by Wood, Vivian
But I can’t do that. I can’t go and spend money on myself, not when I’ve been acting like this.
My phone rings, making me jump. I pick up my phone, not recognizing the number.
“Hello?”
I hear crinkling on the other end. “Cate?”
My brow hunches. “Rachel?”
Rachel Black sometimes volunteers at the women’s shelter with me.
“When are you getting here?” she asks. “We have almost everything set up already, so I assume you are going to be working one of the booths.”
My mouth opens. The carnival. The one I helped to organize, to raise money for the shelter. I can feel my face start to heat. “That’s today?”
More crinkling. “Sorry, I’m sewing these fracking taffeta table decorations and they are so loud. What did you say?”
“Nothing!” I say. “I’m sorry, I overslept. I’ll be right there.”
“Yeah, okay…” Rachel says. “Before you go though, do you know anybody willing to have pies flung at them? William went missing and we already have like a hundred whipped cream pies already made up. I’d hate for them to go to waste…”
“Uhh…” I scrunch my face up, hunting for some fresh clothes in my dresser drawers. “I’ll put some feelers out, okay?”
She sighs. “Sure. I’ll talk to you when you get here.”
After we get off the phone, I scrounge around for clean clothes. But of course, there are no modest clothes that are clean. Just my work clothes.
Fuming, I put them on. If I wasn’t about to be late, I would actually do some laundry. But I am, so I just put my black knee socks on with my short black dress and my long grey coat over it.
Hoping I look cute rather than like a stripper, I slip on my shoes and grab my purse. Dashing downstairs, I run into Luca. He’s perfectly dressed as usual, wearing black jeans and a Sigur Rox t-shirt. He arches a dark brow at me as I rush past him.
“Where are you running to?”
“I’m late. The women’s shelter is having a carnival,” I call over my shoulder. “I totally blanked on it.”
He sets down the glass of water he’s sipping. “You want a ride?”
“No!” I yell. That is literally the last thing I want, but I don’t have time to get into a fight with him over it. “Later!”
The entire time I am waiting for the bus and riding into the city, I’m just sort of glum. The thought of moving out of Luca’s house as soon as we attend his ex’s wedding… in what, a week and a half? Yeah, that stresses me out.
Why exactly I can’t say. But the future really doesn’t hold anything worth looking forward to. Especially not moving back into my grandmother’s house.
Don’t get me wrong, she is lovely. But after being at Luca’s, it will be a tough transition. Being in a place with so many other bodies… and so much competition for the bathroom at all hours of the day… that isn’t the greatest draw. Maybe I should use a little bit of the money I’ve made to find myself my own place.
Or at least some place with less than six people living there. And a private bedroom.
That’s fair, right?
When I get to the women’s shelter, it’s a zoo. The big gymnasium is divided into twenty little booths, each set up for a game or an experience. I walk by people putting the finishing touches on a ring toss game, pass two older ladies dressed as fortune tellers. It’s actually all come together pretty well, no thanks to me.
I spot Rachel, holding a plastic baggie full of water and frowning. She’s petite but elegant, always impeccably dressed. Even now in the middle of the fair, she wears a black pantsuit with a pearly necklace that just screams I have expensive tastes.
“Are you sure that it’s alive?”
I start toward her just as she gives the bag a jiggle. There is a little blue flutter in the corner of the baggie. The man Rachel is talking to points to the blue flutter. “I swear, the betta fish are all alive. Most of them are just asleep. Dead fish float.”
“Okay,” Rachel says, a skeptical expression on her face. “If you say so…”
She sees me and the relief on her face is nearly comical. “Oh, Cate! There you are!”
Rachel comes over to me, giving me a tiny hug. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“I’m so sorry I didn’t help put all this together,” I say, looking around. “It looks amazing.”
“Hah!” she says. Brushing a lock of blonde hair out of her face, she smiles. “Don’t worry about it. Most of the work was done by my fiancé Grayson anyway. He’s…” She looks around, then points out a tall, lumberjack-looking guy with a well-groomed beard. “There he is, moving that stack of boxes.”
My eyebrows rise. “Wow. He is very handsome.” I grin at Rachel. “Well done, you!”
Rachel blushes. “Thanks. I put up with him.” She puts her arm around me, turning me toward an empty booth. “We are still missing William. Like I told you before, the pies are all made up and the booth is covered in plastic so that the pies won’t get everywhere… but we don’t have anybody to throw the pies at.”
“Oh, no problem! I can do it. I feel like I deserve it anyway.” I slip my shoulder bag off with a grimace.
Rachel purses her lips, looking me over. “Yeah… don’t take it personally, but I really want a guy. Women should take out their feminist rage on him. I would volunteer Grayson, but he’s helping to run Pin The Tail On The President.” She pulls a face.
“Ah. Totally.” I look around, trying to think of who I should call. Gosh, who do I even know well enough to ask them to do this?
In the back of my head, I’m still kicking myself for not being here yesterday. Maybe if I had, I could’ve planned something out…
“Hey.”
I whirl. Luca is right behind me, all leather jacket and dark, tousled hair. Seeing him makes my heart beat double time.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, frowning.
“My sister said you were going to be here for a fair. I figured I should come down and see what the fuss is all about while the shelter is open to the public.” He looks around the gym, assessing. “Somehow, it’s exactly how I thought it would be.”
I shoot him a little glare. “We aren’t even in the building that I usually go to.”
Rachel speaks up from right behind me. “Do you know this guy? Because when I think about someone I would throw a pie at, that guy is definitely close to what I imagine.”
I sigh. “Yes, I know him. But there’s no way he’ll let us fling desserts at his head.”
Luca approaches, looking around. “Are you running one of these booths, Cate?”
Rachel smiles, interrupting. “Why yes, she is! Say, what are you doing for the next few hours?”
Luca glances at me, then shrugs. “I don’t know. What do you need?”
Rachel looks at me with a grin. “See? Problem solved! Now you can work the booth and your boyfriend can let people lob pies at him.” She pats me on the shoulder. “I should go check on Grayson.”
“Wait…” I try to call after her, but she’s already on her way across the gym. Glancing at Luca, I shake my head.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Luna said you would be here. I figured I would come down and see what the fuss is about.”
I scowl. “Normally you shouldn’t hang out at a women’s shelter. In case you haven’t noticed, you are a guy.”
He looks around, shrugging. “I see guys here today.”
Rolling my eyes, I head over toward the empty booth. “That’s not really the point, is it?”
Luca stops me by touching my elbow. I look up at him, feeling conflicted. On the one hand, I’m glad that someone is here to help…
On the other hand, why does it have to be him?
“Do you want me to leave?” he asks earnestly. “I came here to try to apologize.”
He looks down at me, all traces of his usual smugness have vanished.
It’s not fair, the way he�
��s looking at me. My heart falters. My mouth goes dry. I don’t trust myself to speak.
So I just shake my head. He gives me a tiny smile, his lips lifting up at the corners of his mouth.
“Okay then. What is it that you’ve got me doing again, exactly?”
I can’t help but grin at that. “Oh, you’re going to hate it.”
Grabbing his hand, I lead him over to the pie booth.
He eyes the booth with a skeptical look. He looks at the sign hanging on the front of the booth that just says, “PIES 2 TICKETS EACH”.
“What is this? Why is most of this area all lined in blue plastic?”
“Oh, you’ll see.” Behind the counter set up there are several metal trays covered with a blue plastic sheet. I lift one corner of the cover, pulling it back to show him the contents.
Luca’s bros furrows. “Is that a pie?”
“Yep.” I grin.
He gives me a suspicious look. “What, are we selling pies?”
“In a manner of speaking. I’m selling these whipped cream pies. And you… you’re getting them thrown at your face.”
His look of surprise is practically perfect. “What?”
I laugh. “You should see your face. Does it really surprise you that women would want to throw pies at your face?”
His mouth turns down. “No, I guess not.”
I give him a measuring look. “I think you’ll want to take that leather jacket off, at least. I don’t know how leather responds to whipped cream, but I imagine that you’ll want to put it somewhere safe.”
He gives me a look as he unzips it and takes it off, but he doesn’t say anything. He just stows his jacket under the front counter and finds a comfortable position on a stool placed in the middle of the plastic sheet.
As people begin filing in the gymnasium, I keep an eye on him. The first customers I see rush to the tarot reading booth or the miniature cat paintings both. I bite my lip, looking at Luca.
“What are the chances of getting a coffee brought to me?” He looks vaguely grumpy.
I smile a little at that. “At the women’s shelter when you, a white man, are supposed to be raising money for battered women? Yeah, roughly the same odds as a whale falling out of the sky right now.” I cock a brow. “You can hire someone on an app though, I’m sure.”
He pulls out his phone, ignoring me in favor of scrolling through it. I turn back to the crowd, trying to induce some customers.
“Throw a pie at this guy! Just two tickets…” I call out. I glance back at him. “You know you want to… I mean, pies are the only thing that stops him from mansplaining and man spreading! Two tickets!”
Several women stroll by, looking interested. But no one seems to want to throw the first pie.
“Your plan doesn’t seem to be working,” he observes dryly.
I shoot him a look. “You know what? I will personally pay four tickets to shove a pie in your face.”
Luca smirks at that. “Oh yeah? Bring it, princess.”
I pull a crumpled wad of bills out of my pocket, slapping them down on the table. Then I grab one of the whipped cream pies, grinning at him as I approach.
“You ready for this?” I taunt him. I sidle up to him, stopping right in front of his face and adjusting the pie in my hand.
His eyes shine. “I can take anything you throw at—”
He gets a big old face full of whipped cream. I make sure to rub it in, too. When I pull the pie tin away, he wipes whipped cream out of his eyes and away from his lips.
I beam at him. “That was amazing.”
He grabs my waist and bends me back, kissing me. His lips feel hot and hard under the frothy cream. He gets whipped cream all over my face and in my hair before he lets me go.
A couple of ladies burst into spontaneous applause, making my cheeks burn.
“Give him another pie!” an older lady hoots.
I demur, wiping the cream from my face. “I just wanted to open the gates!” I exclaim, red-faced. “Now please, throw some pies at this man.”
“It is for a good cause…” Luca says to the crowd, laughing.
After that, we have a good steady business. Lots of ladies come up to our booth and have me snap photos of them as they chuck whipped cream at Luca. So many, in fact, that we run out of pies in just over two and a half hours.
Which is good, because Luca has to leave shortly after that for work. Before he does though, I help him clean the whipped cream off of himself. I wipe a smudge from his eyebrow, thinking to myself that I’m glad that he came today.
Luca looks at me, taking my hand and bringing it down to cup his jaw. “Have you forgiven me officially yet?”
My lips curl upward. I brush my thumb along his jaw, looking him in the eyes. “I suppose so.”
He bites his bottom lip, his eyes shining. “Good.”
He kisses me one more time, then stands to leave. “There is a late-night party at the bar tonight. We’re all dressing up in costume. You should come, if you want.” He gives me a once over, his eyes lingering on my body. It seems like his gaze heats up my bare skin. “I’d like it if you were there.”
Then with that, he turns and heads out, carrying his leather jacket so that it doesn’t touch his whipped-cream covered body. I sit on the corner of my booth table, watching him and sighing.
I shouldn’t go to the bar later and yet… I know I will.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Luca
The bar is busy as fuck around eleven p.m. People are dressed in whatever costumes they feel like: Owen came as the vice president, Bradford is dressed in short-shorts and a tied up gingham shirt as Daisy Duke, and I’ve donned a set of fake pointy teeth as a member of the Lost Boys. Everyone else is in costume too, standing in the bar right now as a mix of clowns, sexy nurses, and a weird number of adult bumblebees.
The party is a success, maybe almost too much of one. It gets so hectic that I step behind the bar and start filling drink orders, my head down, bobbing along to the dance music we have on in the background.
But really, in the back of my mind, I’m just wondering where Cate is. I’m pretty sure she’ll come, but I’ve been wrong before.
Especially about girls who pique my interest in the exact way that Cate does. My thoughts sour for a moment as Madisyn pops into my head.
I was really into Madisyn and she played me like a well-strung violin. Cate seems different than Syn, but… maybe I just pick women that want something from me. After all, I’ve kept Cate close by offering her money…
Bile hits the back of my throat. Could I have set myself up for failure here?
Cate slides behind the bar, hip checking me. “Hey!”
I glance up at her. My eyes widen when I see what she’s wearing.
A tiny red plaid skirt, an oversized white men’s button up that’s tied up at her waist, gray knee socks. I can see a flash of her belly button… and I can almost see her ass in the short tartan skirt. And the kicker is that her dark hair is in two neat plaits.
“You’re a Catholic schoolgirl?” I blurt out, unable to take my eyes off of her.
She blushes. “Yeah. I mean, Luna helped me pick it out.” She toys with her shirt. “I hope you don’t mind, I borrowed your dress shirt.”
I give her a steely look. “Hold on.”
For three quarters of a minute, I have to focus on finishing the drink order in front of me. I look at the ticket again, cracking two beers and pouring out a measure of tequila.
Then I push the drinks across the bar to the waiting patron. He tries to give me his card but I wave him off. “It’s on the house. No charge.”
“Oh, sweet. Cheers!” he says, but I’ve already turned away. I find Cate pulling a rack glasses out of the dishwasher.
Coming up behind her, I grab her hips and pull her ass back against my hips.
She shoots me a look. “Are we not working, then?”
She straightens up so I lean down, whispering in her ear. “God, I hope no
t. Because I’m going to have trouble paying attention to anything that doesn’t involve your legs, your tits, and your ass.”
Her cheeks go pink. “Is that right?”
“Unquestionably,” I murmur. My lips graze her ear and she shivers as she looks up at me.
“What will we do, then?”
Her words are a suggestion, or maybe a challenge. But I’m not ready to give up and go hide in my office with her. Not yet.
For the next little bit, she’s my wife. I want to show her off some.
Plus, I have a good feeling that dancing and drinking may have a certain kind of effect on her. Pressing her against my body as we move on the dance floor might be a new kind of foreplay, if I do it right.
And I intend to do it perfectly. I kiss Cate’s ear and then spin her in my arms. “Let’s get a drink first. Then I think the dance floor is calling.”
Cate looks surprised. “We are going to dance?”
“As surely as we are going to fuck later.” I smirk. “Here, let me get us drinks.”
I pour her a glass of champagne and grab a whiskey for myself. Then I take her hand and lead her out from behind the bar.
As soon as we move toward the dance floor, the beat of the bass vibrating in my ears, we run into Luna.
Literally run into… her blonde head turns and her eyes widen a bit as she takes us both in, her gaze lingering on our clasped hands. She’s dressed as a witch, wearing a little black dress and clutching a drink in one hand and a broomstick in the other.
“Look at you two!” she says, smirking.
“You look…” I narrow my eyes on her dress. “Like you’re wearing as little as you can get away with.”
Luna rolls her eyes. “And you are what, some sort of guy wearing dark clothes so that you didn’t have to try anything out of your comfort zone?” She chuckles. “Please.”
Drawing myself up to my full height, I pull Cate a little closer. “I’m one of the Lost Boys.” I gesture to my mouth. “See the teeth?”
Luna pulls a face and looks to Cate. “Honestly, how do you even live with my brother? He thinks he’s too cool for school.”
