Can't Stand The Heat

by Louisa Edwards

  She took care of her usual morning routine as best she could. At first she avoided the mirror, afraid she’d see the same sort of wreckage that had taken hold after that party at Market. Eventually, of course, she couldn’t resist the urge to assess the damage wrought by the previous night’s emotional bonanza.

  Huh.

  In spite of the headache still coiled around her temples, Miranda didn’t see any outward evidence of her inner turmoil. Her hair was an almost attractive mess, rioting all over her head in masses of tumbled curls. Her eyes were wide and limpid, not bloodshot in the least. She’d expected to be pale, but instead she had good color in her cheeks, undoubtedly from the constant blushing she seemed to do around Adam. Curse of the redhead, Jess called it.

  She watched her red, still kiss-swollen lips turn down at the thought of Jess. Some of the sparkle in her eyes dimmed.

  God, what was she going to do?

  Once Miranda was out of his direct line of sight, Adam managed to snap out of the semicoma her pretty, naked body had thrown him into. Hurriedly rifling through his drawers, he unearthed a T-shirt for himself—to cook bare-chested was to risk singed chest hair, which smelled unbelievably awful—and a Yankees sleep shirt Frankie’d given him as a joke. It had escaped the last nightshirt purge, and he thought it should be long enough to cover Miranda’s distracting bits. At least long enough to get something nourishing into her.

  So one night of sex hadn’t made all her problems go away. Fine. Even if it was astonishingly, wildly, life-changingly awesome sex, he could understand that.

  Probably they just needed to keep at it, perfect their technique. He grinned to himself.

  But in the meantime, he’d fall back on his other great love: food. He was a firm believer in the curative properties of comfort food.

  He left the Yankees shirt on the bed and went to see what he could rustle up.

  The waffle iron was heating and he was halfway through mixing up the batter for cornmeal bacon waffles when Miranda appeared. She looked sleepy and tousled, swimming in the shirt, which hung to her knees. It was a true triumph of willpower that he didn’t toss aside the mixing bowl and bend her back over the counter to plunder that sweet, swollen mouth.

  But the waffles were really going to be delicious, and Miranda’s mouth was set in an unhappy line that didn’t invite kisses. Adam restricted himself to a smile.

  “Find everything okay?”

  She nodded and dropped into one of the chairs he kept near the movable butcher-block cart for when he wanted to sit while performing prep tasks like shucking corn or snapping peas from their pods.

  Fingering the shirt with mock disdain, Miranda said, “I’m afraid this relationship is already on the rocks, though. Are you a Yankees fan?”

  Her tone suggested that she could have substituted “serial killer” for “Yankees fan.”

  Adam gave her a cheeky grin, but inside he was doing a victory dance. She called it a relationship! Score.

  Maybe it was weird that he liked that word. At least when it came to Miranda. Adam didn’t know and didn’t care. Something about the matter-of-fact way it came tripping off her tongue nearly made him giddy enough to forget to level the cake flour.

  “I’m a born-and-bred New Yorker,” he told her, emptying the hopefully correct amount of flour into the cornmeal mixture. “Of course I’m a Yankees fan.”

  “You could be a Mets fan,” she grumbled. “You know, if you had a soul.”

  “I enjoy watching a team that wins.” Adam shrugged. “Sue me.”

  Miranda sniffed, obviously unconvinced. Adam imagined taking her to a game, buying hot dogs and popcorn and cotton candy and beer, getting all rowdy with the diehards in the nosebleed section, where he liked to sit.

  He pictured her perched ramrod straight on the bleachers. Probably wearing a Red Sox jersey, just to make a point. He’d sit back and let the nosebleeders hassle her until she finally got pissed enough to scrap with them. All of which would be better entertainment than any ball game Adam had ever been to. Something about the way Miranda held her own in a fight, never backing down from what she wanted, turned him right the hell on.

  Smiling to himself at the thought, Adam whisked in the eggs and the melted butter, taking care to pull the heavy stoneground cornmeal up from the bottom of the bowl and mix it in well.

  “What are you making?” Miranda asked. “And what are you wearing?”

  Adam looked down at himself, wondering what shirt he’d grabbed.

  Ah-ha. He’d thought it was white in the dim light of the bedroom, but out in the kitchen it was clearly pink. The front bore large block letters stating: MEAT IS MURDER. TASTY, TASTY MURDER.

  “What?” he said. “You don’t like it? I already know you’re not a vegetarian. That would’ve killed this relationship before it ever got started.”

  He took smug pleasure in stressing the R-word.

  “No.” Miranda laughed. “Not a vegetarian. There aren’t a lot of successful restaurant critics with hard-and-fast dietary restrictions. Anyway, even if I’d been toying with the idea, one bite of that pork belly you made a couple of weeks ago would’ve converted me.”

  “Ah, bacon,” Adam said blissfully. “Fresh or cured, it’s the gateway meat. Speaking of which, can you grab it out of the icebox?”

  Miranda unfolded herself from the chair, flashing an enticing length of creamy thigh in the process.

  “It’s in the white paper wrapper, a big hunk,” Adam told her. “I got it at the market yesterday. The guy said it was slow cured, then smoked over applewood. We’ll need, like, four thin slices.”

  “Okay.”

  Miranda pulled the scarred maple cutting board from its hook on the wall, and retrieved an eight-inch blade from the magnetic strip under the cabinets. Adam admitted to himself that it gave him a high like the strongest jolt of espresso to see her moving so confidently around his kitchen.

  “To answer your other question,” he said, “we’re making cornmeal waffles. Here, now cut those bacon slices in half. We’re gonna lay them in the waffle iron with the batter, so they fry right in. It’s awesome, the rendered fat from the bacon makes the waffles all crisp and golden, not oily at all.”

  Blowing a stray curl out of her face, Miranda gathered up the bacon pieces and stood ready to place them as soon as Adam ladled out the batter.

  His little rectangular waffle iron was so ancient, it didn’t beep to signal it had reached the correct temperature. You had to watch for the tiny light on the front to glow orange. As soon as it did, Adam opened the iron and spooned out enough batter to fill all the shallow holes. A happy hissing noise filled the air as cool batter hit hot cast iron.

  “It’s not a Belgian-waffle maker,” Miranda noticed.

  “Yeah, I like the old-fashioned kind more. Better ratio of syrup to waffle, if you ask me. Also, because less surface area is exposed to the hot iron, the waffle turns out more tender than crunchy. Okay, lay on the bacon. Doesn’t have to be pretty.”

  Miranda obeyed, and watched with great interest as Adam closed the iron. Batter visibly oozed out to the edges but didn’t overflow.

  “Want coffee?” he asked, picking up the pot.

  “Sure.” Miranda settled back down in her chair. “How long until the waffles are ready?”

  “A couple minutes. Long enough to warm up some maple syrup. Keep an eye on the orange light for me, will you? Once it goes out, the waffles are done.”

  Miranda accepted the mug of coffee he handed her with quiet thanks. Adam banged through his cabinets looking for a gravy boat or something to serve the syrup in. If he’d been alone, he probably would’ve poured it straight from the jug, but that didn’t seem nice enough for Miranda.

  She still looked a little fragile to him. Her slender fingers were white with strain where they wrapped around the coffee mug.

  He kept a weather eye on her, so he knew the moment she started thinking about her brother. Her brows lowered and her lips trembled before sh
e firmed them and took a sip of coffee.

  Adam considered jumping in with a conversational ploy to distract her, but decided that she needed to think this through. Better now, with him, than later on with Jess looking to her for support and understanding. Adam kept quiet and let her thoughts play out, hoping that eventually she’d open up.

  “How could I let him go like that?” Miranda finally said. She set the mug on the table, drew her knees up under the sleep shirt and rested her chin on them, hugging herself as if needing to stay warm.

  “You didn’t.” Adam kept his voice gentle. “It was just for the night, to give you both time to think. You haven’t lost him.”

  You will, though, if you’re not careful.

  Adam shook his head. He wouldn’t say it, couldn’t add to her obvious misery. But Christ Almighty, he couldn’t fathom what was stopping her from being the loving, caring older sister he’d seen her be to Jess before last night. Something deep was happening here, something under the surface. Something more than a knee-jerk antipathy to Frankie’s brash personality or disapproval of the age difference. And he didn’t believe it was as simple as bigotry.

  Adam’s desperate hope was that she’d stop and think long enough to figure it out for herself; God knew what would happen if it were up to him to ferret out the answer.

  He could freely admit that action was his forte. Contemplation, discussion, emotional delving—not so much.

  But he truly wanted to help Miranda, so he manned up and said, “Look, I know you hate him but Frankie’s really not such a bad guy.”

  She shot him an incredulous glare and he spread his hands in an earnest, what-can-I-say gesture.

  “Hey, it’s not what you want to hear. I get that. But I’ve known him a long time, and I’ve never seen him act like he does around Jess. I’m pretty sure this isn’t a game to Frankie. He may not know what it is, himself, but it’s serious. And Miranda—” Adam steeled himself for another dose of Miranda’s evil eye.

  “He’s what Jess wants.”

  Miranda did scowl at that, but didn’t issue the instantaneous denial Adam had prepared for. Instead, she paused as if struck by a sudden realization.

  Adam did a mental victory lap. Hey, if she was thinking, she was one step closer to reacting like the logical, rational woman she was at heart, instead of like a scared, emotional wreck.

  “So. You’ve seen them together?” Miranda asked slowly, her eyes narrow and intent on his face. “Before last night?”

  Oooh, shit. Back up that triumphal float—there will be no parade in my honor today, fellas.

  “Ah. Well.” Adam cleared his throat. “Um, yes. I mean, at the restaurant. You know.”

  Very slick. Master of Misdirection, you are.

  Adam winced.

  Miranda clearly wasn’t buying it.

  “You knew,” she said, all accusing. Her chest started to heave a little bit, which did interesting things to her braless breasts.

  Adam always liked to look on the bright side. Which was good, because this was about to get ugly. Christ, he hated secrets.

  “Okay, yeah, I knew. I saw them together—you know, together together—about a week ago. Right after the egg lesson.”

  “Days ago,” she seethed, jumping up from the chair and starting to pace. “You knew all this time, you slept with me, and you never told me. You just allowed it to continue, allowed that deviant scumbag to prey on my innocent brother—”

  “Whoa, hold on,” Adam broke in before she could build up a good head of steam. “First off, whatever you think of him, Frankie is my best friend and I can’t let you talk about him like that. Secondly, Jess is the one who swore me to secrecy. I kept it quiet for his sake, because he asked to be the one who got to tell you.”

  Miranda balled her fists. She looked ready to take his head off. “That’s completely irrelevant. I trusted you.”

  Now Adam was starting to get pissed. “Yeah, well, so did Jess. And give me a break. I made that promise before anything had really happened between you and me.”

  “Oh, so making out in your kitchen was nothing?” He could practically see her blood pressure skyrocketing.

  “That’s not the point, and you know it.”

  Jesus, what a cock-up.

  Miranda felt as if Adam had taken that thick slab of slimy bacon and thwapped her in the head with it.

  “Basically, you’re telling me that a promise to my brother, a boy you barely know—didn’t even want to hire until I forced your hand—means more to you than . . .”

  Means more to you than I do.

  She couldn’t say it. The words, the foolishness of the sentiment, stuck in her throat.

  God, what was she doing here?

  Adam ground his back teeth audibly. “Frankie and Jess both swore me to secrecy. And since it really wasn’t any of my business, I kept my mouth shut and my nose the hell out of it.”

  “You know what?” Miranda stood, aware that her legs were wobbly but willing to ignore it. “Thanks for last night. You really did help me through a rough patch, and I appreciate it.”

  His jaw dropped. “You’re leaving. Just like that.”

  “You lied to me, Adam. For days, while we stood in this very kitchen and talked for hours—”

  “About me!” Adam’s shout seemed to surprise him as much as it surprised Miranda. He pulled in a deep breath in a visible effort to calm down. “We always talked about my past, my family. You didn’t offer dick about your own history. Shit, all I mean is, Jess never really came up.”

  Miranda stiffened, renewed anger strengthening her knees. “Never came up? Are you serious? That’s your justification? No. That’s it. I have to go.”

  Adam stared at her for a long moment.

  “Fine. I guess I can’t stop you.”

  Miranda could have sworn the air between them crackled with angry heat. She could almost smell it burning.

  “Crap,” Adam yelped, spinning on his heel and grabbing for the waffle iron. “I forgot about breakfast.”

  The iron smoked when he opened it, released an acrid, burned smell into the air.

  “I had high hopes for these waffles,” Adam said, poking at the crusty remains sadly.

  Miranda left him in the kitchen and went to gather her things. The last view she had as she let herself out of the townhouse was of Adam flaking blackened crumbs into the trash.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Frankie snapped the cell phone shut with a grimace. He had no landline for the Garret, always used his cell for everything.

  “That was Adam. Evidently your sister’s on the warpath and he thought we should know.”

  Jess snorted and leaned back against a corduroy cushion covered in loud purple paisley. He pondered the inspiring sight of a half-naked Frankie, the lines and hollows of his surprisingly muscular chest gleaming pale in the half-light.

  One full night at Frankie’s, the best night of Jess’s life, in so many ways, and he couldn’t completely immerse himself in enjoying it. Not with the memory of Miranda’s horrified expression superimposed on the backs of his eyelids.

  “I already knew that. One night wasn’t going to be enough to cool her out.”

  “Big Sis has quite the hate on for me, it’s true,” Frankie bragged, throwing himself down to lie beside Jess.

  “I still can’t believe how she acted. I was scared to tell her, but deep down, I really thought it was going to be okay.” Jess could hear the throbbing pain in his own voice, and he tilted his head up to the brightening skylight to hide his eyes from Frankie’s watchful black gaze.

  He felt, more than saw, Frankie’s shrug. “That’s family, innit? They love you too much to let things go.”

  “How can you be so . . . cool about it?” Jess asked.

  “Can’t be anything else, Bit. I was born this cool.”

  Jess looked over in time to catch Frankie’s ludicrous eyebrow-waggle.

  Laughing like a hyena, Frankie easily ducked Jess’s halfhearted swipe with
the paisley pillow.

  “Watch the goodies! That one bruises.”

  Jess tossed the pillow aside and wiggled across the few inches separating him from Frankie. With the ease born of a long night of new experiences and expanding horizons, he draped himself comfortably across Frankie’s wiry, hairless chest. His skin was cool and smooth under Jess’s hot cheek.

  “I think it’s the corduroy,” Jess told him. “Makes the pillow feel all hard and overstuffed. Not that your bony shoulder is much better.”

  He fought to contain a thrilled shiver when Frankie’s only response was a pair of long arms winding around Jess, holding him in a secure embrace.

  “I guess I can make do,” Jess muttered, pressing his face into the warm, spicy bend of Frankie’s neck.

  They were quiet together for a moment, Jess greedily absorbing as much sensation as he could, storing it in his memory for later. He didn’t know when he’d get another night like last night, all of Frankie’s focused attention for hours and hours, followed by this amazingly sweet and wonderful cuddling. If Jess were dumb enough to even call it cuddling, he was sure it would be withdrawn. He breathed deeply of Frankie’s smoky clove scent and forced Miranda from his mind. He would live this to the hilt, he promised himself fiercely, for however long it lasted.

  When Frankie’s voice cut the stillness, Jess poured all of himself into listening to the rough cadence of it, adding another layer of sensation to the memory.

  “I’m cool about it because she’s your big sister, Bit. Took care of you, loved you, protected you. For years, and that makes it a hard habit to get out of. If I were her, I wouldn’t want me sniffing round, tempting my innocent brother out to play.”

  Jess unraveled that with a moment’s thought, and when he did, it just ticked him off all over again.

  “I’m not some doe-eyed angel boy getting corrupted by the big bad punk rocker,” he said. “I wish people would stop acting like they’re thinking about calling Child Services or the Special Victims Unit or whatever.” He squirmed in annoyance, buffeting Frankie in the side with his elbow accidentally.