by Ali Parker
Piper gave me a confident smile as she held the lid back on the crockpot for me. “Maple brown sugar glazed pork tenderloin. I’m hoping I can achieve a pulled pork sort of texture.”
I breathed in the sweet, rich scent of the roasting meat. “Holy hell. That smells delicious.”
She shooed me away. “It will be. When it’s done. I just have to get these vegetables chopped and arranged on a casserole dish to put in the oven, and then I’ll continue with basting the pork. Oh, and the potatoes have to go on too.” She pressed her hands to her temples and looked a little frazzled as she blew a strand of hair out of her face. “I think I spent too much time singing and dancing around like an idiot and not enough time prepping.”
I went to the sink, turned it on, washed my hands, and looked over my shoulder at her as I dried them on the dishtowel. “Can I help?”
“Really?”
“Of course. Just tell me where you need me.” I threw the dishtowel over one shoulder.
She noticed. “You know your way around a kitchen, don’t you?”
“Maybe a little bit. My grandmother used to cook for Holly and me. And she refused to let me become the kind of man who couldn’t prepare a good homemade meal.”
“I think I would really like your grandmother.”
“Everyone really likes my grandmother.”
Piper held out her hand. I took it, and she pulled me to the counter beside her, where she slid five potatoes to me. “Can you peel?”
“I see how this is going to be. You’re going to give me the shit jobs.”
She smiled while pinching her bottom lip between her teeth. “You catch on quick, Max.”
We teased each other as I peeled potatoes and began chopping. Piper diced up the vegetables, and once we were both done, we dropped everything into a casserole dish. Piper drizzled it with oil and seasoned it with salt, pepper, paprika, and Italian seasoning. Then she slid the pan into the oven and washed her hands.
“How was work?” she asked.
“Kind of boring.”
“Really?”
I shrugged. “You know how it is. A workday goes by terribly slow when you’re looking forward to coming home.”
Piper tried to hide her smile. I let her think I didn’t see.
But I was glad I did.
She and I were on the same page.
Chapter 11
Piper
My father had always been a loud talker when it came to talking on the phone. He was one of those people who seemed to think he had to yell into it in order for the person on the other end to hear him.
So as I sat on my bed in the guest room of Max’s house on Friday morning, I had to turn the phone volume almost all the way down so as not to blow my eardrums.
“I have to tell you Piper,” my father said, “this whole retirement thing isn’t too shabby. I can actually sit back and enjoy myself. It took some getting used to, don’t get me wrong, but I came around to it a lot quicker than I expected. Phillip tells me not to get too comfortable.”
I smiled at the happiness in his voice. I was so glad he felt he could finally rest. There was no restaurant to tend to. No orders to fill. No cooking to be done. No early mornings or late nights.
He could just be.
And that was so important for his recovery and long-term health.
“I’m glad to hear that, Daddy. Did you have your checkup with the doctor? Mom said you had an appointment this month.”
“Sure did, kiddo. Everything looks good. I’ll have my first stress test next month, and that will be where we really see what kind of progress I’ve made. The doc thinks I might be healthier now than I was when I went in for surgery.”
“That’s such good news.” My eyes burned. I forced myself not to get emotional.
“It is. Your mother is delighted. Phillip, too. They want to celebrate with a nice dinner. But I told them not to get ahead of themselves. We need to spend the same as we always do and keep our budget tight. We won’t be one of those crazy families who rack up debt just because they know a big payday is around the corner. No way. Not us.”
“Very wise, Daddy. But I’m sure one nice dinner won’t hurt. You guys should treat yourselves.”
“Not until the money is in our hands, Piper. You shouldn’t spend what you don’t have. Things can go wrong.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek.
Did my father suspect I’d fallen in love and it was eating me alive that I couldn’t accept a proposal at the end of all this?
No. Surely not.
“How about you, pumpkin? How’s your month going?” I could hear him chewing in the background.
“Um, it’s going good.”
“Good? That’s all I get? I’ve been talking your ear off for the last—” He broke off. I could picture him sitting in his favorite spot on the sofa in the living room checking his watch. “Twenty-two minutes.” The fire was probably crackling away in the corner, and a sport of some sort was probably flashing across the small television on the rickety old TV stand beside the mantle. I imagined he was eating something warm and hearty, like soup or stew. Mom was probably reading her book on the other corner of the sofa. “Tell me about your month. And this guy. What’s his name?”
“Max.” This was uncharted territory for me and my dad, and for good reason. It didn’t do well to talk about such things. Boys had never been a subject he wanted to indulge me in.
“Max. Yes. What’s he like?”
“He’s… nice.”
“Nice?” My father chuckled. He didn’t sound uncomfortable on his end with the subject matter. If anything, he sounded genuinely curious. “That’s all I get? Nice?”
“What else do you want to know?”
“What does he do for a living? What’s he like? What are his interests?”
I bit my bottom lip. “He’s the CEO of Apple.”
“Apple?”
“You know? The phone company? iPhones and Mac computers and—”
“Seriously?”
I rolled my eyes and grinned at his incredulity. “Yes, Dad. Seriously.”
“So he must be filthy rich.”
“Dad. They’re all filthy rich. That’s kind of the point.”
“Right. Sorry. Continue.”
I picked at a loose thread on the blue bedspread. “Well, he’s funny. And a good cook. We made dinner together the other night. He has a little sister who’s all fire, and they’re polar opposites of each other. It’s kind of funny, actually.”
“Do you like him?”
“Daddy. We don’t have to—”
“I want to. Do you like him, sweetheart?”
The question was a lot more complicated than my father realized.
Yes, I liked him, but we hadn’t spent enough time together for me to sort out just what kind of like it was going to be. I hoped, for the sake of my heart and Max’s, that it wasn’t as wild and all-in as some of my other relationships had been. I hoped it was a flickering flame that came to life as quickly as it died, and by the time I left, we were both content with how the month had gone but ready to say goodbye.
I knew that was wishful thinking.
Deep down in my gut, I knew full well there was something there. I’d seen the way he checked me out when I was in the kitchen cooking. And I’d seen how he looked at me when I was whipping up breakfast in my new leather jacket, too.
He liked what he saw.
We were walking a dangerous line.
“Piper?”
“Sorry, Daddy. I like him. He’s nice enough. But I don’t see how we would ever have a future, even if I was taking this seriously.” The words pained me, but they needed to be said.
“Ah, I see. Well that’s all well and good, isn’t it? No sense getting attached to any of these guys.”
“Exactly. No sense.”
“That’s my girl. Keeping her head in the game. I’m proud of you, Piper. Really, I am.”
I’d wanted to hear those words for so
long, but hearing them now was like someone had just shoved their fist down my throat and pulled out all my insides. I felt hollow. Empty. Lost at sea.
“I have to let you go, kiddo. Time to take some medication. We’ll talk soon, all right?”
“Okay,” I said softly. “Have a good night, Daddy. Give Mom a hug for me. Love you.”
“Love you too, Pipes.”
I couldn’t shake the heavy feeling in my stomach after getting off the phone. I took a hot shower and got ready by natural daylight streaming in through the windows, hoping it would lift my spirits, but nothing worked.
Until I heard Max come home just after eleven o’clock.
I left my room and hurried to the top of the stairs, where I stopped to grin down at him as he shrugged out of his suit jacket. I planted a hand on my hip. “What are you doing home so early?”
Max hadn’t seen me standing there. A great big grin broke out over his face when he saw me. His dimples appeared and made me blush. “Pack an overnight bag. I’m taking you to San Francisco for the night.”
“Oh?”
He moved to the base of the stairs and ran a hand along the banister as he climbed one step at a time. “I can promise you good food and a night unlike any other.”
“I’m listening.”
“Well, that’s too bad because I’m not saying another word. Now get your ass down the hall and pack your bag. Jonathan is picking us up in half an hour.”
Half an hour was a tight limit to pack everything I needed. “Do I need fancy clothes?”
“No. I learned my lesson from our first date that fancy just compromises the integrity of the evening. I don’t want all the glitz and glamour to distract from the highlight of the evening.”
“And what’s that?”
He looked me up and down while giving me that sexy little smirk of his.
I swatted at him when he got close enough. “I didn’t think you could be so cheesy.”
“Is it working for you?”
I rolled my eyes and laughed softly. Then I leaned in close and stole the words he’d used against me moments before. “I’m not saying another word.”
His smile broadened. Then his eyes flicked down the hall. “You’d better hurry.”
I grinned like an idiot while I packed my bag and wondered what sort of evening he had planned for us. When I met him at the top of the stairs, he had a small duffel bag packed, and he took my bag and carried them both down to Jonathan’s car, parked in the drive. He met us with a polite nod and opened the back doors for us.
“It’s lovely to see you again, Piper,” Jonathan said.
I gave him a little wave. “You too, Jonathan.”
The drive from Silicon Valley to San Francisco was only forty-five minutes—significantly shorter than I’d been expecting. We drove past brightly colored homes over cracked paved streets down steep hills toward the coast. The sidewalks bustled with pedestrians in outfits just as bright as the buildings in the city. Music played on every street corner.
We made it down to the boardwalk, and Jonathan pulled over in front of a hotel, the Fairmont Heritage Place Hotel.
Jonathan gave our bags to a bellboy who took them inside while Max and I went in to check into our room.
Once we made our way upstairs to our unit, I discovered that it was not a room at all. It was a two-story luxury accommodation with a private rooftop patio complete with a hot tub and glorious view of the San Francisco Bay.
There were two bedrooms upstairs, and when we got to the landing, I discovered my bags were in one and Max’s was in the other. He was a good man. He wasn’t making any assumptions that we would share a bed simply because we were on vacation. Like he had done all month so far, he was making sure I was comfortable.
I was scared that I’d blown right past comfortable and slid into something else entirely. Something riddled with excitement and nerves and lust and fluttery heartbeats.
As I unpacked my bag, I shook my head at myself.
A night out of the house wouldn’t be enough to change things that much between us. We would have a good time, and that was all. Then we’d come back to our separate bedrooms, and nothing would have changed.
That didn’t seem like too tall an order.
Then again, I had no idea what the night had in store.
I strained my ears and listened to Max unpacking in his room. Was he thinking the same thing as me? Was his stomach alive with nerves?
Were we about to change the way the rest of the month would unfold?
Chapter 12
Max
“All right, the pier is yours,” Jackson Lee said as I stared at my reflection in the mirror on the back of my bedroom door.
“The whole thing?” I asked.
“That’s what you asked for, isn’t it?”
I grinned sheepishly at myself as I tightened my tie with my free hand. “Sure is. To be honest, I wasn’t convinced you’d be able to pull it off.”
“Vendors know the perks of opening their doors to the Casanova Club.”
“Fair enough.”
“You’re lucky I like you, Fisher. I wouldn’t have extended the same courtesy to some of the other bachelors.”
I considered my tie with my white button-up shirt and dark jeans. It looked too severe, too uptight. In an effort to tone things down, I loosened the tie, discarded it on the end of the bed, and popped open the top two buttons of the crisp white collar.
Better.
“Makes sense,” I said. “Some of the other bachelors are assholes.”
“You can say that again. They have no regard for how the competition is supposed to look. They’re supposed to lay low before and after their month with Piper. I wish I could say everyone was behaving and walking the straight and narrow.”
“But with guys like Cooper and Easton on the lineup, I can imagine how that’s not going the way you wanted.”
“They haven’t been the only thorns in my side.”
My eyebrows inched upward in surprise. “Really? And here I was, thinking aside from them, I was among gentlemen.”
“Yes, well, it would seem some people are better at putting up a front than others. At least with Easton and Cooper, you know what to expect.” Jackson sighed and cleared his throat. “Anyway, this shit doesn’t matter. It has nothing to do with you or your time with Piper. I guess there are benefits to being one of the last in line for the year, huh?”
I wasn’t sure I agreed with that one. The waiting had been intolerable. Then again, having to wait for ten months after falling for a girl while she courted other men might be considerably harder. “I guess so. Look. Thanks for your help pulling this off. I appreciate it. And I owe you one.”
“Just lay low for December, and we’ll be squared away. The Christmas party is going to be an absolute fucking nightmare. Too much testosterone. Too little self-control. And with the free booze…” Jackson trailed off. I could picture him wearily shaking his head while pinching the bridge of his nose. He’d done it enough times in all our meetings at the end of last year, preparing for our run in 2019. “Have a good night, Fisher. And enjoy the rest of your month. Don’t let a minute go to waste, got it?”
“I don’t plan to.” Not any more than I already had, at least.
Jackson ended the call, and I finished getting ready. The finishing touches to my outfit, a dark brown leather jacket and a pair of even darker boots, completed the ensemble. I checked the time on my wristwatch, and butterflies took flight in my stomach.
I was set to meet Piper downstairs in less than two minutes.
With any luck, she’d already be ready to go, and I wouldn’t have to wait in suspense for her to join me downstairs.
It didn’t work out that way.
I waited downstairs with a knot in my gut.
There was no way to tell what had me so strung out, the grand gesture of the evening or the ramifications if the night went really well.
I might fall for a girl I couldn’t have.
Or she might hate the evening.
The latter situation was extremely unlikely. My confidence that Piper would enjoy herself tonight was fairly high. So that meant I was nervous about what that meant and what might change after tonight.
Piper had only really been in my life for a week. And in that time, I’d already started to develop feelings for her that weren’t just centered in desire. Her easygoing attitude and carefree way was more appealing to me than any other quality, although her effortless laugh and her genuine smile helped. Not to mention her beauty. It was staggering.
She reminded me of a part of myself that I’d lost a long time ago. My less corporate side. The side my grandmother saw when I went to visit her in New York.
For some reason, the two versions of myself always felt so separate. But with Piper, it was like they were merging together to form one whole person. A person who knew what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to go for it.
That was what tonight was. And that was what the nerves were about.
Decisiveness. Wanting something. The risk of not getting it.
Yes, that was it.
I should’ve kept the tie, I thought as I drummed my fingers on the kitchen counter. I was about to move for the stairs and slip back up to my room to put it on when I heard Piper’s bedroom door open at the top of the stairs.
Leaving the kitchen in a rush, I went to the bottom landing, and I waited for her to round the corner at the top of the stairs with a smile plastered on my face. I hoped she couldn’t see my nerves etched into the lines of my face or in the whites of my eyes.
Cool and collected, man. Cool and collected.
Piper rounded the corner.
All thoughts of being cool and collected went out the window as I laid eyes on her and she began to descend.
She was wearing skin-tight dark blue jeans and thigh-high black boots. She’d paired it with a black shirt tucked into the jeans, with a chunky black belt with a gold buckle. And, of course, her red leather jacket.
