Spicy (Palate #1)

by Octavia Wildwood

  Come to think of it, I could think of a few other places I’d like his lips to graze…

  I had chores to do and errands to run. My apartment needed cleaning and I was getting low on groceries, but those things could wait until later. Or maybe they could wait until tomorrow. I just wanted to spend the day with Joel. He was growing up so fast and I didn’t want to miss a thing. Maybe I’d take him to the park later on.

  But right now I was just going to relax and keep thinking deliciously naughty thoughts about Gavin Rothe.

  Or at least that was the plan before my apartment’s buzzer rang.

  I ignored it, thankful that Joel was a heavy sleeper. Someone downstairs had probably just hit the wrong suite number by mistake. It was no big deal. I rolled over and pulled the blankets up over my head, fully prepared to go back to sleep.

  The buzzer rang again.

  Then it rang a third time.

  Annoyed, I jumped out of bed and threw a robe on over the ragged but comfy oversized college sweatshirt I couldn’t bear to get rid of. Then I stomped into the living room and picked up the phone. “What?” I barked in a half-whisper, half-growl, prepared to give whoever was down there pressing the buzzer a piece of my mind.

  “Wilhelmina Rosalyn Sinclair, that’s no way to talk!”

  I was so startled I nearly dropped the phone. “…Mom?”

  “Well of course it’s me. Buzz me in!”

  What the hell was my mother doing in Los Angeles? I hadn’t spoken to her in a few weeks and when we did talk, it was basically just about Joel.

  Her thought processes never failed to baffle me. How could she label me an immoral woman for being an unwed mother and yet absolutely adore her grandson? It made no sense…but then the bizarre ideas my mother came up with rarely did. That was probably a big part of why we’d never seen eye to eye.

  Insistent knocking on my door announced her arrival.

  I unlocked the deadbolt and immediately cringed as my mother barged in. She was a neat freak and I could practically see her turning her nose up in disgust as she took in my messy living room. I wasn’t always a bad housekeeper but I’d been so busy lately. Part of me wanted to explain myself, but I instead opted to keep my mouth shut.

  It can be funny how even a headstrong, fiercely independent twenty-eight year old woman can be made to feel like a five year old when her mother comes to visit, can’t it?

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. She was a long way from home.

  “Your father and I watched that cooking show,” she said. “You looked terrible on it, so I got on a plane as soon as I could!” She paused then and scrutinized me. “As a matter of fact, you look terrible now, too.”

  “Well jeez, thanks Mom,” I retorted sarcastically. What did she expect? Of course my hair was standing on end, I was bleary-eyed and I was dressed like a slob. Her unannounced arrival had gotten me out of bed!

  “Don’t say that word.” She was probably the only person in the world who considered “jeez” to be a curse word. She was a good person and meant well, but we’d certainly clashed over the years due to her strong religious views and my less-than-conservative lifestyle.

  “So you’re here to tell me I looked terrible on television?” I was trying to make sense of her unannounced arrival but she wasn’t giving me much to work with. “By the way,” I added, “we all looked terrible because we’d been on our feet all day long, running around like chickens with our heads cut off.”

  “That’s my point exactly,” my mother replied. “How can you be spending time with Joel when you’re so busy filming that show all day? I bet you hardly see him, and it’s not like you know anyone else out here in California. All your family is back in Vermont,” she said pointedly.

  I took offense to that immediately. It was one thing for my mother to nitpick about minor stuff, but I wasn’t going to stand for her criticizing my parenting. “I’ve found Joel a great, reputable sitter. He loves her and we spend time together whenever we can,” I insisted. “It’s no different than any parent who works full-time.”

  She ignored the point I was trying to make. No surprise there. She’d had an annoying habit of doing that my entire life. “When you told me you were moving to Los Angeles to go on some…cooking show, I thought you were being reckless, selfish and irresponsible.”

  “Yes, I know. You didn’t exactly keep your opinion on the matter a secret.” She’d deeply resented that I was moving Joel so far away from her and had made a lot of noise about it. But my mother’s noise was something I’d learned to tune out a long, long time ago. It was just easier that way.

  “You’re in the top three now.” I wasn’t sure but I thought I detected pride in her voice. It was difficult to tell for sure because it wasn’t something I was used to. Making my parents proud wasn’t exactly my forte. I’d spent much of the past decade disappointing them time and time again, it seemed.

  “I am.” I was surprised she’d been watching the show at all. The way she was speaking about it made it seem like she’d been following my progress rather closely.

  “Do you think you can win?” she asked anxiously.

  “I have as good a chance as anyone,” I replied honestly.

  She nodded. “That’s what I thought. I always knew you could cook but this…well, this has been a surprise. It’s been a good surprise. I think you need to concentrate on the competition more than ever now. And your father and I really miss Joel.”

  I softened a bit. I knew at her core, my mother meant well. She loved her grandson to pieces and she even loved me in her own twisted, judgmental way. “He misses you too,” I assured her. “You know I wasn’t trying to take him away from you by moving out here, right?”

  She waved her hand and made a clucking sound to let me know she wasn’t interested in discussing that. “Your father has vacation time coming up at work. We’d love to spend time with Joel. Let me take him back to Vermont for a few weeks while your competition is wrapping up.”

  “I don’t know, he’s still awfully young.”

  “I’ve already bought him a plane ticket,” my mother insisted. “As a matter of fact, I bought you one, too.” Trust her to put the cart before the horse. I had a suspicion the tickets weren’t roundtrip ones, either. Subtlety had never exactly been my mother’s strong point.

  My first instinct was to say no. I’d never gone more than a day without seeing my son. The thought of sending him away, even just temporarily, was heart-wrenching. But on the other hand, there was no one who doted on him more than my parents. They could give him all the time and attention in the world. That was something I couldn’t do at the moment.

  “Just for a week – two tops,” I cautioned, making it perfectly clear that I had no intention whatsoever of returning to live in Vermont. My life was in California now. “As soon as I’m done with the show, I’ll come get him.”

  My mother rubbed her hands together, practically jumping up and down with glee. “Ooh, this will be so fun!” she trilled, delighted that I’d agreed to her proposal. “I can hardly wait to tell your father you said yes! He’s going to be so thrilled! We’ve made a whole list of places to take Joel on outings and games to play and crafts to do…”

  She probably would have rambled on for several more sentences if it wasn’t for what I did next. But she was so surprised that she stopped talking immediately. In fact, it might have been one of the few times in her life that my mother was rendered speechless.

  I was surprised too. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d hugged her. It had been years. We just didn’t have a hugging sort of mother-daughter relationship. But the next thing I knew, I’d wrapped my arms around her, and then I was hugging her.

  “Thank you,” I told her, genuinely meaning it. Regardless of whether she approved, she was supporting my dreams in her own way. I appreciated it more than I could tell her. More importantly, there was no question that she loved my son with all her heart. We had that much in common, anyway.

/>   She didn’t answer me. Instead, she just hugged me back.

  Chapter 10

  My relaxing day off quickly turned into a whirlwind of activity. Packing clothes, toys, snacks and various other essentials for a toddler without a list is not an easy task. Doing it with said toddler and one’s mother underfoot is even more of a challenge. Oh and then there was the fact that they had a flight to catch in three hours’ time! Trust my mother to make things as difficult of possible at every turn.

  I frantically threw everything together, got Joel’s travel documents in order and gave my mom approximately a million instructions about his bedtime routine, favorite stuffed animal, meals and so on. Even as I was telling her, I knew I was being silly. She was my mother. She’d raised me and, despite what she might say, I happened to think I’d turned out pretty decent.

  She had everything under control.

  Joel would be just fine with my parents – in fact, he’d have a blast. Deep down, I knew that. As a matter of fact, maybe that was precisely why I was having so much anxiety about his leaving.

  By the time I got my mother and son along with all his bags out the door and into a taxi, I was mentally and physically exhausted. After waving goodbye and seeing them off, I trudged back upstairs to collapse on the couch.

  Immediately, I missed the commotion and upheaval of having a toddler running around screaming at the top of his lungs. Yes, I’d wished for peace and quiet countless times – but now that I had it, I no longer wanted it.

  As I laid there on the couch feeling completely alone, I broke down. I wasn’t exactly sure why I was crying. All I knew was it had been a long, long time coming. All the stress, worry and heartache that had been bubbling beneath the surface for the past couple of years broke free as though a dam had burst.

  I didn’t try to stop it. Instead, I did an ugly cry. Silent sobs wracked my body and my nose got so stuffed up it was hard to breathe. Tears poured out of me like my eyes had decided to masquerade as waterfalls. It was disgusting and glorious. Sometimes nothing feels quite as liberating as doing an ugly cry, you know?

  Of course, I couldn’t have my little meltdown in peace. That would be asking too much.

  As though right on cue, the buzzer rang. I choked back my tears and looked at the clock that hung above the couch in alarm. My mother and Joel were supposed to be at the airport by now. If they’d had to turn around because I’d forgotten to pack something important, I wasn’t sure they’d have time to get back to the airport and through security before their flight left.

  There wasn’t time to pick up the phone – or to make myself look decent. Instead, I wiped my red, tear-streaked face with the sleeve of my ratty sweatshirt and frantically ran downstairs. But it wasn’t my mother and son who were standing at the door.

  It was Gavin Rothe.

  Relief and horror washed over me at the same time: there was no travel-related fiasco to deal with, but I looked positively hideous. I hadn’t even had time to get dressed. And now Gavin was seeing me in all my repulsive, ugly cry glory.

  He looked every bit as surprised as I felt.

  “Are you…are you okay?” he stuttered, wide-eyed. Had I not been so embarrassed at having him see me in such a state, I would have laughed. His discomfort was obvious and I could tell he didn’t quite know how to react. What a typical man, squeamish about dealing with an emotional woman. He looked almost fearful, like I might spontaneously combust or something.

  “I’m fine,” I replied, sticking my reddened nose in the air. Doing that served two purposes: it made me look confident and it kept my nose from running…kind of. “I need a tissue,” I announced and then abruptly retreated upstairs.

  Gavin followed me.

  “You’re crying,” he pointed out, standing awkwardly in my entryway as I blew my nose into a wad of paper towels I’d grabbed from the small adjoining kitchen. He looked like he couldn’t quite decide if he should come in or give me my space.

  “So?”

  “So why are you crying?”

  In all honesty, the answer was probably a complex one. But we didn’t need to get into all that. Instead, I gave him the simple, straightforward explanation.

  “My mother took Joel back to Vermont for a visit and I miss him. I was going to take him to the park this afternoon and now I can’t.” My lower lip was trembling by the time I finished talking.

  I’d expected Gavin to scoff, roll his eyes and say “is that all?” like I was an idiot. But he did none of those things. Instead, he took a tentative step forward and put a hand on my shoulder. Maybe that was a strange gesture, but as simple as it was, it showed that he cared. Actually, it was kind of the perfect thing to do.

  “What were you going to do at the park?” he asked.

  “There are ducks in the lake. He likes to feed them. Well, technically he likes to throw bread at them, but thankfully his aim leaves something to be desired. The bread always lands at least three feet away from them.”

  Gavin squeezed my shoulder. “Let’s go to the park and feed the ducks.”

  I stared at him like he’d just sprouted horns. “Why?”

  “You can practice for when he comes back,” Gavin said like it was the most sensible thing in the world. In a way, the subtle reminder that Joel would be back soon did make me feel better. “And besides,” Gavin added, “it’s a beautiful, sunny day. You should be outside enjoying your time off instead of crying in here all alone.”

  “Why are you even here?”

  “Your car is fixed – the parts that were on order came in early. I was going to take you down to the shop to pick it up but that can wait. Let’s go to the park.”

  “You’re really serious about that?”

  “Of course I am.”

  I noticed then that he was wearing a suit, a stark contrast to my tattered old college sweatshirt. His attire probably meant he’d been planning to go into work. “What about the restaurant?” I reminded him, thinking maybe he’d forgotten.

  He shot me a grin. “The nice thing about being my own boss is that I can take off whenever I want. And I’ve decided that I want to spend the day at the park with you. You can’t tell me no. Think of the ducks.”

  I had to smile at that. “Well, if it’s for the ducks…” The thought of getting out of my apartment was appealing, and the idea of spending the day in the sunshine with Gavin was even more attractive. “Give me a minute to change my clothes and brush my hair, okay?”

  He shrugged. “Alright, but you look fine the way you are.”

  I burst out laughing. Sure, you saw all kinds of interesting looking people out and about in the city but even so, the suggestion that I leave the house looking the way I did was absurd. “Gavin,” I exclaimed with a snort, “I’m a mess!”

  “You look good to me.”

  *****

  The park wasn’t far from my place, so we walked.

  When we got there, it was full of joggers, bikers and young mothers pushing strollers. It felt strange to be there without my son but the sun was warm and the birds were chirping. With Gavin at my side, I started to enjoy myself in a way I hadn’t in a long, long time.

  We’d stopped at a grocery store on the way so we could buy a loaf of bread. Now, as Gavin leisurely strolled along the gravel path, he looked rather silly.

  There he was, happily swinging a bag of bread while dressed in a business suit. Everyone around us wore shorts, capris or sundresses. A few of the more daring women wore only bikinis (welcome to California indeed). Even I was only wearing a fitted blue t-shirt and denim cut-offs. It was a park, after all, not a place of business.

  And comically enough, Gavin looked like the only one who hadn’t gotten the memo.

  As we approached the still blue lake, I grabbed his tie and used it almost like a leash. I gently but insistently pulled him over to an empty park bench. Then I looked at him and pointed to it. “Sit.”

  “What am I, your dog?” he grumbled good-naturedly. Even though he complained, he d
id as I said. Once he was seated, I stood in front of him and purposefully undid his tie. Then I opened the top of his dress shirt so he didn’t look quite so buttoned up.

  “There.” I stood back and admired my handiwork.

  He raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m helping you not look like a crazy person who wears a suit to the park,” I informed him. “You should be thanking me.” Then as an afterthought I handed him his folded up tie, unsure of what to do with it. “Here, put this in your pocket.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said dryly, giving me a little salute as he did so. Then with a knowing smirk he looked at me suggestively. In a deep voice, he teased, “Is there anything else you’d like me to take off?”

  I knew he was just trying to get me flustered, but hell, he’d seen me in the midst of an ugly cry (and he hadn’t run away). After that, it was going to take a little more effort on his part to get me to blush. I crossed my arms and looked him up and down before answering. “Yes.”

  Gavin’s eyebrow shot up. Clearly he hadn’t expected that answer. “Oh?”

  “Lose the jacket,” I ordered. “You must be burning up in it.” Then I gave him a playful grin. “What were you expecting me to say?” I inquired innocently.

  Rolling his eyes, Gavin made a face at me. “Ah yes, I love it when you get that bossy tone….” He slid his jacket off and rolled his shirt sleeves up. “Hmm, that’s actually much better. You do know I’m only overdressed because I had no idea I’d be spending the day at a park, yes?”

  “Yep, but I still like to give you a hard time.”

  “You can say that again.”

  I swallowed hard. Somehow our playful banter had taken on a blatantly sexual undertone…or was I imagining it? I looked at Gavin. He pulled me down on the bench beside him. “Here,” he said, thrusting the bag of bread into my hand. “Show me how the pros do it.”

  Maybe I’d imagined it.

  “Are you glad you moved to Los Angeles?” Gavin asked as I opened the package.

  “Yes. I think so. I hope so.” I sighed. “The thing about being solely responsible for another person’s life is that you constantly second guess your decisions. At least I do. I feel guilty sometimes for moving so far away from my parents.”