by Jae
“This was the last one.” Aiden folded up the empty moving box and looked around the new apartment. It was still hard to believe that she now shared a home with Dawn.
“Yeah,” Dawn said. “Let’s christen the new kitchen.”
Aiden raised an eyebrow suggestively.
“Not like that.” Dawn laughed. “I’m hungry and still a little unsettled in the new apartment, and cooking always calms me down, so let’s cook something.”
Good to know that Dawn was feeling a little off balance too. Proposing to Dawn and moving in together had been a big step for Aiden, and she was glad she wasn’t the only one who was a little nervous about it. “If you cook, I’ll clean up.” She was a horrible cook but didn’t want Dawn to do all the work.
“No. Let’s cook together,” Dawn said. “It’ll be fun, and maybe it’ll have a calming effect on you too.”
Aiden doubted that, but she nodded. “What are we making?”
Dawn opened their mostly empty kitchen cupboards. “Looks like it’s spaghetti with tomato sauce.”
“Good. Even I can do that.” Aiden took the can of tomatoes. As she positioned the can opener, she looked up and paused. Transfixed, she stood and watched Dawn move around the kitchen.
Dawn’s hips were swaying softly to the music coming from the radio in the background while she filled a pot with water. She threw an onion into the air and caught it smoothly. Her slender hands handled the knife with ease. As she bent down to search for a frying pan, her faded jeans tightened, giving Aiden a good look at her ass.
Aiden’s heartbeat sped up. Dawn’s confident movements had an unexpected eroticism.
Finally, Dawn turned toward her and reached for the can of tomatoes that Aiden held in her hands, still unopened. She gave Aiden a smile when she saw her lean against the kitchen counter. “See? Didn’t I tell you cooking had a calming effect?”
“Calming effect? Not on me!” She pressed Dawn against the counter and kissed her passionately.
Dawn wrapped one arm around her and returned the kiss while reaching behind herself to turn off the stove with her free hand. “Let’s try for that calming effect later,” she said breathlessly when they finally came up for air.
“Not hungry anymore?” Aiden slid her hands up Dawn’s sides.
“Dinner can wait,” Dawn said. Still holding on to Aiden, she directed them out of the kitchen. “The bedroom needs to be christened first.”
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Dawn and Aiden first met in Jae’s romantic suspense novel Conflict of Interest. Their story continued in Next of Kin.
Facing the Music
Leontyne settled down on the roof, leaned back against the brick chimney, and stared out across her hometown. Smoke from a neighbor’s bonfire hung in the air, mingling with the scent of fall. An owl hooted in the distance. The stars and the crescent moon bathed the rooftop in a silvery light. The nights were turning cooler now, so Leo was glad that the shingles beneath her were still warm from the day’s sun.
She wrapped her arms around her knees and sighed. God, she’d miss this. Most of all, she’d miss Holly.
You’d think you’re about to leave for a year-long concert tour, not just three measly concerts. When she had fired her manager and established her own recording label last year, she had decided not to do world tours anymore. She wanted a life, not just a career.
The next week would prove whether she could have both. Leo rubbed her tired eyes. She hadn’t slept much last night, and she suspected that she’d get even less sleep tonight since she was leaving for New York tomorrow morning. Twice, she had woken up from nightmares in which her fans had booed when she had played songs from her new album.
Bullshit. They’ll love the new sound. Holly had told her a thousand times, and the first reviews had been encouraging. But even that couldn’t soothe her nerves. Maybe because Perfect Rhythm was such a personal album for her. Every single song was about her own emotions—mourning her father and the fact that they’d never been close, falling in love, and finally finding a place where she belonged.
Something scraped over the shingles, and for some reason Leo wasn’t surprised to see Holly come around the chimney. She watched Holly’s every move as she carefully balanced to reach Leo’s part of the roof.
Even in her scrubs, she was a sight for sore eyes. Leo drank in every little detail—Holly’s curvy figure, her short auburn hair that was slightly tousled, and, as she came closer, the dimples that formed in her cheeks when she smiled at Leo. She held some kind of paper bag in her right hand, but in the near darkness, Leo couldn’t make out the logo.
Holly settled down next to her, with the chimney at her back, and immediately snuggled up to her. “Hi,” she said quietly, as if not wanting to disturb the peaceful atmosphere.
“Hi.” Leo trailed her fingertips over Holly’s soft cheeks and then leaned forward to kiss her, reconnecting after being apart for most of the day.
Holly wrapped one arm around her and returned the kiss.
For a while, nothing else seemed to exist, just the two of them, sharing the perfect kiss beneath the stars. Holly was warm and soft and tasted faintly of chocolate and cinnamon.
There was never any doubt about whom she was kissing—Leo, not her pop-star persona. It had been the same way when they had shared their very first kiss in this very spot. Hard to believe that it had been more than a year ago already.
When the kiss ended, Holly settled her head on Leo’s shoulder and wrapped one arm around her middle. She let out a contented sigh that Leo echoed.
“I brought dinner,” Holly said after a while. She lifted the paper bag.
Now, up close, Leo could make out the logo of Slice of Heaven, their favorite bakery. “Ooh. Apricot-orange cream scones?”
“What else? Sasha made them especially for you after she closed the bakery for the day. There are more in the car for you to take with you tomorrow.”
Leo ripped the bag in her haste to get the treat. The scones were still warm. She tore off a piece and fed it to Holly before taking a bite. It seemed to melt in her mouth.
God, she would miss these too. For fourteen years, she had tried her best to stay away from her hometown, but since meeting Holly, she kept discovering things she loved about Fair Oaks.
They shared two scones and more kisses.
“How did you know where to find me?” Leo asked when the scones were gone.
“It wasn’t hard to figure out. It’s your favorite feel-good spot, after all.”
Leo balled up the empty paper bag and put it in her jeans pocket. “It used to be, but I’ve got a new one now.”
Holly lifted her head off Leo’s shoulder. An adorable wrinkle formed between her eyebrows. “You do?”
“Uh-huh.” Leo gestured at the arm that Holly had wrapped around her. “Right here, in your arms.”
“Corny,” Holly said, but she couldn’t hide her broad smile or the happy gleam in her blue eyes.
Leo shrugged and grinned back. “Maybe, but then again, I write love songs for a living, so I’m allowed to be just a little sappy.”
“Well, I certainly don’t mind, as long as that sappiness is directed at me.”
Leo cocked her head and studied her familiar features. Was Holly nervous about the upcoming concerts too, only for a different reason? Did a part of her still think that Leo would prefer a series of hot one-night stands with groupies to a relationship with her?
“Who else would it be directed at?” She nudged Holly’s nose with her own. “You know there’s only you for me, don’t you?”
Even in the dim light, she could see Holly’s fair complexion darken as she blushed.
“Don’t you?” Leo repeated when Holly didn’t immediately answer.
Holly lifted her head and looked her in the eyes. “Yes, I do. It’s just old insecurities. Ignore me.”
“Now why would I do that?” Leo kissed her again and then moved back a little so she could make eye contact. “Giving the occasional co
ncert is part of my job, but the all-night parties, the seductive costumes, and the bra-throwing groupies…that’s not my thing. If it were entirely up to me, I’d rather stay here with you.”
“I know.” This time, there was no trace of insecurity in Holly’s voice. She reached for Leo’s hand and trailed her thumb over her life line, then the heart line. “Are you nervous?”
With everyone else, Leo would have denied it, but with Holly, there was no reason to pretend or put on her pop-star mask. “A little. I haven’t been up on a stage for over a year.”
“You played at the bar on Sasha’s birthday.”
Leo snorted. “That was to an audience of two dozen people. Not exactly comparable to Madison Square Garden or the United Center.”
Holly soothingly rubbed her hand and then lifted it to her mouth and kissed her guitar calluses one by one.
A tingle went through Leo’s body, making her forget her nervousness.
“Don’t worry,” Holly said. “I bet it’s just like riding a bike. Someone who’s given as many concerts as you doesn’t suddenly forget how it’s done.”
“You’re probably right. Plus I’ve got to face the music some time, right?” She had to smile at her own choice of words. “No pun intended.”
“Yes. But you don’t have to do it alone.”
Leo entwined their fingers. In the moonlight she could no longer tell which ones were Holly’s and which were her own. “I know. It’ll be great to have you in the first row in Chicago, along with Meg and Jo.” Too bad that neither Holly nor their friends could be there for the other two concerts and would join her only for the third and last one.
Holly shook her head. “Not just Chicago. I’ll be there for New York and Boston too.”
“What?” Leo gaped at her. “But…but…you said you had to work.”
“I did, but then I offered one of my colleagues our firstborn so she would take over my patients for the week, so now I’m all yours.”
With a muffled shout, Leo threw her arms around her, nearly toppling them both off the roof.
“Whoa! Careful.” Holly laughed, and her eyes twinkled happily. “Don’t make us fall.”
“Too late,” Leo whispered. She had fallen for Holly the night she had first taken her to her secret spot on the roof.
When their lips met, Leo knew she was ready to face whatever the next week would bring.
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If you enjoyed this short story, you might want to check out Jae’s novel Perfect Rhythm, in which Holly and Leo met and fell in love.
Whining and Dining
I was close to whining as I called my best friend. The phone rang, and I glared at the stove while I waited for Remy to pick up, determined not to be bested by a pot of pasta. If you could call the limp mess in the pot pasta.
Good thing my nonna couldn’t see me now. Since the beginning of time, every Sorrentino had been a chef. My parents, all three of my siblings, and more aunts, uncles, and cousins than I could count were in the food business. When I, the bambina of the family, had been born, nature had apparently decided that it was time for some genetic variety, and as a result, I couldn’t cook to save my life. God knows I had tried, but after I’d nearly burned down the family restaurant at the age of twelve, I’d been banned from the kitchen.
Well, at least I was a champ at taste-testing. And I had a best friend who could perform magical feats with the meager contents of my fridge.
“This is a culinary emergency,” I said as soon as Remy picked up the phone. “I need help with this damn chicken.”
“Is it attacking you?”
I could practically hear the smile in her voice. “Very funny. Can you come over? I need cooking lessons.”
“Cooking lessons?” Remy echoed. “Is hell freezing over?”
Well, at least she wasn’t laughing. I had to give her credit for that. And she was right—whenever she had offered cooking lessons, I had declined, but now I had the right motivation. “I tried on my own, but…well…”
“What did you make?” Remy asked in a how-bad-is-it tone.
“Rubbery chicken breast, too salty sauce, and overcooked pasta.”
“I take it that wasn’t what you were aiming for?”
I flicked an overly limp noodle into the sink. “Would you stop teasing and just come over to save my cooking-challenged butt?”
“Why me? Why not ask your brothers or your sister or—?”
“And have them make fun of me for the next fifty years? No, thanks.” Besides, I hadn’t seen Remy for a while, and I missed spending time with her. “Will you help me, please?”
“I’m on my way,” Remy said and hung up.
With the phone still pressed to my ear, I stood there for a moment before I kicked myself into motion. My knight in a not-so-shiny chef jacket was on her way, so I’d better make the most incriminating evidence of my cooking disaster disappear before she arrived.
“Okay.” Remy surveyed the battlefield that was my kitchen. “What’s going on here? Why are you cooking?”
From the moment she’d first started working in my parents’ restaurant five years ago, Remy and I had been best buds who could tell each other everything. She knew all about my romantic exploits, so I saw no reason to lie to her. “This is just a test run, but I have to figure out how to wine and dine a woman by Saturday.”
Remy set down her knife roll on the granite countertop, glanced at the ruins of my cooking experiment, and arched an eyebrow.
I rubbed my neck. “Well, I admit the dining part isn’t going so well, but I’m not giving up.”
“Who would have thought,” Remy murmured. “Lucia Sorrentino spending the day slaving away over the stove—voluntarily.”
I shrugged. “The things we do for love…”
“Yeah.” Remy sighed softly.
I tilted my head and studied her. As usual, her blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail, but a few stubborn strands refused to be tamed, and she repeatedly pushed them out of her blue eyes. She looked like she always did, but something seemed off. “You okay? I didn’t interrupt anything when I called, did I?”
“No. You know me. There’s nothing to interrupt.”
“You should go out more. Date.” She hadn’t dated anyone since breaking up with that creep Barbara two years ago.
Remy shook her head, making more blonde tendrils fall onto her face. She shoved them away. “I work for your slave-driving parents. I don’t have time to date.”
“Bullshit. You’re just too chicken to put your heart on the line again.”
She looked at me for a moment, a strange expression on her face, and then shrugged. “You do know that insulting someone who wields very big, very sharp knives for a living is a bad idea, don’t you?”
Especially if that someone could debone a chicken in ten seconds flat, even with her eyes closed and one hand tied behind her back. Good thing I wasn’t a chicken. “And you know that changing the subject won’t do you any good with me, don’t you?”
“Who’s changing the subject? We were discussing your love life, not mine. Why are you trying to woo some poor, unsuspecting woman with your nonexistent cooking skills?”
“We were talking about cooking, and I might have kinda implied that I could make her a romantic dinner that’ll blow her socks off.”
Again, Remy just arched an eyebrow.
“Well, you know what my nonna always said. The way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach.”
“Yeah. But she also said: Never trust a skinny cook—and you are skinny.” She pinched my hip as if proving my lack of padding.
“Hey.” I slapped her hand away. “I’m not.”
“You are. At least compared to me.”
Not that ancient argument again. I rolled my eyes. “So you’re carrying a few extra pounds. Big deal. You’re still an attractive woman.”
Instead of the expected denials, only silence came from Remy.
What was it with her today? “Remy? You with me?�
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“Uh, yeah.” She shook herself as if trying to clear her head. “So let’s sum this up. You promised to dazzle your latest flavor of the month with a romantic dinner. You couldn’t impress her with some other impossible task instead? Like bringing down the moon for her—or merely buying her flowers.”
“She doesn’t like flowers.”
Remy snorted. “Every woman likes flowers.”
“You don’t.”
“I’m a chef. I like my greenery on a plate.”
“So is she.”
Remy stared at me as if I’d said my prospective girlfriend was a three-headed T. rex. “You’re dating a chef? But you always said that you’d never want to date someone in the food business after growing up with a horde of chefs.”
Was it just my imagination, or did she sound almost hurt? “I’m not dating her. Not yet. But I’m sure a woman like Alexandra Beaumont won’t be able to resist my romantic dinner.” That was, if she didn’t succumb to food poisoning first.
Remy’s eyes widened. “Alexandra Beaumont? The Alexandra Beaumont, celebrity chef with a national cooking show, her own line of cooking gear, and half a dozen cookbooks?”
Grinning, I buffed my nails on my shirt. “Yep. That’s her.”
“Jesus.” Remy sank against the kitchen counter. “How did you meet?”
“I’m doing the promo for her new book. Something about braising, whatever that is.”
Remy covered her face with her hands for a moment. “You don’t know what braising is, but you want to cook her dinner? Are you sure you don’t want to use the good old flower method?”
I gave her the look. Over the years, I had perfected it watching Nonna and my parents stare down the new line cooks. It never failed to work with any chef, and Remy wasn’t an exception.
“Okay, okay.” She held up her hands. “Who am I to throw stones? It’s not like I’m a champ in the making-healthy-decisions department when it comes to my love life, either.”
“So you’ll help me?”
Now it was Remy’s turn to give me the look. “Is dessert the best part of a meal? Of course I will. Sadly, I think my famous spinach soufflé with angel hair pasta and white chocolate crème brûlée for dessert is out of the question, considering your usual method of cooking is removing the tin foil and nuking.”