“I don’t know,” he said. “But something is missing.”
She pulled a mid-sized plastic tub of decorated Christmas cookies from her passenger seat. They were left over from her baking project for Mrs. Roth. With the disappointment of not being asked on a date after that kiss, she’d need the cookies for solace.
He took it from her as she stepped into the house. “What’s this?”
“Holiday cheer?”
He opened it and closely examined the brightly decorated snowmen and stocking shapes. “You’re a great decorator.”
“Haldana and I did them together. This was my other paying job for the weekend.”
“Any other prospects?” he asked.
“Yes, I had a panicked call from a woman who discovered her elderly mother had promised to cook for a holiday party and isn’t able to do it, so I’m going to do that on Thursday, then the next thing is your party on Saturday.”
“So two jobs again this week.”
“So far. Better than nothing, right?” She glanced around his kitchen. “Do you have boxes of decorations to put up?”
He leaned against his refrigerator. “Just the second wreath we bought.”
Her lips curved. Maybe her instincts weren’t wrong. “I feel, sir, that you brought me here under false pretenses.”
He snapped the lid of the cookie container back on. “Not really. I asked you if you were free for dinner. I’m providing dinner.”
“What?”
He picked up a packaged loaf of sandwich bread and dangled the plastic end from his fingers. Then he opened his fairly empty refrigerator and pointed at a tub of spreadable butter and a pound of an expensive Cheddar cheese. When he shut the door, he gave her a self-satisfied grin. “And I have kale.”
“Oh, dear, kale.” She laughed.
“Good, huh? Grilled cheese sandwiches and kale?”
“I’m vegan, Bax. I don’t eat cheese or butter made from animal by-products. It’s sweet of you though. Very advanced thinking for a meat eater.”
“Oh, right.” The corners of his mouth turned down.
She couldn’t help getting close to the guy and giving him a hug. “It’s okay. I can see that you really tried.”
“But you made me a milkshake.”
Was he whining? “Almond milk. Cashew ice cream. It was vegan.”
His eyebrows went up in comic disbelief. “But it was so good!”
She pulled one hand away to lightly punch his pec. “Really? You doubt me?”
He put his arms around her and squeezed her close. “No, not really. I even liked the bean burger.”
She fluttered her eyelashes. “Have I converted you?”
“No, you don’t get to move my pin to the vegan category quite yet. At least not until I’ve finished my block of cheese. What should we eat?”
“Not the kale,” she assured him. “You can overdo it with the kale.”
“We’ve been eating a lot of potatoes,” he said. “So no more potatoes either. Can we go somewhere?”
“It’s hard. There aren’t a lot of good options around here.”
“Then why are you catering? You should start a restaurant.”
She bumped her forehead against his chest. “I don’t know if I’d have enough customers! This area is a strange mix of blue collar, immigrants, and really religious folks. Everyone stays pretty close to home.”
“What about pizza? Everyone likes pizza.”
“A vegan pizza place? Maybe in Portland. Not here.”
“I don’t think you should have stayed in Battlefield.”
She sighed. “Are you gonna encourage me to move now?”
“No, I want you here.” He stroked talented fingers over her back and she melted. “You’re perfect for me.”
Her mouth fell open. “What?”
He nodded. “Yeah, Yakima. I’ve been thinking about it.”
She wondered if he had any idea how many nights she had fallen asleep as a young teenager dreaming of exactly those words dripping from her next door neighbor’s lips. “Now you’ve figured that out?”
“What?” he asked, laughing.
She nuzzled his chin. “I had such a crush on you in high school. Oddly enough, I didn’t really crush on you as a boy band member, or even a rock star, maybe because I knew the real you. Funny, huh?”
“What do you think of me now?”
“I’m not really sure,” she admitted. “I guess I have to understand your real story, and I’m not sure I’ve come to the bottom of it. You could have gone anywhere but you came home.”
“A man turns thirty and he wants to put his past to rest,” Bax said. He settled his head on hers.
She felt embraced, but she couldn’t look at his face, couldn’t read him. Maybe he liked it that way. “Maybe so, but most men wouldn’t proceed to buy an expensive house in their small town in order to put their past to rest.”
“Real estate values are back up. It might be a good investment.” He shifted. “Which is why you might want to sell your great-aunt’s house and get out of here, while the going is good.”
“So, in conclusion, you think I’m perfect for you, but you just moved here, and you want me to move away. So confusing.” Bax was a walking contradiction wrapped in a dangerously sexy package.
He smirked. “I’m a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, and cash.”
“I cannot believe you just quoted The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” she said, secretly delighted. “You are so not the demographic of that show.”
“I’m going to plead the fifth, but I might know the kids of one of the stars,” he said. “Which then leads to sneak-watching the episodes.”
“That is some truly cringe-worthy information about you,” she said, almost whispering. “With serious blackmail potential.”
“You misunderstand.” He widened his eyes. “I’m watching for blackmail potential on my friends. So you can’t use it against me. Besides, why are you watching?” He squeezed her again.
“I plead the fifth.”
“We’re going to have to discuss these dangerously low-brow interests you have,” he said. “But for now, let’s figure out dinner. I’m starving.”
“Always with the hunger. You Connolly boys still haven’t stopped eating continuously, have you?”
~
Yakima spent Monday morning in her commercial kitchen, baking perfect gingerbread man she was going to decorate and sell for big bucks at holiday fairs this weekend. She and Haldana were each going to work different events so she’d be in gingerbread man heaven all week prepping. By the time she was done, her hair had smelled like cloves and nutmeg and she had dried flour streaks on her jeans. She’d gone home for a shower and change of clothes when she finished baking, and hadn’t quite made it out of her house when she heard a knock on the door.
“Hi!” She leaned toward the gorgeous man in her doorway.
“Somehow I ended up with this massive block of tofu when I made it home from the market today. I decided it was a sign.”
A black T-shirt peeked out of the collar of the V-neck pullover Bax wore. He’d found a hat for once, and the gray felt of the fedora was dark with rain.
“What have you been up to?” he asked.
She stepped aside so he could come in from the rain. “Gingerbread men.”
“Doing them or making them?” He pulled off his hat and set it on the table in the tiny entryway, then ran his hand through his flattened hair. It sprang back to life.
She drank him in. “Ha ha, Mr. Rock Star. I lead a very sexless life, thank you very much.”
“This is where I step in and ask you on a date, right?” He winked. Behind him, a Fed Ex truck rumbled down the street, the third she’d seen today. Christmas presents were being delivered again.
“What about that tofu?” she asked.
He handed her a plastic bag with four pounds of extra-firm in it. She checked the expiration dates. “These are good until mid-January.”
He
stepped in closer and sniffed. “I am ashamed to say this, but until this moment, I have never smelled a more perfect woman.”
“I thought men liked vanilla-scented women the best.”
He shook his head. “Gingerbread man-scented women beat out all the other options. Were you baking here?”
“No, in my commercial kitchen. We are selling them at holiday bazaars this weekend and getting our name out there.”
He smiled hopefully. “Could we go roll around the floor in there now, get crazy? It would be like we were cats in catnip.”
“You’re so funny, but no. That’s my workplace. I wouldn’t suggest we get crazy in a recording studio.”
“Oh, but you should,” he said. “That’s one of the best places to go crazy.”
“Uh huh.” She could feel her nipples swelling. Erotic images filled her head. She never should have listened to that Billy Idol autobiography. Now, she had a very clear idea of what went on in recording studios.
“I mean, it used to be. In my old life. When I was, err, dating our backup singer.”
“Lots of places to relax in a recording studio?”
“There’s usually a couch. And great acoustics.”
“So backup singers make some great sex noises?”
He pursed his lips and glanced upward. “I’ve had some memorable moments.”
She saw her neighbor, Mr. Steubens, walk by with his dog and realized that they were standing at her front door talking about sex. And they’d been at it for quite a while. Her fingers were red with cold. “I should shut the front door.”
“Yeah.” He stepped aside as she closed it. With the fedora off, he looked cowboy hot in banged up boots and the insulated red and black flannel coat he wore over the V-neck sweater. “It smells great in here.”
“Thanks. It’s probably the tree.”
He sniffed. “I smell cinnamon.”
“That’s my homemade potpourri.”
He glanced around as if looking for the source. “You should sell it, too. Could you do that?”
She tilted her head, enjoyed the sight of his handsome face at a slightly different angle, overgrown brown hair curling slightly around the corner of his jaw. “Yes, I could.”
“How about gingerbread potpourri? I’d buy that, give it as gifts.”
“Yes.” She smiled. “Yes, I could.”
“What do you need?”
“Pinecones, nuts, spices, essential oils.”
“Cinnamon sticks, right?”
“And oil,” she agreed. “I bet I’ve got a bag of pinecones in a closet somewhere.”
“We can buy the nuts. I’ve seen them in bins at the store.”
“I have the essential oils. I know, I should dry slices of ginger. That would work really well.”
He pulled his phone out of his jacket. “Shopping list?”
“Whole nutmeg, cinnamon sticks, more ginger. Whole other nuts. Cloves, star anise.” She shrugged.
“What are you going to put it in?”
“Bags. Let’s check out the craft warehouse. We could get some plastic and some more cheese cloth, and then we need ribbon to tie them together.”
“I feel like I’m in kindergarten for craft time,” he said, making a fist and swooping it across his body. “Gosh darn it, let’s get cracking!”
She laughed. “You may be a rock star, but you’re also a dork, Bax Connolly.”
His large hands opened and he pulled her toward him. When her torso lined up along his, he growled at her. “And a sex toy.”
“In training,” she amended. “First base training.”
He waggled his brows. “If the potpourri turns out well enough, we’ll both be so turned on that maybe we’ll reach second.”
“You’re not just a dork, you’re a dreamer. I’m not some backup singer.” She wrapped her hand around his arm, then saw the grocery bag. “Hold on, I need to get that tofu in the refrigerator. Then we can go.”
~
Two hours later, Yakima clutched her sides as she stood at the main work table in her commercial kitchen. Bax’s jokes had gotten worse throughout the afternoon. As she sliced off another length of braided red and green ribbon, he asked, “Why is Santa so jolly?”
“Why?”
“He knows where all the naughty girls live.”
She rolled her eyes and tied ribbon around her thirtieth package of potpourri. “I think these will sell, but let’s not make more than fifty, just in case.”
“What are you going to charge?”
“Ten dollars. A nice round number.”
“Is that a good price?”
“I checked on the internet while you were driving us to the store. The prices are all over the place. I think ten dollars is fair for four ounces. Those pinecones were free, so I’ll make at least a couple of dollars on each bag.”
“So this represents about a hundred dollars of profit? For about three hours’ worth of work by two people?”
“It’s hard to make a buck if you aren’t a rock star,” she protested. “Did you want a cut?”
“No, I’m gonna call this our second date.” He smiled like the Cheshire Cat. “And you know what traditionally happens on the third.”
“You say, get off the tour bus, honey, I have to go to Cleveland?” She deadpanned.
He laughed and handed her another mesh bag. “I meant non-rock star rules.”
“I don’t know. I thought the potpourri was supposed to take us to second base?”
He glanced around the kitchen. Everything there was functional and she hadn’t yet even been able to purchase mats for the floors. “No soft places in here.”
“So you aren’t an up against the wall kind of lover?”
“Not the first time.” Their gazes met and locked.
Her fingers slipped and she made a knot instead of a bow. “Oops. Better concentrate.”
“How many do we have?” He poked into their mixing bowl with a spoon.
“Forty-two. We’re almost done. Then what?”
“Food,” he said. “Come back to my house and help me finish off the last of the slaw from Saturday. It’s got to be eaten up. I’ve got some russet potatoes.”
She took his coaxing tone for an indication that he thought russet potatoes were like Kobe beef for the veggie crowd. “But do you have broccoli? Fresh spices?”
“You know, I might, actually. Broccoli will be out of the freezer.”
“I can manage. Sounds good.”
~
An hour later, Bax pushed back from his kitchen table and patted his chest. “I could get used to this vegetarian thing. Keeps my middle trim.”
Yakima scooted her chair closer to his. She was right in the center of the draft coming in from below the door leading to the garage and her ankles were getting chilly. “Do you still care about that, now that you aren’t in the spotlight as much? Keeping in mind you don’t have an ounce of fat on you.”
“I’m a single thirty-year-old man. Of course I want to look good for the ladies.” He gave her a wink.
Despite the December chill, he’d stripped down to his T-shirt before eating. She’d been treated through the meal to the sight of his corded arms bunching and flexing as he cut his food. Black lightning bolt tattoos had been added to his biceps and his original barbed wire tattoo had been overlaid and decorated so that it looked like ivy. A matching tattoo was on the other arm too. They both peeked in and out of visual range as they were high up enough to mostly be hidden by his short sleeves.
“What do you think?”
She blinked and forced her eyes to his face. “About what?”
“Thirty-year old men. Should we let ourselves go?”
“No, not if you’re single.” She didn’t think he’d ever look bad though, not even with a double chin and a dad belly.
“That was a pretty big sigh, Miss Wannassay. What you thinking about?”
“You really are disgustingly attractive,” she admitted.
He laughed. �
�Until I go bald, then it’s all over.”
“Nah. Still hot. Besides, these days, you can just glue on toupees so perfectly that no one can tell. I saw an infomercial.” She leaned forward. “Let’s say in ten years you have a bald spot. Perfectly normal. But you can cover it up and no one would ever know.”
His torso shook as he laughed. “What an addition to the morning routine. Brush teeth, shave, glue fake hair to head.”
“The things we do for beauty.” Yakima shrugged. “What about all the extensions women get these days? That’s just gluing or clipping on hair. How is it any different? Not to mention coloring.”
“I’ve done that. I drew the short straw to be the blond member of Thunder Road.”
“So basically, you sold yourself down the river right from the start.” She remembered his blond hair phase. He’d stood out on Thunder Road posters, between the hair and the guitar he always had across his chest.
“I’d left home. I had to support myself. It was my shot. I’d have done just about anything.”
“What wouldn’t you have done?”
“Sleep with someone’s wife.” He grimaced. “There was this hot producer that our manager wanted us to work with. He was a perv and liked to watch boys do his wife.”
“Did anyone in your band do it?”
He inhaled through his nose. “He produced our first number one, so you do the math.”
She leaned across the table and took his hand. “At least it wasn’t you.”
“No, but it was a friend. He took one for the team. At least the tape never got released.”
“There’s a sex tape?” She’d never known anyone with a sex tape.
“Yeah, the whole ugly business, blackmail and everything. So far the blackmailer has stayed away since Finch paid him off.”
“That’s good. The common wisdom is that blackmailers never go away, but of course I have no real life experience.”
Bax picked up both of their plates and took them to the sink. Yakima picked up their water glasses and the bowl with the last few shreds of cheese he’d put on his potato. She’d have to buy him some vegan sour cream and cheese. Wasn’t dairy bad for singers? It increased mucus production or something like that. Not that he sang, now.
The Rock Star's Christmas Reunion: contemporary holiday romance (A Charisma series novel, The Connollys Book 1) Page 6