by Kat Bastion
“You’re insatiable.” I muttered.
She didn’t release her hold on the spoon. “You’re addictive.”
Less than thirty minutes? Not even close to enough time for everything I wanted to do to her. Repeatedly.
“Go.” I gave a nod over her shoulder, toward the bathroom. “Food now. Sex later.”
As I mixed, then poured, the rightness of the moment hit me. I stood in her kitchen cooking. She showered, humming a lighthearted melody, after an incredible night where we’d tested the limits of her bed frame. We’d finally taken the leap of faith to be together—as in my first relationship ever together—and the world as I knew it hadn’t caved in.
The whole thing seemed unreal. Made a guy say things like “Let’s stay here forever.”
Like clockwork, she returned, towel wrapped around her, hair damp and smelling of tropical vanilla. I gave a quick glance at the stove; the pancakes had little bubbles popping open on their uncooked side.
When she tried to sidle in front of the stove to take care of them, I held a barring arm out and gave her a headshake. “I got these.” One by one, I shook each pan until its giant pancake slid freely, then on an arcing upstroke, I slipped the spatula under and flipped it the rest of the way over in one fluid motion.
“Bravo.” She clapped.
“Not my first time in a kitchen.” Or with pancakes. My mind flashed to those cherished Thanksgivings with my mom and sis. What an amazing thing to share pancakes now with Kiki.
The scent of cooking salt and fat wafted around us with eight minutes remaining on the oven timer. I used fifteen seconds of it tugging on that fluffy towel wrapped around her, pulling her close, then kissing her thoroughly. By the time we broke apart, we’d both gone breathless.
Her eyes were wide, shining an electric blue in the bright light angling in from the upper windows. She grabbed the spatula from me then pointed it toward the bathroom. “Go. Shower.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
The only soap and shampoo in there were the tropical ones she wore. I used just enough to suds myself clean, then rinsed with a lot of hot water. After I toweled off, I grew fairly confident that I would leave smelling only a little like her. Then maybe I could convince her to go another round and leave smelling exactly like I wanted: a little like Kiki and a whole lot like our sex.
When I walked back out, towel tucked around my waist, food had already been doled onto two large plates. She grabbed both, handed me mine, then headed toward the door.
I followed. “Where are we going?”
“Downstairs.”
“Why?” I reached around her, opening the door.
She glanced over her shoulder. “Coffee.”
“Ahhh…good answer.”
Thank God she stepped through the door first. The furry one had crouched on the landing just outside the door. I smiled at the cute little guy. “I wondered where the cat was.”
“Hey, Chipmunky!” Kiki rubbed the ball of her foot over his back before stepping over him.
He sprang up and lunged a shoulder across one of her bare legs, then darted between mine. I had to pause midstep to avoid tripping over him.
“He watches over the warehouse at night.” She made three short kissing noises to get his attention.
“Guard kitty?” When we reached the middle landing, he raced ahead, a bounding blur of fur.
Her soft laughter drifted up as she trotted down the stairs after him. “Something like that. Anything amiss, he howls. If something’s really wrong, he’ll come up and scratch on the door. I leave food and water near the worktable and his litterbox in the far back corner.”
“Has anything been really wrong?” I frowned. My imagination exploded with thoughts of that side alley and the industrial nature of her property.
“Not really.” She shrugged, sliding her plate onto the worktable. Then she grabbed a freshly brewed pot, righted a couple of mugs that had been resting upside down on a towel beside it, and poured us each a steaming cup. “Once some vandals broke into my car. Stole the radio.”
“Better than breaking into your house.” I muttered.
“Warehouse,” she corrected, taking a seat on a metal barstool. “Rusted metal outside. Not many people think anything valuable would be in here.”
I pegged her with a hard look. “You’re in here.”
Her gaze held mine a beat. Then another as she took a deep breath. Her lips curved into a smile as she tilted her head in a slight nod my way. “Fair enough. I promise to be careful.”
Only partially calmed by her promise, because it did fuck all to actually keep her safe, I sat on the barstool beside her and dug into my breakfast. We ate for a few minutes in silence as I watched her cut tiny little triangles, one at a time, along the edge of her plate-sized pancake.
Fascinated to learn how she ate, I arched a brow. “I’ve seen you eat burgers, ribs, and Chinese.”
When I didn’t elaborate, she smirked. “This a weird bucket list of yours?”
“Maybe. Do you always cut food on a plate into uniform pieces? Or is it just pancakes?”
“Pancake. One. And I’ve never had a giant pancake before. So I don’t know.”
“How do you normally eat pancakes?”
“In a stack.”
Smartass.
“A perfectly uniform stack?” Back at ya.
Her lips twitched. Then she huffed out a laugh and shook her head. Her cheeks still held a pink blush. Her eyes sparkled with amusement. I’d had a hand in both and I wanted to do it again. Often. She was beyond beautiful when she stopped thinking and let herself enjoy life.
Remembering how bad her coffee was before, I took a tentative sip. It tasted…good. “Mmm. Different brew?”
She nodded. “Kendall gave it to me. She said she was trying to save me.”
I choked out a laugh. “I didn’t have the heart to tell you.”
“That’s cool.” Her brows arched as she glanced at me. “I’m open to java suggestions and donations.” She popped a folded piece of bacon into her mouth.
My eyes wandered as we ate, then landed on the stack of unopened mail still sitting on the far corner. One envelope had been pulled out from the rest. Bright red block letters had been stamped across the front of it: FINAL NOTICE.
Curious about the dire warning, I glanced at Kiki.
She stared at the envelope, must have caught me looking at it. Her entire demeanor had changed. Her body had gone rigid, shoulders tensed toward her ears. Breathing that had been calm and easy had now shortened to rapid breaths.
“Kiki?”
She didn’t respond.
I put a hand over hers, tangling our fingers together. “Kiki, look at me.”
After another couple of short breaths, she finally inhaled deeply and blinked, as if pulling herself from a trance. Then she turned her head, finally meeting my gaze.
“What’s in the envelope?”
She let out a huge breath and angled a wary glance at the envelope again, like the damn thing had teeth. “It’s my eviction notice.”
My heart sank. The warehouse wasn’t just her home; every square inch of it emanated parts of her. It was her.
“When?”
“End of the month.”
“Nine days from now?”
“Nine days, eleven hours, seventeen minutes from homelessness.”
“But...” My mind froze at how wrong it was, none of it made sense. “What about your art? Didn’t you have a successful showing?” I hadn’t been to her opening exhibit, but the crew at Loading Zone had heard all about it from Cade—proud brother bragging.
“Those exhibit sales are what I rented the place with. The very first thing I did. That money covered the security deposit plus first and last month’s rent, with enough left over to renovate the old office” —she pointed at her loft above us— “some furnishings, and a few art supplies.”
“You haven’t sold any pieces since then? It’s been…five months.”
A hard laugh huffed from her. “Oh, I did. Sold two more in January, one in February. Big pieces, too. Would’ve paid my rent through summer.”
“What happened?”
“The gallery owner turned crooked. Or maybe she always was; I didn’t verify the sales prices with what the buyers paid. Maybe she shafted them too.”
Anger welled up from my gut. “Shafted?”
I dropped my fork and shoved my plate away, appetite gone.
She took several gulps of coffee. “Yep. Got excuse after excuse for the delays on payment of the additional sales. Then my calls weren’t being returned. When I finally got pissed off enough to go there to stand in front of her and watch her cut me a check…it was too late.”
My eyes narrowed. “Too late how?”
“Gallery locked up with a small notice on the door. Closed by order of the IRS.”
I blew out a harsh breath. “Tax evasion.”
“Yep. My calls to the IRS were a joke. The money for the sales of my art was sitting in accounts the government had frozen. They don’t care about contracts, or receipts of sale, or starving artists. All they care about is the money. And the money in those accounts? Pennies on the dollar for what the bitch owed on back taxes.”
“Damn, Kiki. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. What I get for being so trusting.”
“Wasn’t it a reputable gallery?”
“Yep. Been there for years. The same years she’d been falsifying her taxes. She owes them almost seventeen million.”
“Fuck me.”
“Exactly.” She glared at the envelope. “But you know the worst part? I have eight other sculptures sitting in that gallery unsold. Big pieces that would fetch a lot of money. And I can’t touch them.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
“Because the IRS didn’t just freeze her accounts. They froze her physical assets, the gallery.”
“But those sculptures aren’t hers, they’re yours.”
She heaved me a weary look. “Tell that to the IRS.”
“Wait…doesn’t your landlord live in the house up front, the one you housesit for?”
“Not exactly housesit, more like watch over. But yeah.” She shrugged, poking a fork at the half-pancake left on her plate. “She doesn’t call the shots. The property management company and her accountants do. They’ve already given me two extensions at her request. I’ve blown past all my deposits and been living here rent-free for two months. They can’t do any more for me without all the back rents paid up and then some.”
“Why not ask your family for help? Surely they’d lend you some money.”
“No.” She gave a hard headshake. “I don’t want help. I want to do this on my own.”
“Okay. So what’s your plan?”
She slumped down to the table, folding her arms under her chin. After a long pause, she glanced up at me. “Denial?”
I stared at her for several long seconds. Her eyes had lost their fire. She wasn’t being sarcastic, she’d just run out of steam. And hope.
She might not want help from her family, but she would get it from me. No way would I let her lose everything she’d worked for. All her dreams had been poured into her warehouse.
I pulled her up from the table, and her towel slowly unraveled, then fell away, but neither of us grabbed it. I folded my arms around her, pulling her tight against me.
On a slow sigh, she nestled into my hold. Bared. Trusting.
I pressed a kiss to the top of her ear. “We’re gonna come up with a better plan.”
Kiki…
By the following night, Darren hadn’t come up with a plan. Neither had I. Because you can’t plan your way out of a mess you had no control over.
None of it was fair. But that was life.
I turned out of my neighborhood, heading toward the address Darren had given me, thinking about my situation and what he’d suggested. I’d already contemplated asking my family for help. My brother and sisters would lend me money in a heartbeat. My parents too.
Any of them would give me a roof over my head. And in another eight days, it may come to that.
But going to them meant admitting failure out loud—to a family who always succeeded in anything they’d tried. And I was the artistic one. Although they’d never done anything to discourage my passion, I still felt a heavier burden compared to them to prove my worth.
Besides, those ideas were nothing but temporary Band-Aids to my greater ailment.
Stuck in a place of anger and frustration—in my denial—I hadn’t formed any kind of back-up plan. No safety net.
For some idiotic reason I kept thinking, one more phone call to the IRS. Or maybe after ninety days, they’d open the gallery and release my sculptures. Maybe they’d listen to reason.
But why would they? I hadn’t listened to my own self with how ridiculous that sounded. Or admitted to myself what dire straits I was actually in.
A part of me had faith that it would all work out. Even though I had no reason to believe it.
“Is that what you are, Darren?” I whispered into my car as I followed a curve, then turned into the parking lot in front of a posh resort. “Are you my miracle worker?”
He had been so far. He’d turned out to be more than I’d ever expected.
Which scared the hell out of me. Too much faith in someone left too much room for disappointment.
I blew out a slow breath, calming my nerves. Then I opened the heavy lobby door, whispering. “It will all be okay.”
The optimistic mantra had been said so often, it soothed me—even if it didn’t solve anything.
My high heels sunk into a plush Oriental rug, but I didn’t make it to the polished marble on the far side of it before Logan came rushing in from the side.
“You made it!” She gave me a fierce hug.
I blinked, surprised. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”
An iridescent-green dragonfly barrette clipped her pink streak above her ear and she wore a blue paisley peasant-style dress, making her seem much younger and more feminine than her usual jeans and cap.
She rolled her eyes. “D apparently keeps everything about me secret.”
I looped an arm through hers. “Show me where we’re going.”
“Just down here.” She steered us along the edge of a massive round table, then leaned over and plucked a fork and a dessert plate of chocolate cake from a display laden with them.
Tilting my head toward her, I murmured conspiratorially. “Do we need to stockpile food?”
She glanced left, then right, before arching her brows. “If they’re offering, I’m taking.” Holding up the plate with one hand, she gave a decisive nod as she speared the fork through the densely frosted back corner. Then she paused in the middle of the hall and offered me the first bite.
The moment the rich dark chocolate exploded on my taste buds, I moaned. “Oh. My. God.”
“Right?” She gave me a secretive look. “This is my second piece.”
I laughed as she stuck a heaping forkful into her mouth. Then she guided us down a hall, left, right, then led us into a tiled gallery.
Through a set of french doors to the left, a hostess stood at a podium with menus in her hand, then directed a young couple farther into a candlelit dining room. We went to the right, down two wide steps, into a lounge area where the sultry sounds of jazz music already drifted into the air. I tried to spot Darren by the windows, but too many people standing and dancing blocked my view as we worked our way inside.
Across the sizable room and along the far wall, stretched a stately bar area furnished in rich, dark woods. On my right, a half dozen cozy seating areas had been created with squared-off leather club chairs and matching ottomans. Candles flickered on low tables.
In the center of the space, three couples commanded a wooden dance floor, mesmerizing the audience with their twirling moves and gyrating hips. My brain tried to place their dance: Samba? Rhumba? As a kid, I hadn’t pa
id enough attention to the country-club mandated ballroom dance lessons to remember.
We claimed one of only two available seating areas left. I relaxed back into a butter-soft brown leather club chair with an unimpeded view of the musicians who were positioned near the right corner of the dance floor.
My gaze finally landed on Darren. His dark hair was its usual: messy but stylish. His black short-sleeved T-shirt exposed the flexing muscles of his forearms.
“Another bite?” Logan asked, lifting a second piece of cake toward me.
I shook my head. “No, thanks.”
My focus remained riveted on him. He had his eyes shut. With the slightest movements, his whole body undulated in a rhythm that transformed into sound through his hands to the various percussion pieces of his drum set. His left hand remained low, pulsing a soft beat over the center of a snare with what looked like a brush. His other hand hovered a matching brush over the top cymbal of a pair that had been vertically mounted on a stand.
“That’s a hi-hat.” Logan nodded toward Darren’s left.
“The cymbals?”
She nodded. “Yep.”
“What’s he using on it?”
“A brush.” She put her empty plate on a side table. “It’s made of thin wires. Gives a softer sound for jazz and ballads.”
“You play guitar, right?”
“Bass guitar.” She slouched down into the chair until her head rested on its low-slung back. “I like losing myself in the deeper tones.”
I mimicked her posture, relaxing back with her.
The song changed, shifting the music to a much slower tempo. After a moment, all three couples vacated the dance floor, heading in the direction of the bar. Two other couples, perhaps encouraged by the experts’ absence, migrated to the floor and began swaying to the romantic strains.
My attention drifted back toward Darren.
My breath caught when I realized that he stared directly at me, gaze smoldering.
A sensual smile curved my lips as a heated flush worked its way outward from my heart, both up my chest, neck, and face and down through my belly, lower, into more scandalous regions. Connected.