Chapter Eight #2
Was it really that much of a surprise that she didn’t live in New York City? Vanka hissed under her breath, “I wasn’t keeping a secret from you.”
Spiker dropped his chin and speared her with a laser-beam stare, scanning her from head to toe and back up again. When his gaze stopped on her face, it lingered on her lips until he added, “Bullshit, princess,” in a way that made her shiver.
Andy didn’t hear a word of it. “Come over around six.”
She found her breath after a missing heartbeat. Anger arrived on its heels. She allowed that fire to build in her bones. What the hell was that look, that… whatever that had just been? That wasn’t the way they acted, and never had that been a way she reacted.
“See you then,” she managed, fighting for control of the night and their situation.
Of everything. She could do this. Look how much she’d handled already.
Integrating Spiker into her private world and handling an assignment that should have made her brain short-circuit.
She could do anything. Her life’s motto.
That certainly included a night of mouthwatering kabobs with Spiker, Andy, and whoever else had been invited.
And if it didn’t work out? No problem. She’d simply kill Spiker and explain to Buck that she couldn’t finish the assignment because they were a man down. Then she could be the one to take a freakin’ sabbatical. Vanka waved to her neighbor. “We’ll be there.”
Spiker lifted his beer in his universal silent greeting and goodbye.
“You’re an arse,” she muttered.
He chuckled, pleased to have wreaked havoc on her orderly world. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Walking inside took more effort than it should’ve. Vanka wanted to stomp (not usually her style) or jab an elbow into his ribs (definitely more her style), but she refused to be any closer to him than necessary.
He fell into step behind her, but wasn’t close enough to catch the door she let slam just in case he hadn’t fully appreciated her level of irritation.
Vanka froze. The door slammed at her back. She remained a scant footstep inside her house, inside her kitchen, where something was wrong.
She could sense it, smell it, and she spun on Spiker as he entered. Their bodies stood inches apart in a space too small for anyone to congregate, much less anyone plus Spiker. Her chin jerked up. “What did you do?”
The corners of his lips toyed with her, not a smile but dangerously more. Testing and teasing, confident and cocky. He set the beer on the granite counter at their side. The bottle sounded hollow against the granite. Hollow, and as loud as the irritated heartbeat that now drummed in her ears.
“I wouldn’t throw you in the deep end without a lifeline.” His hand lingered on the beer bottle, his index finger tapping against its long neck, positioning his forearm entirely too close to her side.
“You already made the fruit salad?”
He nodded. “But you can take the credit.”
“I can take…?” Head shaking, she took another step back. “First, Andy’s Friday night barbeques aren’t the deep end of the pool.”
“It’s something you do regularly?” His jaw tensed, contradicting the tease in his tone.
“Socialize with my neighbors? Yes, I do.”
“Socialize with Andy?”
He didn’t think she had a social life? Why not? Because she didn’t live like a lake house bachelor and spend her time off with a merry band of jet-skiing beer guzzlers? That didn’t mean she was a complete loner. “Andy makes it his business to know everyone.” Vanka smirked. “Case in point: you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And as for my second point.”
He beckoned. “Let’s hear it.”
“Arse.” She smacked his hand away. “Secondly, fruit salad isn’t a lifeline.”
“It is when it’s the world-class, toe-curling kind.”
“Stop blabbering about toe-curling.” Heat shot up her neck. “I can’t believe you made this.”
Spiker laughed. “You didn’t say you’re welcome.”
“I didn’t say thank you.”
“But you will,” he promised.
A cocky Spiker was nothing new. She should’ve rolled her eyes and taken the raspy vow as her cue to leave.
She did neither. The heat in her neck catapulted into her cheeks.
“The only thing I’ll thank you for…” She wrenched herself a few feet away and stood in the kitchen. “For reminding me about your ego.”
Vanka glanced into the sink and noted the empty cans. Mandarin oranges. Pineapple. Peaches. All pantry staples, but certainly not the ingredients of a world-class side dish. “Where is it?”
“In the fridge.”
Citrus hung in the air. Its freshness hadn’t come from a can, and growing more curious, she wondered how close to the hype he’d managed to come with what he’d found in her home.
Her job didn’t allow grocery runs for produce purchased more than a day or two earlier.
Vanka only stocked kitchen basics that wouldn’t spoil over time.
Condiments mostly, including an eclectic array of mustards.
The bars and jars were well organized, labels facing forward, just like she kept her dried herbs and spices in a cabinet.
She opened the refrigerator. A lone casserole dish sat on a barren glass shelf.
She stared for half a second. There was nothing else to see, other than the oddity of something that someone else had done inside her home.
Even more odd, Spiker and fruit salad. Two things that she couldn’t imagine in her house.
Vanka looked over, bewildered not just that he’d managed to come up with a concoction from her scant pantry, but why he’d bothered.
“Try it,” he offered, as if this wasn’t a total mindfuck.
It totally was.
Vanka took her time. She removed the casserole dish and placed it on the counter, as though she were removing a nuclear bomb as its countdown clock ticked toward zero.
“Or don’t.” Spiker sauntered into the kitchen and opened her silverware drawer. He removed a fork. “More for me and Andy.”
He knew where her silverware drawer was. How long had she been in her garden? What else had he snooped through? “How much snooping have you done?”
“Not nearly enough.” He handed her the fork. “Honest opinion, yeah?”
“Always.” That was one of their golden ingredients.
They partnered well together because neither had a problem with hard, ugly truths.
They’d debate their positions and butt heads until someone’s perspective triumphed.
They weren’t sore losers. More or less. Mostly, they were ruthlessly competitive, thorough, and opinionated, and each respected the other for their Teflon hides.
She peeled back the plastic wrap and marveled at how Spiker had used chopped mint to complement the bland color of canned fruit. The dark green flecks knocked it up a level that she couldn’t believe he could appreciate. “You picked mint from my garden?”
He laughed—it obviously hadn’t come from inside her kitchen.
“And you made a vinaigrette?” That must’ve been the source of the citrus scent. She had frozen lemon juice cubes in a deep freezer. “With lemon juice?”
“Yup.”
“And poppy seeds?” Cece would’ve approved based on the presentation alone. Vanka eyed him and then the dish.
“Who knew you moonlighted as a culinary talk show host? Try a damn bite, princess.”
“Don’t act like this isn’t crazy!”
“What?” He shrugged. “I didn’t know you lived in a cutesy little house in a suburb, and you didn’t know that I am hell on wheels in a kitchen pantry.”
She would’ve bet her entire collection of mustards and sniper rifles that Spiker didn’t know anything about poppies beyond their connection to opium and morphine. “You’re an encyclopedia of escape-and-evade.”
“Yeah.”
“And a living, breathing how-to-fly-drive-and-not-die manual.”
“I’m taking this to Andy’s.” He reached for the dish. “You fend for yourself.”
Vanka smacked his knuckles with the fork.
“Take a damn bite, Vanka.”
She did, and he’d been right. World-class, toe-curlingly delicious. He’d never let her forget it either.
Spiker held out his fist, thumb jutted out, neutral, waiting for her verdict.
She had to admit that he’d knocked it out of the park. Vanka grasped his fist and turned his thumb up. “That’s good.”
Spiker lifted his hand overhead as if lofting the FIFA World Cup in the air. “Yes!”
“Ridiculous. What are you doing?” She couldn’t hide her laughter. He tacked on a touchdown dance and played to the invisible crowd in his imaginary stadium. “Acting like a ballhandler that hit a trick shot.”
He laughed as if she might be the crazy one in the kitchen. “Working basketball and billiards into the same sentence takes a lot of work.”
“Whatever. Have fun with your”—she made air quotes—“football dance.”
“Wasn’t dancing.” He crossed his arms like an overconfident Mr. Clean with a full head of dark hair. “I was celebrating.”
“Good for you.”
“You want to know why?” he asked.
“I’m not sure that I do.” She covered the fruit salad with the plastic wrap to keep it in tip-top shape before they headed to Andy’s. “But I doubt that matters.”
“You’re surprised,” he asked.
“The fruit salad? Yes.” She looked at the ceiling. “Yes, surprised. You managed to whip up a nectar-for-the-gods concoction from canned fruit and, undoubtedly, an obscene amount of lemon juice and sugar.”
“Then we’re one to one. I’ve put a score on the board.”
She mouthed the last few words. Clearly, they were still using sports jargon, but she hadn’t connected it to the fruit salad. “Sorry?”
Spiker gestured at the kitchen and semi-attached dining room. “You live in a white picket fence house in suburbia.” Disbelief shook his laughter. “Talk about surprise.”
“I don’t have a white picket fence.” But she hadn’t missed his point and could admit when he’d scored one on her. “One to one.”