SweetHarts (5 Book Box Set)

by Kira Graham

  “I don’t want to rest. I want to use the time I have to make sure that the other chefs are trained properly, and that whoever you bring on to replace me slides right into things without missing a beat.”

  I hold in a sigh. It does not hurt that I’m losing yet one more thing, I tell myself. Nope. I’m fine. Totally fine.

  “I don’t want to discuss that. I told you—I haven’t filed that letter yet, and I won’t. Not until I’m sure that you’re serious about leaving.”

  “I am. You were right when you told me that my job isn’t going to keep me warm at night, and you were right when you said that eventually the strain I’ve been working under would get to me. Well, it’s gotten to me,” I admit ruefully, taking a step back when his body heat starts to seep in through my jacket.

  “Goddammit, I didn’t mean—”

  “So, let’s just assume that you’re taking my resignation seriously and discuss candidates,” I suggest.

  “I said no. I refuse to consider other people when it’s more than possible that you could stay. You are Helos, Sin. You’ve been the driving force behind this place since the old reprobate who ran it hired you as his head chef. His recipes are yours; the place is all about what you choose to pump out of that kitchen. When I bought this place, it was with the understanding that you would be here, keeping people streaming in,” he tells me, his face going hard when I snort.

  “The recipes will still be here, and Vinny and Andrea can keep things going. I’m not Helos; I’m just a person,” I say softly—and sadly, because I’ve come to realize something recently.

  I’m as weak and fallible as everyone else is, and I am not irreplaceable. Paris proved that to me the moment he slept with the first tramp he laid eyes on, and I’ve continued proving it to myself over the course of the last few months. I need to stop looking at things in terms of what I want, and instead start facing reality. I’m not the superhero that Daddy used to tell me I could be, and I know that Uncle Jack can’t save me from everything. Sometimes, you’re your own worst enemy.

  “You’re not just a person; you’re…you! I don’t want you to leave, Sinai. If this is about you and me, then you have to let it go. I have.”

  “No, you haven’t,” I argue softly, avoiding him when he reaches out to take my hand. “You’ve been punishing me, and I took it, because I knew that I deserved it, but I’m done now. I’ve said sorry, and, sooner or later, that’ll have to be enough for you, because there isn’t anything more that I can say. But right now, I need to have something to work towards, and even if that’s my last day here, it’s at least something that I can focus on.”

  And it’s true. I need that focus so badly that some mornings, it’s hard for me to get out of bed without it. This morning was the first real morning in a long time that I woke up feeling…balanced.

  “What the hell are you talking about? You have focus. You’ve been laser focused on this job since before I met you,” Paris argues, ignoring my attempts to move away so that he can take my hand and pull me against his chest.

  I don’t struggle, because honestly, what is the point of fighting something that I want? I want to be closer to him, even if it hurts.

  “Fat lot of good that did me,” I grunt, smiling darkly. “This job has taken everything from me, Hart. It’s taken hours of my life that I can never get back. It’s taken friends and people that I consider family, and then it took—” I cut myself off and shake my head sharply, reminding myself that getting emotional isn’t going to solve anything for me right now.

  I promised myself that I would move on, and I will.

  “What? What else did it take?” he asks, his penetrating eyes holding mine captive.

  “It took something that I can’t ever replace, but that’s on me. It’s all on me, so if you’re going to come at me with the same argument that Tee threw my way just hours ago, don’t bother. I’m not running from my demons. I couldn’t possibly do that—when I am the demon.”

  “You’re not making any sense! What the hell is going on with you, Sinai? Look, I know you, and I know that I fucked up our friendship. And after the talk I had with my brothers, I am also very well aware that I am as much to blame for it as you are…but you can talk to me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You can. You always could. Forget the things we said. Forget that I was pissed at you for months and behaved like an ass, and just tell me what happened to you that broke everything apart.”

  I want to. Hell, after the session I had with Doc Tory this afternoon, I am fully aware that keeping my secrets so tightly bottled up is a big part of the trouble I’m having with life. But no one ever said that I was smart, and if it takes smarts to have courage right now, then you can call me an idiot. You wouldn’t be wrong, either. I can’t talk about this, not even with Paris, and that about says all that needs to be said about that magical friendship he thinks we once had.

  “I don’t want to,” I say now, keeping my face completely hard, even when I see him flinch before he drops his arms and takes a step back, the softness all but melting from him.

  “I see.”

  No. He doesn’t, really. No one does. It’s not even possible for anyone to know, because I haven’t been brave enough to tell anyone the shameful truth about who I really am.

  I want to tell him, though, and while he may not like me as much afterward, if he even likes me at all now, a part of me needs to sit down on my couch, like we always used to, and spill it all while he rests my head in his lap and strokes my hair. I miss that like hell, but, once again, I have only myself to blame for the loss of that comfort.

  “You don’t. You don’t see, because you only ever see what you want to,” I find myself saying, despite my mind yelling at me to back off.

  Suddenly, I’m as angry as hell at him for finally caring, and yeah, I know how irrational that is, but dammit, why didn’t anyone ever see that I was hurting before, huh? Why did everyone keep going on as if everything was normal while my life was imploding? Why didn’t Paris notice back then that I was different, dammit?

  “I see what I want to? Me? That’s rich coming from a chick who needs things spelled out for her. I was more than a friend to you, and you know it, and if you’re being honest with yourself, you wanted more, too. I don’t know what kind of fucked-up games you’re playing with me, Sin, or what the hell is up with your constant, wishy-washy crap, but I’m not up for it this time—not again. I can see that you have something that you need to get off your chest, and I am here for you, as a friend, when and if you decide you want to talk. But if not…then do whatever you want. If you want this job after the three months are up, then let me know. If you don’t, then I guess we’ll both be moving on,” he says tiredly, turning his back on me to head toward the door.

  I expect him to leave but am forced to walk past him when he opens the door and stands back, his message clear. He’s the boss, and this is his office. And our meeting is over.

  *****************************************************************

  “He wasn’t being a dick,” I sigh around a mouthful of chocolate that Tee somehow stole from Cleo’s, even with all the security that that woman has all around her place.

  You literally cannot walk ten steps anywhere in Cleo’s place without tripping over a security goon. That’s why I have mad respect for Tee, for managing to swipe even one entire box of Cleo’s always-in-demand Raspberry Raptures, never mind two. Plus a package of caramels.

  “He sounds like he was being a demanding asshole. Again,” she argues, shaking her head when I open my mouth to defend Paris.

  It was a long shift at Helos, and my toe is definitely broken—something that I found out as soon as I wasn’t in “the work zone” anymore and bumped it against the bottom of the stairs out back in the alleyway.

  The fact that I slightly peed my pants, and then had to call Tee to come pick me up at two in the morning, wasn’t easy to deal with, and neither is the fact that I now have Mindy sitti
ng beside me, offering me a measure of comfort that I’m too weak-willed to fight off at the moment. Over the past few months, she and I have actually become good friends. Mostly. I’m sickeningly honest with her, despite her fragile feelings, and she still likes me, even going so far as to drag me to some of her Catholic speed-dating events.

  Which make me want to shoot myself. It’s really hard to flirt with hot guys when A, they turn out to think that flirtation makes you a whore, and B, they aren’t as good-looking as the wine wants me to believe they are. Anyway, Mindy and I are pals, and since Tee is hanging out with me a lot lately, the two of them have become slightly less antagonistic towards each other than they used to be.

  “I agree with Tee. I like Paris—well, as much as you can like someone who wears a Buddhist symbol around his neck and says things like, ‘God loves sinners more than the good ones’—but the guy’s being…” Mindy says softly, trailing off as I snort and roll my eyes.

  In my opinion, Paris is right: God must love us sinners more, since there’s so much more to overlook in order to get to the love part. I don’t say that to her, though—not when I’ve already been mean enough to bite her tonight when she tried to take one of my chocolates. What? They’re mine.

  “A dickhole?” Tee suggests wickedly, her eyes dancing when Mindy sniffs and purses her lips.

  “A little heavy-handed, considering he’s not exactly easy to get to know. You know, when I was dating Nate, I got to spend a little time with Paris, and while he’s easy come, easy go with you all, he isn’t exactly open and chatty.”

  Meaning that he probably didn’t say one word to Mindy, because he’s so afraid of offending her that he just doesn’t talk to her. That doesn’t make him bad, though. Or an asshole.

  “Come on, guys. You have to admit, I was being a total bitch to the man.”

  “Maybe so, but he’s going to have to accept the fact that he can’t just get everything he wants. If he wants to be friends, or fuck buddies or whatever, he has to earn your trust back.”

  “Would you please not use that kind of language, Tee? It’s unnecessary. But I second that. Paris is the kind of man who thinks that he can get a girl to fall at his feet with the snap of his fingers. Someone should teach him that it takes more than just a few soft words to gain your trust.”

  I could be wrong, but I think the wine that Tee and I have been pouring into Mindy, as well as into ourselves, is starting to loosen her up enough to actually make her seem…human.

  “No one’s teaching him anything—do the two of you hear me? He wasn’t at fault here; I was. I was feeling all weird and sad and pathetic, which pissed me off, and then I got mean, like I always do. Paris didn’t, which basically tells you that I’m the problem here,” I sigh, sucking the filling out of a chocolate with undisguised relish, until I feel someone staring and turn to meet Mindy’s desperate, pathetic eyes.

  Dammit.

  “One,” I tell her in warning, nearly crying when she snatches the chocolate out of my hand and pops it into her mouth with a moan.

  “Cleo should have come to work for me, darn it. Then I wouldn’t have to beg for these like a dog.”

  “Cleo’s doing just fine on her own, raking in the money from those rich idiots who don’t even eat chocolate,” I snort, rolling my eyes when Mindy huffs.

  Her store is very successful, and I won’t deny the fact that the woman knows how to make a treat, but no one beats Cleo when it comes to chocolate, and we all know it.

  “I’d have had her if you a-holes hadn’t been so hard to win over.”

  “We aren’t hard to win over, Minds; you were just a super dork with strange ideas about what makes a whore and what makes an angel,” I point out, giggling when she rolls her own eyes.

  “I never called any one of you that nasty word. Except Alex, who wasn’t exactly trying to dissuade people from thinking she’s a hussy,” Mindy points out good-naturedly.

  “It’s a well-known fact and a well-kept secret that Alex is actually the antithesis of a slut. We just have so much fun making fun of her that we can’t resist. Now, you, on the other hand, must have moldy rust growing in those unused pipes,” Tee drawls, cackling when Mindy flushes and narrows her eyes.

  “Sex is sacred. It should only be shared between a husband and wife.”

  “Tell that to my vagina, Mindy, and see if you walk away from that conversation in one piece,” Tee warns her, her eyes narrowing to slits.

  I stay quiet and don’t get involved, because at this point, my pipes are moldy and rusted, too. The last time I had sex—actual sex that didn’t involve sleep drool, Paris, and my own sick fantasies—was when I was seeing Cole, and that turned out so “great” that afterwards, I literally had the urge to cut off every dick I could get my hands on, in protest.

  God, I hate that man so much. I should egg his house, I think, my wine-soaked mind latching on to the idea with a vengeance. Yeaaaah. That would totally make me feel better and help me get over this feeling of loathing that’s eating me up from the inside.

  “We should go egg Cole’s house,” I grunt to no one in particular, taking another swig of wine, or seven, to wash the chocolate down.

  You know, like a palate cleanser for the next one.

  “That’s an awesome idea!”

  “That’s a bad idea. He goes to our church, ya know,” Mindy babbles, her eyes flitting away when Tee and I exchange a look and then burst into giggles.

  “Yeah, I know, Mind. That’s kinda why me’n Tee are banned from church for the next two months.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that to his car.”

  “Done what, Mindy? According to my rap sheet, I am ‘not guilty’ of power washing that man’s car with brake fluid,” I say primly, laughing harder when Tee sputters and mutters the words “free wash” out of the side of her mouth.

  When I was “dating” Cole, he’d do this thing on Saturday morning, no matter how late I’d worked or how tired I was, where he’d make me help him wash his BMW and tell me that it was a couple thing. I detested it. But he finally got a real wash outta me without one iota of protest that day at church. The asshole.

  “The church has cameras, Sinai. How you and Nefertiti convinced a judge that it wasn’t you, even though the footage was crystal clear, is beyond me,” she sighs, her disapproval dissolving when we laugh again.

  “One word, Mindy darlin’. Just one word. Rosetta!”

  “Rosetta!” I shout, toasting her with my wine glass and then downing it so fast that I burp loudly.

  “That girl’s gonna burn in hell for the ease with which she lies. Mark my words. I still pray for her, though, just in case the Lord sees fit to weigh the circumstances before judging her. Now, what do you say we bake some—”

  “We’re egging Cole’s house,” Tee insists, already rising, though so unsteadily that I know for a fact she can’t drive. “We’re going to bake…with a lot of eggs.”

  Mindy, being the lightweight she is, gets drunk off her third teeny sip of wine, so she’s out as designated diva, too, and since I have to close one eye to make the room come into focus, I’m almost positive that I can’t drive, either. That’s why twenty minutes later, laughing so hard after even more wine that I nearly puke, I open the door to a grinning Ares, who takes one look behind me, sees Tee, and promptly groans out loud.

  “You didn’t tell me that Satan was here!” he grumbles, chuckling as Tee walks past him, swaying her hips, and then dick-taps him.

  “You didn’t ask. Besides, I knew that you wouldn’t come if I told you, and we really need you to drive us. You wouldn’t want us behind the wheel in this condition, would you, Ares, my love?” I ask, pulling my door shut behind us just after Mindy stumbles out, falls against the wall, and then giggles so hard that she falls flat on her face.

  When an unsmiling Nate gets a load of her, I almost feel bad about his seeing her this way, until I remember that the dickhole broke up with her because she wouldn’t put out. Not that I blame
him much—I mean, I have a vagina, and I want sex. I can’t imagine what it must be like for guys to have to go without, especially when the chick they’re sleeping next to most nights is as hot as Mindy.

  She is a little dumb, though, I think, because as much as I respect her virgin ways, I would have ridden Nate like he’d paid me to please him if he’d been mine.

  “You got her drunk?”

  “She’s not drunk, Nate; she’s plastered. Off half a glass of wine, and one Raspberry Rapture to boot.”

  “It was three quarters of a glass,” Mindy protests, rolling over and sitting up with a huff, looking as cute as hell when she blows at her hair and glares up at Nate. “I’m building up my tolerance.”

  “I thought that good little girls didn’t do bad things,” he retorts, cursing when he tries to help her up, only to rip his hand back bearing her teeth marks.

  “Yeah, well, apparently being good gets you kicked in the teeth, too, so I’ve decided that Sin is right—sometimes being a little bad gets you much further…farther?”

  I wish I could say that she says it with class, but, God help me, every second word she slurs comes out so garbled that it’s a miracle we can understand her at all. Whatever.

  “Come on, drunk Mary. Let’s go corrupt you a little more,” I mutter, helping her up with Ares’ assistance and then following Nate into the elevator, where Tee’s holding the doors, squinting into her phone, and talking to what sounds like a Korean man who works at the twenty-four-hour supermarket.

  “No e’s! We sole out. Big sale!” he yells, right before Tee ends the call with a curse.

  “Well, shit! Where the hell are we gonna get three hundred bad eggs?” she growls, giving me a pointed look when Ares and Nate both glance at us questioningly.