Our Star-Crossed Kiss

by Piper Rayne

  “Well, as talented as I am, I do get a day off occasionally. Much to my clients’ dismay.”

  I glance over when she doesn’t respond and she’s staring blankly at me. “You have regulars?”

  I nod.

  “Like, women ask for you?”

  “Have you seen me?” I look down over my body that’s folded in the chair.

  She huffs and rolls her eyes.

  I’m not going to explain what I do to someone who judges me or my clients. I don’t want to be a boudoir photographer, but not because I’m embarrassed by what I do. If I loved to take pictures of people, it would probably be a great job, but I like capturing architecture. I like angles and the way the light plays on bricks and metal at different times of the day.

  Don’t get me wrong, I love candids of people. I enjoy capturing a look that crosses someone’s face for a split second. But I love a sunset or sunrise or right before a storm is going to pound us with rain and the sky is going to crackle and boom. I enjoy capturing the feel of a city through one shot. But no one wants to hear that, just like no one wants to hear that the majority of the women who come for boudoir photography want to capture the feeling of being wanted again.

  Number ten gets called and the room feels as if it’s growing smaller.

  One judge actually says it’s the worst thing he’s ever tasted. This time, the guy kicks a chair and leaves.

  “This is horrible. I’m not sure I want to hear what they’re going to say,” Evan says, biting down on her nails.

  I ease her hand away from her mouth, locking her wrist over her bouncing knee. “You’d make Deepak Chopra anxious. Calm down. It isn’t the end of the world if they don’t like your stuff.”

  Truthfully, they’re going to like the Ericksons’ cream cheese. Their bagels, eh, I don’t know. I haven’t eaten one in two decades. But I’d bet my right nut that they aren’t better than ours. I have no idea how my dad makes them, but Evan is right—they’re the best this town. Maybe even the best in all of New York, and that’s saying a lot. Me vouching for my father and all.

  I’m not sure if we’re being so civil to one another just because we’re on what feels like the same capsizing boat. We’ve seen fifteen people’s dreams shatter by the time they call number sixteen, and we’re the last two in the room.

  Evan stands as a tray gets set in front of the judges.

  “Sixteen!” the woman booms through a microphone, staring at the camera as if she can see us.

  “I’m so nervous,” Evan says, walking up to the television to get a better view.

  I sit back in my chair and watch from afar. It’s not like I’m going to give her moral support when we’re pitching against one another here.

  “No!” she yells. “That’s not mine!” She actually raises her fist and knocks on the television as if it’s a window. “No. No. No.” She flips around. “They’re serving my cream cheese with your bagels. What did you do?”

  “Me?” I point at myself and stand.

  She circles back to the television, continuing to yell as though someone will hear her.

  “Fantastic. Now this is a New York bagel,” one judge says.

  “The cream cheese.” Nick Klein moans as if a woman just slipped his cock into her hot, wet mouth.

  “What a combo. A one-two punch,” the third judge says.

  “Oh my God,” Evan whines. “We have to do something.” Her eyes plead.

  “I’m sure we can clear it up.” I don’t move because they announce seventeen and that’s my number. “Let’s see what they say about…” I stop, realizing that if sixteen was Andrews Bagel Company bagels and Erickson cream cheese, then seventeen would be Erickson bagels with Andrews cream cheese.

  “Ew,” one judge says.

  “Meh,” Nick Klein says. “Nothing spectacular at all.”

  “I agree. Mediocre,” the third judge says, and they all ask for sixteen to come back.

  “I have to do something,” Evan says and stomps out of the room.

  Their faces light up as they taste more of the perfect combo. I fall into a chair and watch their reactions, dissecting each moan and groan as if they’re all in the middle of an orgy.

  What the fuck did our dads do twenty years ago? I shake my head and lean forward, resting my forearms on my thighs. Who knows what would’ve happened if they hadn’t let that stupid argument tear them apart. My mom wouldn’t be missing her wedding ring. Hell, we could be living like the Floyds up on Society Hill.

  Damn their stubbornness and ruining the future for both their families.

  Evan comes in with a woman who works on the show, explaining the entire situation and looking to me to back her explanation.

  I think Evan might be the one who lost the most because of our dads. Her future irrevocably changed that day. Hell, that shouldn’t feel like a pinprick in the heart, but it does.

  “Seth!” Evan yells. “Tell her about the mix-up.” She holds her hand out to the woman who is waiting for me to agree.

  “There was a mix-up. You just presented a combination that doesn’t exist and never will,” I say dryly.

  Of course Evan gets it all straightened out in the end and the woman says not to worry so much, she’ll let them know.

  As we walk out of the mercantile mart, I’m still stuck on how much we’ve lost, while Evan is apparently relieved it all got squared away. Didn’t she see and hear those judges’ reactions? Are we all so brainwashed into hating one another that we can’t see that we’d be better together than apart?

  “I better go. Crossing my fingers you make the list.” But Evan uncrosses her fingers in the air.

  “I could show you a better finger to use, but I’m a gentleman.” I smirk.

  “That’s not what I hear.” She turns and stalks down the sidewalk toward their shop.

  “That’s because women don’t want a gentleman in bed,” I holler back.

  She shakes her head and turns the corner.

  I turn right to head toward my parents’ shop and almost plow over an elderly woman. Not just any elderly woman—my old kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Reindorf.

  “Hey, Mrs. Reindorf,” I say, hoping she didn’t hear me just now.

  “Seth. I see not much has changed.”

  She continues walking the direction Evan did and I ignore her jab. I mean, isn’t every six-year-old boy curious about what’s under a girl’s dress? In my defense, it was Evan’s dress and she wanted to show me her new underwear. How were we to know it was inappropriate?

  I wonder what kind of undergarments she wears now? Damn it. I need my brain to give my dick a stern talking-to, just like Mrs. Reindorf used to. Otherwise my life will surely be a disaster.

  Chapter Eight

  Evan

  * * *

  Brock honks his horn and I walk down the outside steps of my apartment that’s above my parents’ garage. Yes, I’m the loser who lives rent-free at her parents’. But I do run their business for a measly wage.

  “Seriously, he can’t even pull in the driveway?” my dad says, throwing a ball with Eli.

  “I love his car. Will he take me on a ride?” Eli asks, dropping the ball and meeting me on the driveway.

  “Never,” my dad answers for me.

  Dad looks older than he should. I hope once his health is back to where it should be, he’ll go back to being full of life. He’s always been my idol. He’s the one who taught me the business—thankfully before he gripped his chest and fell down in the kitchen. I blink to push back that memory.

  I always felt there was time. Time to tell him I didn’t want to run the bagel shop and pour out my heart. But when I lacked any true desire to do anything else, I fell short of being my own advocate. Then after the incident (as my mom refers to it), placing all that in his lap felt selfish.

  “I don’t like him.” Dad pushes back his longish brown hair because he doesn’t get it cut on a routine schedule anymore.

  He no longer has a minute-by-minute schedule f
or his day either. The doctors say he was too stressed, too busy, and not taking care of himself properly. So my mom banded the Ericksons together and we now carry that stress for my dad. Though with the wrinkles prominent on his forehead right now, I don’t think he’s in any Zen-like state.

  My mom comes out with a drink and bowl of popcorn. “Leave her alone. She needs a life. And it’s Brock Floyd.”

  My dad rolls his eyes. “A Floyd. Then, by all means, he can go by his own rules.”

  Brock honks again, and I raise my finger at him. We had a discussion last time he picked me up about him honking.

  “I don’t get boys these days.” Dad’s gaze steadies on my mom. “I went to your house even though your dad said he was going to come after me with a machete. I stood up to him and asked for your hand in marriage even though he hated me.”

  I swallow a lump. “No one said anything about marriage.”

  I balk at the thought. I mean, I like Brock, but we’re just dating. We haven’t even classified ourselves as exclusive.

  “Look at her, she’s pale just thinking about marriage.” My mom points and laughs, patting my dad’s arm.

  “Good. No need to get married for a long time.”

  “Oh, Vic, you wish she’d become a nun,” my mom says.

  My dad nods and we all fall silent. I really hope we’re not all recollecting a time when he didn’t wish I’d become a nun. When he had a boy picked out for me and thought the plans were almost written in the stars for us.

  Ever since I made Seth dress up and act out a wedding, our families were on the Seth and Evan bandwagon. They imagined us married and spending every holiday with all of them, giving them grandchild after grandchild—which they’d happily watch while retired because Seth and I would be running The Bagel and Schmear Shop.

  Oh, how wrong they were… except for the fact that I’m the one running the bagel shop.

  Eli sits in a patio chair and takes a fistful of popcorn. My mom tells him he should go inside and get a hat because it’s getting colder, while my dad heads to the side of the garage to grab wood for the fire pit.

  My dad picks up a log as Brock honks again, longer this time. “You can tell your boyfriend that next time, he’d better park in the street and walk his sorry ass up here. We not good enough for him? He can’t step foot on common people’s grass?”

  “Vic,” my mom sighs and shoos me with her hand because we both know if I stay, my dad will continue to argue with me. “Go, Evan.” Mom winks.

  “Okay. Bye, guys.”

  Eli rushes over and wraps his arms around my waist. “Bye-bye.”

  I hug him back and kiss his temple. “See you tomorrow, Eli.”

  After walking down my driveway past my dad’s beat-up truck and my mom’s minivan that’s in its last days, I climb into a car that probably costs the same as both of my parents’ vehicles brand new.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” Brock says, his hand instantly landing on my bare thigh. “Love the dress.”

  “Next time you pick me up, my dad would really like to meet you,” I say.

  He puts the car in gear and pulls away from the corner. “For sure. Next time.”

  We drive through Cliffton Heights up to his parents’ neighborhood, Society Hill. They live on a hill that overlooks the town, as though they’re royalty and we’re the common folk below. Sometimes I get the impression that Brock believes he truly is a prince and above all things.

  We pass some other driveways, all with black iron-rod fences with a monogram welded into the artful design. Some have security outside, and others have lines of tall trees so the view from the street is obstructed as though they’re movie stars in Bel Air. Every time I drive up here, my hands itch because even before my dad’s incident, we didn’t have a ton of money. We’re lower middle class, middle class on a good year. The shop keeps a roof over our heads and food on the table, but with my dad and Eli’s doctors and Elsie’s college, we make do with what we have.

  It’s still hard not to gasp when Brock pulls into the main entrance of the Floyds’ house. It’s a huge white brick mansion that sits more prominent and higher than all the others. There are concrete statues and a giant F manicured into their lawn while a huge arc brick driveway circles the front entrance. Lights glow in every window. I have to think Brock was never told, “We don’t own the electric company.” Hell, he probably keeps the water on while he’s brushing his teeth.

  We come from such different worlds. I hate myself for wondering why out of the girls he could have, he picked me. Like it comes straight from some fairy tale shit and a small part of me doesn’t want to play the part.

  “Relax, it’s just my parents,” he says, shaking my knee. He probably thinks I’m anxious about the dinner.

  I don’t want to be the poor girl a man like Brock saves. I’m not lucky to have him—he’s lucky to have me. For the first time I ask myself, why do I want to date Brock Floyd? A question I should’ve answered well before attending a dinner party at his house.

  I’ve met both of his parents before because when you live on top of your parents’ garage and your boyfriend has an entire pool house to himself, you tend to spend your time at his place.

  Brock parks his car, pocketing his keys and holding my hand as we walk into the house. We follow the sound of chatter into a formal parlor.

  “Evan Erickson,” Nick says and waves. The blonde next to him is the woman who ushered me to him that first day. So they’re dating? “You remember Renee?”

  I smile and wave. Then I go and say hi to Mr. Floyd, who nods and shakes my hand. Mrs. Floyd kisses my cheek as she sweetly embraces me.

  Brock must’ve picked me up just in time for dinner because we’re all seated immediately at the dinner table. Brock fills my wine glass while the butler brings him a dark amber drink.

  It doesn’t take long before Nick shifts the conversation my way.

  “So we tasted you today,” Nick says.

  “Rephrase that, Nick,” Brock says and laughs.

  My cheeks heat.

  “Good one, Brockie,” Nick says and steadies his eyes on me. “Your family recipe?”

  “The bagels or cream cheese?” I ask.

  “I have a feeling you know.”

  I can’t get a read on Nick Klein. Sometimes I think he’s flirting with me, and other times he seems like just a friendly guy who wants me to succeed. But is my success important to him only because I’m dating Brock?

  “Yes, the cream cheeses are my mother’s recipe. She tweaked it a little, and I’ve been fiddling a little bit here and there.”

  He nods.

  “Can we please not talk about bagels and cream cheese?” Brock whines. “I have to hear enough about it from Evan all day long.”

  I turn my head toward him. I’m shocked by Brock’s melodramatic, teenage-boy reaction. Plus, I never talk to him about work. But it’s probably smart to stay away from the topic in case Seth’s name comes up.

  “After-dinner drinks. Me and you in a corner,” Nick says.

  “Remember, she’s mine,” Brock warns.

  I snap my head back in his direction.

  He laughs as if he’s joking, and slides his hand over my bare thigh. “You know what I mean, babe.” He winks.

  His affection doesn’t make me feel better though.

  Chapter Nine

  Evan

  * * *

  The dinner conversation consists of politics, the economy, and other boring topics. And while I wish I could ask Nick more questions about the show and what happened at the tasting, because of Brock, I’m restricted until we’re excused.

  Brock wraps his arms around me and whispers in my ear, “You’ve got about ten minutes, then we’re hiding out at my place. Skinny-dip later?”

  I kiss his lips and step back, wiggling out of his hold. “I won’t be long.”

  Nick’s waiting for me in the study when I walk in. Renee’s across from him in one of the four leather seats huddled together with a tabl
e between them.

  “Evan, please come in.” He waves me in. “I asked the Floyds if we could have a moment with you. They’ll be in shortly.”

  “I was told by Brock that I had ten minutes.”

  Nick rolls his eyes. It’s the first time I’ve seen any sign that maybe he’s not so keen on that particular Floyd. I sit down and he pours me some liquor in a fancy crystal glass.

  “You have as long as you want,” Nick says, handing me my drink. “Renee is here with me tonight because we knew you’d be here.”

  She smiles in a sweet manner at me.

  “It was decided today to do something a little different in Cliffton Heights. The producers want to test out a new concept.” Nick leans back and rests his ankle on his knee, much like he did during our first meeting. “We’re going to put two companies together.”

  I frown and sink back into the leather seat taking a large sip to calm my nerves. I welcome the burning feeling down my throat because I know exactly where he’s going with this.

  He must see the look of dread on my face because he raises his free hand. “Now wait until you hear me out. We’ve done our research… we know that you and Andrews Bagel Company have a history, but we also know it’s your parents’ history, correct?”

  Renee pulls a file from a messenger bag I hadn’t noticed tucked at the side of her chair. Nick signals to her.

  “It’s fair to tell you, we researched the Cliffton Heights area before we decided to do a show. I mean, we have to.” She shrugs.

  I nod because I understand that. Then I take another sip of my drink. I should probably stop since I had some alcohol with dinner but I think I could use the liquid courage for where this conversation is headed.

  She continues, “Most of the other companies we’re putting together are all complementary of one another. We’ll admit it’s a little different for you and Andrews Bagel because your items can’t stand on their own. They have to be together. For example, we have Los Tacos steak tacos and the Red Penguin’s margaritas. We have Spoon and Fork supplying a salad to go with Pizza Pies.”