He gave a start when Jan rushed forward to thrust a paintbrush into his hand. “Welcome, Gabe! We can use you on the dunking booth sign. I hope you brought your smock.”
“Oh, I never go anywhere without my smock, Jan,” he said gravely. He patted his jeans pocket. She glanced at his pocket, puzzled. He shouldn’t tease her. Jan clearly took smocks seriously. “I think I’m just going to stroll through and check out what everyone is doing first.”
“Wonderful,” she enthused, then zipped off again, to micromanage someone’s sign painting.
Eden was now sitting back on her heels, critically assessing her handiwork.
When he arrived next to her—he didn’t quite make a beeline, maybe more like a “C” line or an “S” line—she looked up slowly, her eyes traveling along his shins and torso all the way up to his face. The smile that spread all over her face was a little cocky, wildly amused, and—maybe this was wishful thinking, but he didn’t think so—relieved.
Eden was invested.
That was a thrill that rendered him momentarily speechless.
“Your Excellency,” she said by way of greeting.
After they’d spent a moment basking in each other’s presence.
He nodded once. Absurdly, he couldn’t speak yet. Her hair was piled on top of her head, exposing her long neck, and she was wearing a big blue man’s shirt, which immediately made him wonder about, and feel a twinge of jealousy about its provenance.
And also gave him an opportunity to imagine her wearing one of his after a particularly lusty evening.
She rose to her feet slowly. “So do you consider yourself com—”
They both gave a start when seemingly out of nowhere Jan Pennington appeared next to them, practically vibrating like a dart hurled into a bull’s-eye. It was pure indignation.
“Look at this, Gabe. Just look at it!” she hissed.
To his amazement, she shook a doll at him like a voodoo rattle.
“Jan,” he said evenly. “Please don’t shake a doll at me.”
Which was something he’d never thought he’d need to say to anyone, really.
“But look atthis.”
She shoved what appeared to be a pantless Ken doll into his hand.
He had no choice but to grasp it.
“Seems this thing belongs to Annelise Harwood,” Jan said. “All those little girls were over there playing with it. LOOK. AT. HIM.”
Gabe fixed Jan with a long, quelling stare. “Jan, we teach our children to use the word ‘please’ in front of any request. Don’t you think we ought to model the behavior?”
“Please,”she said. In an anguish of outrage.
He stifled the mother of all sighs. And then uncurled his palm and peered down at the doll lying in it.
The Ken doll gazed mutely up at them, his brown eyes poignantly blank. His painted-on crew cut was circa late sixties. He was wearing a little striped jacket with wide lapels.
And nothing else.
Between his legs someone had drawn a really explicit, textbook-quality member. Meticulously rendered in ink, it rested atop a plump healthy scrotum, all of which was nestled into hair depicted by generous pen curlicues.
They all stared wordlessly down at him, like CSI detectives gathered around a victim on a slab.
No one moved.
Until—cautiously—Gabe tweezed up Ken’s little striped jacket with his fingers. Why, he didn’t know. Checking for tattoos or scars or other identifying marks? Isn’t that what they did onCSI?