“Well, I mean, we both know that,” she grins. “Care to be more specific?”
“I just confronted a stranger about buying the last piece of banana bread.”
Her frown deepens as her smile widens. “You what?”
“I don’t know! I just really, really wanted a slice, and then he bought the last one. I just went up to him and told him I hope he enjoyed my banana bread and told him to polish off the scones too. So I bought the last blueberry scone and gave it to him.”
“Meg!” Naomi laughs, squeezing her eyes shut and giggling. “You didn’t!”
“And he was hot, too. He was like, very good-looking. And there I am, standing there telling him that he just ate banana bread that was supposed to be mine.”
“You’re insane.”
“I know,” I laugh, shaking my head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me!”
“Did you recognize him?”
“No, never seen him before.”
“Well at least he’s not a client or anything. You probably won’t ever see him again.”
“God, I hope not,” I giggle. I turn when there’s a knock on the door frame. Our boss Julia is there.
“Meg, your 10 o’clock is here.” She glances at a clipboard in her hands. “Andrew Davis.” She hands me the clipboard.
“Thanks,” I say, and my eyes scan to the big windows that open out toward the lobby. My jaw drops, and my blood runs cold.
It’s him. It’s the banana bread man. It’s the handsome stranger. It’s the person that just saw me being my very unprofessional, very crazy self.
“Fuck,” I say under my breath. I turn to Naomi with wide eyes. “It’s him.”
“Who?”
“Him! The banana bread guy! Oh my God…. He’s here. He’s my ten o’clock with the sexy voice.”
I turn my back to the windows and stare at Naomi. Her mouth twitches at the corners and I put my hand up.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Just… don’t, Naomi. Don’t laugh. I can’t handle this right now.”
“Maybe next time he’ll bring you some banana—”
“I’m leaving.”
Naomi breaks down into a fit of giggles behind me, but the mortifying shame is too strong for me to join her. I put on my best neutral facial expression and head toward the lobby. It feels like I’m walking the plank. Every step that takes me closer to my new client makes my whole body vibrate with tension. I grip the clipboard a little bit tighter.
When I walk into the lobby, Andrew looks at me with confusion. That stupid, sexy smile is still playing on his lips, and he tilts his head to the side.
I paint a smile on my face.
“Andrew!” I say, maybe a bit too enthusiastically. “Nice to meet you. I’m Meghan.”
“Meghan,” he says slowly, as if he’s tasting my name in his mouth.
We stare at each other for a moment. His lips drop open and I can help but notice his tongue slide out to moisten them. A shiver runs down my spine.
I clear my throat.
“Follow me.”
5
Andrew
I follow my new physical therapist as my head spins circles around me. She’s pretending like it didn’t happen, but I can’t ignore the fact that ten minutes ago, she confronted me about a piece of banana bread. She was aggressive about it, too!
I’m not going to lie—I kind of liked it. I liked the way her eyes were blazing, and the way her eyebrow arched as if she owned that coffee shop. I liked the way she looked me up and down, and how the redness crept up her neck toward her cheeks.
And now I like the way her hips are swaying from side to side as she leads me to the back of the building. We enter a large room with various bits of exercise equipment, and she turns to me, gesturing to a chair. I sit down, watching her grab another chair from the corner and pull it up beside me.
“So, Andrew,” she says, glancing down at her clipboard. “What can I help you with today?”
She’s really not going to acknowledge this? She’s going to pretend like that whole scene at the coffee shop didn’t happen? My lips twitch upwards as her eyes meet mine. It feels like a challenge. I’ll ignore the elephant in the room—for now.
“I’ve had a twinge in my shoulder since last season. It happened at practice when I was tackled a bit awkwardly, and it hasn’t gone away since.”
I can hear myself talking, but all I’m thinking about are her eyes. They’re piercing blue, totally bright, and staring at me with an intensity that I’ve rarely experienced. A current zips down my spine when her eyes drop to my shoulder. She listens, nodding. A strand of blonde hair falls out of her ponytail and across her cheek.
She stands up and comes toward me. The instant her hands touch my shirt, I inhale. Blood rushes downwards and I keep my eyes staring straight ahead.
Meghan lifts my arm, turning it this way and that while she asks me where it hurts. She smells amazing. Almost like fresh baked banana bread. I wipe the grin off my face as the thought crosses my mind.
I close my eyes for a second, inhaling her sweet scent as she lifts my arm up over my head. Her body is so close to mine that I can feel the heat of her body. Her breasts brush against my arm as she moves closer, bending it at the elbow and rotating it back.
I can’t hold back any longer. I can’t just sit here and pretend like nothing happened. Before I can resist, the words just slip out of my mouth.
“So are you a big fan of banana bread?”
She freezes. I fight to keep a smile off my face.
“You caught me at a bad time,” she says, her voice strained.
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“If I’d have known…”
“It’s not a big deal.” She’s staring at my shoulder. The redness is creeping up her neck again, and I’m enjoying this more than I should.
“It seemed like a pretty big deal. I never meant to…”
“Please,” she says, putting her hand on my shoulder and looking me in the eye. “Please, let’s not talk about it.”
Warmth spreads at the base of my spine and I dip my chin down. I like the way it feels to have her hands on me.
“Sure,” I say.
“Arms up above you head.”
I do as she says.
“Thanks for the scone, by the way.”
“No problem. Now rotate your arms back and forth like this.”
I rotate. “I actually think I liked the scone more than the banana bread.”
Her eyes sparkle. Megan’s lips twitch, but she fights to keep her face neutral. I know she’s going to bite, I can see it in her face.
“I might even say that scones in general are superior to banana bread.”
She drops her hands to her hips, tilting her head to the side.
“Really?”
Gotcha.
I nod.
“I’m not sure I can keep you on as a client, then,” she says, shaking her head.
I laugh, leaning back in my chair. “Because of the banana bread?”
“Because you would even dare to say that a dry-ass blueberry scone is better than the best banana bread in the city.”
I grin. “Well, we can agree to disagree.”
“I might have to ask you to leave, Mr. Davis.” Her grin is spreading as the heat at the base of my spine burns hotter.
“Well, you’re wrong. It’s not the best banana bread in the city.”
That makes her laugh. Meghan shakes her head. “I don’t think you understand, Andrew. I’m a banana bread connoisseur. I am an expert taster of banana bread. When I eat banana bread, I score it on a complex combination of factors like flavor, sweetness, banana flavor, and most importantly, moistness.”
“So, you like a moist bread?”
“The moistest,” she giggles. “So you see, you’re the one that’s wrong. I’ve tested banana breads far and wide, and I can tell you that the cafe down the road has the best one.”<
br />
“They should put that on their menu. ‘Proven to be the best banana bread in the city by an expert connoisseur’.”
She nods, her eyes gleaming. “They should.”
“Well, I still think you’re wrong. I know where you can get a better banana bread.”
“Don’t say Magnolia Bakery. It’s decent, but it’s overrated.”
“I wasn’t going to say Magnolia Bakery.”
She chews her lip. I can see the debate in her head—she wants to ask. I let the question hang between us for a few seconds longer. I’m enjoying this a lot more than any other physical therapy appointment I’ve ever had.
She cracks. “Fine. Tell me. Where is the best?”
I point to myself. “Family recipe. County fair winner in ’93. My mother passed the recipe down to me when I was a boy.”
Her eyebrow arches as a grin spreads on her face. “Are you telling me that Mr. Wide Receiver from the New York Giants is also an award-winning banana bread baker?”
“Well, the recipe is award-winning,” I concede, scratching my ear. “It was my grandmother who made that particular batch. But I can assure you, it was better than the slice I had this morning. From one connoisseur to another.”
Her smile is blinding. She looks me in the eye for a few moments and finally chuckles. She just nods and puts her hand on my shoulder, going back to her work.
“I’ll believe it when I taste it,” she grins. “Bend your arms out to the side like a cactus.”
I do as she says, and then rotate my shoulder joint. I wince.
“Right there. That’s where it hurts.”
“Okay,” she says. The glint in her eye is gone, and it’s replaced with steely determination. She chews her bottom lip as she continues to bend my arm this way and that.
“Looks like the beginning of shoulder impingement. It’s good you came in when you did, because it can get nasty if you leave it too long. Let’s start with some mobility exercises, and then we can make a treatment plan for you.”
I have to hand it to her, she’s good at what she does. We run through half a dozen exercises, and she gives me a plan to follow daily. I nod along, trying not to stare at the curve of her lips or the brightness of her eyes.
“Let’s get you booked in for your next appointment. I’d like to see you later this week to make sure everything is going well, and then we can drop it back to once a week or once every two weeks, whatever works for you.”
I can’t keep my eyes off her. When she leans over the front desk to find a pen, I stare at the dip between her hip and her waist, and the strand of hair that falls across her face. When she sits down, I have to stare at her luscious lips and wonder what they taste like.
When I’m booked in for my next appointment, she hands me a reminder card with the time. I grab it, and she holds on to the other end for a second, meeting my eye.
“I hope you know that I’m expecting a fresh, warm slice of banana bread from an award-winning recipe,” she says with a completely straight face.
I grin. “That can be arranged.”
She flashes that brilliant smile at me again, and I float out of the office, carrying her smile with me.
6
Meghan
“When you said Banana Bread Man was hot, I didn’t think he was that hot,” Naomi grins. “He’s smoking hot.”
I slump back down onto my desk chair. I glance at her sideways, sighing.
“He’s okay.”
She arches her eyebrow. I laugh.
“Fine. He’s hot.”
“He’s NFL-star-player-hot,” she laughs. “The image of you marching up to him just gets funnier and funnier.”
“Please stop,” I say, but my lips are curling upwards despite myself.
“I’m enjoying this,” she grins. “So you march up to one of the most famous NFL wide receivers and tell him that he’s just eaten your banana bread.”
“And I sassily gave him a blueberry scone.”
Naomi starts laughing, shaking her head. “And now you have to see him every week for the foreseeable future.”
“Well, isn’t that how you met your husband?”
“The physio part, not the ‘embarrassing myself’ part.”
“Same thing,” I laugh. I drop my face into my hands and groan. “Why does he have to be so good-looking? Why do I have to be so weird?!”
“I like your weirdness,” Naomi grins. She stands up and walks over to me, putting her hand on my shoulder. “It makes you you.”
“No one will ever marry me.”
“Better start buying some cats.”
“There’s a stray that keeps hanging out outside my window. Maybe it knows what’s coming for me.”
“Maybe. Take the stray in and get in early on the crazy cat-lady vibe,” Naomi says, laughing. “You’re turning thirty this week, so it’s appropriate. We’re old now.”
I shake my head. “Thirty is the new twenty. We’re still young. I read it on the Internet, so it must be true.”
“Speak for yourself. I went to bed at eight-thirty last night.”
“That’s standard for me,” I laugh. “God, what happened to me? I used to be cool!”
Naomi arches her eyebrow, and I grin.
“I used to be cooler than I am now.”
“Well, we’re going out to celebrate, and that’s that. You need to loosen up. You’re confronting strangers about banana bread.”
“True,” I laugh. “Maybe I do need a night out.”
“Ariana already has a place picked out for Friday night,” Naomi grins. “But it’s cute that you think you had a choice.”
I grin and shake my head. “My life is so sad.”
“Your life is awesome,” she says. “We’ll have a great weekend celebrating the amazing person that you are, and then you’ll go to Vegas for your sister’s wedding and everything will be fine. Plus, you’ll get to flirt and talk about banana bread with NFL stars for the foreseeable future, too. Life is good!”
“Yeah,” I say. “Life is good.”
The week goes by fairly quickly. When Friday comes around, I’ve almost forgotten about the Banana Bread Incident, as Naomi has dubbed it. It all comes rushing back to me when Andrew walks in for his second appointment. He’s carrying a little brown paper bag when he walks in, and my cheeks immediately flush.
“Is that what I think it is?”
He extends the bag toward me. When I grab it, our fingers brush and a current of electricity rushes up my arm. My cheeks flush, and the heat travels from my cheeks to my ears and down to my neck. Andrew grins, nodding at the bag.
“Open it.”
Did this sexy, single NFL player really make me some homemade banana bread? My blush deepens when I think of this tall piece of man-meat baking for me. His eyes drill into me when I glance up at him, and then I slowly unfold the top of the brown paper bag.
Peering inside, my face falls. Andrew laughs. I look at him with my eyebrow raised and shake my head.
“I thought I told you how I feel about scones,” I said, thrusting the bag back toward him. “Dry, crumbly garbage.”
“Oh, right,” he nods. “I forgot.” His eyes flash. “It was banana bread that you liked! I thought it was the other way around.”
“You’re evil.”
“I don’t appreciate you discriminating against baked goods.”
“I don’t appreciate you coming in here and thrusting your ideas about baked goods on me. Let me live, Andrew.”
He laughs, sliding his hand into the paper bag. Without breaking eye contact, he takes a big bite of scone and chews, nodding and groaning. Crumbs fall from his lips to his shirt as he wiggles his eyebrows at me.
“Delicious,” he says after swallowing with some difficulty. I imagine it’s because of the awful dryness of the sub-par baked good he just stuffed in his mouth.
I shake my head, laughing. “Come on. Have you been doing your mobility exercises?”
“I have,” he nods.
We start the session, and it’s noticeably less tense than last time. The only difference is that his eyes seem to linger on me. When he stares at my lips, my cheeks flush again. I catch him glancing at my body and I clear my throat, trying to ignore the spark of warmth that ignites in my stomach.
“So what are you up to this weekend?” He asks as we head back toward the front desk.
I try to keep my face steady, even though my heart starts racing.
“Oh, not much. My friends and I are actually going out tonight for my birthday.”
“Your birthday?!” He raises his eyebrows. “You never told me it was your birthday.”
I laugh, frowning. “When would I have told you? You’re my client, and we’ve had one appointment together. Plus, I’m a grown woman. I’m not going to go around counting down to my birthday. It’s bad enough being reminded that I’m getting older,” I laugh. “I don’t usually do anything for my birthday anyways.”
“So why is this year different?”
“Well, in a way, it’s because of you.”
“Why’s that?” A grin spreads across his lips.
“I’ll have you know that I told my friend about the whole banana bread fiasco and she insisted that I needed to blow off some steam.”
Andrew’s eyes spark and my blush deepens.
I clear my throat. “And I suppose I thought she was right.”
“Blowing off steam is probably a good idea. Where are you guys going to go?”
“Ariana wants to go to this fancy cocktail bar. ‘Penguin Club’, or something.”
“I think I know it. In Greenwich Village, right?”
“Yeah, I think so. I’m not too sure. When we go out I sort of just let them drag me along. I just sort of arrive places.”
Andrew laughs.
“You should come, if you’re free. We’re going around nine,” I hear myself saying. “I mean. Obviously you don’t have to. I just meant—”
“I might,” he interrupts. “I was thinking I might go out this weekend. Won’t get much time after the season starts, so these next few weeks are pretty much it.”
Mr. Right: The Complete Fake Engagement Series Page 36