Samantha Hunter

by Make Your Move (lit)

  “Or he could sell it, or who knows what else. But why wreck the rest of the place?” Ginger asked.

  “To make it look like thugs did it. We can’t prove he stole it. We can’t prove it’s him, unless we can catch him with the icing, but Jason is too clever to allow that to happen. But I know it in my gut,” Dan said angrily. “And he’s going to pay, one way or the other.”

  There it was again, Jodie thought, that little riff of excitement as she watched Dan’s jaw square and his eyes darken. Kind of like when he was having an orgasm….

  I am a sick, sick woman getting turned on in the middle of this chaos, she thought with a sigh. But now that the barn door was open, so to speak, on her and Dan having a friends-with-benefits relationship, she wanted him even more than she had before. And she was only now willing to be really honest with herself about how long she had been fantasizing about sleeping with Dan.

  And she was happy a million times over that she hadn’t done the deed with Jason Kravitz. What a monumental mistake that would have been. Jason had obviously been a stand-in for Dan, anyway, and the original was always better than a facsimile, she mused, and then turned her attention to the problem at hand.

  “We can’t know for sure who it was, unless the cops turn up a usable print, or some other kind of evidence,” she said. “But Jason has an ego the size of King Kong. He’s going to want us to know he did it, and he’ll enjoy the fact that we can’t do a thing about it without any evidence. He’d get such joy out of thinking he’d outsmarted us.”

  Dan met her eyes over the top of the case and nodded.

  “Well, he’s in for a surprise, then. When he makes his next move, we’ll figure out how to beat him at his own game.”

  “And until then, we have massive cleaning and baking to do,” Ginger said with a sigh. “I’ll call Mom and see if Anna can stay overnight.”

  Jodie nodded, waving Dan off. “You don’t have to stay, Dan. I know you probably have more important stuff to do.”

  He looked surprised. “Nothing is more important than being here with you right now. I want to help,” he said plainly, his eyes and tone speaking volumes. Jodie couldn’t help but be touched.

  Ginger cleared her throat awkwardly. “Okay then. I think I’ll start working out back so that we can get some baking done as soon as possible. Not that things aren’t already pretty warm around here,” she added with a chuckle as she left them alone.

  Jodie and Dan smiled at each other. They’d figure it out, she knew. Together, like they always had.

  TWO DAYS LATER THEY were open for business while a contractor finished replacing some of the casing glass that had been wrecked by their intruder. Life was almost normal again. There had been no word from Jason, and Dan had said he wasn’t around the offices at all. They could simply speculate he was holed up somewhere, trying to decipher the frosting formula.

  Every time Jodie thought of it, she wanted to strangle Jason Kravitz. But as time passed, she wondered if they didn’t have it wrong? Maybe it was a random break-in? Her cookies were well advertised. Maybe it wasn’t Jason. More likely some puritanical freak who didn’t approve of her Passionate Hearts cookies or their side effects had finally decided to cause her some trouble.

  They did live in a large city, and there was crime. Dan was still sure Jason was to blame, but Jodie wondered if that wasn’t just a reaction to the fact that she and Jason had almost hooked up.

  That was now in the past. They were exhausted but couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other. She’d almost been late for work again this morning, and Dan for a meeting, as well.

  “So, you and Dan are an item now, huh?” Ginger inquired casually, though with a sparkle in her eye. “I always thought you two had some chemistry between you. And it’s nice that you’re friends. Friendship is a great thing to build a future on,” she added, wiping down the counter as Jodie finished boxing up an order for delivery.

  “Future? Don’t go there, my friend. Dan and I have agreed we’re just friends, and that’s all we’ll ever be. Friends with benefits maybe, but that’s all. So you can keep that romantic imagination of yours in check.”

  “Really, Jodie? I thought you were the expert on men. Don’t you see how he looks at you?” Ginger stopped working, obviously surprised. “The man is besotted. And for what it’s worth, you look at him exactly the same way.”

  Jodie pushed down irritation, or was it another emotion altogether? Fear? Apprehension?

  “You have it wrong, Ginger. Believe me, Dan and I do care about each other. We have for years, and so we already have a relationship. We’re giving in to this fantasy, this chemistry, but it will wear off. Trust me, it always does.”

  “Sure, after you’ve been married for years. And then it turns into something better.”

  “There’s no need to get nasty and start using the M word,” Jodie said with a frown.

  The conversation was abbreviated when the bell over the door rang. The laughter and goofing around stopped when Jodie saw the man walk in and Ginger’s color fading.

  “Ginger, are you okay?” Jodie asked quietly as the man hovered by the door for a moment, then advanced.

  “Hi, Scott. What are you doing here?” she said, both in response to Jodie’s question, and to the man who now stood uncomfortably before the counter. Jodie went to her side, straightening her spine and set her hands on her hips, eying Ginger’s ex.

  So this was Scott. Tall, lanky, raven-haired with a pale complexion and poetic features that were too soft for Jodie’s liking. His little girl looked just like him. What a difficult reminder for Ginger, Jodie realized.

  How did she do it? Jodie had completely repressed that she had her own father’s eyes, his coloring. She couldn’t look in the mirror every day if she thought that.

  Jodie’s impulse to protect her friend was fierce, coming from some unknown emotional well, certainly from her past with her father.

  “I need to talk to you, Ginger, and since you haven’t answered my calls the last few days, I had no choice but to try to catch you here,” he said.

  “I’ve been busy,” Ginger said tightly.

  “If you’re not here as a customer, you should probably leave,” Jodie said. She eyed the man coolly but felt Ginger’s hand on her arm.

  “I can deal with it, Jodie. Do you mind if I take ten minutes?”

  “Take as long as you need,” Jodie said, nodding. “I’ll be right out back.”

  “I won’t be long, but thanks,” Ginger said with a tense smile.

  Jodie made herself scarce, but barely, hovering by the corner of the kitchen since there were no customers out front to give her an excuse to be at the counter, where it was easier to eavesdrop.

  As it was, she couldn’t hear anything and her thoughts wandered back over their conversation about Dan. Were they getting into something too deep? Was she fooling herself?

  She and Dan, for as long as they’d been friends, moved in completely different circles. If it hadn’t been for college, their paths never would have crossed.

  Jodie wondered how well their lifestyles would mesh now and an idea formed in the back of her mind, but she was distracted by the ring of the bell again as Scott left.

  Ginger stood planted in place, looking shell-shocked, her hand at her lips. Jodie couldn’t stand it and walked out.

  “What did he want? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay, I guess,” she said vaguely, walking back to where Jodie was, picking up a white towel, but just standing still and looking out the door where her ex had just left.

  “Ginger, what is it?”

  “He…he wants to get back together. To try again.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “That’s what I said. I figure he’s just going through another one of his stages. Maybe he has nothing better to do, so he figured he’d try the family thing again. But he said he got a job, and he wants to be back with me and Anna, permanently. He wants us to give him another chance, an
d it’s all up to me.”

  Jodie huffed, outraged on her friend’s behalf. “Nice, putting that kind of pressure on you. Of course, you can’t consider it,” Jodie said.

  Ginger shook her head, seeming uncertain. “I didn’t think so, but I don’t know. I just don’t know. I should probably give it some consideration, don’t you think?”

  Jodie’s eyes went wide. “Are you crazy? Why set yourself up again with a guy like that? He’s already shown his stripes.”

  “I know. But what if he stays?” Ginger’s eyes filled. “What if he means it? What if we could be a family?”

  “Ginger, that’s not likely to happen and you have to make your own decision, but in my experience, people don’t change that drastically,” she said, sounding harsher than she meant to. She remembered all the times her father had promised her mother he’d change. He’d gone to anger management, he’d read some books, and still he took out every bad mood and every nasty thought that ran through his head on his wife and daughter.

  Jodie took a deep breath, keeping in mind that she should try to remain objective, for Ginger’s sake. “Maybe you can tell him you’ll consider it after he’s here for a year, and then you could make a decision, but I sure wouldn’t just open the door and let him walk right back in.”

  Ginger sighed. “That makes sense. We could wait and see if he sticks around before making any kind of definite plans. Thanks, Jodie. You always seem to know what to do,” she said.

  Jodie wished she could say it made her feel better that at least Ginger wasn’t throwing the door open to her ex, but the whole situation made her feel grumpy and irritable, and she had the sudden need to escape for a while.

  “Ginger, while it’s slow, do you feel okay being alone here if I pop out for a while? I have a few errands to run.”

  “No, go ahead. I don’t have to be at the hospital today, so take as long as you need.”

  “I’ll be back in a few hours,” she promised, taking her apron off and dashing for the back door. She just had the most intense craving to see Dan, even though they’d parted company only four hours earlier. That worried her, but not enough to stay away.

  DAN WAS DEEP in reading files for a colleague’s promotion to tenure, and normally when he worked so intently, he wouldn’t notice if the building had dropped down around him. But this time, he’d been distracted, looking at the clock, at his watch, losing his train of thought. Jodie kept popping into his mind, the night they’d shared…how his keenly honed intellect wasn’t quite keeping control over his rampant emotions.

  He loved her, and he knew this. He’d loved her for some time as a friend, and it wasn’t much of a jump for him to fall the rest of the way.

  He couldn’t let her know that, of course, but withholding the truth was just a different way of lying.

  Not yet, he told himself. It was too soon.

  The object of his thoughts appeared in the doorway of his office, knocking softly to announce her presence. He was up and across the room so quickly he might have shifted the time-space continuum a little.

  “Hey, this is a nice surprise,” he said, leaning in for a quick kiss. Jodie had come by his office before, and his dorm room before that. This was the only time he considered closing the door and clearing his desk, but the obvious tension in her expression made him reconsider. “Everything okay?”

  “Do you have a few minutes?”

  “Sure, you’re saving me from terminal boredom,” he joked. Though he actually found his colleague’s work very interesting, everything paled in comparison to spending time with Jodie. “You’re stressed,” he commented, closing the door.

  “I just…it was a weird morning.”

  “How so?”

  “It feels like everything is topsy-turvy these last few days—Bizzaro World, you know? Everything seems to be upside down.”

  Dan smiled. It was one of the pleasures of his life that he’d been able to nurture an appreciation of the geeky world of comics to Jodie.

  “Like what?”

  “Well, the bakery was robbed, Ginger is thinking about going back to her ex, and then you and me…everything is the opposite of what it was a week ago.”

  Uh-oh. Dan felt a spark of worry fly through the air, but quickly dashed it with a splash of logic.

  “Change is the norm, Jodie. Things can only remain static for so long. It’s basic chaos theory, actually,” he said, the idea grabbing him as he continued to explain how there was order in apparent disorder, and stability within what was seemingly paradoxical.

  “The trick, really, is not to expect that everything will stay the same. Variability is the norm, and relationships, like ours, are living, growing things—the same with Ginger, or even a business. It’s all a process linked into thousands of different influences and—”

  Jodie held her hand up, wincing. “Stop. Please, stop.”

  Dan blinked. It made such perfect sense. Beautiful sense, to him, which was what he loved about science and math, examining the deeper structures of—

  “Dan. You can’t apply science to this.”

  “You can apply science to anything,” he said simply.

  “Okay, fine, but it’s not making me feel any better about what’s going on. I’m still so…anxious. I don’t like it. Like there are ants crawling along my skin.” She shivered, rubbing her arms.

  No, she wouldn’t like it, Dan admitted. It was paramount to Jodie to feel in control. Her desire to control things made her a great businesswoman, but it was also one of the reasons he stayed out of the business. Jodie didn’t deal well with variables. She was right, though. Logic wouldn’t help a person who viewed their problem emotionally, so he asked the next logical question, based on her emotional state.

  “What would make you feel better?”

  She took a deep breath, looking him straight in the eye. He almost smiled. That was his Jodie—attack things head-on.

  “First, I’d like to make sure we really are still just friends. Friends who have sex, but only friends.”

  Dan hedged, choosing his words carefully. “That was the deal.” Was being the operative word, to his mind. “Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know. Just hearing Ginger even contemplate going back to Scott wigged me out. I mean, he’s been a terrible husband and father, but she said she loved him. I think she’s making a huge mistake even considering it, but I don’t think it’s right for me to talk her out of it, either, not really.”

  “I agree, it’s not your place to do that, though you can give her your honest opinion. Friends do that,” he said. “But why would her problems bother you so much? Thinking about your own dad?”

  He saw her tense up considerably. He knew it was something she preferred not to have brought up, but after the length of time they had known each other, if she could talk to anyone, it should be him.

  “I guess, yeah. It reminded me too much of what my mom used to say, that we had to try to understand my dad, because we loved him,” she said, emphasizing the key words with a clear level of disgust. “She used to love to excuse every bad thing he did. You know, she even told me once that you knew how much you loved someone based on how much you were willing to put up with.”

  Dan’s heart ached for Jodie. He hated that she’d been so hurt and wished there was a formula he could create, some easy fix for the deep wounds that her family had left her with. Unfortunately, even time hadn’t healed them, because she kept carrying them around, holding them up as a shield. He couldn’t blame her, he supposed.

  “Your mom was radically unhappy and in denial. You know that. She didn’t have the emotional strength that you do. You’re a whole different person, Jodie.”

  “Oh, I know. I would never do that, to love someone so much that they could do anything, be someone’s willing doormat.”

  He lowered himself into a squat where she sat in the chair and took her hand in his. “Do you really think that’s what love is? Real love?”

  “I don’t know. Love seem
s to lead people to making terrible decisions that just bring pain, and then more pain. All you have to do is look around to see how miserable love makes people. I can barely stand listening to Ginger talk about throwing herself back into a relationship with Scott. I told her to wait him out, to see if he really sticks around before she makes any promises.”

  Dan nodded. “Well, that’s sensible, considering his past behavior. Was she receptive?”

  Jodie shrugged, then nodded. “Yeah. She seemed relieved to find a middle ground.”

  “So maybe she’s not being as reckless as you think. And you helped. Sounds like a smart idea to me.”

  He saw her cheeks flush pink at the compliment. Jodie was used to being told she was hot, sexy, beautiful and any number of compliments based on her appearance, but the only time Dan ever saw her become shy was when someone told her she was smart. It was ridiculous, because she was extremely intelligent, though she didn’t believe that about herself.

  “You’re only saying that because I’m sleeping with you,” she said more jokingly, though he knew on some level she meant it.

  “Well, that’s more proof of your being smart,” he said, nudging her back and making her smile. “Really, I wish you wouldn’t sell yourself short. I knew you for a long time before we had sex, and I’ve always thought you were smart. I’ve depended on your perspective and advice a lot, if you recall.”

  She frowned, disbelieving still.

  “Do you remember when we were picking out a spot for the bakery, and I liked the place downtown, but you found the space we have now? The place I liked was new, clean and completely sterile, and would never have had the charm or atmosphere, not to mention the street traffic, of the spot you chose. You had a vision of what Just Eat It could be. If left to me, I would never have been able to make the business work,” he said honestly.

  Jodie had the ability to envision things in a way he never had, and he’d always found it fascinating. Ideas seemed to just pop out of her head, and they were almost always good ones.

  “Then,” he added, remembering, “you were the one who came up with the holiday marketing campaign last year, and how many times have you helped me figure out what projects would be best to spend my time on when I get overloaded and can’t see the forest for the trees? You always manage to cut through the clutter,” he said.