by Nora Roberts
The woman fed the world.
She was pouring the second beer when Del came in with take-out bags.
“See, I’m having a beer. I consider that terms met. When I finish the beer, I get my shoes.”
His look transmitted mild pity. “I don’t think you understand the situation clearly. I’ve got something you want, so I set the terms.” He stacked a couple of plates, napkins, then took two sets of chopsticks from a drawer.
“I said I didn’t want dinner.”
“Pot stickers.” He shook one of the bags. “You know you have a weakness.”
He was right about that, plus anxiety combined with the scent of food stirred up her appetite. “Fine. A beer and a pot sticker.” She carried the beers out to the deck and to the table overlooking the lawn and gardens.
The water in his pool sparkled. On the edge of its skirt stood a charming gazebo that housed a massive grill. He was known for manning it territorially when he threw a summer party where people played cutthroat boccie on the lawn and splashed in the pool.
He entertained well, she mused. It must be in the genes.
He came out with a tray loaded with cartons and plates. At least he’d buttoned his shirt, she noted. She wished she didn’t like his looks quite so much. She’d be able to get a handle on her emotional response if she didn’t find him so physically attractive.
Or vice versa.
“I figured I’d eat this with ESPN and some paperwork. This is better.” He put a place setting in front of her, opened cartons. “Rehearsal tonight, right?” He sat and began to take samples from every carton. “How’d it go?”
“Fine, I imagine. They didn’t need me, so I did some prep for the weekend.”
“I’ll be at the commitment ceremony Sunday,” he told her. “I went to college with Mitchell, and I wrote up their partnership contract.” He ate while she sat, sipping her beer. “So what’s the cake?”
“Chocolate butter cake, with white chocolate mousse filling, frosted in broad strokes with fudge frosting.”
“Triple threat.”
“They like chocolate.All that’s offset with alternate layers of red geranium blossoms on flower foam trays. Emma’s making interlocking geranium hearts for the topper. Now should I ask about your day?”
“No need to be bitchy”
She sighed because he was right. “You stole my shoes,” she pointed out, and gave in to the scent of the food.
“Stole is a strong word.”
“They’re mine, you took them without permission.” She bit into a pot sticker. God, she did have a weakness.
“How much are they worth to you?”
“They’re just shoes, Del.”
“Please.” He made a dismissive noise as he waved one hand. “I have a sister. I know the value you people put on footwear.”
“Okay, okay, what do you want? Money? Baked goods? Household chores?”
“All viable options. But this is nice for a start. You should try the sweet-and-sour.”
“What, this is nice? This?” She nearly choked on the beer. “Like this is some kind of a date?”
“Two people, food, drink, pretty evening. It has datelike elements.”
“It’s a drop-in. It’s a ransom drop. It’s . . .” She stopped herself because the jitters were back. “All right, let’s clear the air. I feel I started something. Something or ...”
“Other?” he suggested.
“Okay, something or other. Because I was in a mood, and I acted impulsively, which caused you to reciprocate the impulse. And I see now, I certainly see knowing you, that the ‘we’re even’ remark was a gauntlet thrown.You couldn’t leave that alone, so you took my damn shoes. And now there’s Chinese and beer and the whole dusk falling light show, when we both know perfectly well you’ve never thought about me this way.”
He considered for a moment. “That’s not accurate. An accurate statement would be I’ve tried not to think about you this way.”
More than a little stunned she sat back. “How’d you do with that?”
“Hmm.” He lifted a hand, turned it side to side.
She stared at him. “Damn you, Del.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
HE COULDN’T SAY IT WAS THE REACTION HE’D EXPECTED, BUT WITH Laurel that was often the case.
“Damn me for what, exactly?”
“Because it’s exactly the right thing to say.You’re good at saying exactly the right thing, except when you say the completely wrong thing. But it’s usually the right thing anyway, just that I didn’t want to hear it.”
“You should’ve been a lawyer.”
“I’m eating another pot sticker,” she muttered.
She’d always delighted him, he thought, except when she’d irritated him. It was probably the same thing.
“Do you remember when we were all over at Emma’s parents’ for Cinco de Mayo?”
“Of course I remember.” She scowled at her beer. “I had too much tequila, which is only natural under the circumstances because, hello, Cinco de Mayo.”
“I think that’s hola.”
“Har-har. You played big brother and sat with me on the front porch steps.”
“It’s not playing big brother to have some mild concern for a friend in a tequila haze. But anyway.” He scooped some sweet-and-sour onto her plate with his chopsticks. “Earlier Jack and I were standing around, and I was scoping the crowd, the way you do.”
“The way you do.”
“Okay. I spot this blue dress with a great pair of legs and ...” He made a vague gesture that gave her a clear picture of the and. “I thought, nice, very nice indeed, and made some mention of same to Jack. He pointed out that the legs and the rest I happened to be scoping were yours. It gave me a hell of a jolt, I admit.” He gauged her reaction, judged surprise led the way. “In the interest of full disclosure, I also admit it wasn’t the first time. So whether or not it was the right thing to say, it was accurate.”
“I’m not a pair of legs, or an and.”
“No, but they’re still very nice.You’re a beautiful woman.That’s also accurate. Some have a weakness for pot stickers, some for beautiful women.”
She looked past him, toward the deepening shadows. “That should piss me off.”
“You’re also one of my oldest and most important friends.” Teasing no longer colored his tone. “That matters, a lot.”
“It does.” She pushed her plate away before she made herself sick.
“I think it’s also accurate to say something unexpected, or at least surprising, hit when you acted on impulse the other night.”
As dusk thickened, his garden and patio lights sent out a soft glow, and in the distance a loon’s eerie wail echoed. It struck him as oddly romantic, and somehow suitable.
“You’re being awfully delicate about it.”
“Well, it’s a first date,” he said and made her laugh.
“I just came for the shoes.”
“No, you didn’t.”
She let out a breath. “Maybe not, but I had this plan, banking on you being out on an actual date where I’d sneak in, take back my shoes, and leave you a clever note.”
“Then you’d have missed all this. So would I.”
“There you go again,” she murmured. “I think part of my thing here is a direct result of my sexual moratorium.”
Amused, he tipped up his beer. “How’s that going for you?” “All too well. I’m probably a little more—what’s the delicate term? Itchy, more itchy than usual these days.”
“In the spirit of friendship I could take you upstairs and help you scratch that itch. But that doesn’t really work for me.”
She started to say she could scratch her own itch, thanks all the same, but decided that was too much information, even between friends. So she shrugged instead.
“It’s not like Jack and Emma,” he said.
“Jack and Emma aren’t scratching an itch. They’re—”
“Simmer down, Quickdraw,�
� he said mildly. “That’s not what I meant.They were friends—are friends—but they became friends, what, ten or twelve years ago? That’s a long time, but you and I? It’s basically our whole lives. We’re not just friends, we’re family. Not in an illegal and incestuous way that makes this conversation creepy, but family. Tribal,” he decided. “We’re from the same tribe, you could say.”
“Tribal.” She tried it out. “You have been thinking about this. And I can’t disagree with you about any of that.”
“Which is a nice change. We’re talking about changes, and not just for us, but for, well, the tribe.”
“I bet you get to be chief.” With her elbow on the table, she propped her chin on her hand. “You always get to be chief.”
“You can be chief if you can beat me arm-wrestling.”
She was strong—she prided herself on it. But she also knew her limits. “And being tribal chief you’ve already decided how this should go.”
“I have what you could call an outline. What would be a draft of an outline.”
“You’re so like Parker. Maybe that’s part of it. If Parker were a guy, or we were both gay, we’d be married. Which would mean I’d never have to date again. My annoyance thereof the key cause for the sexual moratorium. And very likely this conversation.”
“Do you want to hear the outline?”
“Yes, but I’m passing on the quiz that follows.”
“We give it a month.”
“Give what a month?”
“The adjustment. Seeing each other this way. We go out, stay in, have conversations, socialize, engage in recreational activities. We date, like people do when they’re easing into a different dynamic. And, given the tribal connection, and given what I assume is a mutual desire to limit potential damage to our current connection—”
“Now who’s the lawyer?”
“Given that,” he went on,“though it gives me no pleasure, literally, we continue the sexual moratorium.”
“You’d also be in a sexual moratorium?”
“Fair’s fair.”
“Hmm.” She switched from beer to water. “We do all the stuff normal, consenting, unattached adults do with each other, but no sex, with each other or anyone else?”
“That’s the idea.”
“For thirty days.”
“Don’t remind me.”
“Why the thirty?”
“It’s a reasonable time line for both of us to determine if we want to take it to the next step. It’s a big step, Laurel. You matter too much to me to rush it.”
“Dating’s harder than sex.”
He laughed. “Who the hell have you been dating? I’ll try to make it easy for you. How about we catch a movie after the event on Sunday? Just a movie.”
She angled her head. “Who picks the flick?”
“We’ll negotiate. No tearjerker.”
“No horror.”
“Agreed.”
“Maybe you should draw up a contract.”
He took the dig with a shrug. “If you’ve got a better idea, I’m open.
“I don’t have any idea. I never thought we’d get to a point where I would need an idea. How about we just sleep together and call it even?”
“Okay.” When her mouth dropped open, he grinned. “I not only know you, but I know a bluff when I hear one.”
“You don’t know everything.”
“No, I don’t. I think that’s part of it, and I guess we’d better take some time and find out. I’m in if you are.”
She studied the attractive and familiar face, the calm eyes, the easy posture. “We’ll probably want to murder each other half the time.”
“That won’t be anything new In or out, Laurel?”
“In.” She offered a hand to close the deal.
“I think this calls for more than a handshake.” But he took her hand, used it to draw her to her feet along with him. “Plus we should see what it’s like when neither of us is irritated.”
A little frisson, as much anticipation as nerves, jittered up her spine. “Maybe I am.”
“No. No little crease here.” He skimmed a fingertip between her eyebrows. “Dead giveaway.”
“Wait,” she said when he ran his hands down her arms. “Now I’m self-conscious. It’s no good if I’m thinking too much and—”
He shut her up, drawing her in and up to brush his lips over hers in slow, soft sweeps.
“Or,” she murmured, and let her hands glide up from his shoulders until her arms could link around his neck.
More surprises, he thought, when there was warmth and exploration instead of just heat and impulse. Sweet and easy wrapped in layers of the familiar and the new. He knew her scent, her shape, but the taste of her, ripe and seductive, merged what was into what might be.
He took his time, drawing it out, drawing her in, to savor the new mix of sensations.
She poured herself into it, taking every ounce of the moment she’d imagined dozens of times. A dying day, soft lights, the quiet sigh of a summer breeze. Foolish fancies of a young girl’s crush, longings transformed over time into a woman’s need.
Now the fancies were real, the longings met. And in the kiss she felt his need rise with hers. Whatever happened, this moment, this dying day, would always be hers.
When their lips parted, he stayed close. “How long do you think that’s been in there?” he wondered.
“Hard to say.” Impossible to tell him.
“Yeah.”
He touched his lips to hers again, testing, stirring, then deepening until they were both breathless.
“I’d better go get your shoes.”
“Okay.” But she pulled him back, racheting up the heat, groaning with it when his hands stroked down her sides to grip her hips.
He teetered on the edge, but made himself pull back. “Shoes,” he managed. “Free the hostages.You really need to go. Home.”
Stirred and shaken, she leaned back against the deck rail. “I told you dating’s harder than sex.”
“We don’t shirk from challenges.You’ve got some lips. I’ve always liked the look of them. I like them even better now.”
They curved. “Come over here and say that.”
“Better not. I’ll be back in a minute with the shoes.”
She watched him go and thought it was going to be a really long month.
SNEAKING BACK INTO THE HOUSE SHOULD BE, BY ALL THE ODDS, simpler than sneaking out. Carter and Mac would be tucked into their place, Emma and Jack in theirs. Mrs. G would either be watching TV in her cozy apartment with her feet up and a pot of her evening tea, or out with some cronies. Parker? Probably still working, but in her own suite and in comfortable clothes.
Laurel parked, reassured by the lights in the studio and guest-house. She just wanted to get into her own space, alone, and think about everything that happened, everything that had changed or started to change tonight.
Her lips still tingled from his; her skin still hummed. She could all but dance to the tune. If she’d kept a diary, she’d cover today’s page with little hearts and flowers.
Then rip it out and tear it up because that was embarrassing. But still, she’d do it.
Smiling at the idea, she let herself into the house, carefully and quietly locked up behind her. She didn’t exactly tiptoe up the stairs, but it was close.
“Are you just getting in?”
She didn’t scream, but that was close, too. Whirling, Laurel gaped at Parker, then sat down hard on the steps before she tumbled.
“Jesus Christ! Jesus! You’re scarier than a Rottweiler. What are you doing?”
“What am I doing?” Parker waved the carton in her hand. “I went down for a yogurt and I’m going up to my room. What are you doing sneaking up the steps?”
“I wasn’t sneaking. I was walking. Quietly. You have yogurt in the little fridge upstairs.”
“I’m out of blueberry. I wanted blueberry. Do you mind?”
“No, no. God.” Laurel took a
ragged breath, patted her heart. “You just scared the crap out of me.”
This time Parker pointed with her spoon. “You have guilty face.”
“I do not.”
“I’m looking at it. I know guilty face when I’m looking at it.”
“I’m not guilty. Why should I be guilty? I don’t have a curfew, do I, Mom?”
“See, guilty.”
“Okay, okay, put away the rubber hose.” Laurel threw up her arms in surrender. “I just went to Del’s to get my shoes.”
“Laurel, I can see that.You’re holding them in your hand.”
“Right. Right. Well, they’re great shoes and I wanted them back.” She stroked one affectionately. “He’d ordered Chinese.There were pot stickers.”
“Ah.” Nodding, Parker walked up to sit beside Laurel.
“I wasn’t going to stay, but I did, so we sat out on the deck and talked about me kissing him, then him kissing me. Which I didn’t actually mention to you. It feels weirder talking to you about it than it does talking to him.”
“Get over it.”
“I’m working on it, aren’t I? Anyway, we had to get to what do we do about it, if anything. He had an outline.”
“Of course.” Parker smiled as she spooned up yogurt.
“You’d expect that because the two of you are from the same mold. I told him if you and I were gay we’d be married.”
Parker nodded again as she ate her yogurt. “I could see that.”
“We talked it over and we agreed we’d see each other and do stuff that people do, except no sex.”
Brows lifting, Parker licked her spoon. “You’re going to date but not have sex?”
“For thirty days. The theory being we’d know by then if we really wanted to have sex, or if it’s just ... hmm. I know it’s reasonable and adult, but we know we want to have sex now.”
“You take a little time first to make sure you’ll still like each other if and when you do.”
“Yeah, that’s the sticker.There was more in there. Tribes and my legs, but the upshot was we’re going to see how it goes.You’re really okay with it?”