by Score, Lucy
She made it sound so easy. So uncomplicated.
But in his world, sex didn’t sneak up on him. It was worked toward, planned for, elegantly executed. There were preparations. Condoms. Manscaping. Wearing the deodorant that he’d been too hungover this morning to remember. Showering off llama spit was a new one, but it ranked right up there with the condoms. And that was only after he and the woman in question had thoroughly vetted each other.
Sure. He was a man, but dammit, sex was a big deal. His erection throbbed its agreement.
She shot him a glance. “You’ve been silent for almost three minutes.”
“I’m processing,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Are you telling me you’ve never been propositioned before?”
She sounded incredulous and some distant part of his brain that hadn’t been broken by “Hey, wanna bang?” felt flattered.
“Not like this,” he insisted. “I haven’t had sex that wasn’t attached to a date since college.”
If he wanted to be a stickler about the facts, he hadn’t had sex that hadn’t come after three to five dates since college. Even in college, he’d never experienced an actual one-night stand. Sure, he’d had offers—most memorably Kimara Leigh, a smart, sarcastic prelaw major with a minor in poetry. It had been the minor that scared him off. Well, technically, it had been his fifty questions about where she saw herself in five years and whether she would be comfortable with public school for any future children if she decided to have them that had scared her off.
He couldn’t help it. There were consequences to decisions. Condoms broke. Accidental babies were conceived. Being the practical, responsible guy he was, Ryan had made sure to only sleep with women with whom he felt he could successfully co-parent.
“Look, it’s not a marriage proposal. You make me laugh and you’re still pretty okay-looking even in stupid hats. Plus, you look like you could blow off some steam,” she said, eyeing his crotch.
If she didn’t stop looking at him like that, he would be in danger of forgetting all about the deodorant and llama spit and accidental babies.
“Think about it. Could be fun. I’m great at it, by the way,” she said, stretching her legs out. “It’s probably all the medical school.”
He swore under his breath and shifted in his seat. His hard-on throbbed painfully against the confines of the zipper. He needed to rethink the whole going commando thing. “While I appreciate the offer,” he said through gritted teeth, “if there is a God, I’ll be on a red-eye flight home tonight. Tomorrow at the latest.”
She shrugged. Casually. As if the invitation and his RSVP were of no consequence. He wasn’t sure what was going to explode first—his left eye or his penis.
“Well, if you are still here tonight, the invitation stands,” Sammy told him. “Take the left up there.”
13
If there was a God, Rainbow Berkowicz would be dining on chicken Alfredo. Ryan and his mysterious emergency would become her problem. And Sammy could grab one of Franklin’s amazeballs chicken parm breadstick sandwiches to go and pretend she’d never met Grumpy Ryan Sosa.
She’d offered up a logical win-win with no discernible downside, and he’d acted like she’d asked him to French kiss a rattlesnake. It was hard not to take that personally. Hard not to be supremely embarrassed.
She’d taken the man’s morning wood too seriously, attributing it to him actually being attracted to her, when in all likelihood, it had just been a biological response to someone with a vagina sitting on top of someone with a penis.
So she wasn’t five-foot-ten-inches tall with waist-length blonde hair.
So she wasn’t a dark-eyed beauty who looked like she had secrets that needed unlocking.
And yeah, maybe she was covered with llama spit and smelled like dairy cows. But it wasn’t like she’d insisted that he had to take his pants off right that second on the side of the road.
None of that meant that she wasn’t attractive “in her own way.”
However, he’d still turned her down without even considering the possibility. Ouch.
Villa Harvest was a pretty gold stucco building with fanciful trellis work on the exterior and a Tuscan-inspired patio for warm weather months. Inside, Blue Moon residents ignored carb counts and thoroughly enjoyed memorable dishes and friendly service.
“Can we go in there like this?” Ryan asked, looking down at his stained coat.
She pointed at the front door where two farmers kicked manure off their boots before strolling inside in their overalls and decades-old baseball caps. “I think we’ll be fine,” she said and climbed out of the SUV before he could say anything else. Or before she could punch him for saying anything else.
He jogged to catch up and reached around her to open the door.
“Thanks,” she said, plastering a phony smile on her face.
His eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong?” he demanded as they stepped into the small vestibule. Balmy heat blew down over them from the ceiling.
“Nothing,” she said, reaching for the inner door.
He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, spinning her around. “That. That right there,” he said, drilling a finger into her shoulder, “is why women end up miserable in relationships.”
“What are you babbling about?” Okay, so she knew exactly what he was talking about.
“Something’s wrong. Some mysterious offense took place in the last five minutes, and when a well-meaning guy asks about it, you tell him, ‘Nothing.’”
“Mysterious offense?” her voice rose. He’d insulted her with a knee-jerk repulsion to her suggestion and then acted like it was a perfectly natural reaction. She was definitely going to punch him.
Fortunately for Ryan’s face, the interior door opened. “Hey, Doc. Hey, Ryan,” Calvin Finestra, Blue Moon’s resident contractor, greeted them as he exited the restaurant.
“Hey, Calvin,” Sammy said, trying her best to calm herself down.
“Don’t forget to give me a call after the first of the year, and we can start drawing up plans for some of those renovations,” Calvin reminded her.
“Will do,” she promised.
“See you at the Solstice,” he called as he exited the building.
Ryan frowned. “How does everyone know my name?”
Perhaps word of his astronomical ego preceded the man? “It’s the Facebook gossip group,” she explained. “You don’t want to know. Let’s see if Rainbow is here so you can solve your mystery, and I can get back to my regularly scheduled day.”
She didn’t wait for him to agree. Instead, she marched through the delectable scents of garlic and fresh-baked bread, making a beeline for the host stand. It was manned by Emma Vulkov, Franklin’s third daughter. Emma had short red hair and no tolerance for nonsense. Like her youngest sister, Eva, she too was newly married and pregnant. Unlike Eva, she was dressed in stylish leather leggings and a cowl neck sweater that matched the green of her eyes.
“Hey, Emma. What are you doing here? Don’t you have another restaurant to run?” Sammy asked. Emma was a West Coast transplant brought in by Jax Pierce to manage John Pierce Brews.
Emma grinned at her, and Sammy noticed her gaze travel to Ryan. “Oh, you know restaurants. It’s my day off at the brewery, but the hostess called in sick and Niko’s in New York for a photoshoot. Plus, Dad promised me a free lunch, so here I am. Table for two?”
“Actually, we’re looking for Rainbow,” Sammy told her. Her stomach growled, complaining that she wasn’t prioritizing chicken parm over getting rid of Ryan.
Emma gave a toss of her coppery blunt bob and glanced around the dining room. “You know what? I think you just missed her. She was here with her women’s entrepreneur group, but she headed out just a few minutes ago.”
“What? Why? Where is she? Where did she go?” Sammy demanded.
Emma’s eyes widened, and Sammy dialed it back a notch. “Uh. I don’t know. She didn’t say. Is it an emergency?”
“Yes,” Sammy said.
“No,” Ryan said at the same time. “We’ll take that table for two.”
Emma smiled up at him. “You must be the famous Ryan.”
Sammy decided her next project would be to take that gossip group and infect it with a virus that would prevent anyone in it from ever typing her name again.
“I am,” Ryan said. “I’d shake your hand, but you don’t want to know what happened at our last stop.”
Emma laughed and picked up two menus. “Knowing Sammy, I can only imagine. Follow me. A spot in front of the fireplace just opened up.”
Sammy frowned at the Reserved sign Emma plucked off a cozy table directly in front of the stone hearth. Wood snapped and crackled comfortingly as orange flames warmed the space. A half-wall lined with plants and wine bottles created a kind of separation from the rest of the tables. It was prime dining room real estate for a romantic, intimate meal. Lucky her.
“Is there another table available?” she asked, hoping for something noisy near the door for a quick escape.
“Don’t listen to her. This is perfect,” Ryan said firmly as he warmed his hands near the fireplace.
“It was a canceled reservation,” Emma explained. “Make yourselves comfortable and consider the stuffed mushroom caps. They’re incredible.” She left them to an awkward silence.
“I’m going to go wash my hands,” Sammy announced and headed to the restroom.
She took her time, washing her hands until they were red, then stripping off her hat and fluffing her hair. Not that it mattered what her hair looked like. Her lunch date wasn’t interested. Besides, the hat was just going to go right back on.
When she returned to the table, she found Ryan deep in discussion with Franklin Merrill, the huggable owner. He was a burly man in his sixties with broad shoulders and a squishy center. In deference to the holidays, the man had traded in his trademark Hawaiian shirts for ugly Christmas sweaters.
“So you’re saying I’d be better off depreciating the new pizza oven with a one hundred fifty or two hundred percent method than the straight line?” Franklin asked.
“Restaurant equipment like ovens lose more value faster. So it makes more sense to depreciate it that way,” Ryan said. His gaze flicked to Sammy.
“Dr. Sammy!” Franklin said. He dropped the basket of bread and butter he was holding on the table and enveloped her in a warm hug. He was a champion hugger, Sammy thought as she squeezed him back.
“How’s Mr. Snuffles?” she asked, referencing Franklin and Phoebe’s adopted sinus-infection-prone pug.
“A disaster as always,” Franklin announced, pulling her chair out for her. “I’m just kidding. That last sinus infection cleared up right away. The grandkids have been teaching him some tricks, but he only lasts ten minutes or so before he needs to recover with a two-hour nap. What are you two up to?”
“We’ve been tracking Rainbow Berkowicz,” Sammy said, pouncing on the basket of bread. Breakfast had been approximately one hundred years ago, and the one thing guaranteed to soothe her wounded pride was delicious carbs.
“You just missed her,” Franklin said. He paused to wave at a table of knitters sitting in the window, downing espressos and cannoli with abandon. “But she’ll be at the ribbon-cutting this afternoon for Mason Smith’s office.”
Sammy stuffed a slice of bread in her mouth and closed her eyes. A few measly hours. She could deal with Ryan for that amount of time… if she had bread and chicken parm—maybe she’d do the lunch entree instead of the sandwich since they were dining in. That thought cheered her.
“I’d better get back in the kitchen,” Franklin said. “Fennel and Orion are fighting over preschool options.”
“Wait a minute. Did I miss some big adoption news?” Sammy asked.
“No. They’re just being proactive,” Franklin said with a wink. “Enjoy your lunches.”
“Back to your offer,” Ryan said, the second the man was out of earshot.
Sammy groaned inwardly. “Are you still thinking about that? Forget it. Let’s not waste any more time on that topic.” She was going to do her best to forget she’d ever been stupid enough to make the offer.
“Hello, and welcome to Villa Harvest. Are we trying the mushroom caps today?” Fennel, the server, clutched his notepad to his chest with brave dignity while casting glares at his chef husband in the open kitchen.
For his part, Orion banged the pots and pans on the stove around with excessive force. Sammy sympathized.
They placed their orders as Fennel’s lower lip trembled then handed the menus over.
“You’re pissed at me because I turned you down,” Ryan said, the second Fennel disappeared through the kitchen doorway.
“Ryan, for the love of fresh-baked bread. Let’s stop talking about it. I offered, and you declined,” she said, picking up a second slice of bread and slathering it with butter. She had a very specific routine at Villa Harvest. First, she always arrived too hungry. Which then required her to eat too much bread before her meal came. Which in turn forced her to box up half her entree so she could eat the leftovers later. It was a flawless system.
“Things don’t get resolved by pretending they never happened,” he said loudly over the yelling—some in Portuguese—coming from the kitchen. The pot banging grew louder.
She slapped Ryan’s hand away from the butter. He could stomp on her self-esteem, but that didn’t mean she had to surrender her butter. “There’s nothing to resolve. And even if there were, you’re leaving, so it doesn’t matter.”
His eyes narrowed as he studied her. “I don’t like leaving problems unsolved.”
“You didn’t say anything I wasn’t expecting. Let’s leave it alone.”
“Fine,” he said, snatching the butter away from her and slathering it on a fluffy piece of rosemary and olive oil bread.
The yelling in the kitchen stopped.
She swallowed the huge bite of bread along with her own anger.
“Your appetizer is here,” Fennel sang, dropping a mustard yellow platter of mushroom caps in front of them. With a flourish, he placed two small green plates on the table, blew them a kiss, and vanished.
“I guess they made up,” Ryan observed. “Like adults.”
“I guess so,” she said, too busy diving for the mushrooms to rise to the bait.
Like a sneak, he waited until she’d shoveled her half of the appetizer onto her plate.
“Mmm,” she moaned around a mouthful of butter and garlic.
“All I’m saying is I take sex very seriously,” he said. “Decisions that I take seriously require time and consideration.”
“For Pete’s sake, man. Shut up,” she said. She lunged across the table and shoved an entire mushroom cap into his mouth. “You’re not interested. I get it. Let it go.”
He opened his mouth like he was going to argue but was interrupted by a figure dressed all in black popping up over the other side of the half-wall.
“Holy shit,” Ryan choked, chewing rapidly.
“Sammy! I hope you’re saving me a wreath with naughty Santas,” Mrs. Nordemann announced with a flourish of her faux fur cape.
“Where did you come from? A trap door?” Ryan asked, peering over the wall.
Their visitor chuckled. “You must be Ryan. I’ve heard so much about your dry wit.”
“From who?” Sammy and Ryan said together. He gave her a good glare, and she shrugged back.
“You two are a hoot! I’ll leave you to your date,” she sang.
“Not a date,” he said.
“Definitely not a date,” Sammy agreed.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ryan demanded.
Mrs. Nordemann reached into her cape pocket and fished out her phone. She plunked her reading glasses down on her nose and peered at the screen. “I’ll just… ah, yes. There it is.” She pointed it at them, and Sammy heard the distinct sound of a camera shutter.
“Did you just take a picture of us?” Ryan a
sked.
“Don’t be silly,” the woman trilled, still frowning at her screen. Her thumbs moved at a snail pace.
Sammy checked her watch. It took almost a full minute before Mrs. Nordemann hit the last keystroke and triumphantly returned the phone to her pocket. “Well, I’m sure I’ll be seeing more of you two.”
“Why is everyone so interested in us?” Ryan asked.
She shook her head. “It’s a small-town thing. Don’t worry about it. As long as a goth princess doesn’t show up next, we’re fine.” There was no way the Beautification Committee was involved in Ryan losing his job, flying across the country, and finding himself in need of a ride. They were sneaky, but more Pink Panther than James Bond when it came to efficiency.
“You mean that goth princess or a different one?” Ryan pointed behind her.
“Damn it,” she hissed as she spotted Mason helping Ellery shrug into her floor-length ebony trench coat. “Don’t make eye contact.”
“Too late,” he said around a bite of mushroom cap.
“Sammy! Ryan! I didn’t know you’d be here for lunch,” Ellery said cheerfully. Her face looked even paler with the glossy purple lipstick and thick charcoal eyeshadow. She wore a black turtleneck and over it a tiered necklace made up of dozens of tiny daggers.
“Hi, Ellery. Hey, Mason,” Sammy said wearily. “Have you two met Ryan?”
“We were in the same aisle at the liquor store last night,” Mason said.
“I snuck Masey away for lunch before the big event this afternoon,” Ellery said, linking her arm through her husband’s.
Mason Smith was a khaki-starching, number-crunching, risk-avoiding man in his mid-thirties. He’d been brought to Blue Moon under false pretenses constructed by the Beautification Committee and somehow managed to fall head over heels in love with the gothic paralegal. They married on Halloween in the midst of an astrological apocalypse.
“My hubby’s an accountant,” Ellery told Ryan. “The grand opening of his firm is happening today.”
