by Lisa Plumley
Natasha blinked. “Do what?”
“Use that ‘bad luck’ excuse of yours to explain away every ordinary, garden-variety event that ever happens to you.”
“That’s not what I’m doing! I really am unlucky.”
“Really? Are you?” Skeptically, Amy peered at her. “Are you sure you’re not just using that bad-luck stuff as an excuse? You’ve already excused yourself at least once before, you know, when you convinced yourself Paul was the reason you quit art—”
“He was the reason!” Natasha said. “Except … I just realized he wasn’t. Probably.” She bit her lip, feeling uncertain. “I don’t know what to think anymore. Quitting Torrance Chocolates and leaving Damon has set me kind of adrift, I guess.”
“So it’s probably better to avoid the whole thing, right?”
“Right,” Natasha agreed emphatically, feeling happy that at least someone understood her for a change. “Absolutely.”
For a second, the only sounds were the gulls, the waves, Manny and Isobel’s nonsense chatter … and the guilty, confused beating of Natasha’s heart. She lifted her head.
“That was a trick question, wasn’t it?” she asked.
Amy smiled. “You’d better believe it.”
“You wanted me to realize that avoiding the issue isn’t the answer.” At her friend’s answering nod, Natasha sighed. “What is up with you people lately, anyway?” she wanted to know. “Have you been taking lessons from Carol or what? All of a sudden, I can’t so much as make a sandwich without my former mother-in-law demanding I reexamine my perspective on things.”
“Well …” Amy offered a nonchalant shrug of her own. “Maybe you should give it a whirl sometime. Maybe it would help.”
With a refusal already on her lips, Natasha stopped herself. Instead of saying no, she only gazed out at the ocean. She remembered how beautiful it had looked during her moonlit stroll with Damon. Then, quietly, she said, “Maybe I will.”
If nothing else, it was a start. A tiny, barely noticeable start. But it was better than nothing. She was on her way.
“I really thought I was on my way!” Damon told Jason at 5:15 that evening. With a sweeping gesture, he indicated the paper-cupped chocolate samples, the fresh pitchers of water at the testing table … the conspicuously empty panelists’ chairs. “I really thought I was making progress. And now … zilch. There’s not a soul here. Not even that guy from marketing who always talks in buzzwords and tells me how ‘awesome’ everything tastes.”
“He’s been angling for a promotion, bro.” Jason crossed his arms. “He thinks if he brownnoses you enough, you’ll put in a good word with your dad. And speaking of Jimmy …” Damon’s buddy looked around quizzically. “Where is he? He’s always here in the lab.”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t been around all week—which is probably for the best, frankly. I can’t create and try to make amends with my dad.” Despondently, Damon plopped on the rollaway cot he’d had brought into the lab. He fluffed his pillow, then swiveled on his back and brooded at the ceiling. “Why didn’t anyone come to the five o’clock tasting panel? What do I have to do?”
“Wait. Is that cot for you?” Jason asked. “Has it been here all week? Have you been sleeping in here?”
“Don’t they know I need testers? Don’t they know I can’t do this without them?” Damon lamented, feeling unfairly put upon. “I’m trying to do a good thing here,” he told his buddy. “I should be rewarded for that, shouldn’t I? I’m kind of new to this one-hundred-percent-good-deeds stuff, but—”
“You have been sleeping in here.” Jason crossed his arms, marveling at him. “You are completely gone over Natasha.”
Damon scoffed. “She has nothing to do with this. Besides, even if she did … so what? Like you never threw yourself into work to forget a girl. Remember, back in college? You—”
The chocolate lab doors burst open, interrupting him.
“Hey! Am I late to the party?” Wes Brinkman strode in, full of his usual wiseass joie de vivre. “Where’s the candy?”
“Get out of here, Wes. I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Yeah. Get lost,” Jason said, backing him up. With a certain undeniable zeal, he added, “You don’t get any candy.”
Wes laughed. “Nice to see you, too, Huerta. You’re just as sanctimonious as I remember. And Damon … well, you’re still pouting over Natasha, I see. You disappoint me. You and your newfound faithfulness are a disgrace to millionaire playboys everywhere.” Wes clucked with dismay. He strode to the sample table, plucked up a miniature, chocolate-covered sunflower-seed-butter cup, then ate it. His eyes lit up. He selected another variety, then eagerly swallowed it, too. He picked up a third, then used it to point to Damon. “They’re going to throw you out of the club, you know. You’re playing with fire here, with all this …” Wes gave a moue of distaste. “Relentless work.”
“I mean it, Wes.” Getting up, Damon flexed his jaw. “You’re the last person I want to see right now. After what you did—”
“After what I did? Oh no. You can’t offload all this on me,” Wes insisted, shaking his head. He gobbled up the last chocolate he’d selected. “Why didn’t you tell Natasha the truth that night, dumbass? You know damn well you didn’t do anything close to what she accused you of.” With another head shake, Wes ate more chocolate. “Instead you just stood there and took it.”
Damon glared at him. “You wouldn’t understand.” He could still see the crushed, inconsolable look in her eyes. Stonily, he strode across the room, trying to forget. “I let her down.”
“Did you?” Wes seemed intrigued. “I understand it probably looked that way. I didn’t realize it at the time, of course, because I was completely smashed.” He gave a sweeping bow, as though he expected applause. “But you have to admit, if you had been trying to win the fair lady’s heart for your own nefarious reasons—to rehab your dinged-up public image—you would have done exactly what you did. You would have charmed her, wooed her—”
“But I didn’t do that.” Feeling confused, Damon stared at Wes with his hands clenched at his sides. “I mean, I did, but not for the reasons she thought I did. Anyway, the point is—”
“The point is,” Wes said grandly, “that you need to cut Little Miss Puppies and Rainbows some slack here. Give her a break. It’s not easy living with men like us, you know.”
Jason boggled. “You’re right about that. You’re working on my last nerve, B-Man.” He stepped threateningly nearer.
Wes only laughed again. “Settle down, Huerta. There’s no need to get thuggish. I only came here to tell Damon something.” His gaze swiveled to him. “You expected her to believe you’d changed. You wanted her to validate that, even without your explaining it to her.” Wes held up his palm. “Don’t bother denying it. I could see it in your eyes,” he said, forestalling Damon’s interruption. “But nobody else can do that for you. Believing you’re good enough is your work to do.”
“Right.” Feeling beyond cynical, Damon folded his arms. He gave Wes a hard look. “Did you read that in a fortune cookie? Or was it included in one of your many sets of divorce papers?”
“Neither one.” Wes tapped his temple. “It’s all up here.”
This time, Damon laughed outright. “Get real. You’re hardly in a position to hand out relationship advice, Wes.”
“Well …” Hesitantly, Jason nodded. “He might have a point.”
Damon wheeled around to face him, even as Wes went on munching his way through the array of chocolate-testing samples.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being married to Amy,” Jason rushed to say, “it’s that everybody has their own sore spots to deal with. And sometimes, when your sore spots collide with her sore spots … well, disaster strikes. Maybe that’s what happened with Natasha. Maybe she couldn’t give you what you needed—and you couldn’t ask her for it because … Hell, I don’t know why. I’m no shrink. I’m just a guy with a wife and a couple of kids. All
I know is, maybe you’re giving up too soon.”
“Giving up?” In disbelief, Damon stared at him. “I’ve been working my ass off all week. I’m not giving up on anything!”
“You’re giving up on her.” Wes picked up a swirled candy bar with bittersweet chocolate and a cherry center. He ate it, then nodded with approval. “Don’t be a dick, Damon. Go get her.”
“I can’t go get her,” Damon insisted. “Not yet.”
Not until I make things right. Not until I make me right.
Being with Natasha meant too much to him. Damon couldn’t risk screwing up. Not with her. Not again. He already knew what colossal failure looked like, and he wasn’t interested in re-experiencing it.
In frustration, Damon stared at Jason and Wes. They didn’t understand. Jason had Amy. They were the perfect couple. And Wes … well, Wes had everything except a perfect partner. Including a ridiculous amount of sheer, balls-out, well-meant audacity.
Frankly, it was just like old times between them.
In the silence, Jason nodded toward Wes. “The idiot savant of relationship advice is right. It’s time. Go get Natasha.”
“Hey!” Wes burst out, looking offended. Then he shrugged. “Never mind. I guess that’s fair.” He picked up a few more cups of chocolate. “These are really tasty, by the way. Yum, yum.”
Taken by surprise, Damon blinked at him. “You like them?”
“Are you kidding me? You’d have to tie me to a tree, cover me in honey, and let fire ants bite me on the testicles to get me to quit eating these things,” Wes said emphatically. “Even then, I’d probably try dipping the chocolate in the honey.”
“Okay.” Making a disgusted face, Jason turned to Damon. “Word of advice? Don’t go with that testimonial in the advertising.”
Damon laughed. “I won’t. But … you really like them, Wes? Some of those chocolates are”—he hesitated—“allergen-free.”
“So?” Wes licked his fingertips. “Does that mean they’re full of bizarre ingredients or something?” A shrug. “I can’t pronounce half the things in a chicken nugget, and I eat those.”
“Hmmm. Good point.” Damon thought about that. “And no, they don’t contain anything bizarre. The trick is thinking about all the things I can include instead of the few things I can’t.”
“Whatever, Martha.” Wes went on chomping. “I don’t know squat about chocolate making, but I know what I like. These.”
“Well, it’s unlikely you’re being tactful,” Damon told him. “After all, you’re you. If you hated my candy bars, you’d tell me. You’re a giant walking ego. You think everyone cares what you think—and needs to know about it, the moment you think it.”
“If you’re trying to tell me they don’t … save your breath.”
Ignoring that, Damon looked anew at his chocolate samples. “Maybe,” he mused aloud, “what I have here is an image problem, not a taste problem.”
Doubtfully, Jason picked up a fluted paper cup full of pea-size, candy-coated chocolate pieces. He sniffed at their TC-imprinted exteriors. He rattled the cup. He tasted a chocolate.
“Nah, dude. It’s a taste problem,” Damon’s friend assured him, making a face. “These allergen-free candies are nasty.”
“Those are the standard-issue Torrance Chocolates’ take on M&M’s.” Damon crossed his arms. “You eat them by the pound.”
“Oh.” Awkwardly, Jason tried another one. He nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, now that you mention it, they are the same. Delicious!”
“Actually, I was wrong. Those are the allergen-free ones.”
“Huh?” Jason looked unhappy. He hung open his mouth, looking for a place to spit. He waved his hands in disgust.
“Oh, grow up, Huerta,” Wes said. “You’re proving Damon’s point for him. He was obviously doing blind taste tests with a group of biased participants as volunteers. They expected the allergen-free candy bars to taste ‘weird,’ so they hated them.”
“Right. And they didn’t come back for more.” From the open doorway, Jimmy Torrance spoke up. He strolled inside, hand in hand with his wife, Debbie. “Probably because you made the taste tests voluntary. Always make the tests mandatory, son.”
“That’s right,” Debbie agreed. “At this point, you’ll need an all-new test group, Damon. Because the idiot savant of chocolate testing had it correct.” She gave a cheerful wave to Wes. “Hello, Wesley. Thank you for that enormous donation to my children’s aid charity. It’s much appreciated.”
Red-faced, Wes gave her a “shut up!” wave. “You said you wouldn’t tell anyone about that! I have an image to consider.”
But Damon didn’t have time for Wes’s not-so-secret altruistic streak. He boggled at his parents. “Mom? Dad? What are you doing here?”
Jimmy sighed. “We tried not to be here, believe me.” At his side, Debbie cuddled up to him. “We were enjoying our time together away from this place. If you catch my drift.”
Momentarily mystified, Damon looked from his dad to his mom. They so rarely took time off. Then, “Oh. Gross! You were—”
“Repairing our relationship,” Jimmy said smoothly, patting Debbie’s hand. “I neglected it for far too long. I didn’t even know how to find my way back. All I did was work. I didn’t know how to retire. But luckily for me—”
“Luckily for him,” Debbie finished with an impish look, “I took matters into my own hands and kidnapped him! I took your father to a lovely resort, where we could both be alone—”
“The seafood platter there is excellent,” Jimmy put in.
“—then I gave him an ultimatum. ‘Choose your marriage or choose to be a full-time chocolatier,’ I told him, ‘but if you choose the business over me, I’m through.’”
“Obviously,” Jimmy said. “I chose her.”
“Wow,” Wes breathed in awe. “You don’t mess around.”
“No, she doesn’t.” Jimmy gave Debbie an adoring smile. “That’s just one of the many things I love about her. Somehow, Debbie knew just how to snap me out of it—just how to make me realize that I was about to lose the best part of my life.”
“Dad, you have a son, too,” Damon complained. “I’m right here. What am I? A big pile of stale, leftover chocolate?”
His parents sighed. “You’re important, too, son,” his mother assured him. “But we’re married. It’s different.” She gave him a piercing look. “I saw you on TV, by the way. On that gossip show. You’re cruising for a kidnapping of your own, Mister Smarty-Pants. If you think you’re too old for a little parental intervention to cure your bad behavior, you’re wrong.”
Wes blanched. “I think that’s my cue to leave.” He seized a few more chocolate samples for the road, then waved. “Later, all.”
“Me too,” Jason said. “If I get home too late, Amy invariably thinks I’ve been hit by a bus.” Sheepishly, he shrugged. “It’s kind of her thing. She’s a worrywart.”
“Only because she loves you!” Debbie called after him, waving. “Say hello to your lovely wife for us!”
Left alone with his parents, Damon stared at them in continuing disbelief. “Seriously. What are you doing here? Are you going to tell me you had a sudden urge to go all Chocolatier Rambo on a few hundred pounds of Tanzania seventy perecent cacao?”
Jimmy and Debbie shook their heads. “Several of the longtime employees here called us,” Jimmy said. “We didn’t get their messages for a few days, because we were … preoccupied. But once I turned on my cell phone to find a whole slew of panicked voice mails telling me that you’d gone off the deep end again—that you’d been working in the lab night and day, sleeping here, running emergency thrice-daily test panels—we were concerned.”
“If you have lost it again, dear, we’re here for you,” his mother promised him warmly. “We were distracted by our marital problems for a while there, but now that’s all settled. So don’t worry about a thing.”
“No, I haven’t ‘lost it’ again. I’m fine.” Damon gave them a brief recap of hi
s split from Natasha, offered a synopsized version of his ideas for the new candy-bar line, then finished up with a rundown of his nearly 24/7 progress so far. “… except for the testing snag I just hit.”
Worriedly, his parents listened. Then, his father said, “We think you should make up with Natasha first. Don’t wait too long, like we did!”
At their newfound synchronicity, Damon couldn’t help smiling. He really was glad they’d worked out their issues.
“I can’t think about that now,” he said. “First, I have to deal with this testing issue—” And prove, tangibly, that I’ve accomplished something for once. “—then I’ll talk to Natasha.”
Jimmy nodded. “All right. It sounds as though the boy’s decided. Let’s get down to brass tacks on this testing issue, Damon. Do you know of another group you could approach?”
“Actually,” Damon said, “I do. One just came to mind.”
“Good,” his father said. “Then the next thing to do is—”
“Wait.” Damon put his hand on his dad’s arm, recognizing that Jimmy was about to bustle forward and take charge of the chocolate lab. “Are you really going to help me? I thought—”
“You thought your father had given up on you?” Debbie asked.
At his mother’s blunt, spot-on assessment, Damon frowned.
“Well,” he hedged, “I haven’t given either of you much reason to believe I’d amount to anything on the creative side of things. Especially after Las Vegas.” At the memory, Damon shuddered. “Knowing how much I messed up, why would you—”
“Because we’re your parents, that’s why. We’ll never give up on you. We might get wrapped up in our own lives some of the time. We’re only human. But that doesn’t mean we’ve given up on you. Far from it.” Gruffly putting an end to the discussion, his dad picked up a nearby chocolate sample. He chewed. Savored. Swallowed. “I think you need less sugar here.”
Damon still couldn’t believe Jimmy was going to help him.