Everybody – Jamar included – erupted in laughter as Quinn stood up to do a little victory dance. She’d had a drink or two already herself, but after what she’d been through in New York she needed this night to loosen up, and have fun.
“I think I’m in love,” Cason jokingly whispered as he came to stand beside me, watching as Quinn continued dancing and ribbing Jamar. We’d barely been here a week, but I’d definitely noticed the way he looked at Quinn when we were around. And rightfully so – Quinn was beautiful. Caramel skin, honey blonde locs, heavily lashed hazel eyes. She looked like the personification of sunshine, so it was no surprise to me that straight-laced Cason was attracted to her.
“Make a move then, Officer Bryant,” I teased, then slipped away to order myself another drink. At the bar, I spotted Roman and waved him down. He nodded his acknowledgement, then finished with his customer before me before he came down to the other end of the bar.
“What can I do for you, baby sis? Juice box? Sippy cup of milk…?”
I rolled my eyes as I smiled. “Whatever Roman. Can I have a dark moon?”
He scrunched up his face. “Are you even old enough to drink?”
“I’m twenty-six.”
He shook his head. “Stop playing. My mama was taking me to Stacks for breakfast before you were even born, Short Stack.”
“Not my fault you’re getting old.”
He frowned a little harder. “Yeah, yeah. Show me some ID, Syd.”
I rolled my eyes, then fished my ID from my wristlet purse and held it up. He gave it a skeptical glance, then took it from my hands, holding it up in front of him. “Well I’ll be damned. When the hell did you turn twenty-six?” he asked, as he handed it back to me.
“A couple of months ago. Can I have my drink now?”
Roman smiled. “Yeah, yeah, I guess so. Remind me what you wanted?”
“A dark moon, please.”
“Actually, make it two. And put it on my bill.”
A warm hand touched my bare waist, and I knew without turning around that it was Harlan. Roman’s eyebrows lifted, and he looked back and forth between us before he gave an approving nod.
“Two dark moons, coming up.”
Swallowing hard, I turned around, gently easing away from Harlan’s touch. “Hi.”
“Hi.” The corners of his mouth twitched as he pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and took a moment to look me over. “You look good,” he said, his eyes lingering on my bare midriff before returning to my face. “I noticed you were kinda lingering at the back of the crowd though.”
I shrugged, hooking my thumbs into my belt loops. “It’s been an emotional day. So… I’m just chilling, you know? Clear my mind, relax… all of that.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “That’s important. Especially since we’ll be in the back kitchen tomorrow, testing the last of these syrup recipes. You gonna be ready?”
“Of course,” I said. “We have to—oh!” I let out a little squeal as Harlan stepped so close that we were almost chest-to-chest, then put a hand at my waist again. “Harlan, wha—” He reached past me, up to the bar, and a second later, he pressed my drink into my hands, then reached for the other one.
Oh.
When he stepped back, I lifted my drink, gulping down half my drink in one swallow. The rum and coke tingled on my lips, but the coffee liqueur and heavy cream gave it a smooth finish on my tongue before the alcohol burned down my throat.
“Let’s sit down.” Harlan said, placing his hand at my back again, and I had just enough presence of mind not to shiver at his touch as he led me back to where our shared group of friends were. Astrid looked up as we approached, and her lips parted a little at the sight of us together. I eased away from Harlan to slide into the booth beside her, but he was right behind me, taking the empty seat on my other side.
“Do you have something you’d like to share with the class, Sydnee?” Astrid whispered, leaning in close. Harlan was distracted, talking to Jamar, so I leaned toward her, meeting her halfway.
“Yeah, sharing that I don’t know what the hell is going on! Two friggin’ days ago, I hated this man, and now I’m all… giggly. It just feels weird.”
Astrid lifted an eyebrow. “So… you want to be mad? Sounds tiresome.”
“It was tiresome.”
“So… what’s the problem? You were mad. You realized you were wrong. You apologized. And now you’re not mad.”
I sighed, then glanced backwards to make sure Harlan was still engaged with Jamar. “It just happened really fast.”
“There’s no timeframe on deciding’ not to be stupid, darlin’,” Astrid teased, mimicking Harlan’s accent in a whisper. “I remember how much you liked him, Syd. And I remember how hurt you were when you left. It’s okay to not want to hold on to the negativity. You know that’s my whole philosophy on life, right?”
“I do.”
“Okay then. I don’t have any fancy terms, or psychiatric studies, or Maslow’s pyramid to back me up. If you need that, talk to Quinn. I am all about doing what feels good for me. What’s best for my life, as long it’s not hurting somebody else. All the other stuff is irrelevant. So if you’re asking me… if letting go of the anger makes you happy, do it.” She paused, to look over my shoulder at Harlan. “If letting Harlan taste the kitty makes you happy, girl do it.”
“Astrid!” I scolded, in a loud whisper.
“What?” she giggled. “Oh, wait. I forgot, you—”
“I can’t do it!”
We looked up to see Quinn standing in front of the table, wringing her hands.
“Can’t do what?” I asked. “I know you’re not backing out of open mic?”
The look on her face said she was doing exactly that.
Astrid shook her head. “Uh uh. You’re the one who said you’d listen to us about loosening up and having some fun. You said you’d do anything, and we haven’t even told you to do anything crazy!”
“But!—”
“But nothing,” I said, leaning forward over the table. “What is it? You’re nervous? You need somebody to get up there with you?”
“Cason can do it.”
All three of our eyes shot back to where the guys were sitting. Harlan and Jamar looked amused, but Cason, who’d just walked up, looked baffled. “Cason can do what?” he asked.
“Sing a duet with my beautiful friend,” Astrid said, popping up from her seat.
Cason gave a nervous grin as he shook his head. “I… don’t know about that. It’s supposed to be me and Garrett on security tonight, so—”
“Problem solved.” Jamar unclipped the “SECURITY” badge from Cason’s shirt and clipped it on his own, then patted his friend on the back. “I’ve got you, man. Don’t worry.”
Cason and Quinn both opened their mouths to speak, but before either could respond, Astrid had grabbed them by the wrists, and was dragging them toward the stage to put their names down.
“Can he actually sing?” I asked, then took another cooling sip of my drink to combat the heat from Harlan’s gaze as he turned to me.
He scoffed. “Hell yeah, that’s baby Luther. He’s got her covered.”
I nodded, then looked away, sinking back into my seat and hoping Astrid would hurry back, since she was my only source of a buffer. A few minutes later, she slid back into her seat beside me, with a huge smile on her face that made my heart sink.
“I know that sneaky smile. What did you do?”
She flipped her long twists over her shoulders, then batted her eyelashes at me. “Who, me?” she asked, feigning innocence.
“Yes, you,” I whispered back.
She poked her bottom lip out in a pout. “I cannot believe you’d accuse me of doing something. I didn’t do anything. Now stop whispering before we miss Quinn and Cason they’re on next.”
I sat back again, still feeling unsettled, especially when Harlan’s knee bumped my leg. I felt nervous as hell all of a sudden, but I didn’t know why. That
changed when the emcee introduced Quinn and Cason, and the band started playing the music for their song.
“I forgot to mention, they’re dedicating this to you and Harlan,” Astrid whispered to me, then giggled when I playfully tugged one of her braids. We Can’t Be Friends was so not what I needed to hear right now it wasn’t even funny. When Cason started singing, the lyrics about having a hard time hiding feelings for someone you cared about deeply hit a little too close to home. And then Quinn’s, talking about parents considering that person family, even though you’re trying to move on… I yanked Astrid’s braids again, because she was wrong as hell for this.
“They sound good together don’t they?” This time, I couldn’t help the shiver than ran up my spine at the feeling of Harlan’s warm, sweet breath on my neck and ear as he spoke to me. Of course he didn’t “get” the awkward significance of the song. I didn’t think my feelings were completely one-sided, but I also knew better than to think his ran as deeply as mine had. He was Harlan. “Hot Cakes” as the women called him, behind his back and directly to him. Why put all his eggs – feelings – in the precariously perched basket of his mentor’s daughter?
Our friends were singing the bridge, and they did sound good together on stage. After a hard swallow, I turned in Harlan’s direction to answer, and immediately got caught up in his eyes. As Cason and Quinn declared that they’d never, ever, find another love like theirs, my gaze remained locked on Harlan’s, searching, trying to figure out what it was I saw there. They sang the last lyric, an insistence that they couldn’t be friends because they were still in love, and clarity hit me.
The change that happened in our friendship before the rift, all those late phone calls and texts, his easy forgiveness of my ugliness, the smiles, the touching… maybe “love” was pushing it, but either I was way off base, or… he didn’t just like me back – he really liked me back. Like… liked me like I liked him back.
Holy shit.
How am I just now seeing this? I really am stupid. Only possibly explanation.
“Y-yes,” I stammered, then tore my eyes away from his to look down at my half-melted drink. “They sound great. Excuse me.”
I shoved at Astrid until she moved, letting me out of my seat. I grabbed her hand to drag her to the bathroom, snatching Quinn as we passed her on the way back to the table. In the bathroom, they stood next to each other, both looking at me like I’d grown a horn.
“Oh. My. God!” I said, pacing back and forth in front of them. “Why am I just realizing that he likes me? Like, likes me, likes me. Like… for real, likes me. Like, could turn into love, likes me. Like, could already be pretty damned close, likes me. Like—”
“Okay, first of all,” Astrid said, stepping forward with her hands raised. “If you say the word “like” again, my head is going to explode. Stop it.” – I nodded – “Second… no shit, Sherlock. Glad you’ve finally caught up to the rest of the class.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ha-ha. I’m glad it’s funny to you, but it’s not to me. I don’t have any threshold, or experience with this!”
Astrid twisted her mouth to the side. “Hm… that’s right. You haven’t really had any real boyfriends have you?”
“Not any really serious ones, no. When have I had the time?! I was always at an extracurricular, or going to two schools at the same time.”
“Not even when you were in New York?”
I sighed, then sat down on a padded bench in the waiting area where we stood. “Not even in New York. I was working crazy hours, and taking a restaurant management class, and—”
“And putting yourself through a panic-attack inducing amount of stress, which is how you ended up in my office,” Quinn interrupted. She was right. In New York, she worked as a counselor on the campus of the school where I took my restaurant management class. Even though she wasn’t yet certified, because she was well on her way, she was allowed to counsel students there, as kind of an internship. It was free with my tuition, and she had an open door when I needed it. Our friendship had blossomed from there. “And you’re about to work yourself into another one, if you don’t chill. What’s the big deal with him being sweet on you? Wouldn’t you want that?”
“If I knew what to do, yes.”
Astrid sucked her teeth. “I told you what to do. I’m a firm believer that a man who knows his way around a kitchen, knows his way around a woman’s body. Let him stroke your kitty, make it purr, have you rolling over and kicking your feet in the air, girl.”
“Astrid, you’re fired.” She shrugged, and crossed her arms as I turned to Quinn and stood, pulling her into my arms. “Quinn. My sweet, sensible, reasonable friend. I’m so sorry, we didn’t even ask how you felt after singing. You sounded amazing. You looked amazing. Your chemistry with Cason was amazing.”
Quinn smiled. “Thank you. I feel amazing. But back to you…”
I dropped my head onto her shoulder. “Yes, back to me. Tell me what to do!”
I stepped back so I could see her face, and the corners of her mouth twitched as she exchanged looks with Astrid. “Well…,” she said, just before her lips broke into a big smile.
“Not you too,” I whined, and she and Astrid laughed.
“Yes, Syd. Me too,” she shrugged. “In my semi-professional opinion, you should go and get your kitty groomed, so it’s nice and neat and ready to play.”
Six.
Sharing space with Harlan was almost torturous.
Almost, because as nerve-wracking as it was wondering what he was thinking and feeling, it was simultaneously thrilling to imagine that maybe he was thinking and feeling the same things I was. Did my scent make his heart race? Did he get a little light-headed at the thought of me? Had he ever—
“Syd.”
I blinked, hard, and Harlan was right in front of me, his expression half annoyed, half-amused, like he’d been trying for a while to get my attention.
“What’s up with you?” he asked, sticking his hands into his pockets. “You not still suffering from that headache, are you?” His voice held a tinge of amusement, like he knew just as well as I did that there’d been no headache. I was trying to avoid him, and he was onto me.
I shook my head. “No. I feel okay,” I mumbled.”
“Good. Cause we ain’t got too much more time on this syrup thing. You know Stacks is expecting samples tomorrow, and we lost two days to that… headache of yours. So we’ve gotta make this happen.”
I nodded, then plastered on a smile to let him know my head was in the game before I turned back to the counter. We were in the back kitchen today – the small, homelike kitchen at the back of the restaurant, built specifically for creating and testing recipes. Harlan was right. We didn’t have much time, and it was partially my fault, for feigning a headache so I wouldn’t have to face him. To my credit, I had developed a recipe at home, a coconut-pecan syrup reminiscent of German chocolate cake frosting. That added to the apple cinnamon, gingerbread spice, and banana cream varieties we’d already made. That left one more to deliver, and I was out of ideas.
When I turned around again, Harlan was already back at the stove, methodically stirring a pot as it simmered. He had his eyes narrowed, staring down at the contents like he was deep in thought.
“What are you working on over there?” I asked, after a fortifying deep breath. “It smells good.”
Harlan glanced over his shoulder with a smile. “Yeah. I just hope it tastes as good as it smells.”
My stomach clenched a little at the thought of the taste test. I never thought I could get tired of pancakes, but over the last week of working with Harlan on the syrups, I’d eaten so many that the thought wasn’t even appetizing any more. I needed something with less weight.
“We should offer more than just pancakes,” I said aloud. “Introduce some other options.”
Harlan chuckled. “Like what? You know how Stacks is about new ideas. Hell, I told him about your syrup idea a year ago, when he asked for ideas, and you se
e it’s just now happening.”
“But at least it’s actually happening,” I shot back. “I originally mentioned the syrup thing to him when I was ten years old, and I’ve said it so many times over the years. But you see what it took for him to actually listen? Hearing it from you.”
“I’m sure it’s not like that.” Harlan stopped stirring for a second to turn around. “He’s just stubborn. Always thinks he knows best. You have to plant a seed, and eventually it’ll grow into him thinking it was always his idea, or that he’s doing you a favor by taking it.”
I shook my head. “I know better than to wait around on that. But I’ve had a lot of great ideas for this place that never happened. Merchandising, and marketing plans he thought were silly, even if I put together a full business plan. He’d send me along to work on recipes, because that’s what he saw as my place.”
“Your place? Come on, Syd, Stacks isn’t like that. I mean, he cooks, I cook, and he hired Jamar for the grill. I really don’t think he’s on that women should only be in the kitchen thing.”
“I don’t either,” I agreed. “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying he thinks my place is in front of a stove, cooking, when that’s really not my dream. But you—”
“Know that already,” Harlan finished for me, facing the stove. “Yeah, I remember. You want to talk branding, Stacks wants to know if you’ve perfected browning butter yet.”
I nodded. “Right.”
I was glad his back was to me, so he couldn’t see the way my face lit up over him remembering the things I’d shared with him. Frustrations, disappointments, triumphs… Harlan had heard it all from me.
“But what’s your idea?” he asked, tossing another glance over his shoulder as he stirred. “Maybe you can present when we present the syrups, if you don’t need much time to get ready?”
Love You Forever (Serendipitous Love Book 5) Page 5
