“Just make sure you pay me back tomorrow and try not to torment Sage so much anymore.”
I heaved out an annoyed breath. “I see I’m on my own with this. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to figure out how to turn on my oven and bake.”
“Hold up, hold up. You’re baking?”
“Ask Molly. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I shoved the phone in my pocket and reached into the car to grab the bag of cookies.
I could totally bake cookies. How hard could it possibly be?
***********
Chapter 3
Kennedy
“I talked to Molly and Sage.”
I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and pressed the phone to my ear. “Who is this?” I grunted.
“Karlton, your fairy godmother. Oh, and I’ve also thought about what I want my payment to be for hooking you up with Mr. Perfect,” he chattered.
I threw my arm over my face and collapsed back into my pillow. “I don’t even know what time it is, and my brain is barely registering what you are talking about.”
“It’s eight fifteen, and you need to wake up. We have things to do.”
“You are supposed to be doing all of the work. I’m just supposed to tell you when and where to send him.” It was way too early to be dealing with Karlton. I normally needed four cups of coffee and peace and quiet to wake up fully.
“Don’t you want to know what I want in return for doing this for you?” he asked coyly.
He probably wanted me to name my first born after him. Karlton or Karlette. “Karlette is not happening.”
He scoffed. “This is way more than naming your firstborn after me. Matchmake Pump.”
“Now you’re speaking gibberish.”
“Louis’, baby. This is going to cost you a pair of Matchmake Pumps. I figured the name was only fitting for what I’m doing,” he replied smugly.
“I’m not buying you a pair of thousand-dollar shoes for doing something that I didn’t ask you to do.” Buying expensive shoes was never something that excited me the way it did my mother or Karlton. I was more into comfort than style.
“That’s good since they’re only eight hundred and some change,” he bragged as if he had found the deal of the century.
“I’m ignoring your request.” He was crazy. Did he know how many pairs of yoga pants I could buy for eight hundred dollars? “I think we need to go over the difference between wants and needs with you.”
“Whatever. Just meet me at Sudz at ten. There are some things we need to go over, and then we need to go shopping.”
Ugh. Shopping was one of the things I hated. Vivian always dragged me along whenever she felt the need to clean out her closet and fill it with the latest fashions. Sitting in fitting rooms for hours on end while she tried on everything in the store was how I spent a good chunk of my childhood. “I’ll be there at ten, but I’ll skip out on the shopping.” I shuddered at the thought of even trying on a pair of pants. Buy online was the ideal way to shop for me.
“It’s not an option,” he sang. He disconnected the call before I could protest anymore, and I dropped the phone on the bed.
“Fairy godmother Karlton,” I sighed.
What could we possibly need to go shopping for, and more importantly, what else did he have to tell me about?
This idea of his was ballooning into something I wasn’t sure I wanted.
**********
Dante
“There’s the cookie bandit.”
Molly was sitting in Kellan’s lap behind the front desk of Powerhouse with a smirk on her face.
I pointed a finger at her as I walked by. “You charge an outrageous amount for your cookies.”
“Only if your name is Dante,” she giggled.
“How did it go last night with the oven, Betty Crocker?” Kellan asked.
I dropped my duffel bag next to the mat and collapsed into one of the folding chairs that the parents sat in. “I turned on the oven, and then I realized I don’t have anything to cook on.” You could imagine my disappointment when I opened all of my cupboards searching for anything to put the damn cookies on, only to come up empty-handed.”
“You could have used tin foil,” Molly suggested.
“I have never bought tin foil in my life,” I confessed.
Molly’s jaw dropped. “I’m seriously concerned for your well-being. How have you never baked or bought tin foil? You’ve never baked a pizza before?”
“Why bake them when you can just order them? Most pizza places are open ‘til eleven, so I’m good to go when it comes to that.” The delivery guy and I were on a first name basis.
“So, what are you going to do with the cookies you stole yesterday?” she asked.
“I plan on buying one of those pan thingies after class tonight.” I had also eaten three of the cookies raw. You couldn’t beat raw cookie dough.
“You mean a cookie sheet?” Molly asked slowly. “Have you ever even been down the baking supply aisle in a store?”
No. Not at all, but I had shocked Molly enough for the day.
“Of course, who hasn’t? That’s where they sell microwaves, right?”
She eyed me warily. “You scare me.” She hopped off of Kellan’s lap, pressed a quick kiss to his lips, and walked around the desk. “I gotta get back. Sage has off today, so you’re safe to come and get cookies later,” she noted with a smirk.
My stomach growled at the thought of warm cookies. “Let me get changed, and then I’ll be over.”
“You really need to stop encouraging him, Cookie,” Kellan chuckled.
“I can’t turn away good money. Ever since you guys started coming to the café, my sales have tripled for baked goods.” She threw a wink at Kellan and pushed open the door.
Kellan and I laughed. That wasn’t hard to believe.
“See you later,” Molly called as the door shut behind her.
Kellan spun around in his chair and folded his arms over his head. “You’re early.”
“I figured you would be here. I could use you as a punching bag for an hour or so.”
“Pretty sure we’ve got four brand new punching bags on the side there that you can use instead of my head.”
A grin spreads across my lips. “Using your head is much more fun.” A moving target was harder to hit than a stationary one, so it was more of a challenge.
“You see the flyer for the Amex Open?”
“You mean the one you stuck in my bag and on the windshield of my car?” I didn’t know exactly what Kellan was trying to get across by shoving them in my face.
“Roman is competing.”
“Yeah,” I drawled.
Kellan dropped his feet to the floor and stopped spinning. “And I think it would be good if he takes one of us with him.”
I sat back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest. “I see. So, since you and Tate are being dragged around by your balls, that leaves me to go with him to Lansing.”
Kellan shrugged and nodded. “It seems most logical for you to go. Besides, since you’ve been training pretty hard, I figured you could compete too.”
“The Amex is in less than two months. I should have been training a hell of a lot harder if I’m going to compete.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, if you think you can’t go hard enough to compete, then you can be there to cheer on Roman.”
“I’m not some fucking cheerleader,” I snarled.
Kellan stood up. “Then I guess you better put your sparring gear on instead of a fucking skirt, sally.”
I stood up and snatched my duffel bag from the ground. “Now I’m really going to beat the shit out of you.”
“Bring it, fucker,” Kellan taunted.
I slung my bag over my shoulder and strutted into the bathroom.
I was going to fuck him up.
**********
Chapter 4
Kennedy
“Get in the car, or I will get one of those ninja hotties to pick you u
p and put you in the car.”
I scoffed and ducked into Karlton’s car. “You know, that really wasn’t a threatening threat, right? By the time it would have taken you to run over to Powerhouse, I could have been in my own car back to my house.”
He shifted the car into drive and pulled out of the parking lot. “I see you drank an extra cup of sass this morning.”
“If you mean coffee, then yes.” Functioning before nine o’clock with no coffee was not physically possible for me. Especially during the weekends when I had sunrise classes. It was a miracle Friday through Sunday when I managed to stay awake during meditation.
“Since you ignored my summons to be to the laundromat at ten, you’re going to have to get the condensed version of what I’ve been up to the past eighteen hours.”
I rolled my eyes and snapped on my seat belt. One needed to be on their game when driving with Karlton and get buckled quickly. I was risking my life by not buckling before he pulled out of the parking lot. “I’m. So. Excited.” Driving with Karlton was a once in a lifetime experience. I say once in a lifetime because each time you drove with him, your life flashed before your eyes.
“So, I talked to Sage and Molly. It was only for like a minute, but they both agreed to be my wing women.”
“Did they know what they agreed to?”
He glanced at me and smirked. “Mostly. I mentioned I was tasked with finding you a man that your mom would approve of.”
“I have a question.”
“You may ask, but I don’t have to give you an answer.”
“Why are we going shopping?”
Karlton flipped on his blinker and took a right turn on two wheels. At least, it felt like it was on two wheels. “Because in order for your mother to get off your back, we also need to change how you look.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?” he squawked.
“I mean no. I’m not changing who I am, Karlton. I tried to fit into my mother’s mold my whole life, and it never worked. Focus on finding me a man to fool my mother with.”
“Then what in the hell are we going to do at the mall?”
I sighed and propped my feet up on the dash. “We can still go to the mall. I can check out the yoga pants and sneakers.”
“You said you just bought yoga pants the other day.”
I turned my head and gave him a stern look. “Are you trying to tell me that I have enough yoga pants?”
He held up his hands, and the car veered to the right. My hand shot out and grabbed the steering wheel, trying to save us from hitting the car in the other lane. Karlton turned in his seat to look at me. “I would never tell you that you have enough clothes,” he said sincerely. “Cross my heart.”
“Good, great,” I grimaced. “Now, do you think you can put your hands back on the wheel?” With me leaning across the center console trying to keep the car between the lines, I’m sure anyone behind us thought I was giving Karlton a blow job.
“Kennedy, I really think that we should at least try to get you a sensible pantsuit to wear the next time you go to your mom’s.” He completely ignored my request and put his arm over the back of my seat. “A good pantsuit can take you places.”
“What? Are you insane?” Pantsuits were not more important than having two hands on the wheel. Ever. “Yes, yes. I’ll buy two if it makes you put your damn hands back on the wheel.”
Karlton grinned smugly and put both hands firmly on the wheel, but his head was still turned toward me. “You are so easy,” he muttered.
I sat back in my seat and sighed. “If by easy you mean I value my life, then yes, I am easy.” He finally turned his eyes back to the road, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
My fingers gripped the armrest on the door, and I closed my eyes. He took another corner, and the car jumped as he hit the curb. “How do you still have a license?” I grimaced.
“How I persuade officers to see things my way is not what we need to concentrate on right now. I need to know what your type is. I’m assuming you have more requirements than standing and breathing.”
“I don’t have a type.” At least, I didn’t think that I did. In my small dating experience, I had always been with guys different from the last. Tall, short, muscular, a little round in the middle, and whatever in between. “Standing and breathing is a good place to start.”
Karlton sighed and veered into the mall parking lot. “Well, I guess I’m the one who is going to have standards in all of this.”
I had standards. I just didn’t think Karlton’s plan was really going to sprout out the man of my dreams. “I thought this was just supposed to be a decoy guy to get my mom off of my back? Now you are talking like we’re on a man hunt to drag one down the aisle.”
He pulled into a parking spot and slammed the car into park. It was really a miracle that his car even started after the way he drove it. “There ain’t no reason why we can’t kill two birds with one stone.”
I tilted my head and squinted. “Huh?”
Karlton shook his head and grabbed his man purse out of the back seat. “Why can’t he be a decoy to your mom and keep you warm at night? The best of both worlds, honey.”
I threw open my door and slammed it shut behind me. “Well, why don’t we focus on the decoy world and leave the happily ever after world in the rearview mirror, okay?”
He hitched his man purse over his shoulder and strutted around the front of the car over to me. “Honey, I think there is one thing you and I need to get straight.” He put his arm around my shoulders and propelled us toward the front entrance. “You need a man. And not some guy you can bowl over and step on.”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Karlton hadn’t closed his door. It was a miracle the man didn’t get his car stolen. At least a handful of times, I had discovered his car door open when I wandered over to the laundromat. “Fine by me, but you might want to close your door. We’re not at the strip mall anymore.”
He dropped his arm from my shoulders and jogged back to the car while mumbling under his breath about automatic doors and how he wasn’t made for the door-closing life. “I’ve just decided we are going to find you a rich decoy to be your happily ever after and then you can adopt me and I can live in the pool house in the back of your grand mansion in the Keys.” He threaded his arm through mine and resumed pulling me toward the mall. “We will need to stock up on sunscreen because I have a rather delicate disposition, in case you haven’t noticed. One can never put too much sunscreen on.”
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “Anyone ever tell you that you have a rather vivid imagination?” I had lived the rich life; I wasn’t interested in going back, even if it meant Karlton would live in my pool house. “I think you’ve watched way too many movies that made pool houses seem way cooler than they actually are.”
He scoffed. “Puh-leez. Everyone knows the friend of the richie always lives in the pool house until he finds his own money pony to ride off into the sunset with.”
“You are talking a language I don’t understand. Richie? Money pony?” Karlton either hit his head this morning or had gotten into some wacky shit.
He inhaled deeply as we walked through the front doors into the food court. “Lord have mercy, we are going to have to make a detour over to China King before we leave.” He cupped his hand to his ear and leaned towards the left. “I can hear those yummy little crab rangoons calling my name.”
Karlton had definitely gotten into some wacky shit. “Yoga pants, and then China King.”
“Oh no,” he sassed. “You promised me a pantsuit. If I remember correctly, I’m pretty sure you promised two.”
I rolled my eyes and let him lead me through the mall. If only my self-preservation instincts weren’t so strong, I could have let him kill me on the drive over and wouldn’t be on my way for pantsuit-related torture right now.
The large letters of Macy’s came into view, and I could feel Karlton’s excitement rolling off of him. “Lord
have mercy, this is going to be so much fun.” He clapped his hands together like a happy seal and skipped ahead of me.
I didn’t want to be a Debbie Downer and burst his bubble, but he was going to have to wrestle me into that pantsuit.
Kennedy Kramer and pantsuits were not going to happen. Especially not to please my mother.
“Jeans and a nice shirt, Karlton,” I called. I was totally reneging on my promise. If it came down to it, I could always take the bus or call an Uber to take me home.
He spun around on his heel and pointed at me. Lord have mercy, this man was a drama queen. “Pantsuit and that’s it!” he demanded.
“I’m not eighty years old, Karlton. Who the hell wears a pantsuit anymore?”
“The outfit I’m picturing is something you would never catch your grandma wearing,” he smirked.
He waltzed into the store, and I meekly followed behind him.
Now, I was scared.
**********
Chapter 5
Dante
“You’re going to compete.”
“Who?”
“You.”
I grabbed my gloves off the floor and shoved them in my bag. “I’m not ready to fight.”
Kellan laughed. “Bullshit. You could kick the ass of any of those guys on the circuit.”
“He couldn’t beat me,” Roman called. He was sprawled out on his back, his arms straight in the air, spinning his bo.
Tate walked out of the bathroom and grabbed his kamas off the chair by the mats. “Maybe if he competed in weapons, but I’m pretty sure he’d wipe the mat with you, Roman.”
“That’s bullshit. I could totally beat him if I trained for it. I was damn good when I was an underbelt.”
“Dude, that was over ten years ago,” Kellan laughed.
Roman scoffed. “Yeah, well, I couldn’t help it that I was amazing with my bo and focused on that. Hell, if I would have focused on sparring, then Dante would have always been second.”
Black Belt in Love (Powerhouse MA Book 3) Page 2
