Priceless (An Amato Brothers/Rixton Falls crossover)

by Winter Renshaw

  “He looked over here, didn’t he?” Saige’s lips twist into a satisfied smile. “I fucking told you.”

  “Stop.” I bat her away.

  She’s gloating, and it’s annoying as hell.

  “Go,” she says, her voice stern like mine when I tell one of my boys to pick up their Legos or take the trash out for the twentieth time. “Go to him. Now.”

  My fingers wrap around the stem of my empty glass, and my heart pulses so hard in my chest I could very well pass out if I don’t take a moment. The mere thought of strutting over there and putting something on the table - that I’ve never put on anyone’s table but Nathan’s – is downright terrifying.

  I’m not that woman.

  Not that there’s anything wrong with being that woman.

  I just wouldn’t know how to properly be her.

  I wouldn’t do her justice.

  Saige chews her bottom lip, staring hard at my ensemble.

  “What?” I ask, staring down at my outfit. A white blouse is tucked into a black, high-waisted pencil skirt, and my look is finished with a pair of patent leather stilettos. The outfit was from a job interview I had a couple hours ago with a local temp agency, but I had enough foresight to throw the sexy pumps in the back of my car and ditch my conservative kitten heels before heading over here.

  “Wait.” Saige reaches for my blouse and unbuttons the top two buttons. “Much better.”

  Tapping my ass, she all but pushes me away, and I hear some of the girls cheering and laughing behind me.

  I don’t have a choice.

  I have to do this.

  My throat constricts, and I’m not sure I could swallow if I tried, so I release a defeated sigh and take the first step in my journey, chuckling to myself when I think about how cheesy and symbolic this moment is.

  If I laugh about it, it might also take my mind off the fact that I’m secretly terrified right now.

  The neckline of my blouse is wide open, and my breasts are basically on display for the first time in a long time. Adding a slight sway in my hips when I walk, I lick my lips and hold my head high, eyes focused on the prize and fist tight around the warm glass I’ve been gripping the last ten minutes.

  Everything happens in slow motion, and all sounds fade into the distance the closer I get. The clinking of glasses. The canned laughter of businessmen. The soft lull of the cocktail waitresses making their rounds and taking orders. They all become a soft, ambient hum.

  My knees wobble with each step that brings me nearer, but I won’t stop. I didn’t come this fair just to-

  Oh, shit.

  He’s young.

  He’s extremely attractive.

  Like ridiculously, over the top good-looking.

  But he’s young.

  Stopping in my tracks and spinning on the ball of my stiletto-covered left foot, I make my way back to the table. My cheeks flush with warmth and the room spins. I’m equal parts embarrassed and disappointed, but I just . . . can’t.

  “What? Why’d you come back?” Saige crosses her arms over her chest. “What the hell, Maren?”

  Glancing around the table, I’m met with disappointed looks.

  “He’s young,” I announce, fully expecting everyone to accept this as a perfectly reasonable reason to have aborted my mission.

  “How young? Twenty-one? Twenty-two?” Saige’s brows are angled in and her lips are pressed flat, which is never a good thing.

  I shrug. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask him. I just took one look and realized that I’m way too old to be picking up twenty-something guys at a bar and hightailed it back here.”

  Saige groans, banging her balled fist against her forehead. “Maren. You’re thirty-fucking-five. Even if he’s twenty-five, you’re still not old enough to be his mother, so who the hell cares? And even if you were old enough to be his mother . . . who the hell cares?”

  “I wouldn’t even know what to talk to him about. We’d probably have nothing in common,” I say. “Plus, I have kids. What twenty-something guy wants to hook up with someone who smells like graham crackers and juice boxes? And he probably uses one of those cheesy dating apps and overshares everything on social media and has ridiculously high standards when it comes to women because millennials are so damn entitled.”

  Saige places her hands on my shoulders. “Maren, I love you, but I really don’t like you right now.”

  I laugh. “What? Why?”

  “You were going over there to check him out and possibly say hello and to hopefully get the ball rolling for some sexytimes tonight,” she says, “not to interview him to be your next husband.”

  “I don’t know about y’all, but I’m amused,” Marissa says in her Texas-transplant accent. “Tequila shots?”

  “Please,” Tiffin says. “I’ll come with.”

  The two of them slide out of the booth and head toward the bar, leaving Gia and Lucia chit-chatting amongst themselves and me to deal with Saige’s wrath.

  “You didn’t even introduce yourself. You took one look at him, judged him, and then you scurried back here like you were above him,” she says.

  “What?” I clasp my hand over my heart. “I’m not above him. Jesus, Saige. If anything, he’s out of my league. He’s beautiful. I’m just not what he’s looking for. I promise you that.”

  “But you don’t know.”

  “Oh, but I do. A guy like him has probably never seen cellulite and C-section scars in his life, and I’m quite positive the last person he wants to screw is some thirty-something ex-housewife slash single mom slash divorcee-with-baggage slash born-again-virgin.”

  “Go back over there,” Saige insists, chin tucked into her chest and posture squared with mine.

  “No.”

  “Maren.”

  “No,” I say, this time with more grit.

  “You need this,” she says. “I know you. You’re going to leave here tonight and hole up in that big empty house of yours and be the devoted mother that you’ve always been. And that’s fine. But one of these days you’re going to wish you’d have gotten back out there when you had the chance.”

  I glance away, soaking up her words and giving them a chance to resonate, but I’m still not feeling them. Maybe she has a point? But I’m dead certain this isn’t the guy for me.

  “You’re hot,” she continues. “And you’re single. And you need to get laid just as much as the next person. I’m not sure where this lack of confidence thing is coming from, but I sure as hell know it’s not you.”

  “It’s not that I’m not confident. I’m sensible,” I say. “You don’t try to sell a Lincoln to someone who’s shopping for a Lexus. It’s a waste of time and energy for both parties.”

  Saige rolls her eyes. Hard. And makes a gagging noise in the back of her throat. “You’re killing me here. Killing me. You don’t get it. At all.”

  “You’re forcing this on me,” I say, arms crossed.

  Her jaw hangs. “Just last week you were complaining about how you wasted your twenties on bad sex with Nathan, were you not?”

  I nod. It’s true. I said that.

  Married fresh out of college at twenty-two and a mother at twenty-three and again at twenty-seven, my twenties were exhausting and exhilarating. When my sex life didn’t consist of missionary-in-the-dark-and-under-the-covers, it was basically non-existent.

  “And you’ve been busting your ass at the gym for the last six months,” Saige adds, “because you said looking good was the best revenge.”

  “It is.”

  “But I guess all of that means nothing now.”

  I know what she’s doing. She’s using a reverse psychology guilt trip cocktail on me. And it’s kind of working.

  “We’re baaaack.” Tiffin places a tray of tequila shots and lime wedges and saltshakers in the center of our table. “Let’s do this, girls.”

  “Y’all, I’m getting real, real sick of listening to these two bickering like a couple of old biddies,” Marissa says, grabbing a s
alt shaker.

  “Agreed.” Gia glances at me, winking. “You two need to agree to disagree. Maren doesn’t want to screw the hot guy and there’s nothing Saige can do to change her mind. It’s Maren’s loss, and she’s okay with it. Right, Maren?”

  “Right.” I grab a tequila shot and elbow Saige, handing it off to her. She knows I still love her, and I know she’s extremely frustrated with me right now.

  “Besides, he’s gone now,” Lucia points toward the bar, toward the empty seat once occupied by one of the dreamiest men I’ve ever laid eyes on.

  Saige’s shoulders fall and she yanks a salt shaker from Marissa, a silent symbol of defeat, and we all queue up our shots. The tequila goes down smooth and finishes with a slight burn, and as it settles in my blood, I’m enveloped in warmth and relaxation.

  Taking my seat at the table, I settle in for an evening with my girls. My best friends. The ones who’ve been by my side through hell and back. Over the course of the hour that follows, we shove our faces with cake, exchange motherhood war stories, and complain about our husbands – current and ex.

  Exhaustion sinks into my bones after a bit, a product of staying up late with Beck last night I’m sure, and I check the time on my phone during a lull in conversation.

  “I don’t want to be the first but . . .” I slip my purse over my shoulder. “It’s getting late, so . . .”

  Marissa checks her watch. “Oh, wow. It’s almost eleven. I told my husband I’d be home by ten. You know how he gets his tail up when I come home too late and wake him up.”

  Saige swats us. “You guys are super lame, just so you know.”

  “Call me tomorrow, okay?” I slide off my chair and wrap my arms around my best friend, kissing her cheek. “Thanks again for the party. I had fun, I swear.”

  I tell the rest of the girls goodbye and head out, checking to see if the rain has died down yet, and I see that it’s beginning to dwindle. A row of cabs line the street, all proactively waiting to collect bar patrons and safely deliver them to their homes.

  I waste no time hailing a ride home. Rattling off my address to the driver, I climb in and lean my cheek against the cool, rain-slicked glass of the rear passenger window. The chiseled, shadowed face of the suit at the bar comes to mind as we head to suburbia, and I can’t help but curiously wonder how tonight would’ve gone had I listened to Saige and not given a damn.

  But it doesn’t matter now because I’ll never know.

  I kick off my heels and let my sore feet sink into the plush carpet of my living room. My house is eerily calm tonight.

  Nathan and I separated six months ago and share fifty-fifty custody, but alternating between a loud, wild household and pure, deafening silence every few days hasn’t been an easy transition for me. At least not yet. I miss my boys like crazy when they’re not here, but I know they look forward to their time with their father. I’d never take that from them, despite the fact that he’s a cheating liar of the douche bag variety. Plus, I couldn’t if I tried. Nathan’s blue-blooded, old-moneyed family pushed a pre-nup on me shortly after our engagement, and I, being young, naïve, and woefully in love, signed on the dotted line. Our fifty-fifty custody arrangement was in place before the first Greene baby was even conceived.

  I take the phone from my purse and leave my bag and keys on the foyer table, the clink of metal on marble echoing through the first floor.

  Climbing the stairs to the second floor, I work the buttons of my blouse and unzip my pencil skirt, letting everything fall into a pile at my feet before sweeping them up and folding them neatly over the back of an arm chair when I make it to the corner of my bedroom.

  A personalized notepad with my monogram rests on top of my pristinely organized dresser, between a gold wristwatch and a pair of rose quartz earrings laid side by side. My eyes are tired, but I click on a lamp and read tomorrow’s To Do list.

  Personal trainer – 8 am.

  Call Gerald to fix the broken back step. Cedar?

  Fill out paperwork for temp agency – due Monday!

  Make hair appointment. Wax too???

  Call Aunt Margaret to wish her happy birthday. 62? Ask Mom.

  Return sweater to Neiman’s. Find receipt!

  Sliding the top drawer of my dresser, I retrieve a pair of matching satin pajamas, white with navy polka dots, and I head to the bathroom to wash up for bed. I mentally run through tomorrow’s to do list one more time, nodding to my reflection and agreeing with myself that I’m much too busy for casual sex with hot twenty-somethings anyway.

  I finish up, click off the lamp on the dresser, grab my phone, and return to my bed, occupying the left side the way I have for years and leaving the right side perfectly made. Firing off a text to Saige, I thank her again and tell her not to stay out too late.

  She replies with a devil-horned emoji.

  Laughing in the dark, I don’t have the time or energy to decipher the code, so I darken my screen and slide my phone across my nightstand.

  Buzz, buzz.

  “Saige,” I groan. Yawning, I roll over and tuck my face into a pillow. If I ignore her, she’ll stop texting me after a bit.

  Buzz, buzz.

  “For the love of God.” I yank the phone back, eyes squinting at the brightness as I place it in front of my face and prepare to inform her I’m trying to get my beauty rest. I’ll also tell her she’d be wise to do the same seeing how she wants to tag along to my personal training session in the morning.

  Two text messages fill my screen, attached to a Seattle area code and a number I’ve never seen before.

  The first message reads, HI, MAREN. I’M DANTE.

  The second, ARE YOU UP?

  Heart racing, I sit up in my bed.

  WHO ARE YOU? HOW DID YOU GET MY NUMBER? I fire back. I’m ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure Saige has something to do with this, but if this is the guy from the bar, he was long gone by the time I left.

  I’m so confused.

  Three dots bounce across the screen. If I was tired earlier, I’m wide awake now.

  His message flashes across the screen a second later: CAN I CALL YOU?

  Chapter 3

  Dante

  My phone rings three seconds after I sent my last text. A slow smirk crawls across my face. Here I was worried about coming on too strong, but it turns out she wants this just as much as I do.

  Clearing my throat, I answer with a deep and seductive, “Hello.”

  An hour ago, some blonde chick approached me at the bar of my hotel, giving me some story about her “fabulously single” best friend who’d been eyeing me all night, and then she slipped me her friend’s number and told me I’d be wise not to lose it.

  It just so happened her friend was the one I’d been watching all night. The dark-featured beauty with the elegant sway in her walk and the kind of aura that commanded a room full of suited-up business men.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Maren’s whispered yell fills my ear. “Do you know what time it is? And who just calls a random woman in the middle of the night? Saige put you up to this, didn’t she?”

  My smile fades. “If Saige is the one with the crazy blonde hair, then yes. Saige gave me your number, but she didn’t put me up to this. I’m a grown man. I called you because I wanted to call you.”

  I’m met with silence for a few endless seconds, and then she exhales. “Listen, I’m flattered. Dante, was it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m flattered, Dante, but you don’t have to do this.”

  “Do what?” I stifle a chuckle to hide the amusement in my tone.

  “You don’t have to pretend like you’re interested because my friend told you some pitiful story about me,” she says. “I’m not the mercy fuck type. Or the type to screw strangers. Or the type to sleep with men half my age.”

  “You’re fifty-four?”

  “What? No,” she answers without hesitation, and then she’s quiet again, like she’s calculating my age. “You’re twenty-sev
en?”

  “I am.” I don’t ask her age. To me, it’s irrelevant. She’s a beautiful woman, ageless really. When I first saw her tonight it was dark, but her laugh was what captured me. That was the very first thing I noticed about her. She had this buoyant laugh that cracked through the dark bar like lightning, and a pretty smile almost too big for her face. Shiny, dark waves cascaded over narrow, feminine shoulders, and I found myself angling toward her most of the night, waiting for an opportunity to steal a glance again and again until I had to return to my hotel room to take a phone call.

  “You’re still too young for me,” she says. “No offense.”

  “Offense taken,” I scoff. “You sound ridiculous. You know that, right?”

  “Ridiculous or realistic?” she shoots back. “You’re just a baby, Dante. You couldn’t handle me, I promise you that.”

  “Try me,” I say, calling her bluff.

  “Try you?” she laughs. “Trying you would entail screwing you, and it’s not that I don’t want to, I just don’t think it’d be a very good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’d be extremely reckless, for one,” she says. “What if I’m a serial killer?”

  “Are you a serial killer?” I ask.

  “No. But what if you’re a serial killer?”

  I laugh. “I’m not a serial killer.”

  “I’m sure that’s what Ted Bundy said too,” Maren says.

  “In Ted Bundy’s defense,” I string together four words I never thought I’d utter in all of my life, “I don’t think anyone ever asked him if he was a serial killer. You know, not when they were first getting friendly with him.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, we’re not getting friendly,” Maren says. “This . . . this is not a friendly conversation. This . . . this is what happens when I’m trying to sleep and my phone is being blown up by some random guy in a suit from some bar who’s trying his hardest to get a piece before the clock strikes twelve and he has to report to some boring-ass business meeting in the morning and then fly back to Kansas City, Missouri where his fiancée waits in their luxury townhome.”