Sweet Love

by Lauren Accardo

  “Hey,” Syd said, reading the room. “I actually have to run. Mila, do you mind locking up for me?”

  “Not at all,” Mila said. “But you don’t have to—”

  “Eh.” Sydney held her hand up. “Just talk to each other. But please don’t have sex in here, okay?”

  With a wink, Sydney grabbed her coat and slipped out into the night.

  Mila toyed with the edges of the trash bag, avoiding his gaze as the air between them thickened.

  “Sorry I bailed last night,” he said. “Your parents freaked me out.”

  “You don’t say?” When her eyes finally landed on him, they cut. Deep. He really was afraid of the tough stuff.

  “I just wasn’t ready to have that conversation,” he said. “Especially not with your parents and Nicole and Calvin all waiting for me to pull a ring out of my pocket.”

  She shook her head, worked her lips as if summoning the courage to open the conversation. “Well, my parents are not me. That’s not how I feel. I’m not waiting for a ring or counting on you telling me you want to live in Pine Ridge for the rest of your life.”

  The weight that had been sitting on his shoulders since yesterday suddenly lightened. “You’re not?”

  “Give me some credit,” she said. “We’re just having fun.”

  Huh. A sharp, tiny pang in his chest. Something like . . . disappointment? But what could he possibly be disappointed by? He wanted that. To explore her, to have fun with her, to enjoy her without the pressure of what came next.

  Because they both knew marriage was not coming next.

  “Okay,” he said. “Well, great. Then we’re on the same page.”

  “And fuck everybody else, right? Who cares what they think?”

  Who was that girl? All the blood in his body rushed south. “Sure.”

  She released a long breath and reached for an open bottle of prosecco on the coffee table beside her.

  “You want a drink?” she asked. “Otherwise I’ll have to toss this.”

  “Um, yeah.” He didn’t need a drink. He needed to hear more about this theory of hers, the idea that they could just have fun. It sounded more like something she’d read in a book than something she’d come up with on her own.

  She set down the trash bag and retrieved two empty champagne flutes from a tray on the coffee table. The soft gray sweater she wore slipped over one shoulder as she poured, and with that slip of skin, something seized his chest. She was comfortable and new, domestic and wild, his home and his heart all wrapped up in one. He didn’t know what to do with such an overpowering feeling.

  He’d grown up with two parents, but the older he got, the more he saw the reality of their fractured marriage. His father drank too much, and his mother disappeared under the weight of a life and a burden she’d never asked for. She’d spent her whole life dreaming of leaving Pine Ridge and, instead, had ended up being swallowed up by it.

  As a result of her own regrets, she’d never once given Jared a pass. He’d never understood why everything Sam did was lauded and praised, and everything Jared did fell short. Sam had tried explaining—more than once—that their mother only wanted him to get the hell out of the town that had ruined her. Jared only felt the weight of her disappointment.

  And what would she think of him now?

  Mila handed him a cold, fizzing glass of prosecco, and she clinked hers against it before tucking an arm across her chest. The glowing table lamps lit her cheeks and made her nose stud sparkle like the North Star.

  He cleared his throat. “I don’t want us to just sleep together.”

  A surprised laugh skittered past her lips, and she pressed a hand to her forehead. “Okay?”

  “Seriously, Lee, this isn’t funny. I’m trying to talk to you.”

  She peered at him from under her hand and lowered herself onto the arm of the couch.

  “You don’t want us to just sleep together,” she said. “You also want us to . . .”

  “I want us to be us,” he said, frustration heavy in his chest. “I want to be like we used to be.”

  She took a sip of her prosecco and ran a thumb under her full lip before glaring at him. “So if I’m hearing you right, you want to be best friends who also have sex?”

  “Yeah.” He shrugged. “I mean, I just don’t want to lose everything we’ve been to each other up until now, you know?”

  She paused, the weight of her stare making him itch. “Think about what I just said. You want us to be best friends who have sex. Does that sound suspiciously like something else to you?”

  Anyone who claimed women were not smarter than men had obviously never talked to a woman.

  “Okay,” he said. “I get it. So then maybe we’re in a relationship. Maybe you’re my girlfriend. Is that crazy?”

  “Do you ever think long term? What happens if you move to New York? Or Boston? Or North Carolina? What happens if you take a big job with Indigo?”

  “You come with me.”

  The words fell out of his mouth as if a force from beyond had summoned them. You come with me? He’d never imagined them moving away from Pine Ridge together. But why not?

  Her head fell backward, her shock of dark brown curls tumbling down behind her. When she looked back at him, her lips parted. “Seriously?”

  “Why not?”

  She tucked her thumbnail between her teeth and avoided his eyes. Suddenly the new Mila disappeared, shrunken down into her shell like she always did when the conversation got tough.

  “You don’t get it.” Her voice barely carried across the few feet between them.

  “What don’t I get? You’re so happy to tell me I don’t get it, but you’re never willing to explain yourself.”

  “Oh, fuck off.” Her glowing, light brown eyes turned to steel.

  “Great. That’s helpful.”

  “Just forget it.” She shook her head and focused on the champagne flute gripped tightly in her hands.

  Silence weaved its way between them, filling the errant spaces and roaring in his ears. They’d had arguments in the past, but nothing that couldn’t be resolved with a couple of jokes and a drink or two.

  Tonight, she wasn’t budging.

  “How did you see this going?” he said finally. “You wanted to forfeit the friendship for the sex?”

  She rubbed her lips together, gaze glued to her hands. “I don’t know. I guess I thought as long as I was only focusing on one piece of it, the rest might settle on its own.”

  His skin prickled. Settle on its own. Did she think he would settle on his own? That he’d suddenly come around to marriage and kids and the type of domestic life he’d watched decimate both his parents?

  “You told me what your parents said wasn’t how you feel,” he said. “That you aren’t waiting on a commitment. Was that a lie?”

  Her eyes lifted, her face momentarily blank. “No. It wasn’t a lie. I mean, not completely.”

  His stomach tightened. He’d been hoping she didn’t agree with them, but he knew her too well. Could she try to buck tradition? Move to New York or Boston or Raleigh with him and live a half-domesticated, half-nomadic lifestyle? She’d said she wasn’t waiting for a ring, but now that he thought back on it, she hadn’t explicitly stated she didn’t want those things at all. She simply said she didn’t want them now.

  Nothing seemed clear anymore.

  “I’m twenty-five,” she said. “I’m not convinced this is exactly how my life will be until I die. But I also know that I love it here. I want to stay in Pine Ridge. I want to get married and have kids someday.”

  He winced. He hadn’t meant to, but it happened.

  “I mean, I think,” she said. “I think I want to get married and have kids.”

  “Jesus, Mila.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t tell me what I want to hear.”<
br />
  “I’m not.” Her jaw set. “I’m telling you what’s going on in my head. If I never meet anybody worth settling down with, then I won’t. Marriage isn’t the end-all. Being happy is the end-all. Being with somebody I love is the end-all.”

  He wanted it to be true. Wanted it to be true more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. “You’ll meet somebody who wants to marry you. How could you not?”

  “There are no guarantees in life. You have no idea how any of this will go.”

  He ran a hand over his hair and walked over to the big front window of the shop. His head spun again, and he looked out at the street, dark and desolate at this late hour. He imagined being in New York City, watching hundreds of people roam, just starting their evening. He saw crowded bars and well-dressed women and something new around every corner at every time of the day or night.

  But he turned back to Mila, perched on the arm of the couch, the lamplight bathing her face in the type of glow movie studios needed experts to create. Mila soaked up and reflected all the light in the room on her own.

  New York City didn’t have her. No city ever would. The way he felt about her terrified him to his core. Like she could change everything he thought he believed. Everything he’d been taught was gospel.

  “I feel like you want to be let off the hook for this,” she said. “That you want me to tell you I can’t do this, and we should end it completely. Go back to being friends.”

  Is that what he wanted? To never be allowed to kiss her again? To never have access to the soft scent at her neck or the deep moans she released as he roamed her body?

  Maybe it was what his rational brain told him he should want. It was what eighteen-year-old Jared would’ve screamed at him to do. If he sat down with a psychic, his old man would appear from the great beyond and tell him, “Run! She’s letting you off the hook! Go back to being friends!”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t want to go back to being just friends.”

  Her face softened. “So maybe we let go of our expectations a little. Maybe we try and just see what this feels like. No boundaries, no definition, no labels.”

  He raised the prosecco to his lips and took a drink. In the moment’s pause, she stood up and met him at the window, bringing a subtle wave of lavender scent with her. Not the new perfume this time. Just her skin, the flowery lotion she used, the spicy, herbal scent of her shampoo.

  It wrecked him.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered, not trusting the strength of his voice.

  She licked her lips. “Then don’t.”

  chapter sixteen

  Mila trailed her fingers over the oranges’ puckered skin, the smooth flesh of Honeycrisp apples, and the prickly fuzz of the kiwis. Without the restrictions of the first round, her mind should’ve relished the freedom of round two. Instead, she was stuck. Stymied. Completely void of inspiration. The produce section at the local grocery store did little to spark ideas.

  She popped a green grape into her mouth and grimaced as the sour juice burst against her tongue. Just like her recent recipe tests. Sour.

  “Not good, huh?” The husky female voice caught her attention from behind.

  Mila turned to face Chef Constance, nearly unrecognizable without her chef’s whites. She wore a gray ski cap over her short auburn hair, and a brightly patterned fleece jacket covered the rest of her round frame.

  She grinned at Mila without showing teeth and plucked a kiwi from the bin.

  “Ridiculously sour,” Mila said. “Serves me right for stealing a grape, right?”

  “You small-town people,” Constance said, still grinning. “Too honest for your own good.”

  “Don’t get me started on big-city types,” Mila teased back.

  “Eh. I’m from Heyburn, Idaho.”

  Mila laughed. “So I can count you among the too-honest small-town simple folk, huh?”

  Constance inspected a plastic container of blackberries, grimaced, and put it back. “You got me. Twenty years in New York, and I’m still chasing after people on the street who drop a dollar bill. It’s in my blood.”

  Mila readjusted her heavy handcart. “There are worse things to be.”

  With a narrowed gaze, Constance inspected Mila’s cart. “Hm. Working on your pies?”

  “Yes, but not with this haul.” Mila looked down at her cherry tomatoes, garlic, dried pasta, anchovies, and lemons. “That would be one disgusting pie.”

  “I’d have thought rosemary and Concord grapes would be nasty, too,” Constance said, “but you knocked that one out of the park.”

  A wash of flattery rolled over Mila. “You think?”

  “Absolutely. It was one of the most inventive, well-executed pies I’ve ever tasted. And it could’ve gone horribly wrong.”

  Mila’s lips curved into a smile. “Well, I’ll take that as a serious win, then.”

  Constance crossed her arms over her chest and studied Mila. Her skinny brows lowered over scrupulous eyes. “What do you do for a living, Mila?”

  She’d remembered her name. And her pie. Mila felt like prom queen and class president rolled into one. Constance’s tough demeanor reminded her of Nicole, but the woman’s own confidence and poise lured Mila into contentment. Peace. The space to be herself without judgment.

  “I’ve got a bunch of jobs,” Mila said. Waitress didn’t have the same type of ring as head chef.

  “Food service?”

  “Um, yeah. I mean, I work at the diner mostly. Waiting tables.”

  Constance nodded. “That’s great experience if you ever wanted to work in a kitchen.”

  In the comfort of her own home, creating pastries on her countertops, baking them in her oven, Mila was untouchable. Thrust into the professional world of food was something entirely different. She couldn’t even enter her hometown bake-off without a push from beyond the grave.

  “Sure.”

  “Listen,” Constance said, “we’ve got a couple apprenticeships at the hotel . . .”

  “I know,” Mila said. “You told me. But I’ve never been to culinary school, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t really see it in my future. It’s just so expensive. If I won the contest, then maybe, but even then. To spend all the prize money on one thing for myself when so many people I know could use a little help . . .”

  Constance pressed her lips into a disapproving glare. “You don’t need to spend fifty thousand dollars on culinary school. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but if you do pull off this Spring Bake-Off thing, it’ll be the résumé gem you need to land that apprenticeship. Real-world experience plus a win like that? You’d be ahead of the pack. Even without the formal training.”

  Mila’s throat tightened. “Really?”

  “Definitely.” Constance inspected a Granny Smith apple and placed it in her cart. “Indigo supports apprentices at all levels of experience, especially in the culinary division. You’d be a fool not to apply.”

  With a single nod of her head, Constance grabbed a kiwi and moved past Mila to the meat counter. Possibility churned in Mila’s chest. Maybe Constance represented an entire industry of people who looked at food service as a badge of honor, a stepping-stone to greatness, instead of a job some settled for.

  If her parents had taught her one life lesson, however, it was that life didn’t owe anybody anything. Good fortune did not beget good fortune, and nothing in life was certain. The lesson had been ingrained in her since birth.

  Mila brought her groceries to the register and began unpacking her cart, her brain popping back and forth between Constance’s tantalizing optimism and the crushing weight of her family’s reality.

  “You’re not using your Georgie account for this, right?” Annette Bethel asked, screwing up her wrinkled lips as she began swiping packages across the scanner.

  “No,” Mila said. “I�
��ll pay out of pocket for this.”

  “Whew. This would be one gross pie.”

  Mila licked her lips, replaying Chef Constance’s words in the produce section. She’d be a fool not to apply. And she’d already come this far, entering the bake-off and then moving on to the final round. Maybe she wouldn’t be the next Food Network star, but maybe she had more in her than she’d previously thought possible.

  “How much is left in that fund?” Mila asked.

  Annette pulled a clipboard from beneath the register and peered down through her bifocals. “Looks like twenty-seven fifty-four.”

  “Twenty-seven fifty-four?” The words snapped out of her mouth like a rubber band.

  Annette glared.

  “Sorry,” Mila said. “I just, um . . . I didn’t realize I’d spent so much money.”

  “It goes quick, doesn’t it?”

  As Mila hauled her canvas grocery totes over her shoulder, emotions swirled around her head. She’d depleted her funds at the hardware store, and now her account at the grocery store was nearly empty as well.

  Twenty-seven fifty-four. The number sobered her, a stark reminder of her dwindling inheritance from Aunt Georgie. If she didn’t come out the other side, she’d have wasted every penny of the money that could’ve gone to help her family with nothing to show for it but a big public humiliation.

  And a ruined friendship.

  As she drove back to her apartment, her car hugging the curves of the road she could drive with her eyes closed, she thought back on the past week. She’d had complicated feelings for Jared since they were kids, amplified by that day at the lake when he’d started treating her differently. Those long gazes, the blush that crept into his cheeks when she said something particularly dirty. It all meant something. All her suspicions, validated.

  But what now? In one fell swoop, they’d changed the course of their friendship, and now everything looked different. She wanted things she hadn’t previously let herself dream of, yearned for moments with him she never thought she’d be privileged enough to have.