High Tea & Flip-Flops

by Linda Cassidy Lewis

  “Oh ditch the snark, Mr. High Tea.”

  He opens his mouth, but whatever he was going to say is cut off when Gabi grabs his shoulder, turns him toward her, and lifts his sunglasses.

  “Wow, she really did give you a shiner.”

  “It looks much better today,” I say, hoping to win a point, but the look he shoots me says not even close.

  We join my mother. She’s already seated inside the restaurant, not on the patio, unfortunately, so Jeremy has to remove his sunglasses and explain the whole gruesome eye thing to her. His recitation ends with the three of them looking at me. I pick up the wine list.

  Even though this is supposed to be a celebration for me, I’m definitely not the most popular person at the table.

  We order the grilled asparagus and prosciutto appetizer and two bottles of wine because we can’t all agree on red or white. Considering how my day’s gone so far, I have a feeling even two might not get us through this meal.

  Jeremy asks Gabi how Matt’s knee is healing, which leads to Gabi telling my mom the whole story, and that leads to Jeremy explaining the differences between softball and cricket. I’m not paying attention to the details, I’m just glad no one’s pointing a finger at me. By the time the wine comes, I’m beginning to think the conversation might drift along pleasantly enough to make Jeremy forget he got upset with me during the drive here.

  “So,” Gabi says to Jeremy, “you and Chelsea will be working together?”

  Crap.

  Delaying a response, Jeremy lifts his glass to his mouth and shoots me an inquiring glance.

  “I told her about your literary work,” I say. “The novel set in California.”

  “Ah, yes,” he says to Gabi. “I expect Chelsea to be an excellent source of information.”

  “And you’ve made it official?” she asks.

  Double crap.

  The next thing out of Gabi’s mouth will be about the contract she told me to get Jeremy to sign. Luckily, she’s sitting directly across from me. I kick my foot in her direction to signal her to shut up. One problem. We’re sitting at a pedestal table. My toes slam into steel, and though the table vibrates, and the wine shimmies, and I rise an inch or two out of my seat in painful rebound, I manage to squelch all but a tiny squeak of what should have been a scream.

  All eyes turn to me.

  I glance around innocently. “Earthquake?” I suggest.

  Evidenced by his sputter of laughter, even Jeremy’s not buying that. Gabi’s looking at me with only mild surprise. My mom pats my hand and then pours herself more wine.

  “Guess not,” I say weakly.

  Jeremy turns back to Gabi. “You were saying?”

  She’s still looking at me. I shake my head tightly at her, but it’s enough that she gets my warning. She smiles at Jeremy. “I was just saying Chelsea’s an excellent Californian. She’ll fill you in on all the details.”

  “What?” my mom says.

  No, no, no. Oh, why did I lie? Why?

  “Californian? Details?” she says. “But I thought she—”

  “Mom!” I grab her arm. “Jeremy’s not gay.”

  “Dear God,” Jeremy mutters.

  My mother looks like she fears she’s suddenly gone senile.

  Even Gabi’s mouth is hanging open.

  Just at that moment, the unfortunate server arrives with our appetizer and small plates. He sets them on the table and cheerfully asks if we need anything else. Dead. Silence. He backs away, apologizing.

  I risk a glance at Jeremy. He slipped his shades back on but now appears to be catatonic.

  “Well,” Gabi says, “doesn’t this appetizer look delicious?” She starts dishing out the asparagus spears and doling out the plates.

  “Thank you,” I say, and the wink she gives me lets me know she understands my gratitude is not for the food she just handed me.

  Desperate to move past this horrid event, I take a bite. “Mmm. Try it, Mom.”

  Great pretenders that we are, we three women nibble and sip as though everything is normal. Jeremy’s still frozen.

  “Eat, dear,” my mom says, reaching across the table to push his plate an inch closer to him. When he looks up at her, she smiles. She has a beautiful smile. She also has a glint in her eye that only I can interpret. She may be confused about what Jeremy’s hired me to do, but she understood what I told her about his sexual orientation. Let the matchmaking begin.

  Slowly, Jeremy returns to the land of the living. No one returns to the topic of his writing or whatever he’s hired me to do. The rest of our meal progresses without any further catastrophe. Mostly due to Jeremy’s tales of his travels, we even laugh. I relax. I’ve survived the worst of this celebration.

  After we say our good-byes to my mom and Gabi, Jeremy and I head back to his car. “I’m sorry about—”

  His growl stops my mouth. Mr. High Tea is back. On steroids. Damn. Charming Jeremy was an act. I’m not off the hook at all.

  “Do not speak to me,” he snarls.

  “But you told me to tell her the truth.”

  He stops walking and faces me, breathing hard through flared nostrils, and even though his eyes are hidden behind his shades, I know they’re shooting bullets.

  “In a public place? At a volume easily heard three tables away? That’s how you thought I meant for you to tell her? For God’s sake, Chelsea. Have you no sense of propriety at all?”

  Mr. Prim and Proper stalks away without waiting for my answer. Not that I have a good one. His legs are so much longer than mine I practically have to run to catch up with him. I’m afraid if he reaches the car first, he’ll drive off without me.

  It’s a twenty-minute drive from The Village to our apartments, and we spend the first half of it in silence. I keep hoping he’ll turn the radio on. I’m too afraid to make a move toward it. If Jeremy clenches his jaw any harder his teeth are going to crack. I try not to breathe too loudly.

  What I really want to do is cry. I’ll be honest, pissing off people is not exactly a new experience for me, but I’m afraid this is more. What if Jeremy’s decided he can’t stand me?

  I have to try again. “I really am sorry.”

  He doesn’t even glance at me. We drive for a few more blocks before he speaks.

  “That was a deliberate act, Chelsea.”

  My eyes sting. I stare at my hands folded in my lap. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

  Jeremy huffs a sigh. “Explain why you did that.”

  I pick at my nail polish, not caring about stopping the tears anymore. He knows why I did it. Does he have to hear me say it?

  “I’m waiting, Chelsea.”

  “I’m a screwup, okay? I’ll give you your money back, and you can forget you ever met me. I’ll be moving out anyway because I can’t pay the rent, so you won’t even have to see me. Just ask Gabi to help you with your book. She’s the perfect one. I’m the idiot that can’t even be trusted to manage a sandwich shop.” I’m still blubbering, so he probably couldn’t understand half of that.

  I’ve only made things worse. Guys hate drama. I wish I could just disappear. He’s probably wishing just as hard that I would. Seconds later, I’m rethinking that because he’s holding my hand and pulling the car to the curb. I risk a glance at him. His face is angled away, but I’m pretty sure he’s not really looking at the surf shop in his direct line of vision. His thumb traces circles on the back of my hand. At first, the only sound is my sniffling, and then he clears his throat.

  “You are not an idiot or a screwup.” His voice is strained. For a moment, he’s silent again, and then he swallows hard and squeezes my hand. “And if I ever hear you talk like that about yourself again, I’ll wash your mouth out with chocolate stout. Got it?”

  Relief leaves me feeling a little light-headed. “Got it.”

  He lets go of my hand and starts the car. I pull a tissue from my purse to dry my face and blow my nose.

  “And you,” he says, pulling away from the curb, “h
ave already received partial payment, so you’re obligated to finish the job you agreed to do.”

  We drive for a few minutes before I work up the nerve to tell him the whole truth. “I … I might have given my mom the wrong idea about that job.”

  He sighs. “And what exactly might wrong idea mean?”

  I hope I’m not about to ignite his anger again, and I’m not excusing my lies, but don’t I have the right to point out he’s partly at fault?

  “Well, because you didn’t want me telling her what you’re writing, I couldn’t really explain how you wanted my help on it, so I sort of gave her the idea you hired me as your marketing consultant.”

  “I see.”

  No twitches. No white-knuckle grip on the wheel. I might as well finish.

  “And she was about to bring that up at lunch, so that’s why I blurted out … you know. I didn’t mean it to come out that way, it’s just … you know how moms are. But I’m sorry I embarrassed you.”

  He nods but doesn’t say anything.

  We’re home now. He parks the car but doesn’t make a move to get out. He’s staring straight ahead. I’m thinking maybe he’s waiting for me to get out so he can go somewhere else, but just as I reach for the door handle, he speaks.

  “And what misconception might Gabi be harboring?”

  Oh, he’s good. “Gabi?”

  “What was it you stopped her from saying?”

  I bite my lip instead of answering, but he’s not about to let it slide.

  “That was the cause of the ‘earthquake’ that struck only under our table, was it not?”

  Oh yeah, he’s very good. “Well, she might have gotten the idea I’ll be working with you on a series of novels.”

  “I see.”

  Finally, we get out of the car. As we approach my door, he drapes an arm across my shoulders and says, “Life is certainly interesting with you in it, Ms. Cole.” He’s smiling, and he gives my shoulder a squeeze before he lets go and moves toward the stairs. “I’ll send you the chapters this evening.”

  I unlock my door and float inside. I’ll never wash my shoulder again. Or my left hand.

  CHAPTER 13

  Without cable my TV can only bring in three local channels, so I’ve been rewatching a ton of DVDs. I’m about halfway through Notting Hill, hoping I’ll recognize some of the exterior scenes from Google Mapping Jeremy’s London address, when I hear a sound outside my apartment. I grab the remote to turn off the TV, but then I change my mind. I’m hoping it’s Jeremy at the door, and if he sees the movie maybe he’ll say, Hey look, there’s my house.

  It’s Gabi, coming straight from work. She walks in, hands me a box of See’s chocolates, and kicks off her heels. “Explain yourself, girl,” she says. “Did Jeremy fire you, yet?”

  I open the box and set it between us on the sofa. “No. He’s sending me the book file tonight.”

  “That’s a shocker. For a minute there at the restaurant, I thought he might strangle you.”

  “Well, I explained everything to him.”

  “So explain it to me. Obviously, you stopped me from mentioning a contract, so I know you don’t have one. And you embarrassed Jeremy to hush your mom. What did you think she was about to say?”

  “I knew what she was going to say.” I stuff a truffle in my mouth. How can I spin the lie I told my mom? “Well, I sort of exaggerated to her what Jeremy’s paying me to do. She thinks it’s marketing. But, if you think about it, it is. In a way. You know? If I help him improve the book, it will sell better. Right?”

  “I guess.”

  “And I know about marketing. I aced those classes. So maybe I will advise him on that. I’ve already started researching—”

  “Chelsea. You don’t even know if the man can write. He may not have a book anyone could sell. Just because he has a friend who writes hot romances, doesn’t mean—”

  “He wrote it.”

  Gabi swallows a truffle practically whole. “Jeremy wrote—”

  “Yeah. That book I told you about. The hot romance. It’s called Wanting More, and it’s published and selling pretty well. High ratings. He writes under the pen name Penny James. I mean, he writes the romances under that name. He’s also writing a literary novel.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “But you can’t tell anyone. No one. Not Matt. Not the women you work with. Not your mom and especially not mine.”

  “Why?”

  “He doesn’t want anyone to know. It’s complicated. Well, no. Really, it’s simple. He says romances sell better if they’re written by women.”

  “I want to read it. Where’s your Kindle?”

  “I bookmarked the love scenes,” I say and go get it from the bedroom. While she reads, we finish off the chocolates. “Want a cup of coffee?” She nods and I get up to make it. She lays down the Kindle when I hand her a cup.

  “Dayam,” she says, grinning and fanning her face.

  “I know, right?”

  “I want to read the whole thing. Send it to my Kindle. Matt could learn a thing or two from this.”

  “You can’t tell him—”

  “I know. I know. Mr. High Tea is incognito. So, the next Penny James novel is set in California, huh? Is the series going to be the amorous adventures of a beautiful, blonde wacko—like someone I know?”

  “Funny.” Now here’s my opening to tell her the truth about the series, but then what if he does decide to write one. No use wasting confessions, right? “I’ll let you know what it’s like after I read it.”

  “Do you think Jeremy’s as good in bed as this Ethan?”

  “Let’s not talk about that, okay? I have to work with the man.”

  “Awkward,” she sings. “Seriously, this changes things. Mixing business with pleasure almost never works. You know that, right?”

  I exaggerate rolling my eyes. But I don’t say a word. Gabi said it herself—it almost never works. If I can get Jeremy to move past the “just neighbors” crap, I’ll make sure we’re an exception.

  *

  Jeremy shows up at my door the next morning during his usual morning writing session. “You didn’t reply to my text,” he says.

  “Good morning to you too, and I didn’t get your text.”

  “Oh. Well, good morning. I emailed the book to you last night.”

  I hold up my Kindle. “I started reading it as soon as I got it.”

  “Oh. Very good. But don’t read too fast. I still have three chapters to edit.”

  “Okay.” Oops. The last I looked I’d reached the eighty percent mark.

  “We need to talk,” he says.

  My heart cringes. “Could we sit?”

  He walks to the sofa and sits stiffly on the edge of the cushion like he did the first night he sat there. Only this time he’s barefoot—can you believe it?—and he’s wearing worn jeans and one of his poet shirts and his hair is loose, which looks way cool like he just rolled out of bed after a night of hot sex. My girly parts are—

  Stop it, Chelsea. Why torture yourself? He said we need to talk. Is there a more ominous-sounding statement?

  “Want a cup of coffee, Jeremy?”

  “Yes.”

  He follows me to the kitchen. In brighter light, it’s obvious he hasn’t shaved. Ooh, he’s really rocking the bad boy thing this morning. I pour him a cup and hand it to him. “Sugar? Milk?”

  He shakes his head and carries his coffee to the dining table and sits. To delay this “talk” as long as possible, I spoon sugar into my cup and stir it long after it’s dissolved. He tires of waiting.

  “What sort of series?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “You said you think I should write a series.”

  Whew. So that’s today’s topic, not something I’ve done.

  I join him at the table. “Well, it’s an idea.”

  “With the same characters? I’d have to revise this book to make that work.”

  “Yeah.” We sip our coffee in tandem. Okay.
He asked, so I might as well go for it. “You could rewrite, but I was thinking this second book could be the start of a California series. Different couples in romances set all over the state, you know?”

  He frowns at his coffee cup and then appears to drift away in thought. The only sound is a faint rasp as he rubs his thumb over the stubble on his chin. I sip my coffee quietly. Occasionally he glances at me, but he doesn’t say anything. I don’t think he even sees me. I wish I had my Kindle here at the table, because I’m afraid it will disturb him if I move to get it. I dated a musician once who’d scream at me if I interrupted him while he was trying to write a song. Fiction writers are probably just as touchy.

  Jeremy jumps to his feet. “Are you busy today?”

  “Not really.”

  “Come upstairs with me.” He stalks toward the door, expecting me to follow. I do, of course, even though I’m not sure what he wants me upstairs for. I know what I hope he wants, but I’m pretty sure it’s not for that.

  When we enter his apartment, he heads straight for the bedroom. I pause. Apparently, he senses that because he stops halfway down the hall and looks back at me. He gestures toward his bed. “Do you mind?”

  Okay. Now I’m having a freak-out moment for two reasons. One, I can’t believe his lousy sense of seduction—Ethan he’s not. And two, I wish I was wearing sexier underwear.

  I follow him, slowly. He walks past the bed, and then he’s out of my sight until I reach the doorway. He’s tossing clothes off a chair. I’m relieved to see that because I thought I had a clean freak on my hands, but I’m not sure how a chair fits into the sex thing. Oh. He’s pushing the chair over next to his desk.

  Chill, girly parts. No action for you today. The work day has begun.

  He sits down at the desk and motions for me to sit beside it. When I do, he hands me a legal pad and a pen. “List the locales you have in mind. San Francisco should be one.” He’s typing as he speaks. “When you’re done, give me that sheet and then make notes on any other thoughts you had about this proposed series.”

  I can’t stop staring at him. He must know how gorgeous he is, and wow does he look sexy this morning. “You should grow a beard.”