Forbidden Kisses (3:AM Kisses Book 9) (10 page)

“You’re doing great. Just be sure to keep it a fourth of an inch all the way through.” She inspects her blue hands and runs them under the water one more time, but it’s no use. We’re both stained as blueberries from trying to get this electric blue concoction just the right hue. It’s for a special client’s baby boy who gets a three-tiered cake for his very first birthday. Roxy usually doesn’t do cakes, but since it’s his first, she’s going all-out. “Oh, and bad news, I can’t make that run to Carlton, so would you mind doing the delivery for me?”

My body temperature spikes. “No—not at all.” Mentally, I try to calculate street routes all the way out to that miniature metropolis, but every one of those leads straight to the highway. My heart lets out a few wild wallops at the thought of hopping onto that super highway and merging my way to the other side of existence. In the least, I’ll get into a massive pileup, and all of Roxy’s precious confections will go flying. If the interstate doesn’t kill me, Roxy will for sure.

“Great. Baya is having her final fitting for her matron of honor dress, so Laney and I are tagging along. The brides will be there, too, so this way I get a sneak peek at all that satiny splendor.” She wrinkles her nose. “When Cole and I get hitched, I’m wearing black—something smoking hot, not too matronly. I’d elope, but both my brother and Laney would kill us.” She fishes a key from the junk drawer and hands it to me. “You don’t need to leave for another hour, so if you have to make a quick pit stop back at your dorm feel free. Just lock up when you leave.” She scoots to the exit and snaps up her purse. “The address is sitting there on top. Don’t work too hard. See you tomorrow!”

The door slams shut, and I snatch the directions off the stack of boxes set for delivery.

God, God,
God
! What am I going to do? I stare blankly at the word
Carlton
printed boldly at the bottom of the rather vague map and break out into a biting sweat. Carlton is all the way out in Timbuk-fucking-tu! Why the hell do people in Carlton need cupcakes?

“Shit!” I fumble for my phone and put a call into Daisy. Of course, I breathe easy for a moment, but it goes straight to voicemail. “Crap.” Nobody picks up their damn phone anymore. What the hell am I thinking? I send a group text to Daisy, Piper, and Cassidy asking if anyone would mind driving out with me to Carlton, citing lunch would be on me! Little do they know they’ll actually be doing the peddling. I’ve spent a lifetime coercing unsuspecting friends and family to take me where I needed to be should my final destination warrant a jaunt on the turnpike of terror.

One by one they text back, each with a very valid excuse. Piper has a hot date with Owen—literally hot, they’re about to boil one another at the Witch’s Cauldron, a cesspool of coital encounters if you ask me. I’d be terrified to dip my toe in it in fear it’d fall right off. Cassidy and Cade just got back from a quick trip to Tennessee and are exhausted. Daisy is already at Stilettos trying out a new routine.

“I’m fucked.” I glare up at the tower of boxes, each with their dozens of cute little pink cupcakes drizzled with a rainbow of classic sprinkles. I thought they were so darn adorable when I was putting them together, and now they’re all glaring at me like a coven of pink demons. I hate the damn things. I’m going to die in a fiery crash, and it’s all because of those over iced confections.

Rex pops into my head, and I don’t hesitate putting in a text.

Where are you?
No, wait. Delete, delete, delete. Sounds too demanding. I need to come across as kindhearted and friendly—two things I find it very hard to be around Rex Toberman. In fact, if I can elicit a little sympathy, it might work in my favor.

I knock my foot into the baseboard and wince.

Hey, Rex!
Friendly enough.
Are you available in the next hour? I hurt my foot and sort of need a quick ride to Carlton.
Scratch that last part. Delete, delete, delete—Carlton equals Timbuk-fucking-tu equals a swift rejection from my soon-to-be stepbrother the jock.
A quick ride across town.

I hit
Send
, and the dancing ellipses pop up on the screen, assuring me he’s busy responding. A tense knot builds in my stomach at the thought of another rejection. Good God, who the heck am I going to mooch a ride off if Rex falls through? I suppose I can try Sabrina or Lawson, but they’re both well aware of my fear of the freeway. I’d have to endure a half hour of lectures both coming and going.

I’m at practice. Sorry.

“What?” I give an audible groan as if I’ve just landed on the wrong end of a kitchen knife. This is not good. This is not good at all.

His text bubble illuminates once again. He’s making the ellipses dance, and I nod as if willing it what to say.

Just finishing up. Do I have time to hit the shower?

A swell of relief fills me.

Yes! But make it fast. I’ll meet you outside of Cutler Tower in an hour. Thanx, Goober.
I add that last term of false endearment just to let him know we’re still at an emotional arm’s length away. As much as I appreciate the effort, in no way does this signify that I’m actually falling for the quarterback of Whitney Briggs’s football team. That in and of itself is a cliché I want no part of.

Ha! Rex Toberman is a cliché. I’ll have to remember that the next time he has me hot and bothered.

I somehow manage to lug all of the boxes filled with yummy hot pink goodness across the street and in front of Cutler Tower in time to see the cheer squad warming up—decompressing, whichever, out on the lawn. I spot Savannah with her long slender ponytail, her matching svelte legs, and swelling breasts that are currently trying to escape her all too tight sports bra. I hate girls like that with perfect bodies and perfect faces and perfect bitchy attitudes to match. It’s not that I’m trying to be masochistic to my own kind, but an equally bitchy part of me can’t help it. Something about that girl in particular twists my guts into a barbed-wire pretzel, and I simply can’t stand her.

Just as I’m about to send another quick text to my friendly unsuspecting chauffeur, the scent of a fresh Irish spring meadow envelops me.

“Hey, little sister,” a deep voice rumbles from behind, and I can’t help but give a crooked grin.

“Hey, big brother.” I turn just in time to see Savannah leap onto his shoulders.

“What’s this? Are you two, like, related?” Her upper lip hitches into her cheek on one side as if a fisherman is about to reel her in.

“Yup.” Rex gives me a little wink, and something about that small act sends a fireball rolling through me. I can’t help but notice the water beading over his freshly slicked hair, that clean soapy scent of his skin, the understated cologne, and the hint of minty toothpaste all clue me in on the fact that I’ve got a freshly scrubbed Rex Toberman on my hands, or more accurately in Savannah’s hands. “Our parents are about to bite the big one, so we’ll be steps come August.”

Crap. Why did he need to go and fill her in on that fun tidbit? Worse yet, why did he need to speak that sentence out loud, and put it out in the universe like a fact? Everyone knows you don’t mess with that crap. Once you’ve loosened something so affirmatively into the heavens, it’s as good as done.

“No shit?” She snaps a pretty pink bubble in my face. “Well, I guess there’s no need to see you as competition.” She gives a cackling laugh, and for a second, I wonder if I missed the joke. “Rex and I are sort of a thing.” She gives a lazy shrug while draped over his chest, and in every way they look like sort of a thing. A jock-cheerleader cliché of a thing, but nevertheless a very real thing.

My stomach stews in its own acids, and I nod into this as if agreeing with her.

“Come on,
Goob
,” I snap. “We’ve places to go and people to feed.”

“What?” He follows blindly as I hand him seven boxes of cupcakes and head toward his truck. “What the hell are these? Holy shit, they smell good. Never mind what they are. How many can I eat?”

“Zero.” Which happens to be exactly how many fucks I give regarding that cheerleader he just peeled off like a coat. But my stomach tenses, my blood begins to boil as if calling me out on the lie.

We pack up and hit the road. I give him directions to Carlton, and he doesn’t bat a lash as the highway approaches.

“It’s my summer job,” I explain. “I have to make deliveries, but today, I wasn’t really able to.” Totally not a lie. I’m
completely
unable to. In fact, if you carefully analyze my level of fear, I’m downright disabled from ever getting these confections to where they need to be. “By the way, there’s no way in hell I’ll even let you look at one of those cute little cupcakes.” Because, honestly, they would totally be toast. They really are that delicious. I had about six myself. A thought comes to me. “But I have a very creative way to pay you for your troubles.”

Rex glances at me a second, his hands flexing over the steering wheel as if getting a better grip. “If this involves you, me, a bed, and our parents hovering in horror, you can forget it. Every day this week, my mother has called making sure I haven’t deflowered her ‘daughter’. Do you even understand how wrong that sounds?” He winces into the road up ahead.

“Oh, totally. My father texted and said he’s back on his anxiety medicine. He’s sort of waiting for affirmation that the two of us will never knock boots.” I frown at the sexual side street we just went down. “But, no, my older yet no wiser perverted brother, this in no way involves an incestuous flesh exchange. Although it does involve something sticky sweet with a hole in it that I’m betting you’d be happy to stick your tongue in.” I let him stew in his perverse frame of mind for a moment. “
Donuts
. I pay in donuts.”

“Donuts.” His head arches back, and he closes his eyes briefly before getting back to the task of keeping us both alive. “Hell yes. Donuts.”

We finally make it to Carlton, to the exact venue where the bat mitzvah is taking place. Rex helps me haul in the boxes of bakery treats to the kitchen where he’s bombarded with the girl of the hour along with about a dozen of her pre-teen friends, all gawking over how cute the delivery boy is. A paparazzi worth of pictures is snapped by the teen scene, with some of the girls boldly asking to pose with him.

Once we manage to escape the underaged mob, we hop into the truck and head back on the road. I pull out my phone and do a quick search for the nearest donut shop and pull it up on my map app.

“They got an Auntie’s Donuts about three miles down if you get off on the second exit.”

“Auntie’s? That’s my favorite.” A wistful look crosses his face as he makes the necessary lane change.

“It’s
my
absolute favorite. I hit the one in Hollow Brook every Sunday, and it’s a donut-fest from sun up till sundown.”

“Really?” His brows knit into one long black wiggle worm across his forehead as if the thought of me voluntarily clogging my arteries gave him reason to worry.

“Yes, really. I get up early and ride my bike over. I bring back two boxes and leave one in the commons room because I’m nice that way.” I make a face at myself in the passenger’s side mirror because I think we both know I’m not all that nice. The fact I’ve chosen to outwardly deceive my father can testify to that. I can’t help it, though. Lynette Toberman has mistake stamped all over both her and that beach bag of a Louis Vuitton purse she demands to cart around.

“That is nice.” He inches his head back as if this act of carbohydrate kindness stumped him on some level. We get off the highway and thread through traffic until I point across the street at the gleaming green and white building.

“Oh my God, it’s huge!” I marvel at the sheer expanse of the business and silently wonder if this is the flagship store.

“I love it when girls say that.” He shakes his head as if reliving a memory.

“Could you stop being a pervert for like one second? I’m talking about the building. I know my way around a donut shop, and that’s like the Taj Mahal of deep-fried ooey gooey goodness.”

“Ooey gooey goodness?” Now it’s his turn to make a face as he pulls into the nearest parking stall.

“Let me guess. Another little quip you like to hear in bed?”

“Now who’s the pervert?”

We head inside, and, to my satisfaction, I was right. This is the biggest, baddest donut shop in the East, because not only is it large enough to house every donut ever consumed by humankind but the deep fryer runs along a plate glass window, allowing the customers a peek into the mysterious donut making process.

“Where do we start?” He bounces on his heels, and I can’t help but note the fact he looks boyishly intrigued, which at the moment is a good thing because the thirteen-year-old in me is just as eager to be on this spontaneous field trip.

“How about in dough town?” We head over to where the proofers are set up near the front and follow along as raw donuts are spit onto a conveyer belt of a fryer. About halfway through, the donuts flip over, and finally down at the end, each golden brown confection runs under a waterfall of warm, sugary glaze.

“Shit,” he whimpers, and about three different mothers give him dirty looks. Of course, those dirty looks morph into wide-eyed come hither, lip-licking forms of sexual advancement. All of which I’m sure Sexy Rexy here is used to.

We head up to the counter, and I put in an order for two-dozen fresh, hot, glazed.

“Add two more,” Rex says, pulling out his credit card.

“Four dozen boxes coming right up.” The young, lanky boy behind the counter doesn’t even blink. I’m betting he hears such ludicrous orders all the livelong day, and why not? They practically have you hypnotized to make absurd purchases after subjecting you to their entrancing conveyer belt voodoo.

“That’s right.” Rex pays for our purchase before I can protest.

“Hey—I’m supposed to be paying for these. I’m making restitution, remember? I feel like I’m ruining your Friday night.”

“Oh, you’ll pay for this, all right.” We step aside as we wait for our boxes.

“If this involves you sticking your tongue into a sticky, sweet hole that happens to be attached to my body, you can forget it.”