She didn't correct her; there was no taking advantage. Lydia was an all-too-willing partner in that kiss, a fact she had to acknowledge as she felt herself get wet just from thinking about how his mouth had simply taken her, hands under her skirt, shifting aside her panties and exploring in the a "Uh, no!" she choked out, shaking her head. G.o.d, would these images ever go away? "It was just one kiss!" she bleated, her mind on some sputtering loop. Krysta eyed her warily and reached for the coffee pot.

"We need one more cup. Decaf?"

"I'll stop drinking coffee the day I have to have decaf. We're not that old!" Both women laughed as Lydia tamped down the full-blown arousal that just this conversation had recharged. A quick look at the stove clock told her that in eleven hours and thirteen minutes she would see Matt again.

"Seriously, Lyd. What are you going to do about this? Student loans don't pay themselves. You have so many." As she shook three level scoops of grounds into the basket, Krysta rolled her eyes. "That $800 a month loan doesn't pay for itself."

A thin thread of dread began to tug at her inside, unraveling st.i.tch by st.i.tch as the whole cloth of her life stretched out, tight and unwinding. Oh. My. G.o.d. Krysta was right. Not just right a dead right. What in the everloving h.e.l.l had she been thinking? Throwing away six years of college and grad school, slogging for two years as a corporate zombie for a chance to be Director of Social Media and work her way up a and she impulsively, impetuously nearly threw it away for one good tussle in the supply closet with her boss?

Her breath hitched and went shallow, her neck tightened, and she flushed all through, but not in a good way. Not aroused as she had been with Matt just hours ago, their bodies pressed together, flesh intertwined, his fingers seeking the heart of her and entering a "Lydia? You need to sit down." Krysta's hands were on her elbows now, leading her to a chair at the kitchen table. "Breathe," Krysta intoned. Lydia tried, but couldn't. Pant pant pant. Pinpoints of white and dark filled her vision line.

What had she done? Her entire life was at stake. She was twenty-five and had a graduate degree and needed to work to pay her bills. Matt stoked something in her, exposing embers that had smoldered away, hot and bothered but thoroughly buried, for years. Ah, those hands on her, hungry and claiming, owning her flesh as his mouth had dominated her, practically ordered her to kiss him back and a "BREATHE!" Krysta suddenly blew a puff of air in her face, the way lifeguards tried to revive a swimmer before performing CPR or how mothers would stop a toddler's tantrum. Some reflex kicked in and Lydia's air drained out of her lungs in one slow, steady hiss, then whoop! she inhaled deeply, so swift a ragged edge of air dried out her throat, starting a coughing spasm.

"Oh, thank G.o.d," Krysta muttered, rubbing the base of Lydia's neck. "You were gonna pa.s.s out."

Hot tears filled Lydia's eyes and throat, salty and wet and demoralized as Krysta added, "Lydia, I...I'm sorry I didn't mean to a oh, s.h.i.t."

All Lydia could think about was how stupid she'd been today and that whatever she felt for Matt made absolutely no sense. Wave after wave of something a sorrow? fear? disgust? a washed over her as she cried big, ugly tears that only a best friend like Krysta could watch without judgment.

"I can't explain it," she sobbed. "There's just this, this, attraction. I know, I know," she said, holding up her hands in protest. "I sound like every other woman in the world. And yet, I really, truly cannot explain it, Krysta."

She wiped the tears from her eyes, the skin under her bottom lids feeling like hot, wet tissue paper. "I'm a cliche. I own it. But man, let me tell you, I kind of get it now. The rush, the boldness, the need, Krysta. d.a.m.n! The need to touch him. To kiss him. To let my mind go to places that they haven't gone before. To want those hands on me. I just a "

"Oh, gross, Lydia!" Krysta shook her head in mock outrage.

"What?"

"You know I haven't had s.e.x in over a year! This is torture. It's bad enough to listen to you talk about practically throwing away your entire career for some desperate kiss in a supply closet, but to have to listen to you talk about it like that a "

Krysta's shoulders relaxed, and she slumped forward. "I've never felt that way. No guy has ever triggered anything like that in me." She sighed, and looked at Lydia with a beseeching look. "If that's what you felt in those few hours of knowing this guy, then I can't judge you. In fact, I think I'm a little envious."

"What?" Lydia sat there, stunned, staring at her best friend. Was Krysta validating her feelings? Telling her it was OK to be attracted to Matt, to give in to this strange chemistry that made no sense? Compelled by some force she didn't know existed, she wanted him ferociously, the need primal and severe, almost violent. How could that be safe? Acceptable? Proper?

Professional?

"Normally, you're the one I'm counseling on these issues," Lydia smirked. Tears dried, she c.o.c.ked her head and shot her friend a withering look. "Do you have any idea how many walks of shame I have talked you through when it comes to guys?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Not lately, though. Betty White gets more than I do, these days."

"Betty White probably gets more than both of us combined."

"Like your grandma," Krysta said.

"Don't talk about Grandma's s.e.x life! Ewwww." Her grandmother was in her eighties and had a steady boyfriend. Probably did get more than either of the twentysomething women.

"But none of those walks of shame ever involved something or a feeling like what you're talkin' about, Lydia," Krysta confessed.

f.u.c.k! She was right, but the last thing Lydia wanted to do right now was reckon with reality, with the tension between how she should act and how she did feel. To an outsider, the whole mess must seem chaotic and ba.n.a.l, trite and achingly stereotypical. Who would have guessed that Lydia Charles, third-wave feminist with a second-wave kick, would end up doing something so cloyingly cliche as falling for her boss?

Her very hot, alpha-male boss who acted like he not only owned the place, but he also owned her.

"You need to call your mother a "

"I need to call my mother a "

In unison, Lydia and Krysta spoke the same thought, the words effortless and resignedly true. d.a.m.n it! Calling home meant getting tons of advice from her mom, all of it warm and helpful.

With a dose of begging to come home that would knock out a horse, because Lydia's mom didn't do subtle when it came to trying to get the one stray from her flock to come home. She was a one-woman army, gone to battle with the world that Lydia so desperately wished to conquer a one Director of Social Media position at a time.

Lydia the Black Sheep.

Sandy and Pete Charles had created their own little world on the coast in Maine, a world Lydia had fought tooth and nail to escape as soon as she'd graduated high school. Owners of the Escape Sh.o.r.es Campground, her parents had poured their life savings into the only place Lydia could remember from the time she could talk, having been raised there with her five brothers. Leaving home for Boston had been a betrayal.

Going home meant admitting defeat. Sandy would view it as a victory, wanting desperately for all her kids to take part in what she and Pete viewed as a family venture. Managing 140 acres of prime oceanfront property, a data center, a heated in-ground pool (in Maine!), 230 campsites and RV pull-ins and all the entertainment, retail, and environmental issues that went with what Lydia called "home" meant that her brothers kept pretty d.a.m.n busy helping to run the largest campground on the northeastern sh.o.r.eline. And the most tech savvy, but they could thank Lydia for that.

Sandy wouldn't let her forget it. Lydia knew that reaching out to home meant being love bombed. That seemed to be exactly what she needed. She knew it and Krysta knew it. Groaning, she reached for the phone. Krysta smirked and had the decency to fake needing to check her own phone. At the top of her "Favorites," Sandy's number was one tap away.

"h.e.l.lo? Lydia?" That flat midwestern voice, melodic and friendly, eager to hear her speak. Ah, Mom. Thirty years in New England hadn't changed her, the "r" intact in her words. Mainers thought her odd but warmed to her generosity and general can-do att.i.tude. That she and Pete had created more than fifty much-needed jobs in their tiny community helped, too.

Knowing she needed to just get it out, Lydia sighed. "I didn't get the job."

"The one you've been waiting to apply for now for over a year?" Control your glee, Mom, she almost said, Sandy's voice a mixture of fake commiseration and little-kid joy at the news. Here comes the onslaught.

"Yes. I came into work one day to find I had a new boss. Matt Jones." Tears filled her eyes, and blood rushed to her cheeks. Elsewhere, too, making her squirm. Not now! Not now! d.a.m.n it, if Matt could have this kind of impact on her while just saying his name, what would a "You didn't even get a chance to apply?" Sandy's voice changed to outrage. Relief flooded Lydia. Anger she could handle. Righteous indignation she could feast on. A riled-up Sandy would give her the ego boost she needed. What she could not, would not handle right now was being begged mercilessly to come home and manage public relations and social media for the campground.

Sniff. "Nope."

"b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Hey, Pete!" Lydia could imagine her mom, talking on her cell phone while manning the register in the little store on site, calling out to her dad, who was probably helping some guest with an RV question, or teaching a child how to play pool in the table in the hall behind the main store, or riding past in one of his blue golf carts that roamed at an ever-safe five mph that had bedeviled her and her brothers (we can run faster than those things, Daddy!).

Ruddy cheeks and a straw hat with a draw string under his chin, Pete Charles was a tower of a man, but a gentle soul who derived so much pleasure from growing a business with his children. Except Lydia.

And he, like Sandy, wanted her back in the fold, though his methods were a bit less obvious.

"Why won't they give her a chance? She's smarter than all of 'em!" she heard him shout. He was probably wearing paint-splattered d.i.c.kies that hadn't been washed in months, a nice, crisp b.u.t.ton down, and that old hat. He was careful not to be too disheveled these days, though he refused to change his work pants. Always said it made it clear that while the campground was a place for travel and fun and frolic, he had work to do, too. The serious work of moving and maintaining and keeping an enormous "small" business functioning properly. Like biochemistry, if one enzyme went missing, one chemical went astray, the body would dissemble.

Pete used that against Lydia, for they were losing the battle in an increasingly-online world, and while her brother Dan was great at business software, he was lousy at online PR and advertising. Lydia would provide a key service if she were home.

She just didn't want that. A standoff of epic proportions, and calling home right now meant giving her parents some heavy-duty ammo for working every guilt b.u.t.ton she possessed.

Her Matt Jones b.u.t.ton, though, was big as well. Red, right now. Absolutely throbbing. Leaning forward to shift some of the renegade flesh in her nether regions, the wiggling only made her all the more aware of how helpless she'd become. One week with a guy who stole her job (not intentionally, but her emotional truth was as important as facts, right?) and she was turning into a puddle of sensual goo. Not fair. Not fair at all.

Home was starting to look pretty good, and that is what made her hair stand on end and turned the freak-out dial up a notch.

"Tell Dad he's more transparent by the day."

"What do you mean?" her mother asked, all innocent and disingenuous. Sandy knew exactly what she wanted and wasn't going to give a millimeter.

"You, on the other hand, are a giant piece of Saran Wrap, Mom. I'm not moving back." Her voice turned to a growl on the last sentence. "What I need now is an ego boost."

"You're so amazing that Escape Sh.o.r.es needs your expertise! We pay a living wage and you get free m.u.f.fins and espresso, hand-crafted by these brilliant men who live here."

"I've washed their socks, Mom, and seen them hungover. One of them barfed in my car and I helped another one unglue himself from his own bike. My brothers aren't brilliant; they just stayed, so you love them more." This was an ongoing joke in the family, ever since Lucas was IQ tested in third grade and declared a genius. To spare the others' feelings Sandy had announced that all of her children were brilliant.

Even the dogs were declared above-average, and for a while they called the campground Lake Wobegon Sh.o.r.es.

"I love all my children equally!" Sandy huffed. Lydia heard her dad laughing maniacally in the background. Whomp. Mom must have hit him. Then footsteps fading away.

"You're the Karl Marx of motherhood."

"Did you call me to berate me, or is there a real reason? The lobsters don't cook themselves." Ah. Thursday. The big steak 'n lobsterfest was starting in an hour. Lydia could smell the mesquite, taste the drawn b.u.t.ter, feel the steam from the pots as Dad and Adam boiled them in beer (the exact brand a family secret), her tongue imagining the juicy, sweet crunch of grilled corn on the cob.

"Beach bake night," she groaned, mouth watering. Krysta's eyes widened and she smacked her lips.

"Come on up for next week," Sandy said, her voice a taunting, teasing tendril of evil temptation. "You know we miss you something fierce."

Tempting. Really, really tempting. She could taste the ocean water in the lobster, imagine that first bite of perfect, medium rare tenderloin, the night chill in the air tempered by one of her brothers' old college sweatshirts and a roaring campfire, people playing random instruments and everyone a octogenarians to three year olds a roasting marshmallows on a stick.

So different from the city, where people not only didn't make eye contact, they lived in little spheres of air influence, as if a bubble surrounded them. Chatting on cell phones like the Borg, ear pieces attached to nothing, they conducted business a personal and professional a with ruthless efficiency, from speed dating to minute clinics to in-cab web access.

Lydia needed both to balance her. Running home would be the easy way out.

Her mama didn't raise no wimps, and Lydia took this moment to remind her of that fact. "If I come home, it's for a visit. Not for good."

Warmth spread through the phone as Sandy's smile could be heard a no, felt a through the thin, black, shiny phone. "Are you bringing anyone special?" Up the ante, why don't you, Mom?

"I'm bringing me." So why did her mind flash to Matt? Already? C'mon, Lydia, she chided herself. You're not in eighth grade.

Sandy got it. "That is more than enough! We'll make sure to have Caleb make your special tarragon b.u.t.ter sauce."

The word "tarragon" tickled some inner gourmet as Lydia's mouth watered again, and this time not at the thought of Matt. "Is he still making that?"

"With Stan Michaelson's special cream." Michaelson's Dairy still delivered, and not the kind of delivery you get in Boston, with an impatient bike messenger or a shy, dour restaurant dude. Gla.s.s bottles, happy cows and free sugar cookies for kids who caught Mr. Michaelson as he filled the milk box. You couldn't get any more '50s.

Then why did it make her smile?

Groan. "Is she plying you with promises of hookers and blow?" Krysta stage whispered.

"Tarragon b.u.t.ter!" Sandy shouted through the phone.

"Even better!" Krysta shouted back.

"Traitor," Lydia hissed.

"I'm a realist. You're insane for giving up a weekend back home." Krysta had been to the campground countless times and had a mild crush on Caleb. Or on his chocolate mint mousse. It was hard to tease out which she preferred more.

"I can't, Mom. I have to figure out where I'm going at work, and find another job there to set my sights on." Disappointment practically took solid form and reached through the phone.

Deep sigh. "Fine. I understand. Your career is important to you." Another deep sigh. "We're just your family." Cough cough.

"The cough is a nice touch. You trying out for the role of Fantine?"

Gut-busting laughter. "You got me there, Hon. I just want to see you."

"Cars and planes and trains work both ways, Mom. I'm only four hours away."

"During high season?" Late July and early August was crazy, she knew. Her mom barely had time for this conversation, but if Lydia had asked for eight hours of silent weeping into the phone, Sandy would give it to her.

"Yeah. I know."