“That was incredible.”
“Thank you.” She grips my waist with one arm, coming so close, our hips bump as we walk. “Now that I’m independently wealthy, can I offer to take you for dessert?”
“No. Save that money for the restaurant you open. Or, hell, the dance studio.”
“How do you do it? Own two bars and have a life? I’ve seen the way Tad burns the candle at both ends—and then buys more candles and lights those up too.” She shakes her head. “It’s a nightmare.”
“Hire people you trust. Don’t hover. That’s how I do it. I put in a bid for another location about a week and a half ago.” The new place is close enough to my other two that I can check in on it, though it’s going to need a lot of work inside. “It used to be a coffeehouse. I want to turn it into a restaurant and bar like McGreevy’s. But with a different style.”
“Sounds amazing.”
“It doesn’t have to be as miserable as your brother makes it look, Princess. Some of us can handle running a business alongside burying a family member and still appreciate that life is pretty fucking great.”
“You’re pretty fucking great.” She lifts her chin for a kiss that I duck my head to deliver.
“Yeah, so are you. On second thought, where are you taking me for dessert? Is there any other weird food you’d like to treat me to while I’m here?”
“Actually . . .” she stops in front of a shop with a sign that reads herbal remedies. “Why don’t I make you something special tonight?”
She drags me forward and we step into a shop that’s half health-food store, half apothecary. Nearly everything the store sells is displayed in big glass containers. Blooming teas, dried herbs, essential oils . . .
“Oh, I get it. You’re going to sacrifice me to the gods,” I say as she tugs me down the aisles.
“No. But I am thinking sake bombs for a nightcap and maybe some of the really cool chocolates they sell by the ounce.”
“Sake bombs?”
“Mm-hm. You haven’t lived until you’ve dropped a shot of sake into your beer by banging the table and knocking it off the chopsticks it’s balanced on.” She says this while grabbing two sets of chopsticks and a small bottle of sake from the shelf.
“Just you wait.” Becca and I stop in front of a glass case filled with chocolates as the woman behind it greets us with a smile.
“Let me guess,” the woman tells us. “Lovers’ special? We have many aphrodisiac chocolates. Ones with strawberries, chili peppers, and, if you’re truly daring, oysters.”
“Good God,” Becca says at the same time I have to mentally will my lunch to stay in my stomach. “I don’t think we’ll be that daring. Thanks, though.”
Becca buys an array of chocolates—oyster free, thank you very much. We drop the goods off at the Jeep and drive up the mountain for one last experience she insists I have while I’m visiting.
Zip-lining.
No. I’ve never done it.
She says she hasn’t either, but she double-checks her harness like a pro. Twilight is setting in, and from the top of the hill I watch as several visitors scream their way down. The rocks and tops of trees resemble a canyon gradually getting darker. Once I’m strapped in, a surge of excitement laced with adrenaline courses through my veins. Like with Becca, I’m trusting that I’ll let go and the ride will have been worth it.
Turns out zip-lining is fast, fun, and over before I know it.
As we’re disconnecting from the cable with the help of the guy working the platform, I can’t help thinking that zip-lining is very similar to what it’s like to be with blonde at my side.
The fast and fun I like.
But the closer we get to “over,” the less inclined I am to wrap things up with her.
Chapter 19
Becca
Saturday
Two days later, Dax and I are in his Jeep, the windshield wipers working hard to keep the window rain free. He navigates downtown as we make our way to the movie theater for a matinee. Going to the movies was not our original plan for today.
The original plan involved a hike in the mountains, stopping at a picturesque view, and enjoying a picnic lunch.
“You are officially the rain king,” I tease, watching the rain pour in sheets from the sky. “Our romantic wine-and-crab-cake lunch is about to be reduced to Jujubes and flat fountain Coke.”
“Jujubes are plenty romantic. You’ll see.” Dax, arm outstretched, fist gripping the top of the steering wheel, takes his eyes off the road for a second to send me a smirk.
That one look sends shivers up both my arms.
“I guess I’ll have to save my outfit for another time.” I let out an exaggerated sigh. “Super short shorts, hiking boots, and a red and black plaid I would have knotted at my bare midriff . . .”
I grin when he groans.
“You did that on purpose.” He shifts in his seat like he’s feeling a bit of tightness down below. Heck yeah, I did it on purpose. It’s nice to be liked. It’s extra nice to be liked by him.
My cellphone rings and I dig it out of my bag, consider the screen for the length of another ring, and finally accept my fate.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Sweetheart! So glad I caught you! I’m running late.” She sounds frantic, and that’s not unusual. My mom is going to be late for her own funeral. I guess we have that in common. “Dad’s birthday is tomorrow,” she tells me, referring to my dad.
“What’s the plan?” If there is one, it’s being pieced together as we speak.
“Well, dinner”—I hear the oven door open and slam shut—“will be done in an hour.”
I let that sink in before asking her to clarify. “Pardon?”
“Dinner, sweetheart. For Dad’s birthday. One hour. Oh, and can you pick up a cake? I didn’t have time to make one and the lasagna is in the oven, so I can’t put a cake in there with it, now can I?”
“But . . . tonight?”
“The Masons invited us out to an art show and dinner tomorrow night. Something about how Debbie’s sister couldn’t go because she came down with the flu, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, the tickets were free. I didn’t want to leave you kids out of Dad’s celebration, so I thought we’d do dinner tonight.”
“Mom, I can’t come over in an hour.”
“Why not? Tad said you weren’t working, and he’s leaving Dominic in charge so he can come to dinner. What are you doing that’s important?” Another crash-bang-boom comes through the phone, like she’s rearranging the pots in the cabinet or perhaps pulling out the silverware for the table.
“Uh . . .” I turn to Dax, who sends me a curious glance as he spins the wheel to the left and parks in the back of the parking lot at the cinema. “Nothing. I’ll be there. What kind of cake?”
“No matter. And you don’t have to have his name written on it if you don’t want to. I mean, we all know who he is, right?” She laughs at her own joke. “It’ll be me, you, Dad, Tad, and Lara and the kids. That’s one, two, three . . . seven. Buy a cake for seven. Or, well, eight. I think they sell them by even numbers, right? Like ‘feeds six to eight’? You’ll figure it out. There’s a nice bakery on—”
“Mom. I’ve got it.” I have to cut her off, or else she’ll continue hammering out every detail and she’ll burn that lasagna she has in the oven. “I’ll see you soon.”
I tap the screen of my phone to end the call and sigh.
“What’s up, babe?” Dax shuts off the engine.
“Last-minute birthday party for my dad tonight. My mom isn’t much of a planner, and—surprise, surprise!—She’s running late.”
“Now I know where you inherited your spontaneity.” I give him an eye roll and he touches the tip of his finger to my nose.
“She needs me to pick up a cake at Tracee Bakes and be there within an hour.” I bite my lip and study my screen. “Or, well, ninety minutes. Whenever she plans something or I’m involved, everyone knows to add twenty to thirty minutes.”
“No problem, Princess.” Dax starts the Jeep and reverses out of the lot. “Where to?”
“What? Oh, no, you don’t have to chauffeur me. Just take me back to the cabin and—”
“Took us thirty minutes to get here. I drive you back, you’ll have to drive back down, pick up a cake, and then drive to your mom’s. Where’s she live?”
“Spring Falls. About twenty-five minutes from here,” I add, since Dax doesn’t know the area.
He lifts his eyebrows like I’m proving his point, then gestures to the road in front of us. “Where to?”
“I can’t ask you to come to my dad’s impromptu birthday shindig.”
“Why not?”
So many reasons.
Every one of them flies out of my head the moment he grabs my hand, curls his fingers around mine, and kisses my knuckles.
“They’re the worst,” I manage. Lamely. This brings forth a low chuckle. It’s impossible to be stressed around him. The man exudes “chill.” When I was screaming down the mountain attached to a zip line, Dax’s brief yawp was both manly and calm.
He returns both hands to the wheel. “Left or right?”
With another sigh, I give in. “Tracee Bakes is to the left.”
He turns left, and we’re off.
Off to my dad’s impromptu birthday shindig, which I’ll be attending with a plus-one.
Dax
“Sweetheart!” A tall blond woman, her smile broad, her eyelids coated in a ton of eye makeup, throws open the screen door the moment Becca sets foot on her porch. She takes the cake from Becca, studying it through the plastic window of the box. “This looks delicious.”
I’m a few steps behind, so when I put one boot on the top step, her mom looks up from the cake and inspects me with interest. Gaze locked on me, she addresses her daughter. “Who’s this?”
“This is Dax Vaughn. He drove me here,” Becca replies stiffly. “Dax, this is my mom, Carol. Stone. Obviously.”
She’s not comfortable introducing me to her family, that much is clear. I keep my smile to myself and extend a hand.
“Mrs. Stone.”
Carol shakes my hand and surveys me up and down. Becca worries her lip in that way she has, looking like she might throw up any second. I’m guessing she’s not used to bringing men home to her parents.
“I didn’t realize you were bringing someone, dear,” Carol tells Becca as she lets go of my hand and assesses me once more.
“I don’t eat much,” I lie with a smile. “We were going to the movies before you called, so if you happen to have a tiny bag of gummy bears I can pay you five dollars for, that should suffice.”
Carol Stone’s face breaks into a smile. No laugh yet, but I’ll get one out of her.
“You were on a date.” She elbows Becca. “And I interrupted your movie.”
“The movie’s my fault,” I explain. “The rain came with me.”
“Anyway!” Becca loops her arm through one of mine and drags me toward the house. “We’d better say hi to Dad. Is he in the basement?”
“Where else?” Carol asks rhetorically before disappearing in the direction of the kitchen.
Inside, her brother Tad is holding one a toddler-aged little girl I assume is one of Becca’s nieces. By the look of startled fury on his face, I believe he’s more surprised than her mom was to see me. His eyes cut to Becca.
“Tad, you remember Dax,” she says.
“You brought him to Dad’s birthday dinner?”
What the fuck is wrong with everyone? Does “Dad’s birthday” involve a satanic ritual with live chickens or something?
“I brought her,” I correct. “We were on a date.”
Tad nods, but his frown is more indecisive than angry. Kind of reminds me of . . . me. Wonder what Becca would’ve thought of me if she could’ve seen me back home, glowering at the world.
Took me getting the hell out of Ohio to crack my own facade of misery. I don’t know what Tad’s excuse is, but it better be a good one. I hope he’s not a miserable bastard all the time.
“Hey Bec—oh, hi.” A woman, trailed by another little girl, exits the kitchen. Tad puts the toddler on the ground and finds his manners.
“This is my wife, Lara. Lara, this is Dax. He came with Becca.”
“I’ve heard about you. Hi. So good to see you.” She drags the “so” out an extra syllable or two. Her smile is cautious, her grip firm as she shakes my hand. She flits a pointed look at Becca.
“You been talking about me, Princess?” I ask Becca. It’s fun to watch her squirm. How is she brazen enough to perform on the sidewalk in front of random strangers and this backward about introducing me to her family?
Becca presents her nieces next. The little one is Tasha, the older one, Kiera. I earn a high five from Tasha, but Kiera isn’t sure about me yet. She gives me a shy wave instead, which I return with a wave of my own.
“Has Len met him yet?” Lara asks, jerking her chin toward the basement stairs.
“Not yet.”
“Send him down alone. See what happens.” Lara is grinning at me as if that might be like throwing a mouse into a hungry snake’s terrarium.
“I think we’ll tackle this one together,” Becca says with a laugh.
I follow her to the stairs. “Your mom likes me, your brother doesn’t, and I can’t get a read on Lara.”
“She’s on the fence. Like Kiera,” Becca adds as we descend the basement stairs. It’s a finished basement, a white handrail attached to a beige wall.
“So that’s a ‘no’ from Tad, a ‘yes’ from Mom, a ‘yes’ from Tasha, and two ‘maybes,’” I count. “Sounds like Dad’s the tiebreaker.”
“Well, I like you.” She stops at the second-to-last step. “So you have that going for you.”
I descend to the wood floor so we’re standing eye to eye. After placing a kiss on the center of her lips, I say, “Thanks, Princess. I like you too.”
“Down here!” comes a shout.
“Come on. Let’s meet Len.” We pass a darkened home office and a family room with a TV, then round a corner to a room filled to the brim with clocks.
I’m not shitting you. There have to be fifty of them in the massive room, including the grandfather clock laid on a long bench, open and parts lying everywhere. The man standing over the clock’s innards, like a surgeon performing an operation, does a double take when he sees me. He pulls his glasses off his nose and smiles.
“Hey, there. Lenny Stone.” He smiles and rounds the bench, extending a hand. He’s shorter than I am, stouter than I expected—Becca must’ve gotten her height from her mom—and ten times friendlier than Lara tried to make him sound. I barely suppress a chuckle of appreciation. It’s good that Becca has people looking out for her.
“Dax Vaughn. I’m crashing your birthday dinner, if that’s all right.”
“Sure, sure! Carol always makes enough for an army. You look like you can handle a few servings of lasagna.”
“It’s a favorite,” I say honestly.
“Happy birthday, Dad.” Becca loops her arms around her dad’s neck and he gives her a hearty hug.
My dad wasn’t much of a hugger, but I feel a pang of loss anyway. His birthday would’ve been next month.
“You wouldn’t believe the grandfather clock I saw at the antique store the other day . . .,” Becca starts. Len gives her his full attention, rapt while she describes the clock in full detail.
I walk around the room admiring the many ticking contraptions. I wonder where Becca got the impression she wasn’t valuable, or that her ideas weren’t appreciated. I can tell that her mother, spontaneous like Becca, supports her. It’s clear that her clock-obsessed father adores her.
“Is this what you do for a living, Len?” I ask when he and Becca wrap up their conversation.
“Hobby, mostly. I work as a salesman at an appliance store. Been there, oh, I don’t know, forty years now.”
“This is intricate.” I point to the clock on the
wall, metal gears on the outside, hands circling a made-to-look-rusted face.
“That one I made from scratch,” Len shares proudly.
“Is it for sale?” When he doesn’t answer, I turn to face him.
He blinks, startled. “No one’s ever asked me that before.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Told you, Dad. They’re amazing.” Becca palms her father’s shoulder. His cheeks grow pink from embarrassment.
Ah. That’s where her doubt comes from.
Before I can make an offer for the clock, Carol shouts down from the kitchen that dinner’s ready.
“You think I can cook?” Becca asks me as she walks to the door. “Wait’ll you taste Mom’s lasagna.”
She leaves the room before her dad and I do, and he shakes his head as he watches her go. “She’s so much like her mother. Incredible,” Len says with obvious appreciation.
“Yeah. I thought that same word about her.”
Just so I don’t forget he’s the man who supplied half her DNA, he snaps his shoulders back and, though he’s shorter than me, manages to look me dead in the eyes. “You’d better have figured that out if you’re here with her.”
I dip my head in acknowledgment. “Yes, sir.”
He nods curtly and gestures for me to walk ahead of him.
There are three people looking out for Becca, then. I smile as I climb the stairs toward the heavenly smells of tomato sauce and warm garlic bread.
Chapter 20
Becca
Watching my family interact with Dax is sort of fascinating. Now, keep in mind the last time I brought a guy to the dinner table, I was sixteen years old.
Dad can’t stop talking to Dax about his bar ownership, and once Dax mentioned owning two places, something extraordinary happened. Tad stopped imitating an asshole and started talking to him.
“You own two bars?”
“Yeah.” Dax grabs another slice of garlic bread—not that I’m counting, but it might be his fourth—and drags it through the sauce on his plate.
“And you can take a vacation. Must be nice,” Tad grunts.
Correction: His assholery is still intact.
Man Candy: A Real Love Novel Page 13