Driving Her Crazy by Kira Archer

asked.
    She threw her hands up like some 1950s movie starlet throwing a hissy fit. Damn, but it was fun to aggravate her.
    “You don’t give up, do you?” she asked.
    Oz grinned. “No. So you might as well just answer. I can do this all day. And you can’t escape. It’s starting to rain again,” he said, pointing out the window where a few fat raindrops lazily ran down the glass.
    “What difference does it make?”
    “I want to know.”
    She looked out the window, her finger tracing little circles on her leg. “I don’t have it pinned down yet. But I’d like to be…I don’t know, like a life coach, maybe.”
    She couldn’t have surprised him more if she’d announced she wanted to be a headliner at some strip club. In fact, that he might have actually understood. She’d make good money and piss her parents off. Win-win. But a life coach? Her?
    “A life coach?”
    “Yes,” she said, though she frowned a bit. “Or…maybe start my own company that expands on what I’m already doing. It could be the whole package.”
    “Shopping and life coaching?”
    She sighed like he was totally missing the point and she didn’t want to explain it to him for the thousandth time. “It’s not shopping.”
    “So, clothes and advice?”
    “Something like that.”
    She glanced over at him, and despite the fact that he wanted to throttle her ninety percent of their time together, the look on her face made his heart twist. He’d found a puppy once that had been abused. It had been huddled in a ball, drawn in on itself, its eyes full of fear and pain when he’d first reached out to it. Cher had that same look in her eyes; like she expected him to kick her, and she just wanted to hide.
    “No wise cracks?”
    Oz shook his head and swallowed past the sudden tightness in his throat. “No. I think that’s great.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah. A little odd maybe,” he said, winking at her. “But great.”
    Cher smiled and a little of the ache in Oz’s chest eased. He might not think she was qualified for the job, but at least it seemed geared toward helping people, in some weird way. Maybe there was a real person under all that glitz and glamour.
    “So, why don’t you be a life coach or start up your business, then?”
    “I’ve looked into it. And I do volunteer.”
    “No, I mean for real. Quit shopping. Go do your thing.”
    She shook her head. “My parents don’t think it is a good use of my time.”
    “And being a personal shopper is?”
    Cher snorted. “No. And I’ve told you, that’s not really what I do. But I think the only reason they’ve left me alone until now is because they haven’t figured out what to do with me yet. Opening a business, or being a life coach? I’d have to go to school, get certified, and spend a ton of money to get everything I need to run the type of operation I’m thinking of running. It’s a major undertaking. A career. One that would be completely unacceptable for them. There is no advantage for me or the family that they’d understand.”
    “But it would be advantageous, to you. You’ve got to start living your own life at some point. So go do it.”
    “Oh sure. I’ll just go home and interrupt my sister’s wedding to tell my parents that to make up for completely failing at everything else they wanted for me, I’m going to dedicate my life to continuing what I’m doing, only on a much larger scale. That’ll go over real well. I’m sure my sister will appreciate the knock-down drag-out fight in the middle of her wedding.”
    “Why not? You have the right to do what you want with your life, don’t you? Do it. I dare you.”
    “Good plan. I’ll just go destroy my life on a dare.”
    “Don’t they want you to be happy?”
    Cher looked down at her lap, her nose wrinkling in a delicate sneer. “Not nearly as much as they want to preserve and glorify the name of Debusshere.”
    Oz shook his head. “Sorry, I just have a hard time believing any parent would rather