Mixed Emotions

by MIA HEINTZELMAN

  The game started off just as Mike expected. Olivia’s truths, of course, were centered on photography and weddings, while her lie was predictably about how much she loathed guys with beards. Considering the last two guys she dated looked like lumberjacks, it was pretty easy to spot.

  Mike had also easily spotted Everett’s lie about wanting to be a football coach back in high school and Zora’s about hating Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. At the moment, he was winning the game 3–0, when Sophia’s turn came up.

  Sophia flashed him a tight smile as she scooted to the edge of the chair. “Okay, Mike. Let’s see if you can get this one.” She straightened the lines of her face and gave him a deadpan stare.

  “Let me have it.”

  “One. I’ve been put on light activity to avoid putting the baby at risk , so we’re going on a month-long vacation to Bali. Two. Patton Place has dry rot and termites, so we need to vacate the property for fumigation and repairs. Three. I only watch Game of Thrones for the nudity.

  Mike slid his finger over his top lip as he pondered the options. They were oddly specific and some were kind of personal. It was classic Sophia to go for the jugular right off the bat.

  “Let’s see. That’s pretty specific,” he said out loud.

  “But you don’t even like Game of Thrones,” Zora added.

  Zora and Olivia were both studying Sophia and Everett, waiting for the news hiding between the lines. They could all hear it in what Sophia wasn’t saying.

  Mike felt his own body stiffen.

  “Are you guys trying to tell us something?” he asked.

  His heartbeat pounded in his ears. Everett had told him before he met Sophia, she gave birth to a stillborn, which was why he was so worried, particularly the first three months. He said Sophia was about nine weeks and that most miscarriages occurred in the first trimester, so that had to be true. They would never joke about something so serious. Otherwise, why would they have been so worried about going out to celebrate?

  Why would they choose the middle of a game to disclose something so personal?

  “So the house has termites and dry—” Mike was still working out her angle when Zora cut him off.

  “Is the baby okay? What happened?”

  There was a catch in Everett’s throat as he responded. He squeezed Sophia’s hand, pulling her in tight against him. Both of them were glassy-eyed, but they held it together. By the way his upper lip stiffened and hers trembled, Mike could tell that they’d been suffering in silence with this news. Having to say it aloud was only reopening the wound.

  Immediately, Zo and Olivia stood and rushed to them, murmuring their sympathy and apologies. Mike was the only one who wasn’t crying. His tears were all dried up by now. He knew too well what the pain of losing a child…or sibling, did to a person.

  In the back of his mind, Mike saw his younger brother Lucas. His face was always falling. Mike knew there was nothing he could have done to help. Still, deep down, he knew he would never allow himself to be responsible for another person’s life.

  While he should have offered sympathy and shared Everett and Sophia’s burden now, friend or not, Mike couldn’t help but watch Zora.

  “I’m so sorry. I know how much the baby means to you,” she cried. The way she so freely gave of herself and was both gentle and strong at the same time—she was everyone’s rock and reprieve wrapped in one. The sight of her tears always stirred something in Mike and left him unsettled.

  “We’ve scheduled the fumigation,” Everett began. “In a week, we’re going to have to be out. My gorgeous fiancée and I are going to take a long overdue, stress-free vacation.” He gazed at her so endearingly, tenderly. “I’m thinking lots of time in the bed.”

  “Ev,” Sophia playfully slapped his shoulder, beaming despite the unfortunate circumstances.

  Mike couldn’t imagine a better couple to be parents. “Whatever you need. I’m here for you,” he said.

  Both Zo and Olivia offered their help, too.

  “You know you can count on me for anything,” Zora added. “This whole trip seems awesome. You guys deserve this so much. Except…I hate to have to talk about this in light of everything...but I’ve got nowhere to live.” Zora shrugged.

  Sophia and Everett eyed each other then turned to Olivia with expectant eyes.

  With the bomb Sophia dropped, Mike didn’t think about this aspect of the sudden turn of events. He sucked in a breath, anxious to know the plan, and then he saw Sophia and Everett exchange a meaningful glance.

  “This is where the three of you come in.”

  The way Everett’s tone dropped, Mike should have expected the worst, but what came next, he could never have prepared for.

  Chapter Five

  Zora

  Tuesday morning, Zora and Oli stood in front of their respective burners at Zora’s favorite commercial kitchen, Cuisinette. They already had a dozen or so small glass bowls of seasonings and ingredients lined at their stations, so they spent the remainder of the prep time picking from a selection of neon pink aprons. Each was embroidered with a bold print and had a sassy slogan scrawled across the pocket. For Zora, who was going to be homeless by the end of the week, something as simple as having the choice to pick the perfect cooking accessory gave a sense of dignity.

  Zora swallowed back her worries and turned to Oli, holding out the hem of an apron that said, “Nothing beats a good rub” on the front.

  “Isn’t this perfect? It’s like it’s reading my mind.”

  The way her week was shaping up, she needed a massage in the worst way.

  Oli was still struggling to tie her strings in the back.

  “Here, let me,” Zora said, whipping them into a wide bow. “Turn around. What’s yours say?”

  Oli pivoted, and Zora immediately bit back a grin. “Really? I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.” Given her friend’s affinity for thick, beefy, defensive lineman types, it was perfect that hers read, “I like big cooks and I cannot lie.”

  “What?” Oli smirked.

  “Um…I’ll have to keep that in mind when I find a guy to return the favor for Andre,” Zora said. “Just give me a little time. As soon as I get my life back in order, you’ve got it coming, sister.”

  Never one to veer off course, Oli threw the ball Zora had been dodging for days back in her court. “Speaking of… What are you going to do?”

  “Nope. I don’t want to think about being homeless. I’m stressed enough as it is thinking about Sophia and the baby.” They’d been over this a dozen times since game night.

  Oli threw her body onto the counter of a nearby station with a delayed cackle, and began heaving.

  “Wow. Dramatic much?” Oli stood back up. “It’s fumigation and a few repairs, so relax. You are not without a place to stay. I mean I would totally let you stay with me if my cousins weren’t coming into town. Oh, and, FYI, you’re not going to a hotel—they won’t take Blue, anyway.”

  They ambled back over to their stations, still giggling every time they looked at each other.

  “Anyway, I thought you and Mike were friends,” Oli drawled. “He volunteered his place, and I think you should take it. You’ve got, what, another month until you close on your house? Think of it is as a sleepover. A slumber party for hard-headed, stubborn, sexually-frustrated adults.”

  Zora ignored most of what Oli said, but she still couldn’t get past the word, “friends” and the nearly audible air quotes thrown around it. It stuck her like a thorn in her ass.

  Friends.

  She couldn’t even begin to explain why it bothered her so much,. Technically, she and Mike were friends. They had gone down the romantic road before and agreed not to ruin their friendship, but then the way he had looked at her at game night… Her heart flipped at the memory of the heat darkening his mossy green eyes. He was inches away from her, but she’d felt the fire radiating between them. She sucked in a stark breath as electricity coursed through her veins.

  I�
�m completely losing my shit.

  “I’m not going to impose on Mike. I’m not staying at his house.” Zora refused to look at Oli. “I’ve already checked out two apartments, and I have two more to see this Wednesday and Thursday with immediate move-in options, so I’ll figure out my living situation later.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Right now, I just want to cook and not think. You might remember, there’s a little cookbook I’m working on…” Zora sighed.

  Before her grandmother passed, she was showing Zora how to perfect a rich, delicious, dark roux the way Monroe women had been doing for generations. In the process, Zora had burned her fair share of the thick stew, trying, but never quite getting it just right. So the second Zora heard that shrimp étouffée was on the menu for this cooking class, she’d jumped at the chance and decided to drag Oli along for moral support in case she burned the place down.

  Still, it felt like a sign.

  This was her chance to add something rooted in family, love, and tradition to her book. It was the edge she needed. Shrimp étouffée was what she should focus on, not libido-teasing living arrangements and awkward friendships.

  “It’s going to be nasty.” Oli sucked her teeth loudly. For a second, Zora thought she was talking about the dish, but then she went on. “Probably some cheap little place out in the boondocks without running water. Oh, and an outhouse for a bathroom if you still want to close on time.”

  “Now who’s being dramatic?”

  “Seriously, Zo. You have to provide bank statements or canceled checks for all large purchases when you’re buying a house. It could delay the whole process another month otherwise.”

  Zora sighed. “Thank you for the CliffsNotes on home-buying.”

  “Well, if you’re not going to take advantage of Mike’s totally state-of-the-art, free, appliances, why don’t you cook here?” Oli asked. “This place is gorgeous and chic. I could totally see you Top Chef-ing up some masterpiece in this space.”

  Those were Zora’s thoughts exactly—the one bright spot, other than her apron, in her suddenly cloudy life was the possibility of getting in at a commercial kitchen. She bit her lip and squinted at the whiteboard in the back of the room with bold writing on it. It looked like they were subletting the kitchen on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

  This place would be perfect, actually.

  With all the space and upgraded commercial appliances, she could work on the final tweaks for her recipes for the cookbook here—after she got her living arrangements settled.

  “I think I’ll stop by the front desk on the way out.” Zora was still nodding at herself when she looked over at Oli, who seemed to be fully entertained by the setup on the counter.

  “His place is free,” Oli repeated, shaking her head. “Anyway, I thought you already picked all of your recipes for the book. I was just suggesting a place to cook for the blog.” She opened the jar of clam juice and sniffed. Her brows dipped in question.

  “That’s for the roux,” Zora explained. “Now put it back, before you spill it. They’re going to start in a few minutes.”

  Oli set the jar back down and picked up the mix of Cajun seasoning, wrinkling her nose. “Rue, as in a street in Paris? Or, as in deeply regretting the day you didn’t hook up with Mike? Either way, what has that got to do with this fish water?” She inhaled before sneezing loudly, barely missing the mix.

  Zora gingerly removed the bowl from Oli’s hand and replaced it on the counter. “Bless you. Good Lord, stop touching stuff. You need all of this for the roux. That’s the gorgeous, thick, dark, flavorful stew used to smother rice and meat.”

  When the jar and the bowls were neatly lined up the way they’d found them when they arrived, Zora explained. “Grandma Babs tried to teach me, but if I can master it in time, it’ll be just the personal touch I need for the book.”

  There was movement out of the corner of Zora’s eye. The instructor had arrived and the other students hurried to their stations.

  “I want you to grab your saucepans.” The instructor said, calling the class to order. She was a homely woman with shoulder-length red hair and smooth skin dappled with happy freckles. Loud clanks echoed and bounced off the glossy walls as all four rows of people struggled to lift the cast iron cookware.

  “It’s heavy, isn’t it? The last thing you want is a lightweight pan. It’ll only burn your roux, and poof! You’re back at square one. This is where we start—the bare minimum. Bare.”

  I sleep naked.

  Ugh. There was no way it would work. She was not staying with Mike even if they were friends.

  Anything for my friend.

  Double ugh.

  Following the instructions, Oli set the fire to medium-low heat. After adding the flour and vegetable oil into the pan, Zora slowly stirred.

  A faint ping sounded from the phone in Zora’s back pocket and she fought the urge to pull it out. She wasn’t in the mood for truths and lies. He was so hot and cold. One minute he was sharing flirty lies, setting off fireflies in her stomach, and the next they were fizzling back into Platonicville.

  She hated the way her hopes got up, but he was right.

  They were never going to be anything more than friends. So, whatever her heart was feeling, she needed to just get him out of her head.

  Oli flitted a glance her way then back to the heavy pan. She spoke under her breath. “Let me say this in a language you can understand, since you only speak cliché eighties movie lingo. This is basically the same as Some Kind of Wonderful, only you’re not Amanda Jones. You’re Keith Nelson, the idiot totally ignoring the good thing in front of you, which is Watts, who clearly wants to be more than friends but only realizes it when it’s too late.”

  Zora screwed her face up. “Are you saying Mike is Watts in this lovely little scenario you’ve cooked up—and botched, by the way?”

  “You get the gist.” Oli checked for the instructor before continuing. “Did you notice Kate wasn’t at game night? They broke up.”

  Zora almost knocked over her saucepan. “What?” She tried to whisper, but it came out as a yell.

  The instructor glared over at them.

  “Shhh. Oh my gosh.”

  Zora’s gaze locked on her roux as she stirred vigorously, putting as much elbow grease as she could into it the way Babs had shown her. Meanwhile, her heartbeat was a bass drum in her ears.

  The air warmed with the robust scent of Creole country with hints of…burnt toast?

  She flicked a glance over at Oli’s roux. “Pay attention. You’re burning it.” And not telling me anything.

  Zora chewed on the fact Mike was now a single man. Of all the times in the world, Oli chose now to be tight-lipped. Zora stirred intently, making sure her mix didn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.

  “So…Mike and Kate are over?” she asked.

  “Yep. I heard Everett tell Sophia last night.” Oli waggled her brows.

  Zora sighed and stared down at her roux. Her mind was spinning out of control. Mike was single…and quite possibly about to be her roommate if the last two apartments on her list were equally as shitty as the first two. She zoned in on all the implications of living with the only guy who could get under her skin—in every way.

  Her heart pounded in her ears as she swallowed back a wave of panic. Her stomach was tied up in knots. It was one thing to be in the house with Mike and know that he was in a relationship with Kate and off limits, but knowing he was available gave her a strange sense of uncertainty.

  “Earth to Zora.”

  She blinked a few times, hoping that she didn’t look as flustered as she felt.

  “What are you over there thinking about?”

  “Ugh. Turn your heat down. It’s burning again. Stir all the way to the edges and don’t stay in one spot too long.” Zora dismissed the laughter pulling at the corner of Oli’s mouth.

  She was seizing up. Frozen.

  Cooking with Oli was not doing the trick of getting her mind off
of the living situation chaos or Mike. If anything, all this talk about shacking up with her very single, friend who liked to sleep naked put him squarely in her thoughts. It was a disaster. She needed to find anywhere else to live.

  Chapter Six

  Mike

  Ever since Everett and Sophia dropped the news about their trip last weekend, Mike found himself still hard up and knee-deep in the paperwork for the Chessington building purchase. Yes, they worked together, but Mike and Everett were more. They were friends—family—before anything else. Although he couldn’t see himself hacking away at happily ever after, Mike believed a man deserved to be there for his family in an emergency without worrying about all the walls at work crashing down. He needed Everett to know he could depend on him to share the burdens at work…and at home.

  His home.

  For fuck safe, he’d volunteered his house to Zora for a month.

  A month.

  It wasn’t the smartest idea. It was probably the opposite, given their history and his hormones, but it was what any friend would do for one another. This was his chance to be there when someone needed him.

  After all, he and Zora were friends.

  He’d made sure it was the only thing they were.

  Then he’d offered his house up on Saturday night.

  It was now Thursday and he still had no clue whether or not she was going to actually take him up on it. He’d given her plenty of space—not even a single text. The least she could do was let him know one way or the other.

  Her silence was both annoying and rude. He had a mind to retract the offer altogether. If Mike was being honest with himself, though, the suspense was what was killing him.

  He didn’t know if he should grocery shop, put sheets on the guest bed, stock his place with emergency survival kits…who knew? How was he supposed to focus on getting properly laid with all this hanging over his head?

  Right after I review this contract one more time, I’ll just…send her a text.

  No big deal.

  “Kendra,” he called out to Everett’s assistant down the hall. “When you get a chance, can you please bring me the purchase contract? I need to see one more thing.” He heard her grunt in the distance. “Thank you.”