What's Life Without the Sprinkles? (6 page)

****

After getting Justin off to school with minimum fuss the next day, Claudia made her way downstairs. She was not going let her sister tutor her on flirting. She admitted she might have gotten off to a rocky start with Nate. She’d simply been a bit tongue-tied after seeing him with his shirt partially off—those abs had truly been stumble-worthy. But if she wanted Nate to see her as something more than his best friend of the last two decades, then she’d have to be herself. Not some floozy.

She thought about that as she took cake orders and directed three calls to Zoe for flower orders and another call to May for a dress for an upcoming fiftieth high school reunion at the American Legion down the road.

She had a list a mile long for the upcoming days—six weddings over the next two weeks, and a handful of anniversaries, along with the cakes for that reunion—and now her mother was making noise about retiring. She’d come in this morning all chipper with her announcement, totally missing how rocked Claudia felt about her leaving permanently.

Mona Bradley had been in talks with May about May filling in more and eventually taking over as a partial owner of the shop, but now was not the time to step up the timetable, with the wedding season upon them. Despite wanting to tell their mom to please wait until September or after, Claudia had sent Zoe to talk with their uncle (and lawyer) to see what it would take to allow Mona to retire. Normally, Claudia would have jumped at the chance to see Uncle Al, but her schedule was filled to the limit.

How she thought she was going to fit in a romance—or even some kind of friends-with-benefits arrangement—was beyond her. Quite honestly, she told herself, she had waited this long, she could wait a little bit longer.

The grandfather clock in the corner of the cake shop struck three, and Claudia waited expectantly for Justin to come in after getting off the bus.

Cleaning up the counter over the front display case, Claudia hoped it had been a good day. They had a good streak of days coming, as far as she was concerned, to make up for the crappy ones recently. In fact, she planned on running by him the idea of going to the batting cages after dinner on Friday. Maybe it would keep the good mood rolling.

Her son came hustling through the door as the last gong struck. He was full of chatter and actually hugged her before throwing his bag behind the counter.

Claudia struggled for a moment with what to do. He knew he was supposed to put his backpack into the small office so things were not a mess in the shop, but they were having such a good day, with his mouth going a mile a minute. Did she really want to potentially ruin this little piece of bliss they were experiencing? Ten years of mothering by herself kicked in, though, and she just couldn’t let it slide.

“Hey, bud, you need to pick up that bag and put it in the office, okay?” she said with a smile on her face, hoping it would keep the mood light.

A scowl briefly flickered over Justin’s face before he picked up the backpack and trudged into the office.

At least there hadn’t been a blowup or a meltdown. She would have bet her odds were only 50/50 on either outcome.

He came back out just as Nate, dressed in another pair of low-slung jeans and a tight, white T-shirt, came strolling through the door. The outfit was so like yesterday that all the spit dried up in her mouth. Why had she never realized how very sexy her best friend was? How had he been hiding under her nose this whole time? Was she really that blind? Part of her desperately wanted him to notice her in the same way after all these years. The other part of her knew she was so going to hell for lusting after him—astounding abs or not.

“Hey, Claudia.” Nate smiled, and something started to simmer down below. Justin came tearing across the room at that moment, like freezing water on her libido parade.

She still hadn’t justified how she could go after Nate when it might put Justin’s relationship with him in jeopardy. But those dimples were making it not seem to matter so much.

Justin was again talking a mile a minute, so Claudia couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Here was the boy she liked to remember instead of the sullen almost-teenager who had taken over her son’s body.

“So, anyway,” Justin said, all innocent eyes. “When are you going to take me to the batting cages again?”

Claudia sighed. He knew better than to invite himself to stuff, and hadn’t she just thought to take him to the batting cages herself?

She jumped in before Nate could say a word. “Hon, Nate is working on the store and has several other sites going. He probably doesn’t have time right now. But I made time Friday night, and I was going to take you myself.” He might need the distraction if he had to be in the same room with his absentee sperm donor.

She didn’t blame him for the skepticism on his face. She hadn’t been doing much with him lately beyond making dinner and telling him to do his homework. If she were honest with herself, she had to admit it was because he was being a pain in the ass. But that was no excuse, or at least not a good one.

“
You
are going to take me to the batting cages?
You?
” Justin crossed his arms and gave her his face of disbelief. It was not one she liked, quite honestly.

“Hey, guy, I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Justin.” Nate put a hand on her son’s shoulder and squeezed. “If your mom says she’s going to take you, maybe you should just be thankful and not lippy. You know what I mean?” Nate removed his hand, then stood with his arms crossed at his chest, the muscles of his biceps bulging in a way she had never noticed before.

She did not need the distraction.

“Okay, so with that settled, what’s up, Nate?” Maybe he had gotten a clue about her flirting and had come back to get something started. She could go with that distraction. She almost started batting her eyelashes, then stopped herself in time. She did not want any more offers of first aid.

“Yeah,” Nate said, looking like he always had. “I promised you dinner to celebrate your sale yesterday, and you demanded I pay. So I’m here to pay up.”

“I thought you said this weekend.” She leaned on the case instead of batting her eyelashes and wondered if he would notice her cleavage. So much for not acting like a floozy.

He didn’t notice at all. “Tonight works for me, too, as long as you don’t have any other plans. Like with some new guy your mom set you up with now that Edward is history.” He looked adorable with his lopsided grin and hair that should have been trimmed two weeks ago.

“We’d love to go,” Justin said inviting himself along. “And, Mom, you didn’t tell me Edward was gone. Good riddance, as Aunt Zoe says! We should celebrate that, too!”

Jeez. “Honey, we’re going to have to celebrate another night. Aunt Zoe and I have a lot to discuss about the shop. Sorry,” she said turning to Nate. “Can I take a rain check? Maybe it would be nice to have dinner next week after this thing Sunday is done. Can we make it for Monday?”

“Absolutely.” Nate tucked his hands into his pockets, straining the denim in interesting ways. “Rain check it is.”

And then she watched him walk out of Decadence, wondering if she shouldn’t have just gone and taken Justin to Zoe and taken Zoe’s advice. Damn!

****

Nate drove home from Decadence, not sure what to make of that conversation with Claudia. On the surface he wasn’t angry that she had turned him down for dinner. He’d gone in knowing she might have other things to do tonight. However, he was baffled.

He didn’t know what was going on with Claudia, but something was. If he had been a better friend, he would have stayed around or insisted she go to dinner with him. They could have talked out whatever was going on. As much as he was a guy and usually oblivious to a lot of what went on around him—his mother’s words—he didn’t miss the signs that Claudia was in distress.

His first guess was Peter being in town and what a shock that must be. But Claudia was up to anything, as far as he was concerned, and if she said she could handle it, then she could handle it.

But what was with the kinked-up smile? It was vaguely unsettling, and nothing about Claudia had been even mildly unsettling since they were twelve and he realized she was a “girl.” He’d suffered a crush but had put it aside when he realized she saw him as a non-guy, her best friend.

Pulling into his driveway, he rested his head back on the seat while the garage door opened. She was strong, and she would get through this, and as always he would be here for her, no matter what. In the meantime, he would keep an eye out for Peter and try to anticipate whatever she might need, from a shoulder to someone running interference.

And hopefully it would be enough. Peter would go home and they could get back to their regular lives. He was comfortable there. Had been for years. If Claudia was going through a tough time now, she would get over it like she always did, and then they would move on. Like they always did.

If Logan’s words about following after Claudia like a lovesick puppy followed him into the house, he ignored them. They were unfair and untrue. He always helped out his friend, and he wouldn’t stop now.

****

“What do you mean you pissed off our lawyer? How could you make Uncle Al mad? He’s one of the easiest-going guys around.” Claudia moved from the island in the middle of the kitchen and back to the counter. She slid the cubed chicken into the pan and used her wrist to move some hair off her cheek. She should have gone out to dinner with Nate. Even failing abysmally at flirting would have been better than this new headache.

“Not Uncle Al, he loves me. But for some stupid reason he made me talk with another guy in the same office, and I managed to piss
him
off.” Zoe snatched a carrot from the bowl and Claudia smacked her hand with a wooden spoon.

“If you’re not going to help with dinner, the least you could do is not eat it before I have a chance to cook it.” Standing at the sink, she washed her hands, paying special attention to her nails so she didn’t have to turn around just yet. Zoe could be impulsive and defensive. Maybe they should have gone in as a group.

“Why did you piss him off?” She turned around once she had herself under control. “It was a simple enough task. All you had to do was go in and get some information, then come back to let us know what we need to do.”

Zoe shrugged and looked down into the depth of the salad bowl as if it had the answers to the universe.

Hmmm.

“He just wasn’t very nice to me.” Zoe picked a cucumber out of the salad and popped it into her mouth.

Was she trying to avoid making eye contact? Definite hmmm. “What did he do?”

Now, normally Claudia would have her back up and be the first one to defend her sister. She’d already be in the car and on her way down to the law office to smack some sense into this new lawyer guy, Uncle Al or no Uncle Al. But she also knew that Zoe was avoiding meeting her eyes, and Uncle Al was a very good judge of character. Something else was going on.

“He didn’t really do anything. But he did rub me the wrong way.”

“He rubbed you?” Claudia just wanted to see her reaction.

Sure enough, Zoe’s head flew up and her face turned red. “Of course not. I mean, he shook my hand when I left the office. He was fine, okay? Forget I said anything.”

“No, I don’t think I will forget about it.” Honestly, it would give her a chance to think about something other than her failure as a flirt. She’d obsessed all afternoon after talking to Nate and getting turned on by his mere voice. That was not going so well.

So maybe Zoe was having a hard time today too. Then again... “Was he cute?” She leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. A smile played over her mouth. She was fully aware it was smug.

Zoe gasped like a carp out of water for a while, and Claudia just stood there. It would be nice to see Zoe flounder a little bit with a man who didn’t fawn all over her. At twenty-five, she’d had one serious relationship that Claudia knew of, and it had ended badly. Her sister hadn’t been interested since, and it would be nice to have someone to go through the angst of dating with.

“That’s not an answer, Zoe. Fish impressions don’t tell me anything, you know. Sputtering isn’t pretty, either.”

“It doesn’t matter if he was cute or not. He’s obnoxious.”

“Which only tells me that you want him and don’t want to want him for some reason.” She turned back to the stovetop and gave the chicken a brisk stir. The sound of Justin stomping down the hallway from the back bedrooms put her on instant defensive alert. They were having a relatively good day so far, even with turning Nate down for dinner. Her offer of the batting cages tomorrow night was going a long way toward smoothing things out. But if Justin started asking about her love life again now that Edward was no more, she didn’t know what she was going to say.

She wanted Nate but would definitely not tell her son that, since it would be his fondest dream come true.

There was so much between her and Nate, so many years of good friendship, and she didn’t want to mess anything up. In her wildest dreams, though, she did want to ride the man straight into the sunset.

“That reason will not be discussed right now with your son coming out of his cave for dinner. If you’re nice, I might tell you later.”

With that, Zoe moved to the cabinets and started pulling out dishes and glasses. Putting them on the counter, she gave Justin the beady eye when he walked into the kitchen and threw himself into a chair.

“Okay, okay! Jeez. I’ll set the table already.”

Claudia leaned her forehead against the spice cabinet to the left of the stove. Normally he was a great kid, but something was bothering him lately, and she didn’t know how to get him to talk about it, other than beating it out of him. He was his normal happy-go-lucky self most of the time, but they’d have moments when the attitude would come popping out like this. Wasn’t the angsty stage supposed to come in a few years? Didn’t she at least have until the teenage years to wait for the attitude and backtalk?