Must Love Sandwiches (10 page)

“For about two weeks. Then I just became a roadblock to your artistic success. What is up with that? Why are you so driven?”

“I like to pay my rent and have enough money to buy decent food, instead of hot dogs and canned soup, once in awhile.”

“It’s more than that. I bet you’ve sold enough of your work over the last few years that you can’t even remember the last time you had problems paying the rent.” He was right. She even had a nice, little sum piling up interest in a savings account at the bank two blocks away. “Why do you even bother dating if you aren’t willing to try?” he asked.

“How much have you had to drink? You aren’t making any sense. I always try to make my relationships work. It’s not my fault if they fall apart.”

“Canceling dates and ignoring your phone because you’re busy painting a stupid, fairy door isn’t exactly trying to make it work.”

“I can’t ignore my work. If I have an order it needs to be done on time.”

“No matter what the price, huh? Art rules. Boys drool.”

“You’re acting like a child.”

“I’m acting like a man who got tired of being ignored by what he thought was the woman of his dreams. Prove to me you don’t put your art before everything else. Let’s get back together. Give it another try.”

Max wasn’t a man of words. He let his drawings do the talking, so the verbal ping-pong match was unusual. That’s what made it even more unsettling. The questions sliced into Emma’s heart.
When you find a man who loves you as much as you love him, hold on tight.
Her mother’s words snaked through her mind. Everything was turned upside down. The fabled knight was a cheating rat under the shiny armor. Now the rogue, bad boy was asking for a second chance. Her head spun even though she hadn’t even asked him for a beer.

“I don’t know, Max. I can’t deal with this right now. When you and I were together I felt like a match doing some kind of twisted dance with a can of gasoline. We were always on the edge of an inferno. I’m afraid. If we get close again, we’ll both go up in flames.”

Max sat up. He grabbed the side of Emma’s bean bag and pulled her closer. The alcohol on his breath mingled with the spicy scent of soap still lingering on his skin. “If we crash and burn we’ll be phoenixes and rise from the ashes, stronger than ever.” He ran his finger down the side of her face. “Let’s try again.”

He leaned in to kiss her. She rolled in the opposite direction. Her knees smacked the hardwood floor. The pain propelled the air out of her lungs. She scrambled to her feet when his fingers raked down her arm. “Please don’t touch me. I can’t do this right now.”

His laugh was harsh and humorless. He untangled his long limbs and stood to face her. “It’s that guy from the food truck you always go to, isn’t it? I’ve seen him in the building a lot lately, heading to your studio.”

“I can have visitors. You don’t need to approve of them.” She put her hands on her hips. “What I do with Brad is none of your business.”

Max turned away and stalked to the drafting table in the corner of the room. He ripped a sheet of paper out of a storage tray and picked up one of the pens that were scattered over the desk. “You’re right.” He sat down on the desk chair and hunched over the paper, like a child protecting his test answers from a classmate’s prying eyes. “Have fun with your new man.”

The scratching of the pen nib on the paper signaled Max’s descent into the morbid world of his mind. Emma backed toward the door. He was a venomous snake, coiled in the corner. Turning her back on him could be dangerous. She slammed into the doorknob. A jolt of sharp pain shot through her hip. She reached behind her to twist the knob. After she backed into the hallway she took a deep, shuddering breath. She returned to her apartment and crawled into bed with her clothes still on. On the other side of the window the sky was the smoky gray of early dawn.
Was Brad waking up alone in his bed? Probably not.

The automatic door swung open. An intoxicating aroma enveloped Daisy. Savory, smoky and undeniably meaty. The market was famous for it’s homemade sausage and they often offered samples to entice customers. Her stomach growled. She patted her belly.
Take it easy, killer.
Bread, milk and other essentials needed to be picked up before she could visit the meat counter. The cupboards had more dust bunnies than food, so the payment from a gallery in Ferndale couldn’t have come at a better time.

Having money was awesome, but she still needed to watch how much she spent. The bakery area was filled with tempting loaves in every shape and size. The green olive with parmesan was a favorite variety, but the plain, white sandwich loaf cost half as much. “I’ll come back for you another day,” she whispered to the olive loaf as she dropped the budget-friendly victor into her basket.

She wandered through every aisle, comparing prices and selecting only the items she really wanted. The mesh tote bags Emma had suggested she make were selling like hotcakes in the colony’s gallery. Even though she was having problems keeping them on the shelves, her friend had come up with another brilliant idea to increase sales. A booth at the farmer’s market. On the second Saturday of every month the market loosened their vendor restrictions and allowed crafters and artists to sell their wares among the produce and flower stands. It could work if she came up with a less elaborate tote bag pattern to knit. The ones she was currently making took so long to knit she could barely keep up with the demand.

As she was thinking of potential patterns, Daisy rounded a corner and came face to face with the glorious meat counter. It was stocked with rows of fat sausages and thick, marbled steaks. The source of the drool-worthy scent was a few feet away, sitting on a small table. An electric skillet was filled with sizzling chunks of smoked sausage. While the sausage nibbles were tempting the man standing next to them was even tastier. Marshall, the owner of Vegan Valhalla and all-around smoking hottie, speared a piece of sausage with a toothpick and popped it into his mouth.

His eyes widened as he looked at her and then at the butcher behind the counter. “Oops. Looks like I’ve been busted.” Marshall looked back at Daisy and said, “I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“No offense taken.” She rearranged the items in her basket.
Why did he think he offended her?
Sure, it was a shock to see him eating a big, juicy chunk of pork product, but it didn’t bother her. In fact, it made her insanely happy. It was like eating a gooey brownie and then finding out it was low-fat. “Why would I be offended?”

“Some vegans aren’t big fans of carnivores.” He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Please don’t tell anybody that I eat meat. I could lose a lot of customers if they found out about this.”

Just standing there like a drooling idiot wasn’t exactly flattering. Daisy stepped around him to snag her own sample of sausage. She took a deep breath before stuffing the smoky nibble in her mouth. Her mind would really stop working if she started hyperventilating and cut off its oxygen supply. “Your secret is safe with me. I’m not a vegan either. I love your food, but I can’t live without bacon.”

Marshall whistled softly. “I’ll be damned.”

She turned to face the butcher. The corners of her mouth twitched as she tried to hold back a huge grin. It seemed that she had surprised him as much as he had surprised her. “Can I get a pound of the thick-cut pepper bacon?”

“Good choice. Coming right up,” he said as he turned to retrieve the bacon.

“Since you’re willing to keep my secret I guess I owe you an explanation.”

Daisy looked at Marshall. The smile won the battle with her face muscles. She hoped there wasn’t anything stuck between her teeth. “I am curious about why you own a vegan food truck and eat meat, but it’s really none of my business.”

He tipped his head sideways, like he was studying an odd painting. Maybe there was something in her teeth. She clamped her lips shut as he said, “I trust you. Besides, I think it’s kind of cool that you like my food and bacon. Those things don’t really go together.”

She blinked.
Did he just say he thought she was cool?
The butcher put the package of bacon on the top of the meat case and asked, “Anything else?”

“No.” She reached for the white paper package. It slipped from her fingers as she slid it toward her. The bundle of bacon flipped off the edge of the meat case and somehow, miraculously, landed in her basket. She was such a klutz when she was nervous. When the bacon was securely nestled between the bread and a bag of grapes she looked up. Marshall was staring at her.

He asked, “Do you like that sausage we just tried?”

“Yes.”

He nodded at the butcher and said, “I’ll take a pound of the smoked sausage.”

Daisy shifted her weight from foot to foot. It was time to make her exit, before she dropped her basket on his foot, or worse. “Well, enjoy the sausage. I’ll see you around.”

“Wait.” He touched her elbow when she turned away. “Have you had lunch yet?”

Her stomach answered with a loud growl. “No. I’ve been busy knitting.”

“I would love to make you lunch so I can explain how I came to be a carnivore.” He nodded at the exit. “My apartment is a couple blocks away. We can walk there in less than five minutes.”

So this was what it was like to be a deer caught standing in the headlights of a speeding car. He was finally asking her out and her brain wouldn’t work. “Um…I...”

“I’m making sausage with tri-colored peppers.”

Her stomach roared again and kicked her brain into gear. This was the moment she had been waiting for.
Don’t screw it up
. “Sounds good.”

“Come on. Let’s go to the park and get some lunch. I don’t want to go by myself. It just isn’t the same without you.” Daisy tilted her head and frowned. Her sad puppy look, but it wasn’t going to work this time.

“No way. I’m not going down there.” Emma filled a small saucepan with water and set it on the stove burner. A drop of water slid down the side of the pan and evaporated with a hiss on the glowing, red coil. “I don’t want to see Brad and you still need to make sure you have enough money to make your rent next week.”

“I sold three tote bags and a baby blanket in the gallery. So I can buy lunch for both of us and still not get evicted.” She tilted her head to the side. “I can’t believe it’s been over a week and you still haven’t asked him what was going on. Let’s go. Don’t you want to find out who the woman sticking her tongue down his throat was?”

“No. I
still
don’t want to know.” Emma struggled to open a package of ramen noodles. She tugged on opposite sides of the thin, plastic wrapper. It ripped open and the brick of noodles clattered onto the floor. It skittered across the tiles and bounced off the bottom of the refrigerator. “He’s a business associate now. Nothing else. It’s none of my business who he hooks up with.”

“I don’t believe you. You know you want to know who she is. Curiosity killed the cat, darling.”

“You can’t be curious if you don’t care.” Emma sighed as she bent over to pick up the main ingredient of her economy lunch. A gray dust bunny clung to the corner of the dry noodles. She tossed them into the trash can. Maybe if Daisy hadn’t been watching her she would’ve just rinsed off the noodles and used them. The boiling water would kill any bacteria. If she did happen to catch something, the physical misery would pair nicely with the psychological anguish.

“You know, lying to yourself is detrimental to your mental health.” Daisy traced circles in the air near her ears. The universal sign for crazy. “Why don’t you just go buy an entire litter of kittens and start establishing yourself as a crazy cat lady?”

“Better a cat lady than desperate tramp,” Emma said as she banged open a cabinet door to retrieve her last package of ramen. She had been so busy painting doors and worrying that her life was falling apart at the seams, that she had forgotten to get groceries over the last few weeks. The thought of one of Brad’s smoked turkey sandwiches made her mouth water, but she refused to give into her craving. There was no way she could face him.

Daisy shook her head. “I see we need to go over this again. You need to give up the insane idea that you are becoming your mother. Obviously, your childhood wasn’t sunshine and picket fences because of her, but why do you think you’re destined to be the same way? Last week she outright told you that you are nothing like her.”

“Would you like me to start listing all of my boyfriends? All of the guys I was with before you and I became friends? All I need to do is get pregnant and I’ll be exactly like good, old mom.”

“You are so stubborn and sorry, but you are being incredibly stupid.” Daisy stomped back and forth between the refrigerator and couch. “What if walking away from Brad is your big mistake, like your mother’s biggest mistake was cheating on your father? I don’t blame you for not wanting to turn your bedroom into a revolving sex den, but you’re just heading down a different branch of the same path.”

Emma slammed the refrigerator shut. She had opened it to retrieve an ingredient for her unpalatable lunch, but forgot what she was looking for. Daisy’s pointed comments were too distracting for her to focus on anything else. “You saw him kissing that woman, too. Getting involved with a guy who is with someone else is exactly the kind of thing my mom does.”