What's Life Without the Sprinkles?

by Simon, Misty

  All conditions met, except for the happy son part, but that she could work on with him. Nate often helped to make him happy and teach him about life, too. She would be lost without him. It would be work to fit everything in, but she wasn’t afraid of a little hard work. She’d been at it for almost eleven years at this point.

  She shared her apartment with her sister, but she owned it. She shared her business with two of the best women in the world, and her son would eventually get over himself, even if she had to force him.

  Her love life was her own. Or at least it would be, once she got her hands on one very delicious piece of rear end labeled Nate West.

  Of course her resolve didn’t last much past getting into her room. Who was she kidding? The problems with going after Nate were already stacking up in her head.

  “Ugh!” After kicking off her shoes, Claudia threw herself on her bed and dropped her hand over her eyes.

  “I told you I was right,” Zoe said, startling Claudia.

  Where had she come from? And she hadn’t even tried to keep the smugness out of her voice.

  “You’re my sister. Aren’t you supposed to hold the ‘I told you so’ line and just commiserate with me?”

  “Probably, but not this time. He isn’t right for you.”

  “Yeah, I figured that out for myself tonight, thanks very much.”

  “No charge.” Zoe flopped down on the bed next to Claudia, stuck her legs up in the air, and seemed to be contemplating the meaning of her toes.

  “You were wrong about the rug, though. It was hair plugs. Poorly done hair plugs.” Claudia couldn’t believe she had dismissed that. She certainly hadn’t missed it, but she’d ignored it all along.

  “I was still in the ball park, though. You should always listen to your little sister when it comes to these kinds of things.”

  Claudia smacked her in the face with a pillow. “At least I’m out there still trying to date and be semi-normal.”

  Zoe grabbed the pillow and tucked it behind her head. “Yeah, well, you’ll never really be normal, semi or otherwise. I applaud you for sticking your neck and body out there trying to find Mr. Right.”

  “I hear a ‘but’ in there.”

  “Absolutely. Isn’t there always a ‘but’ in there?” Claudia didn’t make contact with the pillow this time. Zoe snatched it out of her hands and tucked it behind her head, too. “But you need to stop listening to Mom, who obviously needs her eyes and brain checked if she thought Eddie was right for you.”

  “At least I’m actually dating.”

  “I’m actually dating, too, goofus, just not with any intent. I’m only twenty-five, and in no huge hurry to run out and find the Right one, or even the Right For Now one. I’ll take the Hung one.”

  This time Claudia was faster, but she also ended up with her head flat on the comforter while Zoe was propped up like a queen against the headboard with all the pillows. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “And you still have several hours before you have to pick up your precious boy. Maybe you should go to a bar and see what kind of men are hanging out on this fine night. I’ll go with you.”

  “Not going to happen,” Claudia said, with her mouth if not her heart. She could see herself out on a club dance floor, maybe shaking what her mama gave her in the arms of a cute guy for the night. While in her mind that might be a pretty picture, she knew it would never happen. But, oh, just the thought… Her hormones were not helping her stay sane.

  If only the cute guy would be Nate. Thoughts of what exactly that would entail made her blood pressure spike a few degrees. She fanned herself and blew out a breath.

  “Who are you thinking about now, hussy?” Zoe wasn’t stupid enough to give up her pillows, so she tapped Claudia on the head with her balled fist. “Jensen Ackles, again?”

  “Ha! No, not someone so unattainable.” And now she’d just opened a can of worms, because Zoe would eventually find out who was more attainable. And then discuss in detail how Claudia could go about attaining him.

  Her sister didn’t disappoint. “Who? Who? Who!”

  “You sound like an owl.”

  “You are not going to distract me.”

  Claudia propped herself up on an elbow, facing Zoe. “I wasn’t thinking of anyone in particular.”

  “Liar.” Zoe also turned and propped her hand under her head. “Please tell me you’ve finally decided to bag the very yummy Nate.”

  Um. “What?”

  “The very yummy Nate. Tell me you’ve finally decided to look beyond the whole ‘he’s my best friend’ thing and finally jump him like he’s never been jumped before.”

  Now what could she say to that? She had hoped to secretly seduce him and have a kind of friends-with-benefits relationship. Just the cake, please. Would she be able to do that with Zoe hawking over her shoulder?

  Definitive answer: No.

  “Hmmm,” Claudia said to give herself a moment. “No, I wasn’t thinking of Nate. I was thinking of Hank, down at the soda shop.”

  “I’m not that gullible.” Zoe smirked. “Hank hasn’t moved from his stool with his newspaper and his root beer float since 1985. And he was old then.” She tapped her lips with one painted fingernail. “No, I think you definitely get that heat-flash look in your eyes when it comes to Nate.”

  “A lot you know.” Maybe she could get Zoe to play devil’s advocate to her lustful thoughts without giving herself away. “Think what it would do to our friendship and to Justin’s buddy nights.”

  “You mean enhance them?”

  “No, ruin them if something happened.”

  “Ah, ha! So you have thought about it.” Zoe’s lips quirked up in another smug smile.

  Claudia grabbed a pillow from under her elbow and threatened her with it. “I have not.” Not more than twenty times today, anyway.

  “I think you have, and it’s coming to the front now, after twenty years, because he’s working on the shop and you have to stare at him with his tool belt on every day.”

  Claudia sputtered. “I have not stared at him in his short-sleeved white T-shirt and thought about his biceps. Looked at his jeans and wanted to be in them. Or glanced at his supple brown leather tool belt with its wrenches and drills and been turned on like a light switch. I’m not going there.”

  Zoe collapsed back into her pillows, clutching her stomach while she laughed loud and long. “You have to go there and pick up Justin. And, dear sister, since that’s not at all what I said, I think you are also on the verge of protesting too much. So I’ll leave you to go pick up your son at the guy’s house who you don’t think of his yummy biceps or his tools. Have fun. Do everything I would.”

  Zoe jumped off the bed and ran from the bedroom before Claudia could say anything else.

  Great. Now she’d have to go face Nate knowing her lust wasn’t as carefully hidden as she’d thought it was.

  Chapter Three

  Nate West groaned on the floor, attacked and quite possibly maimed by the figure looming over him. He’d just been stabbed in the heart with a spatula and was down for the count. “No, Master Zofo, do not deal the death blow, please, I beg of you.”

  “Bwahahahaha! I can do no less. You have committed treason, and for that you must pay!”

  Raising his hand in the air, Nate cowered away from the ten-year-old boy with the apron hanging around his neck and down his back, an old Scooby Doo tie wrapped around his waist to hold his weapons. The boy stood spread-legged, brandishing the deadly spatula.

  “There will be no mercy.” Justin Bradley, aka Master Zofo—Claudia had always been a big Led Zeppelin fan—jabbed out with the spatula, and Nate thanked God it was made of rubber.

  “Hey man, watch the goods.”

  Justin broke character and started giggling. “Sorry, Nate, I didn’t mean to get you in the gonads.”

  Another giggle. Nate took the opportunity to wrestle the boy to the floor and start his very own torture.

  “No, no, no,” Justin
screamed, laughing the whole time. “Not the Tickle Maruchan.”

  “Yes, I know I cannot kill the all-powerful, immortal Master Zofo, but I may vanquish him with tickle.”

  The doorbell rang, breaking Nate’s concentration. It cost him. He tried to crawl to the door, but Justin held onto the back of his thigh and gave a war whoop as they inched their way to the front door. When fingers dug into his ribs, Nate yelled, “Help!” still laughing.

  Then Claudia walked in, bent down, and tickled him, too.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he gasped as her fingers assaulted his ribs. He almost got an eyeful of boob when he tried to sit up. But she backed off with a half smile and a flip of her blonde hair.

  He cleared his throat and shuffled Justin off his body. “You’re no help.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be.” The smile stayed in place, kinking up the side of her mouth. “You’re a big strong man. I thought you could take it.”

  Pulling Justin up by his apron strings, Nate set him on his feet and brushed him off, using the time to let his pant legs fall back down from his knees. He tried to figure out what had made that smile different from the ones she normally wore. He was used to her playfulness. How couldn’t he be, after almost twenty years in each other’s pockets? But there was something vaguely unsettling about that tiny crinkle on the left side.

  “Before you ask how the date was, don’t.” Claudia held up a hand, and her bracelets clinked as they slid down her arm.

  He got Justin on his way to the kitchen with a swat to his rear end and told him to get his stuff together. “That bad, huh?”

  “Didn’t I just tell you not to ask?” She crossed her arms over her chest, cocked a hip out to rest against the doorway to the living room, and flipped her hair back over her shoulder, again.

  “Sorry, I just thought you’d want to talk about it.” Like you always do, he thought but didn’t say.

  Part of him felt sorry for her. She’d invested a lot of time into that relationship. But the other, bigger, part of him was glad she’d finally realized what an ass the man was. Edward had never been good enough for her, just like all the other men who had come and gone from her life.

  “At least that’s over,” she said, breaking into his thoughts. And then she started blinking really fast and dipped her head down.

  “So no more Edward, at all?”

  More fluttering eyelashes. Was she having a problem?

  “Nope. Edward has gone the way of the cream-filled doughnuts I tried to make in twelfth grade.” Crossing her ankles, she bumped the hip out some more and shrugged her shoulder.

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “No, you’re not.” She tapped him lightly on the arm and stuck her tongue out at him. “You hated him just as much as Zoe did. Don’t try to pretend differently.”

  Thankfully, he was saved by Justin running back into the living room with his arms full of all his stuff. His plastic sword stuck up from his back above his ear, his comic books were crushed against his thin, young chest.

  “Ready, Mom. Let’s go, let’s go!” As Justin ran back and forth right next to Claudia’s non-leaning hip, he nearly knocked her over.

  “In a minute,” she said, batting her eyelashes again.

  Finally, Nate had to ask. “Can I get you something for that?”

  The batting stopped, and her gray eyes opened wide. “For what?”

  “Well, I think it’s stopped. It looked like you had something stuck in your eye there for a minute. I didn’t know if you needed to wash it out.”

  She heaved a sigh, and her eyes went back to normal. “No. No, nothing in my eye, but thanks for the offer.” Her shoulders drooped, then she seemed to shake off whatever it was and stood straighter. “Hey, thanks again for watching him on such short notice. It may be a while before I go out on any dates again, so I won’t impose on your time.”

  He ruffled Justin’s hair. “You know it’s no hardship to watch my guy. It doesn’t only have to be when you need to go out, does it?”

  “Um, no, of course not.” She uncrossed her arms. He’d never seen her so stiff before.

  “Are you sure something’s not wrong? You look uncomfortable.” He laughed to release some of the weird tension in the air. “Or is it just the new shoes?” He hadn’t seen her wear heels on a date in months.

  “Yeah, you know how I hate wearing flats, and now I don’t have to anymore. I’m going to symbolically burn those when I get home. You like the new ones?” She turned her ankle to showcase the almost-three-inch heel, and he made the appropriate noises.

  She returned to Justin and crouched down to his level. “Ready to go, buddy?”

  “Yep. I was ready to go like twenty minutes ago.”

  “It wasn’t twenty minutes.” Nate eyed him from beneath lowered eyebrows. “Your mom just got here, and you know it. No games.”

  “All right, all right. Yeesh! You sure are bossy.”

  “And you’re short, but I don’t hold that against you,” Nate shot back, ruffling Justin’s hair.

  “So on that note,” Claudia said, giving the back of Justin’s head a flick, “we need to go. Thanks again, Nate. We’ll see you soon.” That kicky little smile hitched up the corner of her mouth when she looked back over her shoulder as they were leaving.

  He shut the front door, not knowing what the hell was going on with Claudia. Maybe she was developing some kind of facial tick. That would be sad.

  ****

  Justin was in bed finally and settled down for the night when Claudia came back into the living room and accepted a glass of wine from Zoe. The horrendous shoes had literally been burned and thrown into the dumpster out back. But even that hadn’t made her feel better.

  “I was a mess.”

  Zoe sat back in the loveseat covered in throw pillows and two afghans, her legs tucked under her, looking relaxed, while Claudia felt twisted into the remnants of a used icing bag.

  “I highly doubt that,” Zoe said and took a sip of her own wine. She sagged back against the sofa and blew out a breath. “There’s no way you are that out of practice. You used to have a wicked flirt going on.”

  “Yeah, almost eleven years ago. That’s not exactly a recommendation.”

  Zoe waved a hand in the air. “You don’t need a recommendation. It’s like riding a bike.”

  “I haven’t ridden a bike in almost seven years. You’re not making me feel any better. I was an abysmal failure with Nate. He asked me if I needed to wash out my eye! He probably thinks I have some kind of new disease or something.” The horror of it was she did feel like she was contracting some kind of flu bug. Or maybe it was just her complete ineptness at catching the eye of a man who wasn’t three inches shorter and balding. Men like that flocked to her and she didn’t have to do a damn thing. Yet now when she wanted something more... “I made a complete ass out of myself.”

  Zoe snickered. “Seriously, I highly doubt he even noticed, if he thought you needed some eyewash.”

  “You are not helping. Again. Why does this always seem so easy when you do it, but I fail miserably?” And she did mean miserably. How embarrassing. She’d thought she was using some of her best moves, and he’d offered her first aid.

  “We’ll work on it. As long as you put yourself completely in my hands, I can have you back in excellent flirting condition within days.” She arched an eyebrow. “But you have to put yourself completely in my hands.” The other eyebrow joined the first. “Completely.”

  The twisted icing bag burst and splattered. She could already tell this was not going to be her best idea. She’d see how she felt after some much-needed sleep.

  ****

  After getting Justin off to school with minimum fuss the next day, Claudia made her way downstairs. She was not going let her sister tutor her on flirting. She admitted she might have gotten off to a rocky start with Nate. She’d simply been a bit tongue-tied after seeing him with his shirt partially off—those abs had truly been stumble-w
orthy. But if she wanted Nate to see her as something more than his best friend of the last two decades, then she’d have to be herself. Not some floozy.

  She thought about that as she took cake orders and directed three calls to Zoe for flower orders and another call to May for a dress for an upcoming fiftieth high school reunion at the American Legion down the road.

  She had a list a mile long for the upcoming days—six weddings over the next two weeks, and a handful of anniversaries, along with the cakes for that reunion—and now her mother was making noise about retiring. She’d come in this morning all chipper with her announcement, totally missing how rocked Claudia felt about her leaving permanently.

  Mona Bradley had been in talks with May about May filling in more and eventually taking over as a partial owner of the shop, but now was not the time to step up the timetable, with the wedding season upon them. Despite wanting to tell their mom to please wait until September or after, Claudia had sent Zoe to talk with their uncle (and lawyer) to see what it would take to allow Mona to retire. Normally, Claudia would have jumped at the chance to see Uncle Al, but her schedule was filled to the limit.

  How she thought she was going to fit in a romance—or even some kind of friends-with-benefits arrangement—was beyond her. Quite honestly, she told herself, she had waited this long, she could wait a little bit longer.

  The grandfather clock in the corner of the cake shop struck three, and Claudia waited expectantly for Justin to come in after getting off the bus.

  Cleaning up the counter over the front display case, Claudia hoped it had been a good day. They had a good streak of days coming, as far as she was concerned, to make up for the crappy ones recently. In fact, she planned on running by him the idea of going to the batting cages after dinner on Friday. Maybe it would keep the good mood rolling.

  Her son came hustling through the door as the last gong struck. He was full of chatter and actually hugged her before throwing his bag behind the counter.

  Claudia struggled for a moment with what to do. He knew he was supposed to put his backpack into the small office so things were not a mess in the shop, but they were having such a good day, with his mouth going a mile a minute. Did she really want to potentially ruin this little piece of bliss they were experiencing? Ten years of mothering by herself kicked in, though, and she just couldn’t let it slide.