Love's Little Instruction Book by Mary Gorman

ordered. “It will give us time to come up with some sort of revenge. And even if we never come up with anything, think of the fun we can have plotting.”
    “I don’t know, Pres,” he said, glancing unwillingly toward the couple on the blanket.
    “Please?” She half whined the word. Then she lowered her voice. “I wish you would. I feel a bit like a third wheel with Todd and Denise here. I guess they’ve been building this weird sort of relationship off-air ever since she started at the station, and I have a feeling that the two of them are going to spend an annoying amount of time ‘catching up.’”
    “So sit somewhere else,” he suggested.
    “But I already made plans to sit with Denise. I didn’t know that she’d invited Todd to sit with us, too. Now there’s no graceful way to back out. Please sit with us. I could use another ordinary mortal in the company of these two gorgeous people.”
    Dave glanced at Presley. “That’s not much of a compliment, you know,” he informed her.
    Presley frowned apologetically. “Sorry,” she muttered. “But you know what I mean, don’t you? About being intimidated by someone else’s appearance?”
    “Not really,” he lied. Then he looked at Presley, walking beside him with a strangely wistful look on her face. “You shouldn’t be intimidated by them, you know. You’re a good looking woman. And you’ve got style.”
    She looked up at him, clearly surprised, then smiled. “You’re a nice man, David. Thank you for that. So will you sit with me?”
    He sympathized suddenly with Presley and didn’t want to let her down. Besides, he could still pursue his goal of getting to know Denise. If she was going to get into a relationship with O’Connor, best to find that out for sure so that he could redirect his sights elsewhere. At least then he could stop wasting his time. “Sure, Presley. I’ll sit with you.”
    She blessed him with a smile of both relief and joy.
    “Hey, you two,” Presley called out as they approached the blanket. “Dave’s going to join us. He’s going to help me figure out a way to get back at Manny and Pat. We brought you some cold drinks.” She handed the bottled water to Todd. “I guessed that you’d want bottled water, is that okay?” she asked, sounding just a little intimidated by the golden man with the perfect white teeth which he flashed at her as she accepted her offerings.
    “Perfect. Thank you.”
    Dave belatedly handed Denise the bottle of iced tea. “Presley said you liked iced tea.”
    Her eyes were warm as they met his. “Why, thank you, Dave.” She took the bottle from him and set it down on the towel next to her.
    Presley plopped down ungracefully on the blanket then patted the space next to her. “Sit down.”
    He hesitated awkwardly for a moment, then sat down next to Presley.
    “I was just about to put some sunscreen on for Denise,” Todd announced, squeezing the cocoa butter scented lotion out of the tube and onto his hand. Denise whipped off her T-shirt and shimmied out of her shorts, then positioned herself so that she sat with her back to him. She wore a bikini. Not a particularly remarkable bikini, neither overly revealing nor overly concealing, but Dave noticed two things about it immediately. First off, it was fire engine red, surely the sexiest color God had ever made, and that particular shade of red against Denise’s dark skin was the most erotic thing Dave had ever seen in his whole sorry life. The second thing he noticed, as O’Connor positioned himself into a kneeling position behind her, was that the buff blond was wearing the exact same shade of hot sex red.
    “Here, Presley. Sit in front of me and I’ll do your back while Todd does mine,” Denise invited.
    “Okay,” Presley agreed, immediately shedding her T-shirt and shorts. She wore a more conservative suit, a one piece tank style that revealed very little, partly because there was very little to reveal on the small, waif-like