Year of Living Blonde (Sweet Life in Seattle, Book 1) (45 page)

“That’s because I only make a few small batches a week.” She sighs dreamily. “If only I had a large stone deck oven with steam injection.”

He continues to eat, listening.

“I’ve been steaming the loaves myself, but that’s a huge hassle. I still love making bread, though.”

“I always think of you as a pastry chef.”

“I am, but I worked in a bread bakery as a teenager and it kind of stuck. If I had a larger space, I’d definitely expand and do both.”

Anthony stops eating and gives her a look.

“Sorry. I wasn’t trying to guilt trip you, honest.”

He doesn’t reply at first and then finally shrugs. “Forget it. I forgive you because this food is so good.”

Natalie watches as he leans forward to help himself to more bread. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What made you come here last night? You seemed upset.”

Anthony is quiet. He studies his plate. “Do you remember how you told me that people think your childhood sounds more glamorous than it was?”

She nods.

“It’s kind of the same for me.” Anthony tells her how he grew up surrounded by doctors, that it was a privileged kind of life. “But there were all these expectations that went along with it,” he says. “Everybody expected me to go into medicine, and when I chose not to, it caused a lot of problems. My father can’t let it go.”

“Is it because your brother became a doctor?”

Anthony shakes his head. “No, all my family are doctors. My father is a heart surgeon, my brother a pediatric surgeon, and my mom is a medical researcher. Plus they all practice medicine on my father’s side.”

Natalie raises her eyebrows. “Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re like the misfit, huh?”

Anthony chuckles. “You could say that. I dropped out of medical school during my first year to pursue astronomy.”

“What kind of doctor were you planning to become?”

“Neurosurgeon.”

“What’s that? Wait a minute, is that like a brain surgeon?”

“Basically.” He picks up his food again and takes another bite, chews for a few seconds. “Brain and spinal cord, anything to do with the central and peripheral nervous system.”

Natalie starts to laugh. “So you were planning to become a
brain
surgeon?” She tries to wrap her own brain around that.

“Laugh all you want, but I would have been a damned good surgeon.”

She quiets and considers his words. Oddly, she knows they’re true. Anthony is certainly intelligent enough. “To be honest, it’s not that hard to imagine. You’re super smart. Plus, you’re compassionate and I suspect you’re good under pressure.”

He listens, but doesn’t say anything.

“So why did you drop out?”

“Because I’m selfish.” He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“For some reason, I’ve always been good with numbers. I can do a lot of abstract math in my head. Physics and astronomy were both hobbies when I was a kid, but it was understood that they were
only
hobbies.” He puts his plate down on the end table. “Sometime during med school I started sitting in on astrophysics lectures when I was supposed to be studying for my bio-chem classes. It felt like a guilty pleasure, but it also felt natural. Way more natural than anything else I was doing. And then this professor I knew helped me publish a paper on quasars that was very well received.” He looks over at her. “I’d figured something out, you know? I contributed something to understanding the universe.” Anthony smiles again, this time for real. “It was amazing.”

“So you dropped out of medical school?”

Anthony rests his feet on the coffee table and leans his head back. “Yeah.”

“And then your family freaked out?” She thinks back to the comment he made when they were going on the Ferris wheel, about how he’s not saving lives. It makes sense now.

He closes his eyes and nods. “Mostly my dad, but yeah, they all freaked out—except my brother, I guess.”

“But you love what you do, right? They should be happy for you.”

Anthony’s eyes are still closed as he shakes his head. “I’m Italian, Natalie. You just don’t go against your family. It’s a big deal.”

“I see.”

“I’m the youngest kid. Not to mention I have a daughter from a girl who I got pregnant when I was a teenager. I’m basically a disappointment to my parents in every way.”

“That’s crazy though.” She pauses, thinking this over. “That doesn’t explain why you came here last night.”

Anthony opens his eyes and turns to look at her. “I felt bad about what happened with the bakery and I didn’t want to leave things like that between us.” He reaches for her hand. “I didn’t want to be a disappointment to you, too.”

“YOU’RE IN A
good mood,” Lindsay comments to Natalie during boxing class on Wednesday. “You’ve been in a good mood since the weekend, now that I think about it.”

“It’s true,” Blair says in agreement as she tapes her hands. “You didn’t even get upset when all those bags of bread flour were delivered by mistake yesterday, though it’s the third time it’s happened.”

Natalie smiles and shrugs. “It must be this spring weather.”

Anthony’s been texting and calling every day. Sometimes he’s witty or more often he’s naughty—asking her what kind of panties she’s wearing and telling her how much he misses her ”cookies.” Natalie carries her phone everywhere and is constantly hiding in the storeroom giggling into it like a teenager.

She still hasn’t told anybody about what’s going on between them though.
I just want to savor this.

Natalie understands now that the romance was dead in her marriage and had been for a long time. Not to mention the sex.

And then there’s the sex with Anthony.

Ohmigod.

All these years, she never knew what she was missing. During the early days of their marriage, Peter was a gentle and patient lover, and at the time she thought it was sweet, but looking back on it she realizes there was no zest—ever. In bed, Peter was as passionate as a bowl of oatmeal.

On the other hand, Anthony is like a spicy stew that lingers on your tongue so you can’t stop craving it.

Later, after work the next day, Natalie is changing out of her flour encrusted work clothes when Lindsay calls her into the bathroom.

“What is this?” Lindsay asks, holding up a can of men’s shaving cream.

Natalie stares it with a straight face. It’s the can Anthony bought at the drugstore over the weekend. He forgot to take it home. “Men’s shaving cream.”

Lindsay’s nose tilts up, twitches like a hound dog catching the scent of a rabbit. “Was there a
man
here?”

“No,” Natalie says with a laugh. “I bought that by mistake. I figured I’d just use it anyway.”

Lindsay glances at the shaving cream and seems to accept this answer, but then suddenly her eyes go to the toilet and the bathroom floor. They narrow.

Uh oh.

And that’s when Natalie realizes her mistake. She told Lindsay she was vacuuming and cleaning the bathrooms on Saturday, but didn’t actually do any of it.

She had planned to quickly clean them Sunday, but forgot. It’s a classic amateur mistake.

No follow through.

Lindsay looks at Natalie again, making it clear where her eyes just were. “You want to tell me the truth now?”

Natalie opens her mouth ready to spin her tale some more, but figures—why bother? “All right, you got me. There was a man here last weekend.”

Lindsay stares at her, on high alert. “Who?”

“Anthony.”

Her eyebrows rise. She considers this for a few seconds and then there’s a sly smile on her lips. “I should have known the professor wasn’t going to give up that easy. It was pretty obvious he’s into you.”

“Really?” Natalie grins, wanting to hear more.

“Yeah, you could see it whenever you were around. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.”

Natalie wants to giggle, but somehow refrains.

Then Lindsay frowns. “I can’t believe you, though.”

“I know. I’m sorry, I lied.”

She shakes her head. “I’m seriously disappointed, Natalie.”

“I just wanted to keep this to myself for a little while. It’s been amazing.”

“I’m disappointed because you didn’t clean any of the bathrooms or even bother vacuuming.”

Natalie smiles and in that moment remembers why she loves her sister so much. She sighs. “You’re right. It’s pathetic.”

“I mean, where’s your
follow through?
Answer me that?”

They look at each other, but nothing further needs to be said.

Lindsay links her arm with Natalie’s. “Okay, I get you’re stoned on great sex, probably for the first time in your life—which is pitiful, by the way—but you’re required to give me at least
some
juicy details.”

Later that evening, Chloe comes home from her weeknight visit with Peter.

“Daddy and Lena had a fight!” Chloe says after coming through the door and throwing her stuff down.

“Oh?” Natalie follows her into the kitchen.

“Can I have an apple walnut muffin?” Chloe asks when she sees them on the counter under the cake dome. “I’m starved! They don’t have any normal food at their house at all. It’s just raw vegetables and these weird sprouted things Lena grows in jars.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“It’s okay.” Chloe takes a bite of the muffin. “Daddy showed me some bread and peanut butter he keeps hidden in the coat closet.”

Natalie opens her mouth, but then closes it. She isn’t sure how to respond to this. “Let me make you some dinner. There’s still leftover chili in the fridge.” Natalie gets the cold chili out and dumps a good-sized helping into a pot. The cornbread she made is all gone, but she slices up a chunk of sourdough and spreads it with butter. “I’ll call your dad tomorrow and tell him he needs to keep proper food at home for you.”

“Daddy and Lena were arguing about money. I guess Lena wants to buy a big house that costs a lot and Daddy said no.”

Natalie listens with curiosity. “Why does Lena want a big house if it’s just the two of them?”

“That’s the same thing Daddy said. But Lena didn’t really give a reason. She just kept saying they can afford it, so why not do it?”

The chili starts to bubble and Natalie turns down the heat. “Do your dad and Lena fight a lot?”

“No, not really. But it seems like more lately. I think Lena likes to spend money, and you know how Daddy is.”

Natalie nods. Peter wasn’t a tightwad, but he was definitely a saver. She’s the same way herself, so ironically they never argued about money. She still wonders how he’s coping with the added cost of Cinnamon, but he hasn’t brought it up on the phone and neither has she. At least he hasn’t asked her to help pay for the horse. She takes Chloe out to the stables at least once a week, but has never seen Peter there.

“Daddy doesn’t want to have a big engagement party either, but Lena says as a life coach, she has to celebrate important events.” Chloe finishes off the last of her muffin. “I wonder if they’re going to break up.”

“I doubt it. They seem happy, don’t they?”

Chloe’s eyes light up. “If they break up, then Daddy could come home. Maybe you could forgive him. What do you think, Mom?”

Natalie pours the chili into a bowl and brings it along with the bread over to Chloe. She wonders whether she should mention dating Anthony to Chloe, but decides it’s probably too soon for that.

Chloe picks at her bread. “Do you think you’d let him come home if he wanted to?”

“Your dad and I aren’t married anymore.”

“I know, but he and Lena are fighting. We could have our family again.”

Oddly, there’s a tiny part of Natalie that still finds the idea appealing, but it’s only because Chloe wants it so much. “Chloe, I don’t want to hurt you, but your dad isn’t coming home. We’re divorced now. He plans to marry Lena.”

Chloe stirs her chili. “But what if he changes his mind? Will you forgive him?”

“Don’t ask me that.” Natalie takes a deep breath. She puts her hand out and fiddles with Chloe’s ponytail. “It’s hard for me, too, sweetheart, but we all have to move on.”