Sweet Girl (10 page)

“Because I—”

She stops what she is doing, and a smile flashes across her face for no apparent reason. Then she takes a step back from the worktable and looks down at her swollen stomach. Even through her shirt and the chef coat, I can see her belly jumping wildly with every baby kick.

“You like the caramel too, I think,” she says to her belly.

My heart lurches, and I bite my tongue to keep the emotion from showing on my face.

She looks up happily and reaches for my hand.

“Do you want to feel it?”

“No!” I bark in a completely irrational reaction and tuck my hands behind my back.

Joey’s brows furrow, and she studies me quietly for a moment. When I don’t say anything else, she resumes her work with the eggs. Eventually she answers the question I asked, and we both pretend the moment didn’t happen.

“I stuck it out because she was the first person who took me seriously. Avis taught me so many things, and it was entirely different from the life I’d grown up with. The kitchen was the first place I ever felt totally in control.” She holds up an egg. “One less egg and the pudding won’t set; one too many and the consistency is like paste. There’s an equation here, and when you know what you’re doing, it’s actually easier to execute it perfectly than it is to mess something up.” She smiles ironically. “I’m probably too type A, but I like the order in that.”

“Having a personality like yours must make you an interesting partner for someone like her,” I say, handing her the milk.

“Actually, having a personality like mine is what makes me a perfect fit for someone like Avis. It’s like adding sugar to your tomato sauce or citrus to your alfredo. It’s usually our opposites who complement us best, because they’re the only ones who can balance us out.”

Chapter Eight

“Max!”

My head snaps up from the kitchen counter. I don’t even remember falling asleep, but the gelatinous cereal floating in my bowl tells me I’ve been passed out for a while. I look up at Landon through bleary eyes, but I can make out her confusion just the same. I’m still wearing last night’s uniform from my shift at the bar, but it’s rumpled and stale with random liquor that splashed on me while I worked. I probably look even more like a degenerate than usual, which, believe me, is saying a lot since my at-home attire tends to lean pretty far in that direction. Pulling double shifts for the last several days is kicking my butt. This is the third time this week that I’ve knocked out in a random place.

“What’s going on with you?” she asks accusingly.

“How much time do you have?” I rub my hands back and forth over my face, trying to wake up.

“Don’t talk about yourself so flippantly.” She frowns. “You’re not nearly as tortured and damaged as you’d like us all to believe.”

I don’t bother responding.

“Your nails, on the other hand.” She eyeballs my hands where they rest on the countertop. “What’s going on here?”

She points at my bare nails with disdain. I should have realized she’d notice any change in my beauty regimen right away, especially since we usually get our manicures done together.

“Just changing things up,” I hedge and tuck my hands into my lap.

Her face twists in disbelief, but she moves on.

“So anyway, we’ve—” She turns a full circle as if she’s looking for something in the kitchen. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Always,” I answer emphatically.

She starts pulling out the necessary ingredients and then continues as if she didn’t interrupt herself.

“We’ve started a company team.”

“Who?” I ask, confused.

“Chic. We’ve started a company team.”

“You have exactly two employees.”

“I know,” she says, filling up the coffeepot with water.

“And you and Miko aren’t exactly sportsmen,” I inform her, although this shouldn’t be news to anyone.

“You don’t know that! I was captain of the varsity team.”

“Cheerleading is not a sport,” I point out.

She whirls around, gasping in indignation.

Here we go.

“Just so we’re clear, three members of my squad went all-American! And we trained year round. That includes weight training every morning and long runs in the afternoon, and then we had practice for games and performances every day for two hours!” She presses the start button on the machine in agitation. “But your limited knowledge of cheer is beside the point here. It doesn’t matter if you have one employee or a thousand; corporate culture starts from the beginning.”

I motion for her to pour me coffee, even though it hasn’t finished brewing yet, and drop my head down on my hand. If she’s going to lecture me, I need caffeine or booze, and coffee is the most readily available option.

She pours us each an inch of coffee and hands me a cup, all the while continuing on her tirade. When she starts in on the positive effects of team sports on group morale, I have to stop her.

“Landon, why don’t you just tell me what you want?”

“Why would you assume I want anything?” she asks innocently.

“Because this is way too much buildup.” I sigh into my coffee cup.

“Well, it’s just that . . . um . . . We need at least eight people for our team. And it’s all girls, and our first game is against a boys’ team, and I don’t want us to fail our first time up. It’s bad for morale.”

“Bad for morale for the two-person company?” I qualify.

“Exactly.” She smiles like I’ve agreed with her, though who could follow her logic is beyond me.

“So you’ll do it?” she asks nervously.

“Do what?”

“Play on our team. It’s this Saturday at eleven, which is late enough in the day for you. It’ll be so fun, and afterwards we can go to brunch.”

I stare at her over the countertop, actually debating this idiotic plan. A year ago I wouldn’t even bother to respond, but nowadays, as long as they don’t want to braid each other’s hair or do trust falls, I’ll usually allow Landon and Miko to drag me into any number of things.

“Come on! It’s an entire team of men to take your aggression out on.”

“Fine,” I tell her as I stand up.

I need to take a shower, because the smell of old alcohol is starting to make me nauseous.

Landon jumps up and down and claps her hands.

“This is so perfect! I’ll make your team T-shirt today. You don’t have your own tiara, do you?” she asks curiously.

I stop and turn around to face her.

“What?”

“A tiara. Or maybe costume jewelry or opera gloves? We’re calling ourselves the Ball Gowns. Miko chose it. You know how she feels about regency-era romance,” she says seriously.

“What kind of—”

“Dodgeball. Didn’t I mention that? Oh well, too late to take it back now. I’ll see you later. I’m late for a meeting.” She singsongs the entire thing, slowly backing out of the kitchen before practically running straight out the front door.

Saturday morning at ten forty-five I find myself trudging into a rec center on the outskirts of Santa Monica with Liam in tow. I didn’t actually set out to acquire an escort to the game, but since I forgot that we were supposed to have brunch today and I’d already canceled on him twice, here we are. I glance at him through my overly long bangs. In my brother’s typical fashion, he takes the unexpected outing all in stride. His hands are thrust down into the pockets of his shorts, and he smiles like he is headed out on vacation, instead of being dragged to the Westside to watch some hipsters play ironic sports. That is totally Liam, though. Where Brody is brooding and contemplative, Liam is charming and gregarious. They’d both been that way once upon a time; wealthy children with kind, supportive parents are rarely anything but happy with the world. But Brody lost his shiny outlook during his senior year of college. Which makes Liam the only one of us who hasn’t been destroyed in some way by the opposite sex.

“So you’re actually going to play today?” he asks with a grin.

“I get to throw balls at other people’s heads.” I shrug. “Seems like just as good a form of cardio as any other.”

“I’d never count you as such a hipster, Mack.” He pulls out his phone to ignore an incoming call before slipping it back into his pocket. “Are you going to expand on this lifestyle in any way I should prepare myself for? Maybe start playing the ukulele or become a ramp farmer or something?” He smirks as he opens the door to the gymnasium for me.

“What are ramps?”

“Now see, I thought a newbie chef like you would know all about the hottest ‘it’ vegetable. Ramps are the new black.”

I whirl around to face him.

I don’t attempt to deny it. Brody might try to coerce information out of me, but Liam is smart enough to know I won’t give him anything willingly. He is wealthy, well connected, and unconcerned with scruples—probably incredible assets in a businessman, but a total pain in the ass in a big brother. The only reason his keeping tabs on me has never negatively affected our relationship is because he never shares the information.

“How did you know about Dolci?”

“That’s a silly question now, isn’t it, Mack? You know I’m all powerful; I’ve been telling you that since you were little,” he says to me, all charm. “The more important question, though, is why you haven’t told anyone about this.”

Behind me the gymnasium is alive with the activity of several different recreational sports. The squeak of sneakers on hardwood, the echo of conversations, and the sound of balls bouncing off the backboard all scramble with the whirl of implications in my head.

“Now who’s asking silly questions?” I finally answer.

My hands suddenly feel sweaty, and I rub them over the outside of my workout shorts. I’m not sure if it’s the fear of him telling our parents that’s making me so nervous, or just the fact that any member of my family knows at all. Monday is my last day of working under Joey, and all of her training has only served to highlight how much I
don’t
know. I recognize now what an impossible task I’ve set for myself. Failing is still a very real possibility, and I learned a long time ago that failing is much easier to go through if no one is there to see it.

Liam looks me up and down.

“I won’t start an argument about this, kid; I can’t stand to piss off a woman in any capacity. But you and I both know anyone else in this family would flip out if they knew you were working around the clock. All I ask is that you take care of yourself.”

I start to answer but he cuts me off, his face suddenly stern.

“I don’t mean that in the generic sense, Mack. I mean that you eat, sleep, drink water, take vitamins, and check your levels like it’s your part-time job. You’re setting an unbelievable schedule for yourself, and I’m not hypocritical enough to tell someone else not to work too much. But you damn well better take it seriously. If you want to try to pull off something impossible, you’d better look for every chance to increase the odds in your favor, and that means taking total care of your body so it can take care of you. All right?”

I nod.

“All right.” He grins and hooks an arm around my shoulders. “Let’s play some damn dodgeball!”

I walk with Liam over to the far side of the gymnasium, and once we pass a handful of half-court basketball games and some old men playing indoor shuffleboard, we find Landon. She stands with Miko and several other random chicks who are all wearing the bright-pink T-shirts they spent last night tie-dyeing. I’m also wearing the ridiculous shirt, but only because it’s easier than the backlash if I don’t.

“Oh, good. You’re here,” Landon calls when she sees us approaching. When she sees who is with me, her smile brightens. “Are you playing too?” she asks Liam.

“Nah, I usually do my girls-against-boys activities in more intimate settings.” He winks as he says it, and Landon’s face turns almost entirely red. She makes up an excuse about checking in with the ref and hurries away. Liam turns to me.

“She
is
the one dating our very worldly brother, correct?” he asks.

“Believe me,” I tell him, “the irony isn’t lost on me either.”

Liam laughs loudly in response, and as if on cue Miko turns in our direction. She had her T-shirt altered to fall off one shoulder and reveal the straps of a neon-green sports bra. Her little black boy-shorts are easily as tiny as Landon’s, but Miko lacks the curves necessary to make them look quite so scandalous. Her jet-black hair has grown out past her shoulders but is still the wild, choppy mess it always has been. She walks over to us casually with an odd smile on her face. Liam is focused on the screen of his phone, so I pull his attention back to us.

“Liam, have you met my friend Miko?”

Liam looks up and reaches out a hand. “At Max’s birthday party, I think,” he tells her with a flirtatious grin. “You had on a great dress that night.”

Miko tilts her head to the side and studies him for a moment too long.

“I had on jeans and a pineapple-themed muscle tee that night.” She smiles. “But that was an admirable try just the same.”

As always, Liam is unrepentant. Getting caught in the lie only makes his smile bigger.

“It was worth a shot,” he tells her unapologetically.

“Out of curiosity, what’s the success rate on that line?” Miko asks him, looking for all the world as if this is totally fascinating.

“Better than you’d think,” he answers.

She tilts her head back to the other side, contemplating his answer.

“Do you assume that all the women you hit on are truly dress-wearers, or do you ever consider that they’re just agreeing with you to be amiable?” she asks, surprising us both.

Liam barks out a laugh and looks Miko over as if sizing her up for the first time. She doesn’t even come up to his shoulders, but she packs a world of weird into one tiny package.

“Honestly”—he flashes her another grin—“it’s never been a concern of mine, no.”

Miko nods, a small smile playing at her lips. Then, with apparently nothing else to say, she gives us both a jaunty salute and walks away.