Protector for Hire by Tawna Fenske

my grandfather. Grant and I worked together to fix it up, and we both had after-school jobs to pay for gas and parts.”
    “So the two of you shared it?”
    “Yeah. Our parents helped a little with insurance, but it was ours.”
    “How’d you decide who got to drive it?”
    “It wasn’t as much of a pain in the ass as you’d expect. Grant and I were pretty tight, so we were usually going the same places anyway. It only got tricky when we both had a date.”
    Janelle smiled, trying to imagine a teenage version of Schwartz with a fresh shaving cut on his chin and twenty dollars in his wallet. She pictured him youthful and hopeful and full of excitement about his future. She let go of the strap on her cami top and began fiddling with the neckline instead.
    “Did you date a lot in high school?” she asked.
    “I guess so. I was eleven months older than Grant, so I got dibs on the truck more often. Took Ashley Orion to the prom in that truck.”
    The thought of Schwartz in a bow tie and cummerbund made her smile again. Then her brain veered to an imaginary image of a grown-up Schwartz looking dangerous and drop-dead sexy in a tuxedo, and she caught herself sliding her hand down the front of her top. Her fingertips brushed her nipple, and she sucked in a breath.
    “So Ashley Orion, huh?” Janelle asked, struggling to keep her voice casual as she circled her nipple with the pad of her thumb. “Was that a steady girlfriend or just a prom date?”
    “Somewhere in between. Grant dated her cousin, so we had to work out this complicated schedule for planning dates and who got the truck on a Friday or Saturday. It got a little dicey at one point.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “Well, since our parents helped with insurance, they used the truck sometimes, too. This one time our mom borrowed it to pick up lumber at Home Depot. As soon as she got home, she marched us outside to look in the ashtray.”
    “The ashtray? Did you guys smoke?”
    “Nope.” Schwartz cleared his throat. “There was a condom in it. A used condom. Stella—our mom—found it when she went looking for change.”
    “Oh, no.”
    “Oh, yes. She stood there in the driveway and gave Grant and me this long lecture on personal responsibility and self-respect and public decency laws.”
    “Wasn’t she at least glad to know you were practicing safe sex?”
    “Yeah, we got bonus points for that. Her gripe was more about disrespecting women. About making a partner feel shady or ashamed or unvalued with a quick screw in a truck instead of something more meaningful. She talked a lot about the importance of being sensitive to a woman’s needs.”
    “Right,” Janelle said, her thumb circling her nipple as her brain echoed the words “a woman’s needs.” Her nipple tightened pleasantly under the pad of her thumb, so she kept circling, keeping her touch light and her voice casual. “So what happened?”
    “I took the rap for the condom.”
    “It was yours?”
    “Nope. But I didn’t want Grant to get busted. He’d gotten in trouble earlier that week for his grades, and Mom had threatened not to let him play in the big game that weekend if he didn’t shape up.”
    “Wow. I hope he appreciated that.”
    “Nope. He called me a liar.”
    “What?”
    Schwartz laughed, his voice warmer now than it had been ten minutes ago. “Yeah. He thanked me for trying to cover his ass, but said I shouldn’t take the blame for it. Mom was threatening not to let me go on this big school trip I’d been talking about for weeks, and Grant said I shouldn’t give that up to take the rap for something he did.”
    “Wow, that’s really sweet.” Janelle moved her hand to the other breast, remembering the feel of Schwartz’s mouth on her nipple that morning. She stifled a moan, feeling a little ridiculous. For crying out loud, he was just telling her a family story. It wasn’t like he’d called to talk dirty to her.
    It’s his voice , her conscience pointed out, and she