by Brisa Starr
Sweet as Pie
Brisa Starr
Sweet as Pie
Copyright © 2020 by Brisa Starr.
ISBN: 978-0-9823722-5-8
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book contains mature themes, strong language, and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers. All characters are 18+ years of age and all sexual acts are consensual.
Also by Brisa Starr
His Secret
If he tells her, he’ll loser her forever.
Adron is heir to a billion dollar fortune, but only if he fulfills two special requirements.
Save Me
Only she can save him. But they must remain “just friends.”
A small town, friends-to-lovers, hot and steamy romance.
Lockdown Love
Fake It (Young Series Book 1) - September 2020
Count on Me - September 2020
Contents
1. Aspen
2. Ryker
3. Aspen
4. Ryker
5. Aspen
6. Ryker
7. Ryker
8. Aspen
9. Ryker
10. Ryker
11. Aspen
12. Ryker
13. Aspen
14. Ryker
15. Ryker
16. Aspen
17. Aspen
18. Ryker
19. Aspen
20. Ryker
21. Ryker
22. Aspen
23. Ryker
24. Aspen
25. Aspen
26. Ryker
27. Aspen
28. Aspen
29. Ryker
30. Ryker
31. Aspen
32. Ryker
33. Aspen
34. Aspen
Acknowledgments
About the Author
1
Aspen
“You!” the customer says, after I set down his bill on the table. His voice is hard like granite.
“Excuse me?” I ask, and turn to look behind me, wondering if he’s talking to someone else. But I know he means me because his eyes bore into mine. A shiver crawls up my spine, and I wipe my palms on my leopard-print apron. I blink.
He’s not my customer; he’s Jessica’s. But I brought him his bill because Jessica had to leave the bistro early. I hadn’t noticed him until now because he sat in the next-to-last booth in our bistro, with his back to the place, and I’m usually in the kitchen baking my pies.
“You. It was your fault,” he repeats, keeping his fiery green eyes locked on mine. They’re beautiful eyes, even if they do want to strangle me. Dark green emeralds with flecks of silver and blazing with bitterness.
I swallow loudly, but the high-powered blender starts up in the kitchen, covering the sound of my fear. “Shit!” my mom calls from back there as she turns off the blender, followed by the familiar clink of a quarter going into her swear jar. “Goddammit!”
Clink. Another quarter.
“Problems, Gabby?” Johnny yells to Mom, chuckling. Johnny’s a regular. He’s sitting at the counter, enjoying a piece of my mom’s famous Quiche Lorraine. He smiles as he slices his fork through another tender bite. Our regular customers, which are most of them, are no virgins to hearing Mom cuss. Or hearing me do the same.
Mom is a force to be reckoned with. Born with dark hair from her Greek side, she’s been bleached blond since she was thirteen years old. She’s beautiful, talented, and funny as hell, but she made terrible choices, which affected my life. It wasn’t her fault Dad cheated on her—the bastard—but when she left him, she followed up with a string of husbands she depended on financially, as she tried to survive. She was afraid to venture out on her own. Why she stayed married to men who didn’t appreciate her, for so long, still irks me. She’s one of the most amazing women I know. And so, growing up, seeing her discontent, struggling, always unhappy and pretending otherwise, I promised myself it’d never be that way for me. Never.
Thankfully, things are different for her now. She always said she’d “bury one someday,” and that she did. When husband number four keeled over from a heart attack, he left her a small amount of money. The rest went to his five ungrateful kids. She would not marry again. Instead, she took the money, and her blessed talents in the kitchen, and opened a restaurant.
I look just like her, from our eyes, to our bleach blond hair, to our high cheekbones and full lips. She loves to tell everyone, “I looked just like Aspen when I was younger, when my boobs were two inches higher.”
And here we are, in Gabby’s Rooster, though behind closed doors, we call it Gabby’s Cock… and it’s the closest she’s been to one in years, as she’s so busy running the place, even with my help. I’m not far behind her in the celibacy department—which I admit, is sad—but it’s the path I’ve chosen, so I’m content.
My attention returns to the handsome stranger, who apparently has nothing but hate for me. He is not a regular customer. I don’t know who he is. I blink hard, twice, and I find my voice. “I think you have the wrong person.”
“You’re Aspen. Aspen Kingsley,” he says with disgust, like he can’t stand the taste of my name on his tongue. My heart shifts to third gear, either from his good looks or his stormy tone, I don’t know which. Both? But this heated stranger is appealing. He has thick and short, dark brown hair, the color of 80% dark chocolate—my favorite—and he’s wearing a crisp, robin’s egg-blue shirt, the top button undone, under a gray herringbone suit jacket. Too hot for summer weather, but stylish. He has money. Shit. Is he coming to sue me? Did he get sick from one of my cherry pies?
I nod. “Yes.” I swallow, and my heart races into sixth gear at the alluring appeal of his firm lips. Maybe it’s just been too long since I’ve been with a man. I can’t remember the last… oh yeah, I do. Two years ago, and it was so bad, I think it turned me off men forever. He liked Vaseline. Gross.
Mystery Man slides out of the booth. He grabs his black, tattered Moleskine journal and Mont Blanc pen, and stands up. He throws a hundred-dollar bill onto the table, and now that he’s showing his full height, I rear my head back as he towers over my 5’6” frame. His eyebrows are thick, and his square jaw sports a few days’ growth. Rough and sexy. I dig my fingernails into my palms.
I have no idea who this angry man is. In my shock, I stand still, my muscles clenching, and I’m blocking his exit. Our bodies have barely a sliver of space between us, and an unyielding magnetic pull plays between us… or maybe it’s just pulling me to him. He stands there, looking down at me, his dusky green eyes narrowed, and me, looking up at him, my brown eyes wide open.
Who are you? But the words catch in my throat.
“Get out of my way,” he spits, hatred lacing his words, and I don’t know if it’s his anger or his heart-stopping beauty that throttles my heart.
My adrenaline kicks in, and I jump back, blinking, confused. He storms toward the exit, and the little bells jingle violently as he jerks the door open and walks out.
What was that about? Who the hell was that? I stare after him for a moment, in a daze, and I pick up the money and his empty plate and coffee cup. I exhale.
He must’ve had the wrong person.
But no, he said my name.
&nb
sp; I stand there dumbfounded for a moment, when my brain reminds me, I’m busy. With Mystery Man gone, I draw in a deep breath and shake my head to clear it while walking into the kitchen. My confidence finally enters the ring, and I think of the things I should’ve said to that fucking weirdo. I hate the uselessness of hindsight. I put the surly man’s dishes in the sink and rinse them, and my mind, clear of him.
“I heard you added to your swear jar,” I call over to Mom as she rolls out dough for the next shrimp and cream cheese quiche she’s making. I also smell the salty, rich bacon cooking for her regular Gabby’s Quiche recipe, and my mouth waters. I take another deep inhale. If it’s not bacon I love smelling, it’s my cherry pie. Hm. Inspiration hits. I should make a bacon-cherry pie! I grab my phone from my apron pocket and type a reminder into my Recipe Ideas List.
Our restaurant looks like a diner, but we serve bistro-style food. And pies. Mom specializes in the savory pies, like quiche, and I make the dessert pies. They’re my passion. The restaurant is small, like our menu, with only five purple booths nestled against a window overlooking the parking lot we share with a Burger King, a CPA, and an orthopedic shoe store. Red, leather-topped stools that kids like to spin on when I teach baking classes line the cream-colored, retro-style, laminated counter. The counter seats six, and it’s normally packed with regulars coming for Mom’s famous quiche or a slice of my pie.
“Yeah, I’m almost caught up to your jar,” she snickers.
We both have giant, glass swear jars on the counter, fashioned from quart-sized pickle jars and decorated with each of our names. Hers says Mom. Mine says Daughter. Some restaurants have tip jars by the register… we have swear jars. We’re trying to break our sailor-mouth habit. My excuse is I got mine from her, so it’s both nature and nurture—lord knows, we spend every waking minute together running this place. She has no excuse though. She blames it on a hard life with four difficult husbands.
The jars have become a joke amongst our regulars, and they place bets on who’ll fill hers first. Last month it was Mom. She was trying out a new sauce recipe, and things didn’t go as planned. The month before that, I burned my hand and I filled my jar first. Not only did I cuss up a storm from the pain, but my frustration at making pies one-handed was more than my efficient self could handle. It fucking sucked. (I’m allowed to think cuss words all I want.)
I walk over to the cash register and put in Mystery Man’s hundred-dollar bill, and I take out the enormous tip he left for my coworker, Jessica. I walk over to the end of the counter, where she has her head buried in her phone, oblivious to what just happened between her customer and me.
I hand her the eighty-five dollars and say, “Here’s your tip from that guy.”
Her violet-blue eyes shimmer, and, as she shakes her head in disbelief, her mass of tight black curls follow suit. “Are you kidding me?” She holds out her hand. “Wow!”
Jessica is our one other employee, and we depend on her like the desert depends on the rainy season. She’s young, gorgeous, and trustworthy… which is scarce in the restaurant business. We don’t keep long hours here; well, the restaurant doesn’t. I do. So we don’t need a lot of hands on deck. We open for breakfast and lunch, but we close by 2:00 p.m. every day, with Sunday reserved for me teaching baking classes here, working on my next big goal, baking pies for commercial clients, or sleeping.
“Do you know who he was?” I ask her.
“No, I’ve never seen him here before, but—daaaayum!—he was hot, right? I love a man with fancy facial hair.” She laughs and then asks, her eyes slanted like a cat’s, “So, do ya think he’s bucket one or bucket two?”
“Pfft. Totally bucket two. A control freak,” I huff.
I have a thing where I lump men into one of two buckets. Either the Will Probably Cheat bucket, number one, or the Control Freak bucket, number two. My experience living with both, during Mom’s marriages, taught me a lot.
Though Mystery Man was weird, I don’t have a bucket for weird, but I say nothing more about that to Jessica.
“But if he looks that good, maybe it doesn’t matter,” she laughs. Jessica loves men and always has a hot date lined up. At one point, she was so busy dating different guys she met online, that Mom, afraid we’d find Jessica’s limbs in an alley someday, made her give us her dates’ license plate numbers before she would let Jessica go out.
“It always matters,” I laugh back, but my voice has a knife’s edge to it.
“Now, Aspen, not all men fall into one of your buckets,” she says and pats my arm like she’s my grandmother. “My daddy doesn’t, and you know that. My parents are madly in love, the same as when they first got together. Heck, they still make out in the kitchen when Mama’s cooking, and they still hold hands while watching TV. Every damn night.” She smiles, and her face lights up as she talks about them. But then she gets serious again, and a no-nonsense attitude colors her face. “Your buckets are funny, girl, but don’t be stupid, or you’ll miss out someday.”
“Yeah, well, who has time? Not me.” Eager to change the subject away from my love life, I say, “Hey, didn’t you have a modeling job you had to run off to?”
“I do! I’m leaving now. I was getting the directions.” She pockets the cash, and as she takes off her apron, she adds, “With this fat tip, and the money I’ll make from this modeling job, I can finally get my old-ass car fixed!” She grabs her leather backpack from under the counter and turns to leave.
“Drive safely!” I call out after her, and she throws her hand up in the air, acknowledging me without saying anything.
As she leaves, the little bells above the door jingle, and I grab a damp towel and walk back to the table where the over-tipping Mystery Man sat. As I wipe up the crumbs, cleaning it for the next customer, I think about Jessica’s parents. She’s right, they are in love. I’ve seen it, and I believe it. It’s just not for me.
“So, what was all that about with that guy?” I hear Popster say, his back to me from the next booth over, his booth.
Great. He heard.
Of course he did.
He’s the eyes and ears of our little place, with a regular stream of customers joining him throughout the day, since he’s here most of the time. I pretend not to hear him.
He closes his newspaper and twists around in his booth to face me. “Are you going to tell me what that was about? Do I need to call in the dogs?”
I shrug. “I have no idea. Figure you’d know more than me,” I say as I straighten the napkin dispenser on the table. I look over at him, and his crystal clear, sharp blue eyes shine with delight as he follows my every move.
“Nope,” he says and pulls his third toothpick of the day out of his mouth, beneath a bushy, white mustache. “It sure was exciting though. Guess you did something pretty bad!” He laughs, putting his toothpick back into his mouth, and he turns around. “Lemme know when you figure it out,” he says and opens his newspaper with a contented sigh.
Popster, my grandpa, is my mom’s dad. He’s almost more of a character than Mom, and don’t get me started on the two of them together. He’s had his white mustache and overgrown, white eyebrows since I was five years old, and his favorite thing to do—other than smoke a pack of Pall Malls every day, eat Entenmann’s coffee cake with icing (I try not to take offense, with my pies adorning the counter), and hang out all day at the diner—is messing with stuff. The man is as crafty as a crow, and he enjoys tinkering, whether it’s with appliances in our kitchen or the latest small-town gossip.
I’ve tried getting him to quit smoking, to eat better, and to not sit all damned day, but he claims he’ll outlive us all, because he does one thing we don’t. He doesn’t stress. Ever. He enjoys his life and swears it’s the secret. I tell him that’s bullshit. He just wiggles those white, steel wool eyebrows back at me. I have to give it to him though, he never gets sick. He’s never tired. He never complains. And? He’s always happy.
I could learn a thing or two about that from him, but I
’m too busy making my way in the world. I’ll work on happy after I get my dream… my hotel.
I focus my attention on my long to-do list while I take the dirty cloth to the kitchen. On my way, I look at the giant grandfather clock in the corner, the one piece of furniture Popster insisted we have in the place. It looks absurd and chimes annoyingly on the hour, but the customers love it.
It’s almost closing time, which means it’s almost time for our meeting, and Mom promised good news.
Mom lets the last customers out and then turns the sign on the door to CLOSED. She sits next to Popster in his booth, across from me and my pink legal pad. I’m ready for her update.
“So, I have good news,” she says, her eyes dancing with secrets.
“Duh! What?” I say and lean forward, my heart thundering as it picks up speed. “I cannot beeelieve you made me wait this long. This, coming from the woman who secretly opens her Christmas gifts to see what’s in them and then rewraps them!”
Popster laughs, but she doesn’t bite, and instead, lets me squirm longer. “Let me rephrase. I have fantastic news.” Her brown eyes, dark like mine, get wider, the whites of them out-sizing the irises.
Fine. I lean back in the booth, playing along, but tapping my foot under the table. I fold my arms over my chest, and I wait. She leans back in her booth and mimics me, only then she changes her expression, and she squints her eyes like we’re in an Old West shootout.