He used to do that all the time too.
And I’d missed it.
His head came up and his eyes captured mine.
“You all right with me jumpin’ in the shower before I head out?”
Brock naked in my shower and all the delightful visions that would generate that I could pull out and turn over in my head anytime I wanted?
Uh…
Yeah!
“Sure,” I said.
His mouth hitched up on one side and I liked that too.
Then his semi-smile faded, his arms squeezed, and he asked, “You want me here for salad?”
“Do you want to be here for salad?” I asked back.
“What I want is for you to tell me what you want,” he replied.
I thought about this.
Then I said hesitantly, “Maybe not.”
“Right,” he muttered.
“It’s not that I—” I hastened to add but he cut me off with another arm squeeze and dipped his face close.
“Baby, it’s cool. I’ll show tonight around the same time as I showed last night. Good?”
I nodded.
“Tomorrow, no plans with your girls. Tomorrow night is mine,” he declared.
My belly got warm and gushy and I nodded again.
He grinned and muttered again, “Right.” He dropped his head more, touched his mouth to mine briefly, and murmured, “Shower,” against my lips.
A thrill slid up my spine.
Brock let me go and sauntered out of the room.
I stared at the coffeemaker and smiled when I heard the shower go on in the bathroom.
Then I made coffee.
* * *
An hour and a half later, I was sitting in my car staring at the side of my bakery, my phone in my hand, deliberating.
I had never played games with Brock. Never. Not from the very beginning.
I took one look at him, liked what I saw a whole lot, and the minute he showed interest, I showed it back and never veered from that path.
I did this because, since I saw it and all the times I saw it since, the scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when Ian asked Toula out and she immediately answered yes, no games, no subterfuge, exposing straight out she was not only interested but the idea of spending time with him excited her, I thought that was the sweetest thing I ever saw.
And I also did this because I was me.
So I was sitting in my car with my phone in my hand thinking that what Brock said was right. What he and I had had been fucked and for three months it fucked with my head.
But seven months ago, when he brought me home after our first date and kissed me in his pickup and that kiss lasted half an hour (this is no joke) and he finally tore his mouth from mine, shoved his face in my neck, and growled, “Fuck,” against my skin with his strong arms tight around me, I knew what we had was real. I also knew that it had started good and it was only going to get better.
Like Toula and Ian knew in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
That had been what Brock was talking about in my kitchen yesterday. That was what he meant when he said I knew the exact second I stopped being someone he was investigating and started being someone who might grow to mean something to him.
And I did know and that was the exact second I knew.
And last night he’d proved that what I felt in that second was no lie.
And playing games hadn’t got me that.
And playing games didn’t bring it back.
I got it and, being only who I was with him, I kept it.
So I touched the screen on my phone, went to favorites, and my fingertip touched the word “Slim” (I’d changed it, obviously).
I put the phone to my ear.
It rang twice before I heard, “Yeah, babe.”
“Hey,” I replied.
“Everything cool?” he asked.
“I need to tell you something,” I told him.
Pause, then, “I’m listening, Tess.”
I bit my lip.
Then I shared. “The reason I don’t really care about your drinking from the milk jug isn’t because it’s debatably ridiculous the reasons a woman doesn’t like a man drinking from a milk jug. It’s because I don’t much care what you do because I like you in my kitchen.”
This was met with silence.
I held my breath.
I got more silence.
That was when I considered maybe not letting it all hang out anymore.
Then I heard Brock ask, “Debatably ridiculous?”
The tightness forming in my chest released and I felt my lips form a smile as my eyes closed.
I opened them and said, “I will grant that just you drinking from it isn’t all that bad. But we didn’t get into other options, say, should you be eating cookies or cake and you get backwash into the milk. That’s gross. No one wants to drink someone else’s backwash, even if it’s cookie or cake backwash. This is where it becomes a gray area.”
An attractive, low chuckle sounded in my ear through which I also heard, “Babe.”
“Just saying,” I said.
“Noted,” Brock replied.
“Okay, I have cakes to bake.”
“All right, darlin’, and I got the hint your girl is avoiding your cupcakes but your man is not so if you bring some home tonight, they will not go unappreciated.”
“Will you drink milk out of a glass when you eat them?”
Another attractive, low chuckle sounded through which I heard, “We’ll see how it goes.”
“Right,” I whispered.
“Go bake cakes.”
“Okay, later, honey.”
“Later, babe.”
I disconnected.
Then I smiled
I exited my car, entered my bakery, and commenced baking cakes.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mountainous Swirls of Frosting
I STOOD AT my front door waiting.
Then it came. Martha stopped folding her body into the driver’s seat, and her eyes came over the roof of her car, up the steep rise at the edge of my front yard, the four steps up my front stoop to me at my arched front door.
She pressed her fingers to her lips, stretched them my way, and blew me a kiss.
My throat got clogged but I blew one back.
She folded her petite body behind the wheel, started up her car, and rolled away.
I watched until I lost sight of her brake lights and then I watched for longer.
Suffice it to say, my best friend Martha Shockley did not take the news very well that my ex-husband had hit me and raped me even if it happened over six years ago. She had not been mad at me. She’d been devastated for me. Upon the news, she crumbled instantly. She hated this for me and watching her absorb the burden of this information I was reminded why I didn’t tell her.
Then she enveloped me in her arms and forced me to promise never, and I mean never, to hold something like that to myself again.
“It’s always been you for me, Tess, and I can’t bear thinking it isn’t me for you,” she whispered. “I’m done backing off, hoping you’ll sort your head on your own, honey. You gotta let me be there for you and from now on, I sense something’s wrong, I’m gonna make you let me be there for you.”
I held her close and I gave her that promise.
Seriously, what else could I do?
Needless to say, salad did not really go with confessions of the soul so Martha ate four of the dozen cupcakes I brought home for Brock.
But learning this news had not put Martha off her game and when Brock showed, she watched him like a hawk, waiting for him to fuck up in some way so she could pounce. She did this with eyes constantly narrowed so much I feared she’d give herself a migraine.
Brock, however, was who he always was (even when I called him Jake). He was Brock.
Sensing he was not going to fall at the first hurdle and expose the screaming dickhead he was hiding within, Martha finally gave up and left.
Which l
ed me to now.
I closed the door, locked it, and turned to my living room.
I lucked out. Four years ago, after the bakery caught on and life started to get a lot less scary, I went house hunting and the second house I looked at was this one.
The couple who had previously owned it spent years fixing it up and getting it to exactly what they wanted it to be. Then the husband received word he was being transferred just weeks before the finishing touches were put on the last of the loving care (and scads of cash) they’d put into their house—a brand-new kitchen.
They were devastated at having to leave.
I was elated (though I didn’t share this).
The dark wood floors had all been redone. The walls had all been reskimmed. The bathrooms were updated and fabulous. The basement had been finished into a huge family room where I kept my TV. Also down there was a powder room, laundry room, and a guest room that had its own bath. The furnace had been replaced. The roof reshingled. The yard landscaped. And a swamp cooler had been installed.
But it was the kitchen that did it for me. The kitchen was phenomenal. An abundance of white cabinets, the wall ones all glass fronted, quirky ones handcrafted to set in corners and spots that were tough to fill. Slate floors. Fabulous black-and-white-tiled splashbacks. An enormous island in the middle. Shiny marble countertops. Restaurant-quality stainless-steel appliances, including a narrow but fabulous wine fridge. Inlaid cookbook holder. Built-in microwave and double oven, one fan assisted.
A baker’s dream.
My dream.
It was fifty thousand dollars over budget but I bought it because I thought it was worth it. Since then, even though the first year it was rough going, I never regretted it.
As I walked through the front living room off of which were two bedrooms and a bath to the double doorway that led to the kitchen, I thought the same thing.
And when I hit the kitchen and saw Brock resting faded-jeans-clad hips against the back counter, teeth sinking into a cupcake, half of a mountainous swirl of silver-dusted, pale lilac frosting, sprinkled with pastel candy confetti disappearing behind his full lips, I made an instant decision. I was going to go through my paperwork, find out the day I signed on the dotted line that made that house my home, and celebrate it with a huge, honking party every fucking year.
“She’s gone,” I informed him, stopping on the other side of the island and putting my hands on it.
I watched with admittedly captivated attention as he licked frosting from his lips after he swallowed and then he asked, “How long’s it take her to get home?”
“Twenty minutes,” I answered.
His eyes locked with mine and he said quietly, “You need to call her in twenty-five minutes, babe.”
My gaze held his as more warm gushiness hit my belly, knowing he got it, he read her mood, he knew she was hurting, and he wanted me to check in on her.
“Okay,” I whispered.
He studied me and I let him.
Then he asked, still talking quietly, “How you doin’?”
“Sharing that with her was not fun,” I admitted.
“I could guess that part, Tess,” he told me, again quietly.
I nodded and took a breath. Then I added, “I’m glad I did it. I’m sorry I didn’t do it earlier. I’m glad it’s done and I’m glad I never have to do it again. That’s as far as I’ve got.”
“Right,” he whispered.
He shoved the rest of the cupcake into his mouth. I watched him chew and swallow.
Then he asked, “Would it piss you off to know that right about now I’m wondering if I walked in here yesterday because I missed my Tess or if it was because I missed her cupcakes?”
I grinned at him.
Then I answered, “No, because I am my cupcakes.”
And it hit me right then that I was. On the outside it could be tees, jeans, and flip-flops or pencil skirts, complicated designer blouses, and high-heeled strappy sandals or, me being me, just about anything. But on the inside, it was all about mountainous swirls of delicately colored frosting with sprinkles of candy confetti, edible fairy dust, all on top of rich, moist cake.
As that understanding settled inside me, that made me feel warm and gushy too.
“Come here, baby,” he murmured.
I caught the feel of the room and the look on his face and didn’t delay in rounding the island and going there.
When I got close, his arms folded around me and he pulled me in deep. Then his head dipped and he gave me a sweet, delicious, long, deep cupcake kiss.
When he was done, against his mouth, I whispered, “You taste good.”
To which he replied, “I know.”
I smiled against his lips and he returned the gesture.
Then he lifted his head an inch, his arms gave me a squeeze, and he said gently, “I wanna spend the night.”
My belly dropped and I felt a convulsion between my legs.
Then I replied, “Okay.”
His eyelids got heavy, his arms got tighter, my arms around him got tighter, his head descended, and he kissed me again, this time longer, deeper, sweeter, and even more delicious.
This went on for a while. Long enough for me to get my fingers in his hair. Long enough for Brock to get one of his hands up the back of my tee and the other one clamped tight on my ass. Long enough for my nipples to swell and the area between my legs to get wet. Long enough for me to think the bedroom was way, way, way too far away and to be glad I kept the kitchen floor mopped because that was where I wanted him to take me.
But unfortunately not long enough that we were still making out standing up in the kitchen rather than somewhere either naked or semi-naked and thus at the point of no return when a knock came at the door.
Brock’s head came up on a low, short, frustrated growl and his eyes went over my head toward the front door. I blinked at this unwelcome turn of events and twisted my neck to look in the same direction.
It was closing on ten. Too late for a caller. Unless that caller was Martha, who forgot something, and Martha was the kind of gal who consistently forgot something no matter where she was, like her wallet, purse, credit card, and other such nontrivial items.
Another knock came at the door and I felt Brock’s arms squeeze. This also happened to coincide with his fingers digging pleasantly into my ass. That felt great. So great, I forgot someone was at the door and I looked to him to see him looking at me.
Oh my.
He was still turned on too.
And let’s just say that look on his face was nice.
“Hold that thought and, for fuck’s sake, whatever you do, hold that look,” he growled before he let me go. I teetered slightly but managed to stay standing, turn, and watch him stalk toward the door.
I walked the few feet to the island and put my hands on it as he unlocked the front door. Then my eyes dropped.
On the corner of my island was a white, ceramic pedestal cake stand with glass dome. Sweeping lines. Simple and elegant. It cost a fortune and I didn’t care. I baked cakes. I needed fabulous cake stands. At that moment in my life, I owned seven of them (in my home, at the bakery I had tons more). All of them fantastic, most of them expensive. They rotated to the top spot on my island depending on my mood.
In the one now were six cupcakes with mountainous swirls of frosting, glittering, edible fairy dust, and pastel confetti. Two had mint green frosting, two had pale pink, two baby blue.
This meant Brock had a cupcake while I was saying good-bye to Martha, before I made it to the kitchen when he was eating his second one.
I felt my face go soft as I realized I missed that too. He had a great body, the kind of body that no matter what age, but especially at forty-five, you worked on. He didn’t shy away from his food, his beer, or his bourbon. He lived his life like he appreciated it. But he still took care of himself. I’d phoned him enough times when he told me he was at the gym or just got back from a run to know this was true.
But he had a weakness for my cupcakes. And my cake cakes. And my cookies. In fact, anything that came out of my oven, he made no bones about liking it, liking it more than anything else that I’d noticed he liked and he didn’t do this by handing me flowery compliments. He did this by consuming them with relish.
And in that moment, I found I loved that.
On that thought, I heard Brock snarl, “You have got to be shitting me,” and my head snapped up.
“Who are you?”
At the sound of the familiar voice asking that question, my hands slid down the counter and curled tight around the edge as my chest compressed so deep it felt like I was being crushed.
Damian.
“It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is that you are not here. You are never here. You are never anywhere near this fuckin’ house, Tess’s fuckin’ bakery, or Tess. I see you or I hear you are, honest to fuckin’ God, I’ll deal with you and you do not want me to do that.” Brock was still snarling, it was vicious, biting, and I could feel his mood all the way across the living room, through the kitchen, and to me. It was filling the house. Beyond his pissed-off snap of electricity, this was rough and abrasive, scoring at my skin.
“I beg your pardon?” Damian asked.
Oh no. Oh God. Oh no.
Damian was at least three inches shorter than Brock. Damian was probably twenty pounds lighter if not more. Damian was lean in the sense he was lean, not muscled, no bulk. He was fit but there was no power to his frame like there was to Brock’s. In a physical tussle, Brock would take him, easy.
And Damian wouldn’t give one flying fuck. Damian spent most of his time pissing in corners. Damian would not take to a threat well.
Not at all.
I started to move around the island to instigate damage control, my eyes on Brock’s back, seeing he had his body between the door and the doorjamb, his big frame blocking Damian from view, his back to me.
Still, he lifted an arm out behind him like he had eyes in the back of his head and could see me starting to approach and he barked, “Tess, do not fuckin’ move.”
I halted at the side of the island.
“If Tess is in there, I’d like to speak to her,” Damian, voice tight, requested.
“Did you not hear me ten fuckin’ seconds ago?” Brock asked.