by Piper Rayne
“How is it goin—” She waves her hand and opens up the back door again. “Another batch, huh?”
There’s a bite to her tone, but she’s yet to yell or really raise her voice at me.
“Are you sure the temperature is reading correctly?” I ask.
“Yep, ever since we got them last year.”
“So they’re new ovens, huh?”
“Sure are.” She picks up the tray and tosses it into the large industrial stainless steel sink. “So let’s go over this again. Four hundred twenty-five for seven minutes. Turn and another seven minutes. Should you write it down?”
I grab my pen and paper. “You know, my roommate and I came by last night and I tried every bagel. I really like the garlic and salt ones and the onion ones.”
“My sister mentioned that you came by with your girlfriend.”
“Oh, she’s not my girlfriend. Just my roommate.”
Evan makes round balls of dough into rings. She’s skilled. “Elsie’s at that age where any two people who are the opposite sex and even remotely close must be a couple. I didn’t mean to assume.”
“It’s okay.” I pick up a ball and try to mimic what she’s doing.
“No.” She moves her hands along the dough, showing me the spinning action again instead of my sad attempt.
“You’ve done this a long time, huh?”
She chuckles. “My entire life. I think I’ve been making bagels since I was three. It’s my parents’ shop, but they haven’t had the time lately, so I’ve kind of taken it over.”
“Have you always wanted to run this place?” I’ve never in my life had a job like this.
She balks. “No.” Another small laugh comes out of her. “But I knew early on in those teen years when people ask you, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ that this was my destiny.”
“What would you want to be if you had a choice?” I ask.
“Good job.” She nods at the bagel I made. “I have no idea. I feel like I have no time to think about it. But can I really complain about running a business at twenty-seven? My parents trust me with something they worked on building for years.”
Yeah, I want to tell her, you can kick and scream because it’s not fair to people like us, people who have their futures decided at birth.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
She laughs harder now. “No.”
“Why not?” I try again to make my bagel look as good as hers, but it’s not happening.
“Who has time for one? And all the guys around here are just…” She picks up another ball of dough, her natural movements faltering when she doesn’t get the shape she wants.
I tilt my head and study her. “I feel like you’re hiding something.”
She looks at me and plops the bagel on the tray. “That can be made into bagel bites.”
“You can trust me.”
“I don’t even know you.” She picks up another ball, but the same thing happens again. It turns into a square bagel with hardly a hole. Whatever she’s thinking about, it bothers her.
“Exactly. Aren’t those the best people to tell things to?”
She seems to think about it for a minute, messes up another bagel, and as she goes to pick up another ball, I steal it from her.
“I get that the Bagel Place is going to be my life until one day maybe one of my kids wants to take it over, but does that mean I have to take on my parents’ fight in order to be in charge of this business?”
“I’m not sure I follow,” I say.
“Promise me whatever I say stays here?” From the seriousness in her eyes, I can see that this girl might need someone to talk to as much as I do.
I nod. “Promise.”
“Okay.” She pulls up a stool and puts one out for me. “There are two bagel places in Cliffton Heights. Us and Andrews Bagels.”
I know that from the conversation with Ethan and Blanca, but I don’t think now is the time to tell her he’s my next-door neighbor.
“So I’ve hated the Andrews family since I was nine.” She waves me off. “Forget it. It’s stupid.”
“You don’t want to hate the Andrews family?” I pry a little.
“My dad and Mr. Andrews were best friends, and I was pretty good friends with their son, Seth. And then something happened…” She stares at the stainless steel table. “Since then, they hate each other. The families hate each other. So Seth hates me, and I pretend like I hate him.” She stares at the tray of messed up bagels. “Ugh. Please distract me from my pity party and tell me something about yourself.”
The one plus to working here is that Evan doesn’t know who I am. If I tell her we have something in common—that we were both destined to walk in our parents’ footsteps instead of blazing our own trail—it would ruin us sitting here shooting the shit while making bagels.
“I slept with my roommate and now she’s put us in the friend zone.”
“Ouch. Sorry.” Her scrunched up nose says she’s sincere.
“Yeah. She’s doing the smart thing. We shouldn’t get involved with one another.”
“Why? Obviously if you slept together, there’s something there.”
There’s a spark with Sierra that I’ve never felt with anyone, but the fact that I care about her is the same reason I refuse to sleep with her. Not to mention I have nothing to offer except a life of scrutiny even if we could somehow be together. Then there’s Princess Adelaide. Am I supposed to leave her high and dry?
“I don’t want to hurt her.”
She narrows her eyes to me. “Why do you think you’ll hurt her?”
Because I can’t give her a normal life.
“I’m not ready to settle down yet.” I shrug as though that’s all it is.
She knocks her shoulder against mine. “What is with guys? Why is settling down so bad? If you find that person, you’re one hundred percent yourself around and who makes you happy you’re not settling for anything. I think “settling down” was some stupid name made up by a perpetual bachelor. Just because you fall in love doesn’t mean you’re settling for anything. I can imagine my husband and me traveling together and seeing the world. Of course, then who will run the bagel shop?” She frowns.
As I watch the reality of her dream splitting open at the seams, it confirms that some of us can’t live our dream life and that’s just a fact.
“Maybe you could find someone to run it for you, or maybe your sister will want to take over.” I try to close up that seam for her because I want one of us to get what we really want.
The chime on the door rings and she stands from the stool. “Okay, so four hundred twenty-five for seven minutes, right? Turn and then another seven?”
“Got it.” I nod.
She laughs and heads out.
I hope she gets everything she dreamed of. I also feel like an impromptu meeting between her and Seth needs to happen. Though I usually hate meddling.
I smell like so many flavors of bagels that I need to strip these clothes off and give them to my… well, I guess I need to wash them.
When I enter the apartment, Sierra is sitting at the table with her checkbook out and her laptop in front of her.
“How was your first day? Rian made you a cake even though you ruined her baking sheets.” She points at a small round vanilla-iced cake on the table, a multitude of colored sprinkles along the sides and top.
“That’s nice of her.” I smile. “Would you like to go shopping with me to buy replacement cookie sheets for her?”
“Sure, right after I finish confirming that I can’t quit my job.” She closes her laptop. “Why do you want to live a normal life? It sucks.”
I open a Coke from the fridge and sit down with her. “I owe you for the rent.”
“No, I got it. We made a deal.”
“We made a deal that I could live here.”
“But your parents cut you off?”
“They did, but Jean sent me money when he sent my things. Plus I have a job.”
A smile tips her lips as though she thinks I’m naive. “It’s minimum wage.”
“True, but it’s something. Hold up.” I go into my room, lift my boxers, and count out the cash needed for two months’ rent. When I return to the kitchen, I lay it on the table in front of Sierra.
“All cash?” she asks, staring at it.
“Yes. Listen, I have a question.”
She counts the cash. There was a time I would be insulted by that. “Yeah?”
“Will you teach me how to do laundry?”
She stops counting and stares at me for a moment. “Just put your stuff with mine and I’ll do it.”
I finish off the Coke. “I’d rather learn.”
She studies me for a second. “Okay, grab your laundry.” She shuts her checkbook. “Let’s go.”
Fifteen minutes later, I walk out of my bedroom with my suitcase full of dirty clothes.
Sierra laughs. “That’s one way to carry your dirty clothes.”
“I need to buy one of those things.” I point at her duffle bag thing.
“We’ll get you one. In the meantime, let’s go before it gets too crowded. Nothing worse than having your clothes wet in the washing machine and not being able to find a dryer.”
We hit the street and pass Ink Envy, walking down one block.
“Hey.” I stop us after the third time she switches the big sack of clothes from one arm to the other. “Trade me.”
I give her the handle of my suitcase to pull behind her and put her duffle on my shoulder.
“Thanks,” she says, but there’s a surprise in her voice that I hate. Has this woman never been cared for like she should be?
“It’s the least I can do, what with you teaching me all these domestic acts.”
“Oh, it’s not that bad. I kind of like showing you the ropes of being an everyday Joe.”
We walk into the laundromat and she’s right, there’s a man and a woman near the back, fighting over a dryer.
“Do they not have enough dryers?” I whisper once we find two washing machines next to one another.
“Drying can take longer than washing.” She opens up her duffle bag. “So, we’ll do ours together if you don’t mind.”
“So our underwear gets to slide around together but not us, huh?” I tease.
Her tongue slides across her bottom lip and I fixate on it, my dick chubbing in my pants. “Keep up that talk and I’m going to sit on the washer during the spin cycle and torture you with my moaning.”
I inhale a quick breath and stare at her. The more I’m around her, the harder it is to keep my hands to myself.
“So we split the whites and darks.” Sierra is all business now. How does this electricity that sparks between us not bother her? She looks at my suitcase. “Unzip your luggage and start putting all your whites here and colors there.”
I watch a pair of her white panties go into the washer, then the dark pair I stripped off of her that first night we met.
“Why do you think women’s panties and bras are so sexy and men just get boxers, briefs, or boxer briefs?” I sort out my laundry as she watches.
“I think there’s some sexy underwear for men out there. You could get an elephant trunk pair.” She chuckles.
“Yeah, no.”
“Then don’t complain. Plus I think a woman’s private area is much prettier than a man’s, so we get pretty things to cover them.”
I lean in close to her, her perfume like an aphrodisiac. “So you didn’t find my private area pretty?”
She laughs and turns her head so that our faces are nose to nose. “Would you really be happy if I said you had a pretty cock?”
Damn. The word cock coming from her mouth has me picturing her mouth around said cock.
I lean back. “True. Very true. Let’s start this conversation over again.”
She laughs. “I think someone has sex on the brain.”
“And you don’t?” I ask because please tell me she’s in as much pain as I am when we’re around one another.
“I never said that, did I?”
Before I have the chance to respond, she cuts the conversation short and rambles on about detergent and payment.
Once the clothes are in the washer, she turns to me. “Now we wait.”
Oh great, more downtime with Sierra when all I really want is to take her into the bathroom in the back and get dirtier than the clothes we put in the washing machine.
Chapter Fifteen
Sierra
* * *
I never knew someone could have so many sexual jokes regarding laundry. Wasn’t he in agreement up on that roof that we should remain friends and nothing more? Because from the way he keeps looking at me, he wants me on my knees with my mouth open.
“Grab that dryer!” I tell him, hurrying to put our wet clothes in a bin.
He stands in front of it with his arms crossed. Seconds later, a little old lady walks up to him.
“Excuse me,” she says, her hand on his hip, pushing him out of the way.
“I’m sorry, we’re going to use this one.”
He’s so polite it kills me. Can he really tell a little old lady no?
“It’s first come, first serve. You should tell your lady friend to move a little quicker.” She pushes him some more and he stares at her as if she’s crazy.
I’m so distracted by the scene until I realize I need to get the clothes out faster.
“I was here first,” he tells her, using that smile that gleams. His prince smile.
“You’re not here unless you have clothes in the dryer. You have no clothes, so you have no dryer.” She pushes her cart into him a bit.
“Ma’am,” he says with practiced sincerity.
I roll my cart over, but the woman keeps hitting him until he finally raises his hands in defeat.
“You need to learn the rules!” she says, angrily putting her clothes into the dryer on the low level. “Tall people use the top ones!”
I bite my lip to keep from laughing and Adrian huffs, staring her down. I’m not sure his size intimidates her at all.
“I guess she doesn’t recognize you,” I say.
“Man, this place is ruthless.”
“It’s okay. We’ll wait for the next one.”
The lady looks at me, goes back to her clothes, then turns back in my direction and stands to her four-foot-eleven stature. “Sierra Sanders?”
I look around the room. How many other people will circle around us because they think I’m some popular celebrity before they realize I’m not? “Yeah.”
“I watch you every night.” She takes out her clothes and nods in Adrian’s direction. “Is he yours?”
I can’t stop the smile as I look at Adrian and back at her. “Kind of.”
“What the hell does kind of mean?” she says with a scrunched up face that highlights her wrinkles.
“It’s complicated,” I answer.
“Truth is she put me in the friend zone,” Adrian leans in and stage-whispers so the entire laundromat hears him. I elbow him and he fakes hurt. “She’s brutal, I tell you.”
A few people laugh around us.
I roll my eyes at him. “He’s messing around.”
“Take the dryer,” she says, wheeling her cart away. “I’m sure you have to get to a new story. When you unveiled that social security scam, the entire floor was in awe.”
“No. Please.” I lead her back to the dryer.
“Nonsense. I don’t have anything but my crosswords to do.”
I eye Adrian and he puts her clothes in the dryer. She catches me looking at him and quickly snatches her bra out of his hand.
“I appreciate it, but you can’t be touching my delicates.” After she’s put a few items in the dryer, she looks at him. “That was sweet of you though. She’s pretty and all, but she’s not very smart if she’s letting you stay out in the wild.”
A few more snickers from the other patrons.
“I treat her li
ke a princess,” Adrian carries on with a shit-eating grin. “I have a jet plane to sweep her off to my big castle, but she doesn’t want any of it.”
Little does this woman know that it’s true.
“She’s foolish. You two would make some beautiful kids,” she says.
“I think so too.” He stares at me as if he’s proposed and I’ve turned him down.
The woman shuts the dryer door and Adrian quickly puts change in the machine. “That’s for trying to convince her to snatch me up.” He gives her his prince smile again.
I shake my head because we agreed that we’d be friends. In less than two months, he’s leaving on his jet plane back to his big castle. It’s not like me going with him is even a possibility. Uproot my life just to have to rebuild it again when things fall apart between us? No, thank you.
She pats his cheek. “Oh you. I’d marry you if I was fifty years younger.”
“What’s age but a number?” Adrian says.
Laughter at his not-funny jokes from the people around us once again commences.
“That’s what I say all the time. But…” She crooks her finger for him to come closer. “Have sex as much as you can when you’re younger. The hips lose something after the first replacement. So do the Kama Sutra stuff when you’re young.”
Adrian tries to fight his smile because she’s dead serious. “Will do.” He nods at her.
A dryer opens up and I hurry to get our clothes inside it.
Adrian comes over and helps me. “What do you think about her advice?”
“I’m curious as to why you threw me under the bus.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we both agreed to do the friends thing. You made it sound like you’re ready to get down on bended knee.”
A look I can’t decipher crosses his face before it vanishes with the emergence of his cocky smile. “I haven’t been shy that I want you.”
“You want me for two months, and then you’ll take your jet plane home. Where does that leave us?”
He’s silent because he doesn’t have an answer either.
“So from now on, no throwing me under the bus.” I grumpily shove the last of the wet clothes into the dryer.