by Stacy Gail
After sending the text, she opened a can of cat food, plopped it on a paper plate and set it under the breakfast bar, removing the empty paper plate that was already there.
“Soup’s on, Red.” She glanced around the big living space and couldn’t find any sign of the cat she’d begun to think of as Red The Skittish. Then she spied a flash of calico sneak down the hall and into the powder room to peek out toward the food. Carefully Sass backed away, making sure she didn’t make eye contact with the semi-feral cat Ivar and Scout had tamed. “I’ve got some nice kibble for you too, so you can snack whenever you want. Interested?”
No movement down the hall, just one glowing eye trained on her.
“Yeah, I think you’re interested.” She got another plate out and poured some kibble onto it. The sound made Red vanish entirely into the powder room, and Sass sighed as she set it down next to the wet food and a stainless steel bowl of water. She understood Red. Shuffled from her home into a strange place she didn’t know, with a person she didn’t know would have made her hide too. In fact, she had hidden many times in the past, even when she’d gotten to the Panuzzis. It had taken a lot of patience for them to get her to come out of her Nowhere Place.
But they’d done it, because they hadn’t given up on her.
So she wasn’t going to give up on Red The Skittish.
Once Red’s meal was taken care of, Sass dug out the makings for her favorite orange-ginger stir fry. As she brought the wok over to the stove her phone rang and the downstairs buzzer sounded almost simultaneously. Glancing at the phone she’d left on the counter, she plucked it up when she saw it was Scout, thumbing the screen as she headed for the intercom’s panel by the front door. “I have someone downstairs buzzing to be let in,” she announced by way of greeting. “What time is it there? Shouldn’t you be asleep by now, Mrs. Fournier?”
“Ivar and his magical penis powers don’t know the meaning of sleep,” came the static-laden response, but Sass could still hear the happiness ringing in her former foster sister’s voice. “It’s about one in the morning here in the Riviera, and we’re just now thinking about dinner.”
“Sounds like you’ve already had each other for dinner, so maybe you should just skip right to dessert.”
“He is my dessert, babe, trust me on this.” The buzzer sounded again. “Go ahead, see who it is. I’ll wait. Ivar’s downstairs arranging some kind of ride for us. If it’s a limo, I’m totally going to jump his bones in the backseat.”
“Good plan.” Pulling the phone slightly away from her face so she wouldn’t create feedback, she hit the intercom. “Yes?”
“Sassy, it’s Rude. Have you eaten dinner yet?”
Just like the first time he’d shown up on her doorstep, Sass’s brain came to a crashing halt, and all she could do was stare at the intercom liked it had just spewed gibberish.
“Answer him, dummy!”
With a jolt, she glanced at the phone she still held and took Scout’s sound—if vaguely insulting—advice. “Uh, Rude? No, I was going to make stir fry.” Great answer. Really witty. Next she’d wow him with her after-dinner plans of painting her nails.
The intercom engaged once more. “Great minds. Let me in and put the wok away. I’ve already got stir fry, veggie and shrimp, sweet and sour pork, fried rice and my favorite, Kung Pao Chicken.”
Her growling stomach had her pressing the door-release button before her brain could tell her that she was a moron. “So,” she said into the phone she belatedly remembered she still held, “that was Rude.”
“Yeah, I heard every freaking word.”
“I guess we’re not done tempting fate. World War III might still be on the horizon.”
“This is unprecedented. I mean, you and Rude sharing two meals in the same day? If I didn’t know better—and seriously, I do—I would say you two were kind-of dating.”
“Bite your tongue. Better yet, have Ivar bite it.”
“I like it when he uses his teeth, but not there.”
Sass snorted. “TMI.”
“Are you opening the door yet? I want to hear how he greets you.”
“I’m thinking of hanging up on you, actually.” But she did as Scout suggested and hauled the door open, braced her free hand on the doorjamb, and stuck her head out into the hallway.
No Rude… yet.
Footsteps echoed hollowly in the lobby below. Masculine. Determined.
Coming closer.
For no reason at all, a swarm of butterflies attacked her stomach.
Weird.
“Sass.” She heard Scout’s infuriated intake of air. “Don’t you dare hang up on me when things are about to get interesting.”
“How could anything possibly be interesting between Rude and me? We can’t stand each other…” Her words faded out as Rude suddenly rounded the brass-topped balustrade, a couple of white sacks hanging from one hand. His ebony hair was wind-ruffled and falling onto his brow. His lean face, dominated by that chiseled jaw, was shadowed with a five-o’clock shadow that hadn’t been there this morning. Somehow his shoulders seemed bigger in his leather jacket as he moved with slow deliberation toward her. When he caught sight of her, his eyes sparked to vivid life as if a fire had been lit from within, and the heat of that fire spilled into the strangely hungry smile that appeared.
“Aggressively masculine,” she muttered to herself, trying to remember that she didn’t like men like that. Nope. Not at all. Men who were over-the-top manly and vibrating with heart-stopping surges of testosterone left her completely and utterly cold.
She had to stifle a shiver as he closed the distance.
Yeah. Cold.
Sure.
“Sass, what did you say?” Scout’s voice came to her from far away, figuratively as well as literally. “Our connection’s terrible.”
Her connection with Rude had always been terrible, that was for sure. Everyone knew that. So it was a complete mystery to Sass why she couldn’t tear her gaze from him as he slowed down when he got to her door. He didn’t come to a complete stop the way she’d expected him to, however. Instead of waiting for her to move aside or ask to be let in, he gently nudged her back, his free hand wrapping around the wrist she had braced on the doorjamb and moving her arm aside when it should have been an obvious deterrent.
Maybe Marines were taught to ignore things like obvious deterrents.
“Who’s on the phone?” Rude’s low rumble bounced her out of her thoughts, and suddenly all she was aware of was him. With his fingers still wrapped around her wrist in a hold that she instinctively knew she wouldn’t be able to get out of, he shut the door with the sacks of food hanging off his wrist, before he locked it for good measure.
“Um.” He’d asked her a question, she was sure of it. But it was hard to focus on answering when she’d just gotten a woodsy, spicy whiff of him. “It’s Scout. I was going to hang up on her when you arrived, but for some weird reason she said she wanted to hear how you greeted me.”
“Yeah?” A sudden devilish light danced among the flames in his eyes, and he leaned into her so that his face hovered near the phone she still held to her ear. She stilled, stunned to have his face within inches of hers. “Sass, you’re more beautiful every time I see you. I almost can’t believe you’re real.”
“No way,” Scout breathed. “No fucking way.”
The strange tension over the intimacy of the moment fizzled. Damn it. This was nothing but a joke to him. And to her too, of course. She made that clear by nearly spraining her face on an eye-roll, all the while ignoring the odd sense of deflation sinking through her. “Scout, don’t be impressed—”
His nose brushed the hair over her ear, while the hand shackling her wrist pulled her inexorably closer. “Everything about you impresses me, my sweet little Sassy Pants.”
“And you’re about to be impressed with how far I can jam this phone up your ass, my darling little Sugar Britches.”
Rude burst out laughing, and let her go.
“Oh, gee
z,” Scout said, though Sass could barely hear her through the sound of his laughter. “I get it. Ha-ha, very funny.”
“It would be more than just funny if that was for real. It would be a clear indicator that we were both batshit crazy.” Glaring at Rude—an effort that was completely wasted on him, as he’d made a beeline for the kitchen—Sass sighed into the phone. “I’d better let you go. Have fun with your new hubby.”
“Text me later to let me know how this latest non-date went.”
What the hell, Sass thought as she tucked her phone away and followed in Rude’s wake. There would be nothing to report except the same-old, same-old, as neither she nor Rude could tolerate each other’s presence. The only reason he was here had to be that he had no clue what to do when it came to putting together his parents’ anniversary party. This wasn’t even a non-date.
This was nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
“What are you looking for?” Sass frowned as he put the bags of takeout on the counter and pulled open a random drawer by the fridge, clearly making himself at home.
“Forks. Everything came with chopsticks, but I’m too hungry to fuck around with them.”
She pulled open a drawer. “Glad to hear it. It takes me forever to finish a meal with those things.” And the sooner she got him out the door, the better.
“Where do you keep your wine glasses?”
Surprised, she nodded at the small wine rack around the corner by the pantry, where glasses hung by their stems. “I’m not sure what kind of wine I have that would be good with Chinese.”
“No worries. I brought a rice wine that goes with Kung Pao chicken like candlelight goes with satin sheets.”
In the process of fishing out flatware, his words hit her like a Mack truck.
Holy. Freaking. Shit.
In an instant her thoughts did their best impression of a flock of startled birds, scattering in every direction. Why the hell would he say such a thing? Was he trying to be provocative, or was it just the fact that her mind was a total gutter-dweller? God knew she could twist just about anything into a dirty joke, and she had a special talent for finding ways to use the phrase, “that’s what she said.” But her Jedi-level dirty-mind tricks worked against her now, and made her see provocative statements where there couldn’t be any.
Candlelight and satin sheets, though…
That was one hell of a word picture. She didn’t even have to get creative to go all Barry White on that.
So there was no doubt; he’d drawn that word picture deliberately. And if any other guy had said it, she’d have seen it as a signal to flirt her ass right out of her clothes.
But this was Rude. That meant nothing was what it seemed, and if she had to, she’d glue her damn clothes on to make sure they stayed in place.
“Sass?”
She jumped, mortified. Good grief. She was staring at the forks in her hand like she had no idea what they were. “I was just considering the carbs of a serving of saké versus regular wine. Usually I counsel against drinking your calorie or carb intake on a daily basis, but it’s all right to treat yourself every now and again.”
Oh God, she was babbling. And not just any babbling. She was boring-babbling. Worst of all, she was doing it because she wasn’t thinking about her intake of carbs. No. She was thinking about her very personal intake of Rude.
Of all people, Rude.
“No work tonight.” He came at her like a force of nature, and she found herself herded toward the dining room table and seated before she knew what was happening. “Tonight we relax, eat some good food and make a little progress.”
“Progress.” She watched him place several food containers on the table before he opened a small bottle of rice wine and poured out equal measures into the glasses. “You mean on your party plans? I went ahead and found a couple venues that would be big enough to accommodate what you need, but all the best places have already been booked. If you were hoping for the Grand Ballroom at Navy Pier or Venue One with all the amenities, you’re shit out of luck.”
He shrugged and sat down opposite her. “Since my hopes were aimed at pasta night with the family and didn’t go any further than that, I think I’ll be able to live with the disappointment.”
“If you were any more of a typical dude when it comes to your man-planning, I’d swear someone was writing your script for you.”
He shrugged and forked in a mouthful of Kung Pao. “There’s a reason stereotypes exist, Sassy Pants. This shit’s way the hell out of my purview, unless we hold the party at a laser tag place. I kick ass at laser tag. And paintball, now that I think about it.”
“Yeah, I can just see Mama Coco diving behind cover to avoid a hail of paintballs.” Then she pointed her fork at him. “By the way, call me Sassy Pants again and I swear to God I’ll call you Sugar Britches in public.”
“I’m cool with that.” He paused in his eating, his fork suspended as he nailed her with an in-your-face grin. “Sassy Pants.”
Ugh. “I owe you a Sugar Britches. Don’t let me forget.”
He laughed softly. “I won’t.”
There was something oddly predatory about that laugh, so she tried pushing ahead to safer waters. “I was surprised to find that the Crystal Gardens at Navy Pier has that night open, but we’d have to start the party at eight, since there’s something booked before that. I also found a place called The Lake Loft, which is a bit of a drive up the coast, and Chic Chicago is also available. It’s inside the Loop, which is great, but only so-so parking, which is bad. Oh, and the loft place, in addition to being a half-hour drive from Mama Coco and Papa Bolo’s house, doesn’t have the amenities you need, like valet parking and quality liquor packages. And taxi service for a place that far out for people who over-imbibe is going to be expensive.”
“Cross the loft off the list.” He waved his fork in the air in an X pattern. “We’re Italians. We love food, wine and family, and we party our asses off when all three are combined. Speaking of, eat. I’m halfway done and you’ve barely started.”
Mainly because she was hungry and not because she was a fan of following orders, she dug into the Kung Pao and took a moment to savor its spicy bite. “If you’re not busy tomorrow, you should head over to both Crystal Gardens and Chic Chicago to see which one suits best.”
“Great. We will.”
She almost choked on a swallow. “Pardon me?”
“We’re gonna do that tomorrow morning, first thing. I’ve got to be at work by noon.”
“So… when you say we, you’re referring to you and your imaginary friend, right? Because I’m sure as hell not going. I’m not throwing this party, you are.”
“Look, we’ve already established that if I’m left to my own devices, I’m going to do a man’s job on it. And by that, I mean laser tag and spaghetti at my place. Or yours,” he added, looking around. “My place is just where I’ve been crashing for the past six months. Yours is way nicer, in a decadent, hedonist’s paradise sort of way.”
“I’m not even going to ask what that means,” she muttered, and shoveled in fried rice rich with veggies, shrimp and soy sauce. “I’m not throwing this party for you.”
“No, you’re going to be throwing it with me, because you love my parents as much as I do. How many times have you thrown this party in the past?” Rude kept talking while she tried to contradict him, until she finally gave up with a vexed sigh.
“I’ve only thrown the anniversary party twice. What’s your point?”
“I’ve never done it. I’ve always been away. Last year’s was the only one I’ve ever gotten close to attending, and even then I missed it by a couple days. So since I don’t know what I’m doing, you’ve got a choice of letting me do it my way, or helping me do it the way it should be.”
She sighed. It was tragic that his reasoning made a whole lot of sense. “I guess it is kind of hard to build a house when no one’s given you the blueprints on how to do it.”
“That’s
one way of putting it.”
“And if Scout were here, she’d be all over helping you, the way she was with me when I threw the anniversary party for the first time,” she added fairly, finishing off the last of her meal. “Talk about not knowing what I was doing. It was a total fiasco.”
“What happened?”
“It’s more like what didn’t happen.” She grimaced at the memory. “I’d booked a venue sight unseen because, like you, I had gotten a late start and I was desperate. Come to find out, the place I’d booked had been a slaughterhouse in a former life, and the interior still smelled like rotting animals.”
“That’s a smell that’ll be sure to set the mood for a party.”
“No amount of Febreze or potpourri was ever going to make that right, so I had to get creative, fast. Luckily I found a party barge company that had just started up, and they were willing to work with me on pricing. By the time Mama Coco and Papa Bolo’s anniversary rolled around, that barge had been turned into The Macau Palace, the floating casino from James Bond’s The Man With The Golden Gun.”
“So it all turned out for the best.”
“Barely. If it had been stormy, it would have become the Barf-O-Rama barge and the first failure for the annual Panuzzi bash. Thank God we had great weather that night.”
“So you were the one who was behind the party barge shindig. Anthony was totally ape-shit over that party, if I remember correctly.” He speared the last of the sweet and sour pork, then reached for his glass. “I was at Camp Geiger for my MCTs back then and couldn’t get online to see what was happening, so he sent me a ton of pictures. You had all kinds of gambling tables set up, and then some murder mystery dinner theater happened, right?”
“Oh my God, yeah.” She laughed out loud, remembering. “It was awesome and crazy all at the same time. Everyone who was in on the murder mystery wanted to be either the murderer or the hardnosed gumshoe, and no one wanted to be the dead body. In the end, Frankie pulled the preggo card, saying that she’d drop baby Giovanni right there if she couldn’t have her way and be the murderer. So we all backed off and let the crazy pregnant woman figure out who was who and what was what.”