A Valentine's Day Treat: Two Short Stories

by Sam Mariano

  A Valentine’s Day Treat

  Two short stories

  By

  SAM MARIANO

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination, or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Stranded on Valentine’s Day © 2018 by Sam Mariano

  A Perfect Valentine’s Day © 2018 by Sam Mariano

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Thank you for not being a pirate!

  This ebook contains:

  Stranded on Valentine’s Day

  (The Stitches universe, featuring Griff, Moira, and Seb.)

  It’s Valentine’s Day in Philly, and everything is going wrong. Seb and Griff are stuck at the club, and Moira’s car leaves her stranded. Will their first Valentine’s Day together be a success, or a miserable failure?

  A Perfect Valentine’s Day

  (A Morelli family short story.)

  Mateo Morelli just wants to enjoy a quiet Valentine’s Day with his wife and newborn daughter. Dinner plans forgotten, baby sleeping peacefully, it seems like he may get his wish… until his eldest daughter turns up missing.

  (Also included: a never before seen—but much requested—sexy deleted scene from Last Words. That’s a bonus I threw in for free!)

  Author’s Note

  Happy Valentine’s Day!

  I’ve been hearing from my readers that they’re already missing the characters from my most recent releases, so I decided for a special Valentine’s Day treat, how about a short story featuring them?!

  It was sensible to pair these couples—er, relationships? Technically, I guess Sebastian, Moira, and Griff are a throuple? At any rate, fans of my primary Morelli couple are also likely to enjoy the dynamic of my Stitches throuple, so I put them together in this volume, assuming they have a good number of crossover readers. If you only want to read one or the other, cool, but there’s a story for each. (There is also a much-requested Morelli deleted scene, so Morelli readers get a bonus!)

  These are not standalone reads. Given they are shorts, it’s expected that you already know the characters, their histories, and their dynamics from reading their stories. Both of these short stories take place after the conclusion of the books the characters live in, so obviously reading them first would be ALL the spoilers, and probably a bit confusing. This is bonus content for people who have already read the books. If you try to read this without having read the books, you’ll very likely be lost.

  Special thanks to Daisy for naming Julia. <3

  So, if you’re here by mistake, the reading order before this treat is: Stitches, then Stranded on Valentine’s Day.

  And: Accidental Witness, Surviving Mateo, Once Burned, Family Ties, Resisting Mateo, Coming Home, Last Words, and Entrapment… then A Perfect Valentine’s Day. Many of my readers lamented not getting to see Mateo with his youngest daughter, since her conception happened after the final deleted scene in Entrapment. So, here you go. :)

  Stitches

  Stranded on Valentine’s Day

  Griff

  I thought my days of mopping floors were far behind me, but on this cursed Wednesday evening, literally everything is going wrong. The morning shipment came an hour ago, so nothing is put away. Our flaky-as-hell Wednesday night closer has taken flakiness to a whole new level; she called twenty minutes ago to tell us she can’t come in because her ex-boyfriend surprised her with an engagement ring and she’s flying back to California with him—tonight. Now, while the manager scrambles to find someone who will cancel their Valentine’s Day plans to come to work, I’m cleaning up a puddle of… I’m not even sure what liquid that a customer left behind on the floor by the bar.

  I should probably sterilize the fuck out of his stool, too.

  “Kendra laughed for a solid minute and then said no,” the manager announces, hanging up from his most recent attempt.

  Fantastic. I can’t justify leaving them short on a night I already know is going to be busy as hell, but I also don’t want to be stuck here on Valentine’s Day, of all fucking nights. As it stood, I needed to cut out early today so I could stop and pick up Moira’s present and some flowers.

  Now it’s looking like I won’t make it home at all. Seb’s damn sure not going to volunteer to stay and give up his plans with Moira.

  “Did you try Julia?” I ask.

  “Yep, I tried her first. She’s usually good for last minute call-ins, but she can’t do it; she has a date tonight.”

  Suddenly there’s another, stronger presence on the floor. The man who commands any room he walks into—my best friend and partner, Sebastian St. Clair.

  Dammit, Pete. Seb wasn’t even supposed to stop in tonight. I could have damn well handled this mess myself, but now my best friend’s familiar voice rings out behind me as he takes the situation in hand. “I’ll call Julia. Is shipment still in the back?”

  The manager nods his head.

  Seb lifts his chin, indicating the back room. “Go put it away.”

  “But we don’t have coverage on the bar.”

  “I’ll hang out behind the bar until Julia comes in. Believe it or not, I know how to pour a drink.”

  Hesitating, the manager considers whether or not he wants to repeat himself, even though Seb clearly heard him. Making the wrong choice, he says, “I already called Julia.”

  Seb stares at Pete for the beat of maybe three seconds and somehow shrinks the man where he stands. “I have ears, don’t I? I know you called her. I said I will call. She’ll come in if I call.”

  “She has a date.”

  Sighing, Seb shakes his head and walks around the bar. “She’ll cancel the date. Just go put the goddamn order away, Pete. Jesus Christ.”

  I smirk as a confused Pete heads to the back. When I glance over at Seb, he’s already behind the bar, peeling his suit jacket off and rolling the sleeves of his dress shirt up to the elbow. “Look at you, working behind the bar again,” I remark.

  “I wouldn’t get too cocky over there; you look like the janitor.” Dropping his gaze, Seb punches in a few numbers and places his cell phone to his ear, grabbing a cloth and wiping down the bar top before we get busy.

  I can hear his machinations so clearly as Julia answers the phone and his voice drops to a playful, somewhat intimate tone. “Hey. How’s my favorite employee doing tonight?” He pauses for her to answer, smirking even though she can’t see him. It comes through in his voice, the charming bastard. I can’t even hear her side of the call, and I practically feel poor Julia getting flustered across the city.

  “Oh yeah?” he continues. “That sounds like fun. Here’s the problem. I really need you tonight. Whitney bailed on us; I’m all alone at the bar, poor Griff’s over here mopping floors. Pretty sure Pete’s going to have a coronary from all the stress. Now, I know he said you had some kind of date tonight…”

  He pauses, giving our poor, awkward, lovestruck employee just enough time to soak up his words, and the way he trailed off.

  “… But I was hoping if I asked you as a personal favor, maybe you could do this for me? I mean, you and this jackass can get dinner tomorrow, right? Tell you what, your date tomorrow? It’s on me. I wanna buy you that dinner. And the restaurants will be less crowded then anyway. You’ll have a nicer evening if you go out tomorrow, plus you can help out your favorite boss. It’s
a win-win.”

  I shake my head, sinking the mop into the water bucket, then squeezing it out one more time so I can sop up the last of the water on the floor.

  “You can?” he asks, theatrically relieved. “Aw, Julia. You really are my favorite, you know that? Thank you so much.”

  Now that he’s got what he wanted, he ends the call and slides the phone back into his pocket. His tone returning to normal, he tells me, “Bar’s covered. Julia will be here in a half hour.”

  “You are a sociopath,” I inform him.

  Appearing surprised, he clutches his heart. “That hurts, Griff.”

  “You know that poor girl has a crush on you and you just took advantage of it to ruin her night.”

  “It was hers or ours,” he states, practically. “You want to disappoint Moira? See, I’d rather coax Julia into rescheduling her date that isn’t going anywhere anyway, and you and I can go home to our wife. But hey, if you’d rather stay here and tend the bar all night so Julia can eat fucking burritos with a pimple-faced dipshit, be my guest.”

  “You are the worst.”

  “I’ll buy her dinner tomorrow. It’ll make her month. I’m practically a prince.” Nodding toward the back, he goes on without missing a beat. “When you take that mop bucket to the back, you want to tell Pete I got it covered? For some reason he seemed to lack faith in my abilities.”

  I finish running the mop over that area of floor, dunk it back into the water, and begin to wheel it to the back. As I pass the bar, I casually mutter, “Satan.”

  Unconcerned, Seb replies, “You’ll thank me later when—instead of staying here all night and being a hero—you’re relaxed on our couch and Moira’s sucking your dick.”

  Damn, I hate to be an asshole, but that does sound a hell of a lot better.

  Seb has been here less than five minutes and the entire catastrophe of today is pretty much handled. Pete relaxes when I tell him the bar is covered, Seb tends bar like the old days when we were saving up every dime we could make, and I sanitize the hell out of this stool.

  I think I got the shit end of this stick.

  A buzzing in my pocket interrupts the miserable string of complaints running through my head. I pull out my phone and see Moira’s name flashing across the screen. My whole being lightens and a little smile tugs at my lips as I hit the green button and put the phone to my ear.

  “Hello, beautiful,” I answer.

  “Hey, baby,” Moira says, warmly.

  I lift my shoulder to hold the phone while I maneuver this stool out of the corner. “What are you up to?”

  Moira sighs heavily. “Well, that’s kinda why I was calling. I’m in a jam and I was hoping you could help me.”

  I drop the stool and straighten. “Help you with what?”

  “I’m stranded,” she tells me. “I was out running the last of my Valentine’s Day errands, but now my car won’t start. I was hoping if you weren’t too busy, maybe you could come pick me up? I’m stuck in this stupid parking lot, I still need to make one last stop, and now I’m running super behind.”

  I check the watch on my wrist to see if a half hour has passed yet, but to be honest, I’m not even sure why. If Moira needs me, I don’t care if the club is covered. The club could literally be engulfed in flames, and if she called me for help, I would drop the fire extinguisher to go help her, even if she only needed help opening a fucking pickle jar.

  “Yeah, I can come get you. Did you call Seb?”

  “No. I called you.”

  A shit-eating grin splits my face. Pete may have called Seb, Moira may call him 9 out of 10 times, but Moira needed help today and she called me first. “All right, good. Give me a minute to wash my hands and tell Seb I’m leaving. Text me where you are and I’ll be right there.”

  “I’ll be waiting. Thank you,” she adds, sweetly.

  Relief and pleasure mingle together in my bloodstream as I slip the phone back in my pocket. I can’t remember what I was so annoyed about a minute ago, but now I hurry up and get shit sorted so I can get out of here.

  I head out to the bar, and sure enough, Julia is behind the counter mooning at Seb. It hasn’t even been a half hour, so she must have hung up and made a beeline for her car. Probably canceled her date during the drive here.

  I shake my head.

  Poor, misguided girl. I know how that unrequited infatuation bullshit goes—and unlike me, she doesn’t have a shot in hell of ever getting reciprocation out of hers. Seb would never hurt Moira, not in a million years. He may have lightly toyed with Julia to get her to come in, but that’s just what he does. When the situation calls for it, he won’t hesitate to step on people if it means he gets what he wants. Since he ruined this poor girl’s night so he could go home to his wife, he takes pity on her now and doles out a few minutes of his attention.

  Until I walk by, then he holds up a hand. She’s been around him just enough that she stops talking mid-sentence. His high-handedness should annoy her, but I swear the adoration in her eyes intensifies instead. Seb abandons her there and approaches the counter, leaning over and meeting my gaze. “Where are you going?”

  “Moira called. Her car won’t start. I told you I thought it was making a weird noise. We should’ve had it checked out instead of letting her drive around in the damn thing.”

  Seb rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t making a noise. I took it for a drive after you said that. The noise was in your head.”

  “Well, now the car has left her stranded in a parking lot in the middle of God knows where, so maybe you should consider the possibility that you’re wrong.”

  “Seems unlikely,” he says, lightly.

  Julia mirrors his posture, leaning her elbows on the counter beside him. “What are we talking about?”

  I look Julia straight in the eye. “Seb’s wife.”

  Julia has the grace to flush and look away.

  Seb smirks at me. “Well, what are you wasting your time talking to me for, then? Go rescue Moira from the parking lot.”

  “Don’t be an asshole,” I tell him, leaving the bar and heading for the door.

  “I’ve tried,” he calls after me. “It was too hard.”

  ---

  Moira opens her car door and steps out as soon as she sees me pull into the parking lot. Her long dark hair blows in the wind, whipping around her beautiful face. I’m relieved to see a smile touching her cherry-red lips. On the way over, I worried she might be upset—I think it’s a silly thing to be upset about since guys don’t really care about Valentine’s Day, but she’s adamant about making the day nice for us. Of course, she’s adamant about making every day nice for us, so I probably shouldn’t be surprised.

  “Thank you so much for coming,” she says, grabbing bags out of her backseat. “I need you to take me to—I don’t know, a drug store? I need to buy a lipstick.”

  I blink at her, taking the bags from her and transferring them into my backseat so she doesn’t have to. “Lipstick? All this over some lipstick?”

  Flashing me a smile over her shoulder, she says, “Well, no, I needed a ride home anyway. I already finished most of my errands, just two stops left.”

  “Two stops for lipstick?”

  “Hopefully just one stop for lipstick,” she corrects. “I need a specific shade of pink.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Smiling, she leans in and pecks me on the lips. “That’s the spirit.”

  I catch her around the waist since she’s so close. She sways right back into me, looping one arm around my neck and settling one on my side. “I didn’t get to give you a proper hello.”

  “Mm, can’t have that, now, can we?” she murmurs, pulling me close as I bend to give her a much better kiss than the peck she gave me. Moira closes her eyes, sighing against my mouth. It’s hard to believe I’ve had her almost a whole year, and it still feels just like it did the first time I was allowed to kiss her. Fucking incredible.

  Her blue eyes glow with warmth when I finally pull
back. “Well, hello, handsome,” she says, teasingly.

  I just smile, smack her on the ass, and tell her, “Give me your keys, minx.”

  Her smile slips a little. “For what?”

  “I’m gonna see if I can get your car started.”

  Moira shakes her head, heading to my passenger side door and opening it. “I already told you, it won’t start. There’s no time to mess with it. My lipstick awaits!”

  So, I drive around Philly looking for the right fucking pink lipstick. Can’t say I mind. It’s a nice ride with Moira, hearing about her day, telling her about mine. Mostly I just love that I’m the one she called. Seb is always the problem solver—big or small, he’s the fixer. Even though this is something small, it makes me happy. I love being there for Moira when she needs me. She’s what I need every single day.

  “Oh, my God, Griff, look at this.”

  I’m glancing at shelves of candy at the third drug store when it hits me that in my haste to get to Moira in her time of need, I did not get a chance to pick up her gift and some flowers. Fuck. Now she’s with me and I don’t know what I’m going to do. I didn’t want to take her with me to the store; I wanted to show up and surprise her.

  Much as I hate to, I draw out my phone and text Seb. “Hey, can you do me a favor when you leave work?”

  “Griff,” Moira says again, peeking her head around the corner to see what’s keeping me.

  “Coming,” I reply, dutifully meandering into the aisle where she is.

  A delighted Moira holds up a giant gray teddy bear. It holds a big red heart that reads “Happy Valentine’s Day!” and has the year embroidered on its foot.

  I cock a skeptical eyebrow. “That’s what you’re getting Seb?”

  Moira rolls her eyes at me. “Of course not. We have to get this for Layla. It’s bigger than she is. She’ll love it.”

  “Or she’ll be terrified of it,” I suggest, flipping over the price tag to check. It’s an old instinct; I certainly don’t need to check price tags anymore, but I’ve never managed to shake the habit. “We can get it for her, if you want to.”