by Mindy Klasky
“You could do that,” he said amiably. “Or you could wait till I get back from the grocery store. I’ll scramble you some eggs. Fry up some bacon. Make some biscuits.”
She grinned. “You’re not going to let me forget admitting that weakness, are you? You know Who Wears the Apron doesn’t have a category for biscuit baking.”
“Maybe they’ll add one, when I point out that one of their star contenders can’t bake her way out of a paper bag.”
“Hey!” she exclaimed, and she threw a pillow at his head.
He flopped onto the bed beside her, grabbing her wrists before she could restock with further ammunition. She fought valiantly until he pinned her legs beneath his. Changing her tactics abruptly, she arched her back, smiling suggestively and looking up at him through her eyelashes.
An hour later, he was pulling on his jeans again.
“Seriously,” she said. “I should get out of your hair.”
This time, he looked at her from the safety of the doorway, his blue eyes calm and steady. “Go if you want. But don’t put the blame on me. I’d like it if you stayed, but the choice is yours.”
He stepped out of the room before she could push down the floating feeling in her belly, before she could figure out how to answer such basic, unadorned honesty. It turned out, the correct response was to shower and to raid his closet once again, finding another T-shirt, another pair of sweatpants to cinch extra tight and roll up around her ankles.
She wished she’d told him to pick up an extra toothbrush while he was out. Smearing Crest on her finger and rubbing it against her teeth was getting old.
What the hell was she thinking? She didn’t stay overnight at any man’s house, much less two nights. She certainly didn’t ask for a spare toothbrush!
Still shaking her head at the spell Josh had woven over her, Ashley decided it was high time to get the lay of the land. She had the bedroom down pat, and the kitchen was pretty much well-mapped territory. But she took her time as she studied the perfect, soulless living room that connected them. She stepped into the formal dining room and perused the flawless burgundy walls, the china cabinet that displayed half a dozen place settings of some fussy pattern that looked as far away from the Josh she knew as anything she could imagine. She found her way into a guest bedroom with its empty chifforobe and long, low dresser, with its box spring and mattress stripped clean.
Feeling like a brave princess exploring a fairytale castle, she even risked taking the steps to the basement. She flipped on the light before she went down the stairs, and she was rewarded with a view of a home gym that would put most professional places to shame. Free weights filled one corner, and a Universal gym hulked in another. A rowing machine and a stationary bicycle flanked the most elaborate treadmill she’d ever seen. All three machines were positioned with a full view of a giant television screen. Speakers were embedded in the ceiling; it looked like the stereo system alone would have set her back three years of working at Mangia.
She retreated to the kitchen and tried to make sense of the house as she poured herself a cup of coffee. She’d never been anywhere else that could simultaneously be so utterly impersonal and so completely lived in. It was as if Josh had ripped out huge parts of his life, cauterizing them out of existence.
As she tipped the last of the cream into her cup, she glimpsed his laptop on the kitchen counter. “What the hell,” she muttered, opening the screen. She wasn’t going to explore any of his personal files. She’d just do a little public research, faster and more efficiently than she could manage on her phone.
She opened up a browser and typed in Josh’s name. Of course, baseball facts and figures filled the screen. He’d been the league leader in hits four years earlier, and he’d hit seven career walk-off home runs. He’d been a contender several years running for the Gold Glove for his defensive play, but he’d only won the honor once.
She didn’t care about his status in the game. She paged past another screen of baseball trivia, skimming for more general articles. She wasn’t even sure what she was looking for. But she knew it when she found it.
Cantor Recants shouted a bold-type headline. She clicked on the attached article. There was a photo of Josh, a candid taken on the steps of some white marble building. He wore a suit, and he was clean-shaven, but he had dark circles under his eyes and his mouth was pulled down into an exhausted frown. The lighting made the break in his nose stand out like a deformity.
Another picture filled the right half of the computer screen. This one was dark, apparently taken in a restaurant or night club. A woman struck a pose for the camera, her right hand on her hip, her hair tossed into a golden halo that framed her carefully plucked eyebrows and sharply outlined lips. Her smile looked carnivorous, and the glint of her teeth matched the reflection of light off the diamond ring she wore—three carats at least.
Ashley glanced at the caption that ran beneath the pair of pictures. “Divorce was finalized Thursday between Rockets third baseman Josh Cantor and the former Harper Doyle.” The article was short and gossipy—apparently the divorce proceedings had spawned a minor industry of tabloid reporting.
A few more searches revealed the full story. Josh and Harper had been divorced three years earlier. She’d walked out of the courtroom with fifty million dollars and the title to their Aspen house and a New York apartment. Several articles referred to a division of household goods; apparently even the wedding china had been separated, place setting by place setting.
She was still reeling over the angry details when she heard the garage door open. A few quick keystrokes, and she’d cleared her search history. By the time Josh came into the kitchen carrying half a dozen grocery bags, she’d returned the computer to its place on the counter.
“What did you do?” she asked. “Buy the entire store?”
He shrugged after he set the bags on the counter. “Just a few things we needed.”
We. She waited for her heart to panic at the pronoun. But there was no rapid pulse, no frantic desire to sprint out the front door, to jam her key into her car’s ignition and get the hell back to her own apartment. Instead, she said, “I hope you remembered to get cream. I used the last of it.”
He rummaged around until he found the bright blue carton. “Heavy cream, one quart.”
“What else do you have in there?”
She stepped up to help unpack the bags. There were half a dozen exotic cheeses, each wrapped in carefully labeled white paper. He’d raided the deli counter for meats, too—a whole range of charcuterie that put the larder at Mangia to shame. It wasn’t all gourmet fare—there was white bread and a package of Oreo cookies. One bag held only two large bundles—each wrapped in white paper, each heavier than her purse.
“What are these?” she asked, turning them over to read the labels. Pork shoulder. Beef brisket.
“These,” he said, taking the packages from her, “Are my secret plan to win Who Wears the Apron.”
“You have a secret plan to win Who Wears the Apron?”
“Well, it’s not so secret any more. But it’s a plan.” He shoved the packages to the back of the refrigerator, filling the lowest shelf. As he straightened, he said, “Before I forget, hand me my computer.”
“Why?” she asked, surprised, but she passed the laptop to him. If he realized she’d been online, he didn’t say anything. Instead, he opened up a program and dug in a bowl for a cable. He connected his phone to the machine. “What are you doing?”
“Offloading the pictures I took the other night.”
He said it matter-of-factly, but she felt a blush ignite her cheeks. Those pictures… She’d thought about them a lot the last two days. She’d imagined them on his phone, in his pocket, pressed close against his thigh.
He gazed at her steadily now. “I started thinking, while I was standing in the checkout line. I could lose my phone. Someone could steal it. It’s not safe to walk around with those pictures on it.”
The software worked it
s magic. As she watched, all those pictures flashed onto the computer screen. Some were dark, almost unreadable as thumbnails. But others were bright enough to show her need, to illuminate exactly how turned on he’d made her. She stared at them, fascinated, feeling the same desire that had lured her to his bedroom in the first place.
There were a couple dozen, all told. She looked wicked. Seductive. Needy. Vulnerable. She was naked in a way that displayed a lot more than just flesh.
When they were all displayed, he moved the cursor to hover over the tiny electronic trashcan. His face was calm, impassive, but she felt the heat radiating from his shirt. He licked his lips, and she realized he was nervous, even though he met her eyes. “What do you want me to do, Ash? I can delete them all.”
Part of her knew she should say yes. That was the safe thing to do.
But part of her knew she never wanted them destroyed. Giving in to his desire had opened a gateway for her, had freed her from all her old concerns, about Martin, about exposure, about her past. She’d wanted to pose for him. She’d trusted him then, and she trusted him now. She knew it was safe for him to keep the images they’d made.
“No,” she said. “Don’t delete them. You can save them there.”
His smile melted her all over again. His fingers flashed across the keyboard, but she didn’t see what happened to the images, because he was folding her in his arms, drinking deep from her lips. His kiss was steady, powerful with a solid calm. She gave herself over to the feeling, to the simple connection that passed between them, echoing and re-echoing, without the distraction of words.
When he broke away, he rested his forehead against hers for another silent moment. Then he took a deep breath and asked, “Hungry?”
“Yeah,” she admitted. “But I don’t expect you to cook for me.”
He grinned and turned toward the deep drawers beside the stove. In short order, he had a heavy baking sheet on the counter, and he’d set the oven to preheat. “Ready to make biscuits?”
“How many times do I have to tell you? I hate biscuits.”
He clicked his tongue. “Jealousy isn’t attractive. Even from you.”
“I’m not—” she started to huff, but he was already deep in the pantry. By the time he’d emerged with a canister of flour, she’d swallowed her lie.
“Here,” he said, handing her a bowl made out of milky white glass. “Two cups of flour.”
She took the measuring cups he offered and obediently started to parcel out ingredients. Flour, baking powder, salt. She pulled a whisk from the container by the stovetop and stirred them all together. As she worked, Josh took butter from the refrigerator, along with the buttermilk he’d just bought.
“Two tablespoons of butter,” he said, “and two of shortening. Rub them into the dry ingredients until it looks like crumbs.”
“I know how to do this,” she said testily.
“That’s why you’re in such a good mood,” he said.
She started to protest, but figured he’d call her bluff. Instead, she followed his instructions to make a well in the center of her crumb-like dough. She knew how to do this all right. “All right, Master Chef,” she said. “Here’s the part where it all goes south.”
He eased behind her so that she felt his chuckle against her spine. “Don’t get so prickly. You don’t want the butter and shortening to melt.” Still standing behind her, he reached for the measuring cup of buttermilk. The motion brought his lips close to her ear, and she shuddered. He laughed again as he poured the liquid into the bowl. “Okay, stir until it just comes together. There! That’s enough.”
Keeping her in the circle of his arms, he turned the dough onto the granite counter. She hadn’t even noticed him dust the surface with flour, but he had at some point. “Come on,” he said. “I’m not doing all the work.”
She started to protest, but he trapped her fingers beneath his. Together, they kneaded the dough, folding it over on itself. The feel of his hands against hers made her knees weak, a sensation that wasn’t helped by the roll of his muscles against her back.
Six quick folds of the dough, and his fingers tightened on hers. “That’s it.”
“It’s barely holding together.”
“If you try to shape it any more, you’ll ruin it.”
She wanted to protest. The dough would never bake up into biscuits. It would scatter across the baking sheet, crumble into dust. She needed to work it more, define it more, make it into something she could control.
But she watched him pat the dough into a flat circle. He grabbed a glass from the cupboard beside the sink and used the rim as an improvised cookie cutter. His hands were calm and confident as he moved the biscuits to the baking sheet, and he wasted no time slipping them into the oven.
“And that’s how you make biscuits, babe.”
Part of her wanted to protest, to say she didn’t need him to show her around a kitchen. A much larger part of her, though, wanted to ask him for a second lesson—about anything, whatever would make him fold his arms around her, work her fingers between his, breathe into her ear, and just one more time, call her babe in that easy, uncomplicated way.
She shook herself back to life. “I guess that means I should cook up some eggs.”
He shrugged. “We’ll do it together.”
And they did. In short order, they were carrying full plates to the kitchen table. Only after she was settled did Josh turn back to the counter, collecting a stack of cooking magazines fresh from the store. “I figured one of them might have an article about cooking with cabbage.”
She grimaced. She’d been doing her best to forget her special ingredient for Who Wears the Apron. She still couldn’t imagine building an exciting dish that included the vegetable.
Josh took one look at the expression on her face, and he laughed out loud. But then he took pity on her and turned back to the shopping bags. Almost as an afterthought, he extracted a bright blue toothbrush from the bottom of the sack. “I almost forgot,” he said. “I’m a lousy host. Sorry.”
She grinned. “I think I can forgive your so-called poor hosting strategy. At least I’ve mastered biscuits, out of the deal.” She felt warm inside as they ate, and positively glowed when they retreated to the living room couch. Well-fed, they sat at opposite ends of the sofa, sharing a blanket and passing the cooking magazines back and forth for the rest of the afternoon.
~~~
Josh glanced up at the stars, blowing on his hands to try to keep them from freezing. Christ, it was cold out here!
What the hell did he expect, though? It was almost the end of November. Only a fool would be standing beside a smoker on the coldest night of the year, trying to add enough wood to raise the temperature on a brisket the size of a woolly mammoth. Satisfied that his fingers were not, in fact, going to freeze and break off, he completed shifting the hickory, adding enough apple to give the complex flavor he needed.
After resetting the temperature alarm on the smoker, he hurried back inside. The kitchen tiles, which had felt like ice on his bare feet when he responded to the alarm, now felt tropical. He’d been risking frostbite out there.
As he scuffed his feet across the living room carpet, he thought that a gentleman would have bothered to put on shoes before he went outside, just so he didn’t wake up the woman in his bed, getting back in with the blocks of ice that were standing in for his feet. Well, a gentleman wouldn’t have let a smoker alarm go off in the middle of the night in the first place. A gentleman wouldn’t have flung back the covers in his rush to save his main dish for Who Wears the Apron.
Trying to move silently, he slipped back into bed, collecting as much of the sheet and blanket as he dared.
“You’re freezing!” Ashley exclaimed. He had to admit his strategy looked pretty damn good as she cozied up to his back, slipping one leg over his and folding a hand across his belly.
He relaxed against her and said, “I’m warming up now.” She laughed sleepily and his cock twitched, ha
rd enough that she had to feel it.
She pulled him closer, but he thought she was drifting back to sleep until she asked, “Josh?”
“Hmm?”
“Can I ask you a question?”
He grunted something that sounded like permission.
Nevertheless, she was quiet enough that he thought she might have slipped into a dream. When she did speak, her voice was so soft he had to strain to hear. “Tell me about Harper.”
Shit. Just the bitch’s name was enough to turn his muscles to stone. And Ashley knew it. He felt her stiffen too, and he pulled away, flopping onto his back. He forced himself to hold a steadying breath for a count of ten. As he exhaled slowly, the silence stretched out—too long, too deep—until he finally said, “The divorce was final three years ago.”
She waited.
“We were married for three years, and that was two years and eleven months too long. She hated that I was in the game, hated that I was on the road half the time.”
More silence.
“We both thought we were done after a year, but I signed a big contract, and we saw real money for the first time. It was a lot easier to stay together when we could travel anywhere in the world, when we could buy a house in Aspen, get an apartment in New York.”
It had been years since he’d talked about this shit. He sure as hell wasn’t going to share with any of the guys on the team, and Angel knew the story inside and out. But saying the words to Ashley somehow made it easier, made everything seem more real. Even though he’d thought he’d die before admitting the details, he found himself wanting to say things out loud, wanting to understand them by hearing them in the darkness.
“I don’t know which of us cheated first. For me, it was women on the road. They all understood the rules—screw around, have some fun, go our separate ways in the morning. I was an idiot, but I was bored and lonely and I sure didn’t have anything to look forward to at home.”
Lying there, with his forearm across his eyes, he couldn’t remember the name of one of those women, not even a face. It had been easy to find them, easy to leave them. The hooking up was like scratching an itch; he hadn’t thought twice about it. Lying in bed next to Ashley, he couldn’t imagine falling back into that anonymous hell; he couldn’t remember why he’d done it in the first place. Better to finish telling his story. Better to get to the end with Harper.