by Sara Whitney
“I brought up marriage.” She trembled and pressed the heels of her hands against her eye before continuing. “Christine freaked out. I took it badly, and unfortunately that included an unwise rebound decision at the bar at closing time and…”
He couldn’t pull his eyes off her abdomen, which didn’t look any different than the last time he’d seen her. “So, um?” He gestured tentatively.
“Nope.” She brushed a hand over her stomach and shot him a relieved smile. “Despite a broken condom and a period of intense panic, there’s no need for Uncle Erik to report for duty, thank God. But it seemed smart to make the move sooner rather than later. You know how gossipy Liberty Valley is.”
“Sure do.” And if any of those small-minded assholes gave her an instant of trouble, he’d find them and make them wish they hadn’t. Gina’s business was nobody’s but Gina’s. “I can’t believe you stuck around there as long as you did.”
“Oh, you mean after I caused the biggest scandal in town history by bringing Mary Beth Phillips to the prom?” She leaned against the window frame and smugly crossed her arms over her chest.
The memory of fierce-faced Gina in her boxy tuxedo pulled a smile from him. “That, or when you calmly recited anti-discrimination laws in the middle of Main Street Café until they gave you a waitress job.”
“Yeah. I’m pretty badass.” She nonchalantly buffed her blunt nails against the sleeve of her shirt.
Familiar shame moved through his stomach, and he said quietly, “I can’t believe I worked for Dora as long as I did. I’m sorry.”
She lifted one shoulder and let it fall. “Like I told you, what matters is that you quit when you finally realized how bad it was. Do I wish you’d pulled those headphones off sooner and figured out what was up? Sure. Should you have taken a page from my book and recited nondiscriminatory legal statutes out loud until that bitch begged you to stop? Undoubtedly. But you handled it your way. And hey, you’re in a better place now, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said distractedly. “Or I was, anyway.” When was the last time he’d plugged his earbuds in to block out all other distractions? Not for weeks and weeks. Not since he started craving Josie’s voice more than any other sound in the world. Christ, he’d fucked things up.
“So, uh.” Gina interrupted the churn of his thoughts, her round face creased into a frown. “Can I stay here until I figure out a housing solution? Or I can go to a hotel if that would be better. I don’t want to cause a problem with you and Fancy.”
“Josie,” he corrected. “And it’s fine. I’m glad you’re here.” And he meant it, despite it all. Living in the same town as Gina again would be good for both of them.
“Thanks.” She wandered back to the kitchen island and surveyed the remaining cake slices. “So you finally sold the land.”
“I did.” The thought still made his blood pound in his ears, but she just smiled.
“I’m so proud of you. Chase those dreams.” With a smack of her lips, she chose a piece of lemon curd layer cake and settled back into the couch with a grimace. “My God, this is worse than I remembered. I can’t believe a woman wearing designer jeans let you feel her up on this ugly thing.”
“It was actually against the wall,” he admitted before his usual don’t-kiss-and-tell filters kicked in.
Gina’s face lit up with an unasked question, but he silenced her with a look.
“Shut up and eat your cake.”
Sixteen
Hot. Loud. Crowded.
Ordinarily, Josie would consider all three qualities hallmarks of a successful club opening, and she’d be sweaty and happy in the middle of it all on the dance floor. But tonight it was all too much for her. The throbbing bass booming through the packed room rattled her teeth, and she’d given up on getting any bar service an hour ago. Just as well since this was a working Friday for her.
Well, this had been a working Friday anyway. Club Diego was officially open to the public, with all the pretty young things in Chicago decked out, gyrating, and throwing back drinks thanks to Dynamic Marketing’s promotional campaign. Her job for the night was done, and she’d never been more grateful to leave a party.
“Need anything else from me?” She had to shout over the crowd noise.
Diego Vasquez shook his head and blew her a kiss. She returned it with a saucy wink, faking enthusiasm she didn’t feel. Thankfully, the handsy nightclub magnate had been too busy overseeing the launch of his namesake nightspot, the new jewel in his Chicago-area entertainment empire, to sling a heavy arm over her shoulders as he had at every step in the planning stages leading up to tonight. Small mercies.
With one last overly enthusiastic thumbs-up, she slipped out the back entrance, praying to the god of new nightclubs that nothing dire happened to summon her back. Once she hit the sidewalk, her body rejoiced at the slight breeze in the mid-June air. Was she getting too old for the club scene? Surely not. Yet her feet hurt, her eardrums throbbed, and she was dying to get home to free herself from her bra and brew a cup of tea. Granny Ryan, in the hizzy.
She might be achieving senior-citizen status in her nighttime tastes, but the thought of stuffing her overheated body into a train car held no appeal, so she secured her purse across her body and prepared to hoof it home in her going-out shoes.
One block into her trip, she realized her fatal error: she was now alone with her thoughts.
Fucking. Engaged.
No matter how loudly her high heels clicked on the pavement, it wasn’t enough to drown out those two little words.
Erik was fucking engaged.
God, she was an idiot. He’d told her he wasn’t married, and that had been good enough for her. She’d thought it was weird that he knew as much as he did about fancy folded napkins and had chalked it up to his job, but maybe it was because he’d been intimately involved in planning his own nuptials.
She reached the intersection where a cluster of pedestrians waited for the Walk sign to illuminate, but her feet refused to carry her into the middle of that laughing, jostling throng. Instead, she stepped off the curb and jogged through a break in traffic, ignoring a trailing honk from an irate cabbie. If she didn’t keep moving, she might collapse.
How had she blundered into yet another unwinnable romantic situation? Find a guy unlike anybody you’ve ever dated—hell, unlike anybody you’ve ever known. Slowly allow yourself to enjoy the subtle nuances of his humor, his facial expressions, his way of communicating. Run headfirst into the extremely obvious pleasure of his big, strong body and too-good-to-be-true lips. Get stomped on anyway. Har. Joke’s on Josie.
Good thing they’d only been palling around for a month or so and her feelings weren’t engaged. Just her brain and her body and her pheromones and her taste buds and…
Shit.
She’d fished around in her purse, popped in her AirPods, and was searching for her loudest, most thought-drowning-out-est playlist when the phone buzzed in her hand.
“Hey, doll.”
“Richard!” Oh, she was glad to hear his voice, even if he sounded slurry from fatigue and the beeping, squawking, and intercom noises she associated with hospitals were blaring in the background.
“How’s Byron?” she asked, pausing under the awning of a pizza joint that was still swarming with customers despite the late hour. Her mouth watered at the lingering scent of tomato sauce. If only Richard were in town, she’d grab some takeout and divert to his place for a nightcap of deep-dish and wine.
Instead, her friend yawned so loudly she heard his jaw crack. “I’m hiding out in Byron’s bathroom so I don’t wake him up, but he’s doing lots better. Hating physical therapy and missing Chicago.”
“That’s amazing. I’m so glad!” She stepped aside to give a hand-in-hand couple access to the menu affixed to the restaurant wall, and their lovey-dovey smiles were enough to send her on her way again. “Are you still on track to be home before the wedding?” Part of her question was selfish; she missed her friend and wanted h
im back in town ASAP. But mostly she hoped the guys could follow through on the celebration they’d been looking forward to for months.
“Yep. He should be discharged tomorrow, so that gives us two weeks to clean up whatever fires you’ve left burning before the big day.”
“Ha.” The only one she could think of was the dumpster fire she’d ignited with the wedding-cake baker. Not that she wanted to talk about that.
“Hey, what did you do to the wedding-cake baker?”
Her feet stuttered to a stop at Richard’s words. “Why?”
He chuckled softly. “Lordy, don’t you sound guilty. He’s just been texting me directly is all.”
“Oh. Well,” she said, dawdling under a streetlight, “it turns out he’s, um, engaged. Or something. I met his fiancée last weekend.”
“Reeeeeally,” Richard drawled.
“We, uh. We kissed.” Huh. Maybe she wanted to talk about it after all. She ignored Richard’s theatrical gasp and continued. “And then this woman showed up at his door and he told me he was engaged. And then his fiancée told me they weren’t engaged. And then I stormed out. And it’s been six days, and all I’ve gotten is one text from him saying, ‘I’m not engaged. Sorry.’”
Silence reigned on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” she asked. “Did you flatline?”
“Girl. Are you telling me that you kissed Man Bun’s man buns and then ran away, and he texted to tell you he’s single—”
“After telling me he’s not!” she interjected, the irritation propelling her into motion again.
“—and you haven’t called him to sort things out?”
“No! Why would I?”
“Because he’s incredibly attractive? And he bakes? And he’s tidy and polite and thoughtful and spells everything correctly in his texts?”
She scoffed. “Is that how low our standards are?”
Richard scoffed back. “Excuse me, Your Highness, but those are not low standards. Remember a few years ago when we both spent a month crushing on that coffee-cart guy with the bad posture and no eyebrows because he gave us free shots of espresso once?”
“Point taken,” she muttered, slapping the soles of her shoes against the pavement harder than was strictly necessary. “But you’re supposed to be on my side!”
“I am on your side, sugar bum. I want you to have good sex with the god of thunder and bear his large Nordic babies. Is that so much to ask?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that’s what she wanted too, but she shut that down. Nobody was bearing Erik’s big blond babies, least of all her. Instead, she replied, “Just… can you deal directly with him for the rest of the cake planning? And then you and I will never speak of this again.” She was too hurt and embarrassed to be anything remotely resembling professional around Erik’s carefully neutral face.
“Fine. If that’s what you want.” Richard’s voice conveyed an unspoken “you weirdo,” which she was grateful he didn’t actually vocalize.
“It is.” She swallowed. “I miss you.”
“Miss you too. I’ll call you once we’re back home.”
“You’d better,” she said, hanging up as she approached her building.
She climbed the three flights and let herself into her apartment, where she found no Finn but a huge cellophane-wrapped basket of fruit on the kitchen table. She crossed the room and scanned the attached card with a disbelieving laugh. Her mother thought she could make up for the previous weekend’s disappointment with glossy apples and some aggressively suggestive bananas? Hardly.
“‘Sorry we missed each other,’” she read aloud, mimicking her mother’s clipped tones. “‘Have you thought any more about the photography program at the Art Institute?’” With a strangled shriek, she ripped the card in half and tossed the pieces to the floor. “Guess what, Mom. I haven’t, and you’d know that if you’d call me once in a while.”
Great. She was ranting out loud in her kitchen. After a beat, she forced her hands to unclench, stretching her fingers out straight and closing her eyes to breathe out on a slow five count. Once she was centered again, she bent to pick up the mangled card halves and jammed them into the trash. Then she eyeballed the unwanted basket of nature’s candy.
What she really wanted was cake. Erik’s cake. The slightly bruised pears staring back at her from under the shiny plastic wrap were no substitute for a single bite of any of the delicacies she’d fondled in his apartment on Sunday.
She groaned and kicked off her heels. Erik. Fondled. Not words she needed to be thinking about in her current self-pitying mood. After all, she’d been the one who’d attacked him with her mouth last week. Knowing Erik, he’d probably been politely waiting for her to let up so he could tell her he wasn’t interested. She was such an idiot.
An idiot who still had work to do. With a sigh, she trudged to her bedroom and shimmied out of her electric-blue club dress and into sleep shorts and a tank top. She piled her hair on top of her head and plodded back to the kitchen with her laptop, where she settled at the table for the sweet torture of choosing the best shots of Erik for his website. Once she’d finished the setup and gotten it launched alongside his social media accounts, she could wish him good luck and sail out of his life. More importantly, she could do it all over email without needing to actually spend time with him again.
But that Erik-avoidance plan didn’t allow her to escape one last, excruciating task: sorting through dozens of pictures of his annoyingly handsome face to choose the best shots for the website and, as a side effect, reliving the moment the heat of his gaze had driven her to touch him and lose her mind. With a grumble, she ripped a hole in the cellophane and grabbed the first cake substitute her fingers touched.
It was a banana. Of course. She barked a laugh over the on-the-nose absurdity of the situation, then peeled the damn thing and bit into it as she clicked on the first photo of a face that had become surprisingly dear to her.
Seventeen
“Sí, sí. Claro que sí.”
Lily shrugged helplessly at Erik and held the phone away from her ear as a stream of Spanish poured from the other end. “De veras, Mamá, pero tengo un cliente ahora.” She paused for another burst of words before ringing off with “Te amo, mi corazón.”
She disconnected with a sigh. “Family crisis. My sister’s stylist gave her lilac highlights, and my mother’s threatening to disown her.”
Erik paused with his coffee halfway to his mouth. “The sister or the stylist?”
“Whoever she bumps into first, I think. So what time do your clients get here?”
“Any minute,” he said, checking his phone. “And thanks again. Kitchen’s operational, but I’m still waiting on a few permits.”
Lily breezed by to collect a bundle of pink tulips from the cooler against the wall. “My pleasure. I’m so proud to be here for this moment.” She smiled at him fondly. “Baby’s first clients!”
Erik couldn’t muster more than a scowl even in the face of Lily’s cheerfulness. The last person who’d called him baby had ended up kissing him until his brain shut down, and the white-hot memories of his hands on her body hadn’t receded a week and a half later.
“Where’s your partner in crime today?”
Damn. Was Lily a flower whisperer and a mind reader?
“She’s not my partner,” he grumbled. “And she has her own job.”
Lily’s eyes widened at his forbidding tone, but she didn’t pursue it further, instead turning to the back counter to begin arranging the tulips in a smoked-glass vase. That left him free to ignore her, chew over his own dark thoughts, and critically examine yet again the small sample cake he’d brought for Richard and Byron’s approval. He rotated the plate to scrutinize it from every angle. Yep, he could say without hesitation that it was some of his best work. He’d poured all of his focus into this project in an effort to keep his mind off Josie. Now he just needed the grooms’ seal of approval.
Just then, t
he bell on the shop door jangled to admit the man he’d met with Josie in April. Richard held the door open for a short, slender man who followed behind, dressed in dark jeans and a navy suit jacket and leaning heavily on a cane. Once they were both inside, Richard took the other man’s free hand and held it to his mouth, kissing his knuckles so gently that Erik looked down, not wanting to intrude on such an intimate moment.
“Hello! Good to see you again!” Richard called to him as he took the other man’s free arm and they made their way slowly toward the high counter where Erik was seated. “This is my fiancé, Byron Cutter.”
“Hello.” Erik stood to shake Byron’s hand.
“So nice to meet you.” Byron slowly climbed onto the stool opposite him, leaned an elbow against the countertop, and dragged a slim hand over his perspiring brow and through his short-cropped sandy hair. Once he’d caught his breath, he told Erik with a shaky laugh, “It takes a little more effort to get around at the moment.”
Erik started to nod in sympathy but froze when he realized that Byron was giving him a thorough once-over from underneath his pale eyelashes.
After a long moment, one corner of his mouth curled upward, and he cut his eyes to Richard, who’d just sat down next to him. “Oh honey, I see what you mean. Sky-high standards.”
Erik furrowed his brow as the two men shared a moment he didn’t understand but that left the two of them looking amused. Whatever. He didn’t have the extra emotional energy to unravel mysteries. Time to get this meeting started.
“Cake, for your approval.”
He pushed the plate toward the grooms, who oooohed in unison—as they should. He’d trimmed various sections of cake into a hexagon shape, fitted it together, crumb-coated it, and applied his marble frosting technique so the ivory base color was shot through with swirls of palest blue and brassy gold for contrast. The delicate filigree topper he’d made of spun sugar added height and drama, and when he’d stepped back to check out the full effect in the bakery kitchen before he left, he’d performed an embarrassing little victory dance on the spot.
