by Lucy Score
“No. I’m not.” It was the first time he’d defied his parents. They both looked at him with open mouths.
“What did you say?” His dad was working himself up to a full on hollering fit.
“Taneisha doesn’t have a date and your date was an abomination,” Davis’s mother said primly. “She was just doing it to hurt you!”
Eden wouldn’t do that. He knew she wouldn’t. He’d spent the last year and a half getting to know her between classes. She might be gothy, but she was nice. Sincere. Cool. And he’d never once seen her go out of her way to hurt anyone… except for Pond Birkbeck.
“Davis, have your mother or I ever lied to you?”
He rocked back on his heels. “What about Santa Claus?”
“Oh, for the love of God,” Ferguson exploded. “We said we were sorry about that.”
“I was nine when Beckett Pierce finally told me the truth.”
“Eden was going to humiliate you tonight,” Tilly insisted. “We’re doing this because we love you. I’m not letting that family play with your feelings like that!”
“She’s not like that. I really like her, Mom.” It was the wrong thing to say. His parents launched into a litany of complaints that spanned a good forty years. All the wrongs the Moodys had committed against their family.
While they one upped each other with allegations, Davis ducked into the kitchen and dialed Eden’s number. He’d memorized it from a Business Club phone tree his junior year but had never had an excuse to call her before.
“Moody residence,” a man chirped on the other end. “Ned speaking.”
Davis plugged a finger into his ear to block out his parents. “May I speak to Eden, please… sir?”
“She’s unavailable right now. She’s getting ready for her date with… Buttercup, who did Eden say she’s going to the dance with?”
“Jordan Catalano.”
“Right. That Catalano boy.”
Davis didn’t know anyone in school by that name. All he knew was that was not his name. Had she given her parents a decoy date? Or was his mother right? Was Eden planning some kind of spectacular humiliation for him? His stomach dropped. He needed to find out.
“If you could just tell her Davis is on the phone—”
“Davis? As in Davis Gates the demon spawn of Ferguson and Tilly Nuswing-Gates?” Ned Moody shrieked.
“What does he want?” Buttercup—presumably Eden’s mother, Lily Ann—shrilled in the background.
“Never call here again!” Ned snapped. “And if you so much as look at my daughter Atlantis—”
“Actually, it’s Eden, sir.”
“Either one of them!” Ned screamed and hung up without finishing his threat.
Davis stared down at the phone in his hand. He was a low-key kind of guy and in the last ten minutes, he’d had four adults scream him into submission. This did not bode well for his evening.
“Davis! Hurry up! You’re going to be late picking up Taneisha,” his mother called from the living room.
Shit. He’d give Taneisha a ride and then catch Eden at the dance and clear this whole thing up, Davis decided.
5
Eden snuck the small mirror out of her clutch and checked her lipstick in the blue and purple strobe lights of the high school gymnasium. She’d locked herself into her house’s only bathroom for so long, her father threatened to climb in through the window to evict her.
But even rushed, she was satisfied with the end result. She looked good enough to be on Davis’s arm tonight.
With as much of an outcast as she’d tried to make herself at school, there was still a part of Eden that was desperate for a real boyfriend who made her feel special and interesting and smart and fun no matter how rebellious or boring or unspecial she was. And that’s exactly how Davis made her feel.
She just hoped the family drama from the afternoon hadn’t scared him off. Davis hadn’t been born with a desire to be contrary. Which meant, if he didn’t like her enough to defy his parents, she could get hurt. Badly. She swallowed the lump of fear that closed off her throat.
But he did like her. She knew he did. And Davis was the ultimate good guy. She steadied herself with that thought. He wouldn’t hurt her on purpose. Davis wasn’t like the rest of his family.
Eden took a deep breath and smoothed her hands over the black lace of her dress. Everyone else was decked out in reds and greens and golds for the holiday season. But Eden liked the mystery of black, the sexiness of the short skirt. She’d see how tonight went. Maybe Davis Gates would be the one to finally relieve her of her virginity. In a few months, of course. Once she made sure he was worthy of it. Not that she was particularly attached to it. She just didn’t want to give it away to any dumbass who wouldn’t know what to do with it.
“Is he here yet?” Moon Beam hissed, shoving a cup of punch into Eden’s nervous hands. Her cousin craned her neck to scan the gymnasium. Half of Blue Moon had turned out for the dance. The junior high schoolers stood in a line, swaying awkwardly to the music. There was a rowdy crowd of senior citizens dominating the center of the dance floor performing an enthusiastic group swing dance. Peppered in between were high school students and parents dancing, talking, and socializing.
“Not yet,” Eden said, burying her nerves under a false bravado of confidence. “But he will be.”
Moon Beam cracked her gum, eyes scanning the crowd for her next dance victim. “You don’t think his parents grounded him for life after seeing you two making smoochy faces at each other in the park?”
Eden shrugged as her cousin voiced her worst fear. “Nah. I’m sure he just got hung up somewhere. He’ll be here.” Davis wasn’t the kind of guy who lied or broke promises. He said he’d be here, so he’d be here.
“There he is!” Moon Beam pointed triumphantly toward the entrance to the gym.
And there he was. Tall and lean in an ill-fitting suit. His red and green Santa tie stood out starkly from the white button down beneath, and that shock of hair that never behaved lay across his forehead just the way Eden liked it best. She felt her dopey smile start to spread. And then it froze.
“Is that Taneisha?” Moon Beam hissed, clamping down on Eden’s arm.
Taneisha the willow-thin, model-like star of the girls track team was dressed in a green velvet dress. Her black hair was styled in dozens of tiny braids that coiled in a bun at the base of her neck. She was one of the nicest people in the entire school. And in Blue Moon, that was saying something.
But right now, Taneisha’s hand was tucked under Davis’s arm. And Eden was going to throw up.
“You should confront him,” Moon Beam decided. “Maybe do one of those really dramatic slaps across the face.”
It wouldn’t be the last time Eden had listened to her instincts, or her cousin’s bad ideas. She steamed across the rainbow-and paisley-painted gym floor fueled by rage and fear and the sliver of hope that there’d been some kind of stupid misunderstanding.
“Well, hello, Taneisha. Gates.” She said their names like they tasted badly.
“Eden, I can explain,” Davis said softly, putting himself between Eden and Taneisha.
“I’m going to go grab some punch,” Taneisha decided wisely.
Eden took one slow breath, felt her nostrils flaring. “Explain what? That my parents are right and you’re demon spawn?” People were looking at them and she didn’t care.
He winced and shoved his hands into the pockets of his dress pants. His shoulders hunched at her outburst. “I know how this looks—”
“This looks like you said you’d be my date and showed up to the dance with freaking Taneisha!” That beautiful unicorn of a girl who had unfairly escaped any of the awkwardness of puberty. Everyone around them had given up the pretense of dancing or talking and was watching with rapt attention.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Especially not you, Eden,” Davis started again, but Eden wasn’t interested in apologies or excuses.
“And yet here we are. I�
�m alone and humiliated and you brought a teenage super model as your date.”
“It’s not what it looks like. My parents made me—”
“You know what. You’re eighteen. No one made you do anything.”
“Eden, it’s not what you think. I tried to—”
“Whatever. At least I figured out that you’re just like the rest of your family before I did something stupid. The jackass gene must be dominant in your family tree.”
“Can’t we talk about this?”
“I don’t have anything more to say to you.” There were tears clogging her throat. She liked him so damn much and she’d been so damn wrong. Eden brushed past him, pushed her way through the crowd that had gathered around them, and grabbed the first guy she recognized. Ramesh Goldschmidt was junior class president and had won an award for his hand-lettered protest signs.
“Let’s dance, Ramesh,” she said with feigned brightness.
Astute for a seventeen-year-old, Ramesh wisely shut his mouth and put his sweaty hands on her hips.
And while a glum-looking Davis stepped onto the dance floor with Taneisha, Eden plotted her revenge.
She lasted all of four minutes on the dance floor with Ramesh—a guy whose only crime was being not Davis—before excusing herself to the shadowy hallway outside the gym next to the janitor’s closet.
Tears were hot on her cheeks. Her chest squeezed tight, a physical manifestation of emotional pain—as Blue Moon’s guidance counselor liked to explain it with puppets.
The gym door opened. Holiday lights and upbeat music spilling out into her little dungeon of heartbreak, taunting her.
“Eden?”
Moon Beam spotted her and stepped into the dungeon-like hallway. Eden hastily wiped her eyes.
“Oh, man. I didn’t know you like liked him liked him.” Moon Beam slid down the wall and sat next to Eden.
Eden blew her nose in the punch napkin she’d snagged from the refreshment table for just such a purpose. She was crying over a boy. Just like her older sister Atlantis had sixteen thousand times between the ages of fourteen to nineteen.
She was supposed to be smarter than that. And Davis was supposed to be a nice guy.
“I really liked him. I thought he was smart and funny and nice and interested.”
She didn’t want to ask the question. Because she wasn’t sure if she could handle the answer. Why would he do this to her? Was it because she wasn’t special enough? Attractive enough? Had he just been messing with her with their little hallway flirts? Taneisha was beautiful and tall and curvy in all the best places. She was also smart—damn her—and really, really confident.
In a side-by-side comparison, could Eden blame anyone for choosing Taneisha?
“He’s a dick, Ede.” Moon Beam patted her on the shoulder. “That’s all the explanation you need.”
“You’re sure it’s not me?”
“You could be a straight-up asshole and him treating you like this would still make him a dick,” Moon Beam insisted.
It didn’t take away the awful ache in her chest, knowing that the boy of her dreams was currently wrapped up in the slim arms and abnormally large teenage breasts of Taneisha Duval. But it was something to cling to.
“He is a dick, isn’t he?” Eden sniffled.
“Yeah. And you know what you’re going to do?”
“What?” Eden asked, her voice watery.
“You’re going to march back in there and dance every dance with Ramesh with a big, fat smile on your face. And then when this is all over, you’re meeting me at my house and we’re going to get revenge on Davis “The Dick” Gates.
6
Thirteen years later
Righteous Subs smelled of onions and bread, the fresh-baked every morning kind that had diners composing sonnets to carbs. Eden swooned over her turkey sub loaded with pickles, onions, and sweet peppers in the orange basket that matched the wild walls of the crowded shop.
She was treating herself—and BFF Sammy—today. Her meeting with the Beautification Committee for hosting their annual reunion luncheon at the Lunar Inn had been a success. She was marching down the path of established, successful business owner, taking no prisoners along the way. Four years into the inn’s ownership, Eden finally felt like she was swimming instead of just treading water.
The inn had been at seventy-five percent occupancy for the entire month, her best yet. And she was feeling good. Gone—mostly—were the days of her wayward youth. She’d left her rebellious ways in the dust. Blue Moon was finally starting to recognize her as an established, successful business owner. A credit to the community. Here she was in a smart pencil skirt and sleeveless blouse celebrating a professional success. Yes, things were finally turning in the direction she wanted.
Sammy, in her day-off uniform of gym shorts, tank, and ponytail, snagged a table as it was vacated by Wilson and Penny Abramovich. Customers had to move quickly if they wanted a seat with their subs during the lunch rush. There were seven tables, in eye-searing canary yellow with red vinyl cushioned chairs, and usually triple that many customers vying for them.
Eden executed a spin to head toward the napkin dispenser and soda fountain and smacked face first into a wall of solid flesh.
“Oh, God.” Her basket flipped up against her chest in the collision spreading onions and mayo across her business-appropriate cleavage.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t see— oh, hell.” That voice. Dear God.
Eden looked up from her hoagie-dosed breasts and into familiar chestnut brown eyes. Her world narrowed in one slow motion tunnel of focus. The din of the sub shop disappeared into a low buzzing in her ears.
He seemed taller than she remembered. Even in heels she still had to tilt to see that damn perfect face. He was definitely broader in the shoulders than he had been over a decade ago. Gone was the wispy facial hair. Nothing adorned that stern jaw line. And his hair. The floppy mop was missing and in its place was a sexy, tousled designer cut.
He was wearing a suit, sans tie. One that fit him like his tailor had intimate knowledge of every inch of his body.
The same blade-straight nose and those perfect cheekbones had her heart leaping into her throat and her nipples tightening to sharp points. Traitors.
She’d enjoyed thirteen blissful Davis-free years. In that time, she’d dated when she felt like it. But put her focus almost entirely into building her business and carefully correcting her sullied reputation. Gone was the heartbroken teen and her quest for vengeance that was mentioned only rarely now. In her place was a strong, confident business owner.
She’d practically convinced herself that he’d never existed. But Mr. West Coast was standing in front of her, picking sweet peppers out of her cleavage with long fingers. Long, ringless fingers.
Awareness rushed through her like a fist to the gut as his finger tip grazed the upper curve of her breast.
“I’m so sorry,” He was still apologizing. Didn’t he know who she was? Didn’t he know he wasn’t allowed to speak to her?
“My first day back and I practically run you over and destroy your lunch.”
“Back?” Eden’s power of speech finally reemerged from the cloud of anger, shock, and unexpected lust. Just because her enemy had turned into a spectacular male specimen did not mean she was going to dissolve into a puddle at his feet. If anything, his physical appeal was just another mark against him.
She grabbed his hand as he went in to fish out a particularly long piece of onion.
His eyes met hers and she reconsidered her stance on dissolving… for a second. She was Eden Freaking Moody. She had three generations of pissed-offness behind her.
Davis gave her a crooked grin, one thing that hadn’t changed since high school. Eden hated the sugary warmth she felt in her stomach. Her body was operating on autopilot as if it had forgotten how he’d hurt her.
“First day back in Blue Moon,” he told her. “I’m excited to finally be home. I’ll be honest. I was hoping to run in
to you. Though obviously not like this.” He gestured at the mess on her shirt.
“You’re home.” She repeated it carefully. For the first time since mayonnaise had met skin, Eden became aware that every single pair of eyes in the sub shop were on them. Mouths open, cellphones recording, hoagies ignored.
Eden Moody and Davis Gates in the same room. Something terrible was guaranteed to happen.
That whooshing sound she heard was all her years of hard work making Blue Moon forget The Incident collapsing in on themselves. Destroyed in one fell swoop by a sex god in a suit. A suited sex god who, upon closer inspection, had neatly escaped any sub shrapnel.
Of course, nothing ever stuck to Davis. He was the good guy, the golden boy, the nice one. Except when it came to her. Not only had he crushed her, but one tiny, little, juicy, accidental moment of revenge had propelled her into the role of the permanent villain.
“Don’t piss off Eden. The fire department’s response time is too slow! Ha! Ha!”
“You wanted to run into me?” Eden felt like a damn parrot.
He nodded. “I wanted to apologize. For before. The HeHa dance. I know it’s water under the bridge and you probably haven’t given it a second thought, but I still feel bad—”
She held up her hand, the one not clutching the remains of her sub. She worked her mouth into a strained, phony smile. “Let’s not talk about the dance. In fact, let’s not talk. Ever.”
Davis’s smile dropped as he took in her words.
He sighed, accepted, because of course he was the freaking good guy. “For what it’s worth, you’re even prettier now than high school.”
“And I’m even less forgiving,” she snapped. She wanted to take her hoagie corpse and shove it into his chest, ruining that crisp white Oxford. But she was a fucking grown-up. “Welcome home,” she said loud enough for everyone within earshot to hear. Without waiting for a response, she stomped back to the table where Sammy—eyes wide, mouth gaping—waited.
“Everything okay?” Sammy asked.
“Peachy.” Eden sat down, back to Davis Gates, and ate her mangled turkey with restrained fury.
She ran her errands in a fog, pretending that she wasn’t hearing Davis’s name whispered everywhere she went. The grocery store, the drug store, the post office. She could do this. Blue Moon Bend was a small town. But it wasn’t like she was going to see the man every day. She never went to the winery—rumor had it Davis’s parents had hung her school photo like a mug shot in the tasting room with instructions never to serve her should she darken their door. Sure, she shared a property line with the winery, but with her acreage and theirs she could probably pretend that he didn’t exist just as she had with his parents.