“Hey, you can’t go in th—” Cash-register lady started to say, but he was already through the door.
He skidded to a halt.
There, laid out before him, were trays and trays and trays of cookies shaped liked penises and iced in bright colors. Fuchsia. Yellow. Teal. Neon green.
Hair-netted Heather glanced up from where she was icing the tip on a batch of blue-balled man rods.
He had thought the day was weird before. It wasn’t.
“That is a lot of dick,” he said to no one in particular.
Two of her staff were boxing them up, and one was arranging several dicks-on-sticks into an arrangement in a vase. The symmetry was on point, and one truly had to look closely to see the phallic shapes of the cookies. They looked like an adorable assortment of cookie flowers. Until you did a double take and realized they were a handful of multicolored edible erections.
“Jase?” Heather asked. The tip of her icing bag leaked blue icing onto the table.
“Okay, so first...” He shook his head. “We’ll get to that. Second”—he waved an arm toward the erectile bouquet— “what the hell are these?”
Heather raised her eyebrows. “You’ve never seen a penis before?”
“Of course I’ve seen one. Every day, in fact. But why are they in cookie form?” And what alternate reality had he been transported into that morning?
Heather dropped the bag to the table. “They’re cockies. They sell like crazy. What was the first thing?” She moved a finished tray to the waiting rack.
Right. His grandmother’s personal demolition derby. “There’s been a little accident with your van. My grandmother shouldn’t have been driving, but she gets determined sometimes.”
She turned back to him, the color lost from her cheeks. “What happened to my van? Is your grandmother okay?”
“She is fine. Totally fine.” He kept his tone upbeat, despite the verdict he was about to render. “Her car is also fine. Your van, on the other hand…” He paused. Pinched his lips and did a little shake of his head.
“My van…” Apron and vinyl gloves still on, Heather pushed beside him and bolted toward the door.
“It’s not so fine,” he finished.
Turned out, Heather was a good sprinter. He hurried to keep up with her pace. She bolted across the street, pausing when the broken plastic chocolate chip cookie came into view.
“My cookie.” Only two words, but they were laced with desperation. She rounded to the side of the damage, and then she did that thing a woman does when she’s at her most dangerous. She got quiet. Real quiet. Peaceful, almost.
That’s what happened right before a bomb went off. Most people didn’t know that from firsthand experience, but he did. That moment of still right before shit got real.
“Are you okay?” she asked his grandmother.
“Of course; is just a scratch.” Babushka gestured to the not-just-a-scratch damage on the van. The old woman raised her weathered brows. “We have not met. I am Nadzieja.” The old woman gave Heather some serious stink eye. “Everyone I like calls me Babushka. You vill call me Nadzieja.”
Heather paused a beat. “Okay.” She looked back to the damage. Then to Jase. “Well, you can call me Heather, and we should call the police. Get a report started for insurance.” Heather patted the pockets of her icing-splattered, yellow-polka-dot apron. “Damn. My phone’s at the shop.”
“You can use mine.” Ethan began to hand over his cell.
Jase stepped between them. “What if we…didn’t. You know, involve the police? Just handled this between neighbors?”
“Jase.” Heather looked at him like he’d been the one icing dick cookies, still oh-so calm. “This is a lot of damage. We need to exchange insurance cards. Get a police report. And I’ve got to figure out how to make my deliveries today.”
Velma’s Prius crept behind Babushka’s car, stopped, and Brek opened the driver’s side door. His wife got out of the passenger side.
“Holy cow.” Velma’s eyes went wide.
“Yeah,” Jase said under his breath.
“Is just a scratch.” Babushka lifted a shoulder.
Jase slid his gaze to Heather. The calm was gonna blow any minute. She pinched her lips into a flat line.
Brek wasted no time in running a hand over the damage while Velma grabbed their kid out of the back seat. Normally, Jase would go all Uncle Jase on the baby and coo and cuddle, but today he had a cookie-van-disaster to sort.
Brek dropped to the gravel and scooted so he could see under the van.
Then he pushed himself up, dropping his elbows over his knees.
“Frame’s bent.” Brek dusted off the sleeves of his leather motorcycle jacket.
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
“Then we’ll bend it back.” Heather gestured to where Brek sat on the ground, like he should get on that.
Velma had moved beside Heather, her free arm around Heather’s back. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“It’s gonna be scrap.” Brek confirmed what Jase already suspected.
“Like I say, only a scrape. Nothing serious,” Babushka chimed in.
“I don’t understand.” Heather glanced between Brek, Jase, Babushka, and Ethan.
“He means, it’s not fixable,” Jase confirmed. “I mean, it’s fixable. Everything’s fixable. But it’ll be too expensive. A bent frame is going to total the van.”
Brek nodded in agreement. “I have a guy who can take a look. But it’s bent as all shit under there. There’s no way this isn’t totaled.”
Heather’s mouth dropped, her pretty raspberry lips turning pale.
Babushka sat against the bumper of her Buick and pulled a peppermint candy from her bag. She carefully unwrapped it, popped it in her mouth, and glared daggers at Heather. “Tell me, vill you break all the hearts in the neighborhood? Or just my grandson’s?”
Heather seemed to choke on air. Jase didn’t have a mirror, but he knew his eyes were definitely huge. Babushka could not seriously be bringing this up right now.
“He’s really upset about it all,” Babushka continued. “You vill fix things.”
Heather stared at Babushka. “Jase is upset…because we broke up?” She was still doing that calm thing. The one that did not bode well for anyone within a five-foot radius. Namely, him.
“You and Jase?” Velma asked, clearly confused. “Really?”
Why would it be such a shock if they’d hooked up?
He slid his gaze to Brek.
Brek, who obviously wasn’t buying any of it.
“Heather? Can I have a word?” Jase jerked his head toward Velma’s Prius, and started in that direction.
Heather followed. Silent. Too silent.
Jase hadn’t expected his grandmother to approach Heather. He hadn’t expected her to get revenge by smashing her van. He’d expected she’d let it go. He’d expected her to mind her own goddamned business and let him live his life.
He should’ve known better.
They reached Velma’s Prius.
Heather crossed her arms, leaned against the edge of the trunk, and waited. Her gaze bore into his.
He knew this game. First one to talk lost.
Fuck it. “I told Babushka you broke my heart so she’d lay off her insistence that I need to meet someone. I had no idea she’d go all Cruella de Vil on you.”
“So, this is your fault?” Heather waved a hand toward the van. “This is what you meant when you said your family goes a ‘little nutty’ about your relationship status. You did this to me? You did this to my cookie?”
Here it came. Where was a goddamned bomb suit when he needed one?
“I don’t even know what to say right now.” Her voice was getting pitchy. Raising with each word. “I mean, this is outrageous. You’ve totaled my van via your grandmother. I didn’t even know that was a thing.” She paced away from him. Then back. “Oh my God. Oh. My. God. My van is trashed.” Her finger pressed against his sternum. “I sold
everything I own to open this shop. I sold my car to buy that van.” And she was yelling. “Now, it’s gone because you couldn’t tell your grandmother you didn’t want to date anyone?”
He nodded and pressed at the bridge of his nose. “I fucked up.”
Three words a guy never wanted to say.
The fight deflated out of her. She just stared at him.
“I don’t suppose at this point there is any way you’ll play along with the breakup so they will, in fact, lay off?” he asked.
“Your grandmother just took out my van.” Heather tossed her arm toward the totaled van in illustration. “And you want me to pretend we were together?”
Not quite. “I want you to pretend we broke up.”
“Because you don’t want a girlfriend?” She crossed, then uncrossed, her arms and propped them behind her on the side of the trunk. “And you’re too scared to actually stand up to your grandmother.”
“Yes.” Had she not just witnessed the devastation his grandmother could wreak when she was on a mission?
And why did he feel like he’d been summoned to the principal’s office? A sexy-as-hell principal in a hairnet, but still.
“Even after your grandmother tried to get revenge on me for breaking your tender heart.” She smacked her mouth closed.
“Well, yeah. But I’ll make sure she doesn’t do anything else to you.” He could definitely, probably, make sure of that.
Heather took a few deep breaths. She paced from one side of the car to the other. “I don’t get it. Why do you want to have a pretend break up? You asked me out. Twice.” She held up two fingers, for good measure.
“I don’t want the kind of girlfriend they want me to have.”
“What kind is that?”
He shifted. “Look, chicks can be demanding.”
And that was the truth.
“I had no idea.” The sympathy in her tone was anything but sympathetic.
He stepped closer to her.
“You’re not that kind of chick.” He got close. Not up in her space, but close enough he could smell the lavender in her shampoo.
The light behind her eyes flared. “So if I agree to lie to your grandmother about us, what about my van?”
“Here’s what I’m thinking.” Jase pointed to his delivery van in the alley. “We’ll share my van today. Ethan can help out with your deliveries. We don’t call the police. We don’t involve insurance. I just…” Fuck it. What the hell. “Buy you a new van.”
“What about tomorrow? And the day after that?” Heather’s voice started to get pitchy, but she held herself tall.
“Ethan and I will help you out until we get you another van. We’ll order it today.” Jase’s grandmother was going to owe him.
“A pink one,” Heather confirmed. “With a cookie on the top.”
“Right. Just like this one.” But without the Buick indentation along the side. “Though, my delivery driver may quit when he realizes he has to deliver penis cookies.”
“Oh please. We box them up so you can’t see what they are,” she said. “I can’t exactly walk through town with a cockie bouquet without getting hate mail.”
Then everything was fine. Win. Win. Win. “Perfect. All sorted.”
Ethan never had to know what he was delivering.
Heather didn’t move. “I want a year of satellite radio, leather seats, a premium stereo system, and a fresh tank of gas every week for a year.”
He groaned internally.
“And I’m not taking the bus to the grocery store. You’ll lend me your car whenever I need it.” She shrugged. “Or we can do this thing the right way. The way that involves police and insurance.”
He focused his gaze on his grandmother. She had no license. And this was not her first offense. Hell, she should be the one forking out the money. But this was his fault—at least partially. He’d suck it up, open his checkbook, and take responsibility.
She could wind up in jail. Or worse, house arrest. Somehow, she’d probably manage to make that happen at his apartment. “Fine. Done. Leather. Satellite. Stereo. Gas. Plastic Cookie. Personal chauffeur.”
“And pink paint,” she confirmed.
“And pink paint.”
“Will there be tears?” she asked.
“Sorry?” What had she asked? He was busy doing the math of how much money he’d just dropped on a delivery van that he’d never use.
“You’re pretending I broke your heart. Don’t you think you’d be so upset that there’d be some crying on your part?”
Ha. No. “Not a chance.”
Her chest heaved on her exhale. “I think you’d cry for me.”
“No.”
“Give me sad, longing looks?”
“No.”
“Then I guess I’ll make that call to police.” Heather started to walk away.
He hesitated for an instant. “Longing looks, mostly sad.” He held his hand to her.
She turned. “Fine. With one exception.”
“What?” His hand still hung in the air between them. Unshook.
“I don’t lie to my friends.”
“Fair enough. Just my family.” He gave a pointed glance to his still outstretched palm.
She shook it, latex gloves and all, a naughty smile touching her lips. “Nice doing business with you.”
Shit. If she kept that up, he would be in tears. Or at least he’d wind up on his knees.
Then again, that could be fun, too. On his knees. In her bedroom. Or office. Or kitchen.
They headed back toward the scene of the crime.
“Why aren’t we reporting the accident?” Velma asked, genuine confusion written across her face.
Okay, just so they were clear.
“Babushka doesn’t have a license,” Jase began. “It’d be a huge help to me, a personal favor, if we didn’t involve the police.” Police who very well might arrest his grandmother for driving without a license…again.
Velma stood tall. “And you’re gonna replace Heather’s van.”
“I am. And make Heather’s deliveries for her in the meantime.”
Ethan would murder him if he found out he was delivering penis-cookie bouquets. But Jase would deal with that. And everything else. When the time came.
4
Chapter Four
“You want to talk about it yet?” Velma asked from where she sat across the worktable in Heather’s commercial cookie kitchen.
Heather had figured out the layout herself. The ovens and the huge kitchen vent were on one side of the room, separated by a line of racks for cookie-cooling. The other half of the room—the one closest to the front of the store—was for decorating and boxing.
Velma had offered to stick around and help ice eyeballs on the snuggle-bird cookies Heather had to finish up. She was on maternity leave but hated being stuck at home. So she sometimes came to help Heather while baby Lily napped in Heather’s office.
Meringue icing flooded a wing of one of the birds on Heather’s tray. The cookies, heart-shaped with two iced birds snuggling inside, were a customer favorite. “There’s absolutely nothing to talk about.”
“Okay.” Velma went back to piping the black pupils on the birds. “You’re just doing Jase a pretty huge favor.”
A favor that would net her leather seats and satellite radio. Heather ignored the way her blood pressure knocked around her heart at the mention of Jase.
She’d have thought that him catching her looking at rings would’ve been embarrassment enough. Nope, that was just the icing on the tip of the dick. When Logan left, she’d promised herself she didn’t need to find a guy to find any sort of fulfillment in life—even though that was what all her friends were doing. Of course, calling off the search didn’t mean she didn’t like bling. So, she’d promised herself she’d buy her own damn ring. Pick it out. One that was a gift to herself.
A promise ring of sorts.
“And he’s not hard to look at,” Velma said, not looking up from the
tray of cookies.
Heather’s stomach fluttered ridiculously at the memory of Jase’s early-morning dance party.
“Not that I’m looking,” Velma continued.
Velma wasn’t looking. She’d found her guy. He was the exact opposite of anyone Heather would’ve ever paired with Velma. And they were brilliantly happy together. For a while, Heather had thought she and Logan were headed that way, too. To the blissful relationship stage of things. Then he’d started shutting her out. Just like all of her boyfriends before him. Heather was a lot of fun, she’d been told that often, but she wasn’t the kind of girl men wanted to spend forever with. Love like that wasn’t meant for everyone. She’d come to accept that.
Heather’s little sister and head-cookie-baker, Candace—mostly known as Candy to everyone she knew—brought Heather another tray of sugar-cookie hearts ready for icing.
“That man has abs that go on for miles,” Candy said as she popped the tray onto the table.
Miles and miles. Heather refused to think about his body or the way he smelled of cinnamon.
What she needed was a night in with a marathon of Family Feud.
“I bet he’s amazing in bed. With a body like that?” Candy smacked her lips together.
“Candy?” Heather asked, not raising her eyes from where the tip of her piping bag touched the pastry.
“Yeah?”
“No.”
Velma snort-laughed. Candy winked at her.
Heather swallowed any thoughts of Jase in bed.
“You know Mom and Dad would adore him,” Candy continued.
“Mom and Dad like everyone.” Their soft-spoken mother and father rarely raised their voices. That was the kind of people they were. So, no, Jase wouldn’t have to do much to win their adoration.
Laying down the piping bag, Heather grabbed Velma’s finished tray of cookies and pushed through the swinging doors to arrange them in the case.
The string of jingle bells on the door tinkled as two women jostled their way in—Jase’s Russian Mafia granny and a woman about Heather’s age.
Heather’s internal monologue dropped some serious cuss words.
Just the Tip of the Iceberg: Mile High Matched Books 1-3 Page 30