“I know damn well you have that part in stock, or you’d be an idiot. So what are you, Zeke? A cheating liar or a fucking moron?”
They stopped at the doorway and watched as Nell continued to rant at what sounded like an unlucky supplier.
“Hmmm. This is not the most efficient way you deal with liars or morons,” Marcelo noted, leaning against the doorjamb.
“She’s usually less rude. I think.” Adrian said in an undertone. Nell acknowledged both of them with a curt nod but otherwise continued to yell into the phone. “I think she’s stressed with juggling the two businesses.”
“It is one business now, no? It is no good thinking of them as separate.” Marcelo eyed him. “Will she get mad and throw things at me if I give her advice? Because from what you told me the lovely Anna Sue is wasted answering phone calls and capable of handling this supplier problem, and also filing away this…” He waved a hand at the mess.
“I think she promoted her to do some marketing stuff but she only has so many hours she can give. Something like that.”
“A high school child can answer the phones,” Marcelo waved off this problem. “You do not suggest this to her?”
Adrian hunched his shoulders. “We don’t spend a lot of time talking, Marcelo.”
“Never mind. I fix it. You give me two hours with her.”
“I don’t know.” Adrian watched as Nell wound down her phone call by threatening to dump the caller off the plane over the Sound the next time he traveled with them. “I don’t think she’s in the right frame of mind to listen to reason. And, I think it’d take more than two hours.”
Marcelo ignored him and strode in as Nell hung up, her eyes still blazing.
“Mi querido Nell, I feel like I know you already.” He clasped both of her hands in his, his smile now set to “stun.”
Nell blinked at him, then turned and looked at Adrian. “Who the hell is this?”
“This is Marcelo.”
“Oh!” Nell took in the tats, the heavy metal t-shirt, the ripped jeans and shit kicker boots. “Sorry, I pictured someone more…”
“Artsy fartsy?” Marcelo asked, deadpan, his hands still clasping hers.
Nell threw back her head and laughed, and Adrian’s gut clenched with jealousy.
“We’re going to get along just fine,” Marcelo beamed at her. “Adrian is going to drop my stuff off at his house and fill out the paperwork I brought for him.”
“I am?” Adrian asked with a straight face.
“Yes.” Marcelo draped an arm around Nell’s shoulders and steered her around her desk. “Nell and I are going to have lunch.”
“It’s not—” Nell looked at the clock, sighed, her shoulders slumping. “How can it be one o’clock already?”
“You probably have the headache right here, yes?” Marcelo pointed to his own temples, nodded. “You need food. Maybe a drink. Come on, now. Take me to your favorite place.”
Adrian watched, amazed, as Marcelo ever so gently steamrolled Nell right out of the hanger without a backward glance.
“How did he do that? She never takes a lunch.”
He turned to find Anna Sue in the doorway of the office, her eyes wide.
“Let’s just say there’s a reason I sell my work through Marcelo’s galleries,” Adrian said, amused. “He can sell snow to a polar bear.”
****
At home, Adrian dumped Marcelo’s duffel bag in one of the guest rooms. Knowing the paperwork was a ruse, since Marcelo was very tech savvy and conducted most of his business electronically, he decided to make his friend’s favorite meal—grilled fajitas. Paul stocked fresh tomatillos at his request, as well as masa flour, so he could make salsa and homemade tortillas. Maybe margaritas.
For once, Paul wasn’t manning one of the checkout stands when Adrian arrived. Instead Jim Perkins, a stay at home dad whose youngest son now was a kindergartner, waved a cheery hello. Adrian found Paul restocking the produce section and called hello.
“You hired on Jim?” Adrian asked as he looked over the cilantro.
“Yep. Between the farmers’ market and rehabbing the rentals, and I’m thinking about running for City Council in the fall—shut up,” he warned as Adrian started to laugh. “Save the politician jokes. Anyway, I needed more help, and the Gussies are getting on in years. They don’t want to work more than a handful of hours a week now.”
“I’ll be sad to see them go,” Adrian noted, referring to the pair of elderly ladies, both friends and both named Gussie although they couldn’t have looked more different, as Gussie Sherlot was plump and short with her gray short hair in tight curls, whereas Gussie Alboss stood nearly 6’ tall, rail thin with straight white hair that fell in a stylish angled bob around her face.
Paul eyed Adrian’s basket with a hopeful expression. “You making your mama’s fajitas?”
“Marcelo is visiting. I thought we’d fire up the grill for the steak, and since he’s off with Nell, I’ve got time to make the tomatillo sauce and tortillas.”
“He’s off with Nell?” Paul paused in the act of stacking apples. “Why?”
“We walked in on her screaming at a vendor, work piled sky high on her desk, and her stress level through the roof. Three guesses.”
Paul laughed. “Marcelo had to fix it.”
“Even Nell, it turns out, is not immune to the charm that is Marcelo.”
“Soooo, if I brought over some tequila tonight around 6ish…” Paul trailed off with a grin.
“Yeah, yeah. Bring the whole gang if you want.” Adrian added more cilantro to the basket. “We’re going to see Brooke if we have time.”
“Brooke? Why?”
Adrian shrugged, adding limes and jalapenos to his basket. “I’ve seen her work, and I thought Marcelo might be interested. I sent him some pictures, and he wants to check out her other stuff.”
“Whoa. That’s huge. She’s moderately successful but definitely doesn’t bring in enough to make it really lucrative. Does Nell know?” Paul asked, stacking his empty crates and following Adrian to the back of the market to the dairy section.
“Yeah. She told me if Marcelo strung Brooke along and broke her heart that she’d punch me in the balls.” Adrian grinned. “She’s so great.”
Paul shook his head. “You’re in trouble, man. Real trouble.”
“Nah. I’ll see you later. Bring the good tequila, you cheap bastard.”
“You can hardly taste it when you mix it…” Paul began, then huffed out a breath when Adrian just looked at him. “Fine.”
****
A few hours later, Adrian was draping damp towels over the tortilla dough, sauce simmering on the stove, when his phone pinged with an incoming text.
Marcelo: This girl is a tough nut to crack.
Adrian: Told you so.
Marcelo: But I am adding mom power. Talked her into taking me to see Brooke.
Marcelo: Can they come over for dinner?
Marcelo: Are you making the fajitas?
Marcelo: What about margaritas?
Marcelo: But tell Paul not to buy the cheap shit.
Adrian: Yes. Yes. Yes. Done.
Marcelo: K.
Marcelo: I like this woman.
Adrian: Me too.
Thanks to his family, Adrian was used to hosting large dinners, so in short order, he’d set out extra chairs on the deck, and, as the weather was holding, set up a margarita station outside. Since everything else was basically ready, he went into the studio and donned his helmet and apron to finish working on a piece. As usual, he lost track of time and it seemed like only moments before he heard Marcelo’s voice carrying across the lawn.
“We are here, darling! Don’t be naked!”
Adrian rolled his eyes and then his mouth dropped open when he heard Nell actually giggle. Good god, what wonders had Marcelo wrought? He was so surprised that he forgot to be nervous when Marcelo strode into the studio, and stopped, surveying his newest work for the first time.
As if a
switch had been flipped, his easy smile fell away, and he zeroed in on the sculpture of the twins, bending down to study it, gaze intent.
“Is it okay to come in?” Brooke peeked her head around the corner, hesitant. “I just hate it when people interrupt my work.”
“Damn moody artists,” said Jan, walking right in.
Adrian tried not to laugh. “Please, make yourself at home. Where’s Nell?”
“Paul’s here,” Jan informed him. “She’s making sure he’s got a generous hand with the tequila.”
Adrian knew Marcelo wouldn’t say a word until he’d examined each piece at length, so he started at the other end of the studio and gave Jan and Brooke a tour of his work. When they got to the unfinished piece on his work table, which just happened to be a sculpture of Nell’s neck, the outline of her head thrown back in ecstasy, he squirmed a bit, realizing this was Nell’s mom, for god’s sake. Hoping that the sculpture was vague enough that Nell wasn’t recognizable, he moved on quickly, but when he looked back, he caught Jan and Brooke exchanging significant glances.
“And, these over here are inspired by the Island, of course,” he said hastily, breathing a sigh of relief as they walked away from the work table.
“Just lovely,” crooned Brooke, crouching down to examine the sculpture of the harbor. “This is steel, right? It looks so different—soft here in the sails but strong in the boats.”
Jan studied it, nodding. “Amazing stuff. Thank you for showing us around.”
“Oh, she’s so much more polite to you,” Brooke sniffed. “I’m just that damn artist.”
“Get out of here.” Jan gave her a gentle nudge, and the two women smiled at each other. “How long is this one going to be in here?”
Adrian looked over, saw Marcelo had only made it as far as El Refugio, the sculpture of his mom’s hand raised in solidarity and triumph. “It’ll be a while.”
“There’s a margarita with my name on it,” Jan declared.
“Can I stay and take another look around?” Brooke asked. “I’m fascinated by your tools. And, I’d like to hear what Marcelo says.”
Me, too, thought Adrian. But the manners so deeply ingrained in him by his mother made it impossible for him to resist when Jan looped her arm in his and dragged him outside.
As soon as they were out of earshot, she turned to him.
“Can you make me a sculpture of a Adaitum pedatum? I’ve been trying all damn spring to think of a wedding gift for Brooke and now I’ve got it.”
“Maybe, if you tell me what that is,” Adrian laughed.
“Oh, right.” Jan ran her fingers through her short black hair, streaked with gray. “It’s a maidenhair fern—they’re native to the Pacific Northwest. Brooke bought one and killed it. Never met anyone who could kill a fern before,” she added, wonderingly. “I met her when she came to the nursery to buy another one.”
“Great idea,” Adrian said, already pulling out his phone so he could Google a picture of the plant. Small, delicate and almost lacy, the fern draped over a gray rock and immediately, his fingers itched to capture it in metal. “I’d be honored to.”
Jan pumped her fist in the air. “My wedding gift is going to blow hers out of the water.”
“Is it a competition?” Adrian asked, amused.
“She’d say no.” Jan grinned at him. “So, are you going to give me the family discount seeing as how you’ve clearly seen my daughter naked?”
Adrian opened his mouth but no noise came out. He scrubbed his hands over his face.
“Give me a minute here…”
Jan laughed, patted his arm. “It’s okay. I’m just messing with you. My girl knows what she’s doing. First time she’s been doing it on the Island, mind you.” She looked him up and down, a speculative gleam in her eyes.
“I think you need a margarita,” he said firmly, steering her to the deck.
She laughed, a strong, deep belly laugh that reminded him of Nell. “My kind of man.”
They climbed the stairs to the deck, where Nell and Paul sat on lounge chairs, drinks in hand.
“I was just about to hunt you down,” Nell said. “I wanted to check out your art.”
“I’ll give you a tour another time,” Adrian said.
“He’s going to make my wedding present to Brooke,” Jan said, shooing Paul up out of the chair. “Go make me a drink, young man.”
“Oh yeah?” Nell tilted her head. “What’d you decide on?”
“A sculpture of a maidenhair fern,” Jan said proudly.
Nell grinned, held up her fist to bump her mom’s. “That’s perfect! This is turning out to be such a great day.”
“She had wine with lunch, and this is her second margarita,” Paul informed Adrian in an undertone.
“I can hear you, idiot. I can hold my liquor.” Nell rolled her eyes. “Marcelo is a genius, by the way.”
“Okay, hold on.” Paul shot her a look from the bar. “I’ve been telling you for ages that you need a business plan. Years, since you started the business in the first place. Then this guy comes in that you’ve never met and tells you that and all of a sudden, he’s the genius?”
“Business plans are boring,” Nell said. “He made me sit down and outline my BHAGs.”
“Big, hairy audacious goals,” Adrian noted for Jan’s benefit, as he’d heard Marcelo tout the importance of BHAGs many times.
“Then I wrote down my strategies for achieving them. Then we listed all the employees, their strengths, weaknesses, capacity. We looked at the budget, the profit and loss statements. He made me write down every single detail I could think of from the past 24 hours of what all I’ve been doing for the company.”
“That. Is. A. Business. Plan!” Paul seethed.
“My drink?” Jan winked at him, mouthed behind Nell’s back, “I know, I know.”
Adrian leaned against the railing, facing them. “You’d never done any of that?”
Nell waved her hand, took a sip of her drink. “Well, I’d thought about it.” She tapped her head. “It was all up here.”
“Wasn’t doing you a lot of good up there, lately was it?” Jan asked, smug.
“Anyway,” Nell shot her mom a look, “I realized I was insane. I mean, literally 19 of the past 24 hours I worked on the business. And that’s a typical day.”
“What are you going to do about it?” Adrian asked.
Nell sighed. “I’ve been putting off hiring more people because it’s expensive. And, it’s hard to give up control. Basically-”
“Because you are afraid!” Marcelo finished, bounding up onto the deck. He shook his finger at her. “What did we decide about that?”
“Fuck that!” Nell lifted her margarita. “I don’t let fear rule me!”
“You are truly amazing,” Adrian murmured, watching Nell grin. “Everyone here has been trying to tell her some version of that for the past two months.”
“And you, mi amigo.” Marcelo turned to Adrian, laid a hand over his heart. He opened his mouth to speak, then just shook his head, opened his arms and engulfed him in a bear hug.
Adrian hugged him back, wondering what the hell this meant. Was he hugging him to say, nice try with the different work, but it’s shit and you need to start over?
Marcelo drew away, looked deep into his eyes. “Adrian, I’m so damn proud of you. This work is amazing. A-fucking-mazing.”
Adrian let out a sigh, tension unfolding from his shoulders.
“I’ll take a margarita,” he signaled Paul as he delivered Jan’s drink to her. “Thank god.”
“You were worried?” Marcelo laughed, clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t be stupid. You have done what is so rare—meaningful art that is also going to make both of us more money.”
“You hear that, Brooke?” Jan asked as her fiancée sat on the arm of her chair. “Marcelo’s going to make us rich, too, I can feel it.”
Brooke laughed. “Honey, I appreciate your vote of confidence, but I’m not in Adrian’s league.
”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” protested Marcelo. “You are a find! I have many customers who will love your work. I have only been here for,” he checked his watch, “four hours and already this trip is more than offsetting the generous donation Adrian’s mama is squeezing out of me bit by bit.”
“Glad I could help.” Adrian checked his watch. “I better get started on dinner.”
“You want me to make my famous guacamole?” Marcelo asked.
“Already got the ingredients.”
“Look, ma,” Nell smirked. “All the men are making us drinks and cooking us dinner while we lounge around on our butts and do nothing.”
“As it should be,” Jan agreed.
Adrian just smiled. “That means you get to do the dishes. So, Paul, is anyone else coming?”
Paul handed him his drink and shook his head. “Amy’s got morning sickness, or as she calls it, ‘all day sickness.’ Hannah and Tom have a poetry night at the bakery.”
“I’ll gladly do all the dishes later since you got me out of poetry night,” Nell laughed.
Adrian followed Marcelo into the kitchen while Paul stayed out on the deck. Marcelo took stock of the kitchen, nodded his approval.
“Nice place you have here.”
“I guess it’s been nonstop since you got here,” Adrian said, amused. “I’ll give you a tour after dinner. Come to think of it, Nell hasn’t seen the house either, so…”
“Ah, and maybe you can convince her to stay the night,” Marcelo laughed.
“Nah. I figured you and I would stay up late and drink tequila.”
Marcelo nodded, starting to slice up avocado. “I’m down with that. Although I liked your Nell.”
“She’s not really mine,” Adrian said as he got out the meat. “She’s on temporary loan. And, pretty gun shy about it.”
“Too bad. I like her the best of all your many temporary loans.”
“Really?” Adrian set the meat down on the counter, looked over at his friend. “You only spent a few hours with her.”
Marcelo shrugged. “I’m an excellent judge of character.”
Love in the Air: Lopez Island Series #2 Page 15
