by M. J. Pullen
So. Yeah. Emergency.
12
“Thanks again for coming by to help out,” Marlowe said, adjusting the box of cucumbers suspended in her arms as she held the door open with her hip. She tried not to look directly at the camera that had been tracking their progress all day long. “I know you usually take Mondays off.”
“No problem,” Kieran said gruffly, lugging a box of tomatoes past her into the prep kitchen. “I mean, when you said you needed to borrow some rum for a dessert, I really should have assumed you meant a case of rum, a trip to the farmer’s market, and several hours of unpaid manual labor.”
“Sorry,” Marlowe said in her most endearing, television-cute voice.
Kieran rolled his eyes. “You’re lucky there are so many witnesses present, or you’d be treated to a whole slew of Irish curse words.”
Steven, who was bringing up the rear with three boxes of bananas, ambled toward the door with his arms flexed out way more than necessary to show off his muscles. “I thought they spoke English in Ireland.”
Jo, who sensed intuitively that this was a gold mine for television, followed Kieran with Camera Two to catch his expression for the viewers. From what Marlowe could see, they wouldn’t be disappointed: one dark eyebrow raised sardonically over the hard shadows of his face. She could already imagine the informative little ribbon of text they’d add to the bottom of the screen: Both English and Irish (also called Irish Gaelic) are spoken in Ireland.
Okay, so Marlowe had looked that up herself shortly after meeting Kieran. But still. At least she wasn’t parading her ignorance on television. Plus, Steven had been saying that kind of douchey stuff all day long. Now, she resisted the temptation to let the door slam in Steven’s face and settled instead for changing her mind a couple of times about the best place for the bananas, so he was forced to hold his ridiculous flexing pose until his arms trembled.
When he finally set them on the table, Steven made a big show of shaking his arms out for the camera. “Whew! Too bad it’s leg day at the gym or I’d be done already.”
Kieran, who had busied himself washing tomatoes, covered a snort with the sound of the sprayer. Marlowe had to turn away to keep from laughing on camera. “You seriously don’t have to keep doing this,” she told Kieran quietly as she joined him at the stainless-steel sink. “They have plenty of footage for today. I’ll be fine to do the slicing once Steven gets bored enough to leave.”
As a concession to Steven’s push for international flavors, she’d added an East African marinated cucumber salad to the menu—actually perfect because it would be popular on the hot festival days and could be made ahead—and altered the homemade banana pudding she’d already planned, to give it a Caribbean twist. This had turned out to mean adding rum, which had been an excuse to call in Kieran to contact his liquor distributor. He’d delivered the rum himself and stayed far longer than she expected. Marlowe shuddered to consider what kind of friendship chips he was building up to cash in later. Maybe he would make her run the bar for weeks next time he went home to Ireland.
“Well, it is leg day,” he said now, handing her a cluster of tomatoes to de-vine. “I’m sure the gym is missing him.”
“Seriously, feel free to leave anytime,” she repeated, all too aware how annoying it had been to be with Steven all day…and a little worried that Kieran would think she was trying to get rid of him. “You’ve been more than generous.”
“Nah. I want you to do well with your first big festival, princess. I’ve a vested interest myself, you know.” He nudged her with his hip, strong and solid beneath ratty jeans. “Besides, what was I going to do with a day off anyway? I have all the sports and beer I can handle at work, and I’m not big on hobbies, to be honest.”
“No? You’re not part of a quilting circle?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Well, of course I am, but we meet Wednesday mornings after Mass.”
She laughed, and they worked for a bit in the relative quiet, washing tomatoes and peeling cucumbers in long vivid stripes, while the camera crew packed up and Steven changed into his workout clothes. Marlowe had really missed this since Tara left: the companionable rhythm of working side by side without needing to talk. Not that she minded doing this alone, but it was nice to stand next to someone who understood.
“Sure you don’t want me to stay?” Steven said over his shoulder as he opened the door to follow the camera crew out. “We are partners, after all.”
“Nope. When the cameras aren’t rolling, you’re an investor in my business. But thanks.”
Steven turned, paused, and turned back. “Hey, Irish. Make sure she gets to her car all right, will you? This isn’t the best neighborhood after dark.”
“Consider it done,” Kieran said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Marlowe said at the same time.
And with a long, uncharacteristically thoughtful glance, Steven’s blond head bounced out into the night.
“Can I ask?” Kieran said after a few minutes, when they’d nearly finished. “What’s the deal with you and Agent Frat Boy?”
Marlowe laughed again. She’d never heard a more perfect descriptor of her ex-boyfriend. “We used to date, but he’s just an investor. I told you the whole story about my friend leaving for New York with half our prize money, right?”
“Yeah, but…” Kieran placed the last of the shiny tomatoes on a crisp white towel, slinging the one he’d been using to dry over his shoulder. It was becoming a familiar and endearing gesture. “You know what? Never mind. It’s none of my business.”
“What?” Marlowe stopped halfway through the cucumber she was peeling to look at him. “You can’t do that, start a sentence like that and then drop it. It’s totally unfair.”
“Nah.” He shook his head, letting that one rebellious hank of hair fall across his damp forehead.
Damn. He was even sexier when sweaty and helpful in the kitchen. Shocker.
“It just…seems like he still has a bit of a hold over you.”
“What? He absolutely does not. I can’t stand him.” She finished viciously peeling the cucumber as she talked. “He was a horrible boyfriend, he cheated on me, and even by lending me money and supposedly helping me out of a jam, he makes me regret all my life choices. Daily.”
Kieran’s mouth quirked up in a grim smile. “See? All that energy you just put into telling me how much you hate him… You know what they say about hate.”
She set down the peeler and put both hands on her hips. “That it’s appropriate and justifiable in certain cases?”
“That it’s the flip side of passion.” His voice was low and gravelly, and he took a deliberate step closer so that their faces were inches apart. “Of love.”
She knew this feeling: it was a challenge. He was laying down a gauntlet, trying to get her to admit to weakness, to best her at her own feelings. Why did men insist on doing this? The worst part was, she did feel weak. And tired and lonely and frustrated on levels she didn’t even what to think about—especially with a guy who was more or less a boss (sort of), and the only friend she had at the moment.
At least, she’d thought he was a friend. But now the intensity of his closeness and those dark eyes and even the tiny beads of sweat on his forehead felt…dangerous.
“I don’t. Have. Feelings. For Steven.” She forced herself to maintain eye contact, to keep her voice steady. To not back away, despite the closeness of the air between them and the clean scent of his deodorant mixed with the aroma of cucumber peelings. “I did once, but it was the biggest mistake of my life. And I’m over it.”
“Then why do you still let him get under your skin like that?”
“You met him. He gets under everyone’s skin.”
Kieran said, “You could’ve gone to a bank for that money, or your parents, or raised it some other way. Why go to your ex?”
“My credit is terrible, my parents are taking care of my grandparents…” Marlowe was listing all the same reasons she’d give
n herself before she knocked on Steven’s door, and they still almost hadn’t been enough. “He’s one of the only people I know with actual cash on hand—”
“Cash from feckin’ people over.”
“He did say earlier he’d help you resolve the electrical issue,” Marlowe pointed out. Of course, she’d had to make Steven feel he was doing her a favor to get him to offer. “Not that I’m defending him.”
“Then why make him an equal partner?” Kieran demanded. “Why give him the kind of power that put him in control? Unless part of you likes being under his control?”
“That’s absurd. I am not under his control.”
He inched closer, covering her hand with his. She could feel the heat radiating off him. “Prove it.”
“‘Prove it’? What is this, fifth grade? How exactly am I supposed to demonstrate that I’m not still in love with my ex-boyfriend? Ignoring his menu suggestions, tanking my own business, or—” She fumbled for another option, and could only find the most obvious one, the one that had been thrumming just below her skin for the past couple of weeks. “By kissing you? Like that’s any better…”
As soon as she said it, she knew. He flinched as though she’d punched him, releasing her hand. She’d said what she meant, but it wasn’t what she meant, and she needed to explain. It wasn’t him; she desperately wanted to kiss him…and maybe more. It was their working relationship, and that things were complicated and she just didn’t have room for another guy in her life to question her every move. But even as those thoughts formed, she realized they were only half-truths. “I’m sorry—” she began, but the apology died on her lips as he grabbed her waist, pulled her close and kissed her hard.
His mouth was warm and taut against hers, and his dark stubble scratched against her face with almost painful urgency. Kieran’s kisses weren’t sweet and tentative, like a first date or an experiment to find out whether a friend had romantic potential. He wasn’t kissing her to seduce her, or impress her, or try something on for size. He kissed her like he couldn’t help himself, and like that pissed him off. Marlowe found herself responding in kind, pulling his face down to hers with her hands high on the back of his neck, barely able to breathe. Drowning in nothing that was suddenly everything.
He pulled back first, removing her hands gingerly from his neck, stepping back to open the space between them. Marlowe almost fell into that space, panting in frustration and an urgency that was radiating throughout her body: fingers, chest, belly, breasts…everything. She wanted to push against him, to push forward into that free and mindless oblivion she hadn’t allowed herself in so long.
“This…” he said unsteadily, putting her hands together beneath his. “This is my fault. I apologize.”
Marlowe shook her head, speechless. “Don’t—” Don’t apologize. Don’t think. Don’t stop, for the love of everything holy.
“I should never have pressed you like that. It’s not like me. We’re colleagues and…” He hesitated, swallowed. “We’re friends, as you generously pointed out.”
“Kieran, I didn’t mean—”
“I haven’t told you this, princess, but I got out of a pretty intense relationship myself, not so very long ago.” He forced a smile. “I just don’t think—well, it wouldn’t be fair to either of us, or to your business and the show, to start something up with the whole world watching. Not when things are so…” He glanced at the door where Steven had exited not half an hour before. “So complicated.”
“I meant what I said.” Marlowe could hear her voice trembling. “I don’t have feelings for Steven anymore. He doesn’t impact my personal life…”
Kieran’s laugh was low and mirthless. “I think we both know that’s far from true. Or at least, anyone who isn’t an idiot can see it when Agent Frat Boy looks at you. But I shouldn’t have called you on it like that. I really do apologize.”
She searched his face for traces of the heat they’d just shared, and watched as it disappeared, solidifying into a cold wall of resolve. “You’re right.” She pulled her hands stiffly away from his. “This really isn’t your business.”
“No, it isn’t,” he agreed. “I’m just the arsehole who showed up for you on my day off, simply because I like you and you called me for help. Little did I know it was just because your little television drama needed a third, to keep things interesting between you and Captain Flex there.”
“Is that what you think this is?” Marlowe started to argue again, but what could she say that she hadn’t already said? What could she say that hadn’t been in that kiss? If he could kiss her like that and still thought of her as belonging to someone else, there wasn’t much she could say. Defeat and exhaustion swept over her like a cold wind. The sleepless night and the whole damn day came tumbling down on her, making words and movement seem all but impossible.
Weird, wasn’t it? Two minutes ago, she would’ve said yes to just about anything this guy wanted to do. Drinking, dancing, a passionate night under a blanket in the walk-in cooler… But now she was bone-tired. Too tired for any more fragile male egos, that was for damn sure.
Kieran must have seen the change in her, because his fight seemed to drain away, too. “Look. Let’s just forget this ever happened. We’re adults—we can move on, right?”
Marlowe seriously doubted that. But she nodded, staring at the floor, blinking back tears, and hating herself for crying. Kieran’s hand grazed her elbow in a conciliatory gesture as he reached for a clean storage tub for the vegetables. “Come on, princess. Let’s get your stuff put away. I promised your boyfriend I’d walk you to your car and keep you safe from the dangerous neighborhood.”
The words were meant to needle her, but the feisty challenge was missing from them. He was resigning her to the fate he’d imagined for her and Marlowe was too tired and pissed off to fight back. They worked in silence again, less companionable than before, filling the tubs with clean vegetables she’d return to cut up tomorrow.
He walked her out, straight-faced and silent in his chivalrous duty. Marlowe kept her shoulders back and chin up, pretending she couldn’t still feel the scratches from his stubble burning on her cheeks, that her body wasn’t still tingling from his touch. Marlowe had a business to run, a life to live, and a festival to freaking knock out of the park or die trying.
Who the hell cared what Kieran thought anyway?
13
The next few days were a blur of chopping, dicing, stirring, and chilling—all while trying to keep the lovely but clueless staff Steven hired from cutting their beautifully manicured fingers off or setting the rental kitchen on fire.
Marlowe had to admit, the three new recruits were a step up from the models-turned-marketers he’d hired for their first night at the Tipsy Trucker. There was even a guy with a bit of sous chef experience under his belt. But it still felt as if most of Steven’s hires had been made with the cameras, rather than culinary abilities, in mind. Marlowe fought back the sneaking worry that he had Jerry Reasbeck’s approval on that approach.
Jerry was showing up more often now, too, which Marlowe guessed was normal for this stage of the process. He was friendly but distant, appearing for short periods to reassure everyone things were going great, murmuring instructions to the camera crew, and then disappearing again to the upscale Midtown condo he’d rented for his time in Atlanta.
“He’s producing several shows here,” Steven said offhand, when Marlowe mentioned the producer’s luxury apartment villa in one of their rare off-camera conversations. “It probably makes sense to have a place here.”
“I couldn’t even afford to walk in the door at that place,” Marlowe said sociably. “They probably require a deposit for people like us, in case we lower the property values just by being there.”
She and Steven had been at constant loggerheads during the festival prep; she found herself hoping to create some sense of kinship between them, while still keeping him at a safe distance. Like it or not, she still had to work with him. For now.
“It’s not that fancy.” Steven shrugged. “And who cares if the guy can afford a little luxury? It doesn’t make him a bad person. You focus too much on appearances sometimes, Mar.”
“I focus too much… Wait. You’ve been there? To Jerry’s condo?”
Conveniently, Steven’s phone buzzed before he had to answer, and he held up one finger as he took the call outside. With all the chaos of festival prep, they hardly spoke again after that, except on camera.
Worries about Steven’s relationship with their producer aside, there was a silver lining to being frantically busy, slightly freaked out, and forced to hold it together for the cameras. For one thing, there was little time or energy to worry obsessively about screwing the whole thing up. Or to wonder how things were behind the bar at the Tipsy Trucker. Just out of curiosity…
The downside was, by the time Friday morning rolled around, Marlowe hardly knew which way was up. The festival started at noon, and by nine they’d already lost three pans of pre-made pies while trying to load them onto the hot box (people bumping into one another, trays set on the edge of counters). The sous chef guy—the only capable staff member Steven had recruited—texted Marlowe in the middle of loading to say he had a job offer in Austin starting next week and needed to start packing today. Meanwhile, Steven was extra useless, hovering around in the way and talking loudly on his phone to various media outlets.
Marlowe drove the truck with a white-knuckle grip to their allocated spot in Piedmont Park, which was—of course—already taken. Upon investigating, Marlowe learned that a rather testy group of guys in a tie-dye taco truck—Taco ’Bout a Revolution—were put out that Life of Pie was getting preferential placement. Variations on a theme, Marlowe thought as she carted over a bag full of the rum-banana pudding to start negotiations. Where was her stalwart producer Jerry when she had to deal with this crap?