Best Served Cold

by Emma Hart

  “Yeah, well, you never had all the equipment anyway.” She sniffed.

  Sam snorted.

  “Hey!” I tickled her side, and she escaped my arms.

  “I’m kidding!” She grinned, and the brightness in her brown eyes made me smile, too. “I’m happy for you both. I think it’s a great idea.”

  “And, as a side bonus, technically speaking, you put him out of business,” Sam added. “So you got your revenge in the end.”

  Rae blushed. “Right. This was the revenge I was going for.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “I knew she wanted to crush me. This will be nowhere near satisfying enough for her. She wanted to watch me burn.”

  She laughed, meeting my eyes. “That’s a little dramatic.”

  “But one hundred percent true,” Sam added, peering into the freezer. “You got any chocolate chip in here?”

  “Yes, but I also have ice cream freezing in there, so get out.” Rae swatted at his arm. “I’ll bring it home for you tonight.”

  Sam smacked a kiss on her cheek. “You’re my favorite granddaughter.”

  “I’m your only granddaughter,” she replied dryly.

  I hid a laugh behind my hand as he scooted out of the kitchen with a cackle.

  She turned to me. “You’re really going into business together?”

  I nodded. “Really really. So, you win. You put me out of the ice cream business.”

  “It doesn’t count if you choose to leave it.” She walked to me and flattened her hands on my chest. “Besides, I don’t want revenge anymore.”

  “Well,” I said, running my hands down her back and over her ass. “It counts if you’re the reason I’m choosing to leave it.”

  She tilted her head to the side.

  “Still don’t want revenge?”

  “Eh,” she said. “Kinda, but I think I’ll pass on this being it. I want to keep you on your toes.”

  “You do?”

  “Well, yeah. Revenge is a dish best served cold. This isn’t exactly cold, is it? You warm it up a little when you choose to help me get it on you.”

  I groaned. “Oh no.”

  She grinned, the kind of grin that made her eyes shine brightly. “Oh yes.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX – RAELYNN

  I collapsed against the counter.

  I did it.

  I’d survived day one. And not only had I survived reopening day, but they’d cleaned out my unicorn ice cream, and I’d had to call Mom in to make some around lunchtime because I’d seen it coming.

  I couldn’t run out of ice cream on my second day.

  Even Chase had been cleaning tables and doing dishes for me. When Marnie had come in with her friends this afternoon, I’d just about hired her on the spot and begged her to start the next day. She’d agreed all too enthusiastically, and to say thanks, she and her friends had spent ten minutes buying ice cream just to Instagram it.

  I still had ice cream to make, and it would be a long few weeks until I was able to stockpile properly, but I was thankful.

  I was so glad for everything that had happened.

  We’d finished the renovations on time. We’d managed to paint and prime and put everything where it’d needed to be. Mom had been a lifesaver with painting the tables, and we’d even been able to add the protective layer it needed for easy cleaning without ruining the paint.

  I had no idea how we’d done it. I had no idea how we’d managed to cope with the onslaught of people who’d come in to not only see Best Served Cold’s new look but just for the unicorn ice cream.

  Apparently, Sophie’s insistence on using social media to market had worked. Marnie had already sent me photos I could upload to my account, and I was sure as hell making her the girl in charge of taking photos.

  I’d tried. I’d also failed.

  “Hey.” Chase came up behind me, wrapping his arm around me. “You good?”

  “I’m exhausted,” I admitted, standing up and falling into him. “I think I made more sundaes today than I have in weeks.”

  He circled my body with his arms and held me tight. “I’m not surprised. It was insane in here.”

  “I think I have blisters on my hands from holding the scoop.”

  “Yeah? Is that why you’re grinning?”

  I buried my face in his chest, because yes, I was grinning. And I swore I had blisters. They hurt so bad, but in a weirdly good way. They were the marks of a wonderfully busy day. I knew the days wouldn’t always be like this, so even though I felt as though I was dead on my feet and totally shattered, I was happy, too.

  “You wanna get something to eat before you make the ice cream?” Chase asked, looking down at me. “You didn’t get lunch, and you were too nervous to eat breakfast.”

  “I don’t know. I’m—”

  “If you tell me you’re too tired to eat anything, I’m going to drag you and make you eat.”

  I sighed and rested my cheek against him. “Okay, I’ll eat. Pizza?”

  “Whatever you want, babe.” He kissed the top of my head. “I’ll go grab some and bring it back.”

  I nodded and smiled sleepily. He left, and I headed back to the kitchen to make a start. It was sparkling clean, and my lips curved as I looked around.

  For a guy who’d nearly accidentally ruined my business, he wasn’t all that bad.

  I took a deep breath and started making the next batch of ice cream. I went through the motions on auto-pilot. Making the fairytale ice creams was now so natural to me that I could probably do it with my eyes closed.

  I was almost done with it by the time Chase got back with the pizza. My stomach rumbled the second he stepped through the door. The rich smell of the food reminded me that I was, in fact, hungry.

  It was easy to forget to eat when you were so busy.

  “Rae? Are you done?” He walked into the kitchen as I was pouring the ingredients for the mermaid ice cream into their containers. “That’s a no.” He set the boxes on the counter and came over. “Let’s do this together.”

  “You sure?”

  “Are you going to sit and eat right now?”

  “Well, no. I have to get them done and in the freezer.” I shrugged, reaching for the skewer to mix the colors together.

  Chase grabbed one of his own. “You pour, I’ll mix.”

  I slid a tub over to him. “Do it thoroughly.”

  “Yes, boss.” He smirked and got to work.

  I watched him for a second before putting together the rest of the tubs. We worked in silence, both of us mixing the colored mixtures together. Within ten minutes, we were done, and I put the lids on each tub and put them away.

  We took the pizza back through to the store and sat down.

  “This stupid skirt is itchy,” I muttered, grabbing a piece of pizza.

  “Your grandma did tell you the tutu would annoy you after a while.”

  “It’s not a tutu; it’s a tulle skirt.”

  “How is that different?”

  “One is for a ballerina, and do you see me doing a fucking pirouette?”

  He laughed. “No, but I think I’d like to. Just for my own amusement when you inevitably fall over.”

  I stuck my finger up at him because I had a mouthful full of food. It only made him laugh more, but I didn’t care, because I was so hungry, all I wanted to do was maul my way through this entire pizza by myself.

  So that was what I did.

  Finally full, we both shut our boxes and folded them in two so they’d fit in the trash can outside. While Chase took them out, I proceeded to clean up the kitchen to get rid of the mess I’d made from the final batch of ice cream.

  With that done, I changed from the skirt into a pair of shorts in the bathroom. In hindsight, I probably should have done that two hours ago when the store closed, but I hadn’t thought about it at all.

  “Ready?” Chase asked.

  I nodded. “Where are we going?”

  He pursed his lips in thought. “We can either go to m
y place or we can go to the beach. It’s not too hot out there now.”

  I considered the options for a second before saying, “Beach. Let’s go.”

  ***

  He was right. It wasn’t too hot. It was hot enough that you knew it was Florida in the summer, but not so hot that you wanted to claw your eyeballs out of your head.

  Which happened unfortunately often.

  We dropped down onto our spot. The one where we’d had our first date and the one where he’d told me he was still in love with me. It was weird—I hadn’t been to this spot unless I was with him. The emotional attachment you could form to a place baffled me.

  Chase leaned back on his hands, but I used my purse as a pillow and laid down flat. He chuckled, shifting back up the sand so he could look down at me to talk.

  “That tired, huh?”

  I nodded. “But if I go to sleep now, I’ll wake up stupidly early tomorrow, and the circle will repeat itself.”

  “Yep. I think you’re going to have an insane few weeks.”

  “Thanks. That makes me feel like I should buy stock in Red Bull for all the cans I’m going to buy.” I sighed. “At least Marnie will be there to help tomorrow, even if she just rings up orders and cleans tables.”

  “I can help you for a bit, you know.”

  “How? It’s not like I can pay you, and you need to get started on your store.” It was all I’d heard all day yesterday was how excited he and Grandpa were to turn the store into something amazing and different to anything they’d seen in the area.

  “Yeah, sure,” Chase said, looking out at the water. “But it’s not that simple. I think he’s trying to see if he can buy the space from my landlord before anything happens. There’s stuff I think he wants to do that he needs permission for.”

  “I’m shocked,” I muttered. “Do you think your landlord will sell?”

  “I’m not sure. I think he’s open to it. He did half-ass offer it to me, but I wasn’t in any position to buy it.” He paused. “And I didn’t want to buy it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you were only supposed to be there a couple months.” I reached over and nudged him. “You and your stupid ideas.”

  He laughed, lying down with me but rolling onto his side. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Only if you’re not proposing.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Reassuring. Carry on.”

  His eyes twinkled, then darkened. “Are you still mad that I took your ideas?”

  “No.”

  Chase raised his eyebrows. “You’re not?”

  “Nope.” I rolled onto my side too and picked at a bit of grass that was coming through the sand. “Look—I can be mad at you for that, but it doesn’t achieve anything. You’re not Dr. Who. You can’t go back in time and change what you did. Although that would be a handy skill to have.”

  “I wholeheartedly agree. We’d both change things, I think.”

  “We would.” I let my lips tug into a small smile. “I think it was a good thing in the end. Grandma told me that I needed to make the store my own. The original ideas were something I thought I wanted, but the more I look at the store now, the more I see that it’s me. My personality shines through in it a lot more.”

  “I don’t know. There’s not a whole lot of sharp teeth. It’s pretty deceiving.”

  I smacked his arm, laughing. “You shut it. I’m still shocked at how it turned out.”

  “I’m shocked you did it and didn’t hurt yourself again,” he teased with a big smile. “It was looking like it’d happen at one point.”

  I poked my tongue out at him. “It wasn’t all me, you know.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll still be apologizing for the toe thing in ten years.” He shook his head. “Women. Never let anything lie.”

  “Except sleeping babies.”

  “Always a good choice.”

  I laughed and looked out at the water. “Do you think we’ll still be together in ten years?”

  “Only if we don’t kill each other,” he replied, laughing too. “I do. I mean, if we can make it work after the last two years, don’t you think we can do it longer?”

  “It’s only been like four days since I actively made a choice to stop hating your peachy little butt,” I reminded him. “So that’s quite cocky.”

  “I know.” He reached over and pushed me onto my back, leaning over me. “But I know we will be.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Because,” he whispered, pushing a stray bit of hair from my face. “Rae, you’re my penguin.”

  And penguins mate for life.

  I smiled, reaching my hand up to touch the side of his face. His skin was warm and soft—his stubble dark and rough, tickling the inside of my palm.

  Our eyes met.

  “You know what? I’m pretty sure you’re my penguin, too, Chase.”

  EPILOGUE – RAELYNN

  ONE YEAR LATER

  I was a genius.

  I didn’t want to hear anyone tell me anything different.

  For three months I’d been plotting the revenge I never got to have, and I knew I’d nailed it.

  No, it wasn’t a prank. It wasn’t a whoopie cushion or anything else amusing like that—it was the one thing we’d argued about ever since me and Chase had decided to live together.

  A pet.

  He’d refused while we were in his apartment, but after a crazy summer of success at Best Served Cold, plus him opening up Fortune & Aarons with my grandpa, we’d had enough money to rent a house instead of an apartment.

  Which meant we had room for a kitten.

  The very animal he claimed he was petrified of.

  Which, of course, was horseshit. Who the fuck was scared of kittens?

  I knew that in twenty-four hours, the tiny black and white kitten in the little cardboard box in my hands would have him eating out of her teeny tiny paws.

  Because he was a big old freaking softie.

  He had to be to handle me. I wasn’t exactly a softie myself.

  Case in point: for his birthday, I’d adopted him an otter at a zoo as a joke, and I swear, it was his favorite present.

  It was also one of the hottest things about him, but I digress.

  I still owed him revenge, and this was going to be it.

  Well, it’d look like it. Really, it was me winning, because I wanted a kitten more than anything, and after Sophie’s sister’s cat got knocked up, I’d demanded one before the little mites were even born.

  At that point, I’d just been a drama queen and thus had begun my begging to Chase for one.

  I don’t know why he never thought I’d get one. It was a small price to pay for having the spare bedroom filled with extra birdhouses.

  Apparently, tourists liked birdhouses, especially when my mom was done painting them.

  Yep. She’d stayed. The divorce was almost final, and while Dad and I had talked a few times, that was one relationship I didn’t think I’d be able to fix. He was happy with his new life in Michigan with his much younger girlfriend.

  I was just glad Mom had made him have the snip years ago.

  So Mom had gone into business with Grandpa and Chase. Some of the houses went into the store to be sold either as they were or the buyer could pick the paint, and the rest went straight to her. My old bedroom was now her art studio, and she had any number of houses in various stages of paint.

  It was something that worked for everyone.

  And Grandma now had both paint and sawdust to complain about, but the store got Grandpa out of the house at least twice a week, so she wasn’t complaining about it quite as much anymore.

  Mostly.

  I pushed open the front door. “Chase?”

  He appeared on the stairs, totally naked save for a small black towel wrapped around his waist. Water dripped down over his abs, and I had to blink a few times before I could focus.

  “Hello.” He grinned, a lopsided, cocky little one that was stupidly hot. “What’s
in the box?”

  “This,” I said. “Is my revenge.”

  He reached the bottom of the stairs, one eyebrow quirked in amusement. “Your revenge?”

  “Yep. I told it was a dish best served cold, and here it is. Super cold.”

  “Babe, it’s frozen at this point.”

  “Excellent. I’m good at frozen things.” I smirked.

  The kitten let out a tiny noise.

  He stepped back. “Is that box alive?”

  “Yes,” I drawled. “The box is a living, breathing thing. That’s the revenge.”

  “What’s inside it?”

  I grinned.

  “Raelynn.”

  I put the box down on the floor, opened it, and scooped out the tiny, eight-week-old kitten.

  He jerked back with his finger pointed out. “That’s a kitten.”

  “She is. And isn’t she cute?” I snuggled her into my chest. “Look at her. That little white sock and her eye patch. I die.” I made cooey noises as she tried to scramble up onto my shoulder.

  “That’s a kitten.”

  “It is a kitten.”

  “I don’t like kittens.”

  “What isn’t there to like? She’s tiny. She’s cute. She’s soft. She’s basically everything I’m not.”

  He held up a finger. “You’re cute. Mostly.”

  I rolled my eyes and set her back in the box, leaving the top of it open. “Well, I need to use the bathroom and get changed, so can you keep an eye on her for a second? I also need to get her things out of the car.”

  “I—I—”

  I ran upstairs, fighting back a giggle until I shut myself in the bathroom. I didn’t need to go at all, and I had a sneaking suspicion he’d be okay if he just, shock horror, touched her.

  I waited five minutes then went back downstairs. They weren’t in the hallway, and the box was gone, so I poked my head into the living room.

  I clapped my hand over my mouth.

  Chase was sitting on the sofa, still shirtless, with the kitten tucked under his neck.