Chapter 12
A HOUSEWARMING PRESENT
Trina
Jaw agape, my sister clutches her pregnant belly, like her basketball baby is going to fall out from the shock of my choices. “You can’t be serious?”
We’re standing outside Aubrey’s apartment building in the Outer Sunset, a chill whipping past us that evening. Nacho lifts his snout in the direction of the breeze, sniffing the air, his little tan nose working overtime.
“Yes, I’m serious, but it’s only a week,” I say. Okay, it’s nine days, but who’s counting? I sling my backpack up on my shoulder as I curse this timing.
I almost avoided my sister. I was out the door when Cassie ambushed me with a succulent ten minutes ago, arriving at the building unannounced while Aubrey was taking a call from a client begging for a balayage appointment.
“Surprise! Just a little housewarming present for you and Aubs,” Cassie said when she showed up.
Code for I’m spying on you to see if you’ve shacked up with a drug lord at your bestie’s place.
That’s Cassie—she thinks she’s the helper but she’s actually the challenger. She’s willful and controlling, and I’m sure it’s because deep down, she doesn’t ever want anyone to overpower her, so she overpowers everybody.
Or maybe she just really thinks I’m a loser.
Cassie points to my pooch to make her argument. “You’re going to take your darling dog,” she says, and wow, she’s trying hard if she’s calling my pup a darling. “And let him live with someone you don’t even know?”
Well, I know Chase biblically. Oops. I meant…them.
“I know him,” I say, deliberately choosing to focus on one man only. Cassie doesn’t need to know there’s another super-hot hockey star bed surfing there too.
If my sister thinks I’m a hot mess for rooming with a new guy for a week, imagine what she’d think if she knew I hooked up with not one, but two guys.
I file that under things she will never know.
“How do you know him?” she asks, continuing her rant. “You hate hockey.”
“No, I don’t,” I insist.
She gives me the look. The I’m your older sister and I know better look. “Trina, you despise sports. You actually wrote down a life goal to never go to a sporting event,” she points out.
“Because you asked me for my life plan when you took me out for ice cream a few months ago!” I point out. “I put it on there as a joke.”
“And you never wanted to go when Matthew and I invited you to see the Renegades. He has season tickets, you know.”
I know, I know. I hear about them every time I see her. Her husband is the team dentist for the Renegades football team, and I’ve had the audacity—her word—to turn down their offer of tickets. Gee, I wonder if it’s the football I don’t like or the judgment.
“Well, I like hockey now,” I say defensively, and that’s sort of true. I like some aspects of it. Like the fancy food and the suits.
“But…” she says, flapping her hands, building up a head of steam and sputtering so much that Nacho cocks his head, staring at her with concern, then whimpering.
I bend down to stroke him reassuringly. “She’s fine, honey.”
Then Cassie blurts out, “But he could be a serial killer.”
I laugh, scooping up my dog in my arms. Nacho rewards my love with a face lick. “He plays professional hockey. They probably vet for that.”
“You don’t know for sure. Just stay with me,” she says, gentling her tone.
“We can have sister time before the baby comes.” She holds her belly again, like she’s using it as a lure for me.
Come to baby land. We can discuss whether I’m the size of a pumpkin or a honeydew.
“I want to bond with you. Help you be the best aunt you can be.”
Because that should be my life goal?
I know my sister means well, but it’s time to play my trump card.
“Cass, I appreciate the offer. Truly, I do. But he lives really close to An Open Book, and I’m working a ton over the next several days,” I say.
I don’t add that I took an extra shift to earn some money for the security deposit at the new place.
She’d probably sister-nap me and force me to live with her rent-free, which would have its perks when it came to my bank account, but that’d be about it.
“And it’s going to be super easy for me to stay there till I move into the studio next week,” I say.
Cassie lives across the bridge in Marin County, thirty minutes from my store.
“But I come into the city a lot for work,” she says, and damn, my sister is tenacious. “Like tonight. I was here seeing a client. I could drive you to work,” she says in a sing-song voice.
“Cassie, I will be a badass aunt for your little bambino, but I’m going to live with Chase Weston for a week, and I promise he won’t lay a hand on me to murder me. You have my word.”
He might however lay a hand on me to, say, spank me. Pinch me. Bite me.
A girl can dream of unlocking more kinks.
Cassie sighs heavily, clearly frustrated she’s losing this battle. “At least let me drive you to his place.”
Before I can say thanks but no thanks, the front door swings open and Aubrey shouts, “I’m ready to take you to The Pound—”
I mime slicing my throat as Cassie peers at Aubrey. My bestie gulps guiltily, shutting the fuck up.
“To the pound what?” Cassie’s tone drips with suspicion.
I jump in before this conversation crashes harder. “The Poundcake Factory,” I supply, since there just aren’t that many compound words starting with pound.
Cassie arches a well-groomed eyebrow. “The Poundcake Factory? What exactly is that?”
Think fast. “It’s…a new pop-up shop in Hayes Valley. It sells pound cakes. Hence the name,” I say, improvising as fast as I possibly can.
Aubrey smiles too big as she adds, “We saw it on social and got an invite.”
Cassie crosses her arms. “I like pound cake. I haven’t had any in ages. I’ll go.”
Uh-oh. Didn’t see that coming. Think faster. “Oh, I just remembered,” I say, snapping my fingers. “There’s a live jazz band playing too.”
Cassie shudders. She abhors jazz music. I’ve seen her walk out of restaurants that play jazz. “Okay, can you get me a slice of pound cake and bring it to me when we have dinner with Mom and Dad this week?”
I’m going to do everything I can to find a pound cake in this city. “I promise.”
I give her a hug, thank her for the plant, then say goodbye. I breathe a sigh of relief when she drives off, and I can finally slide into Aubrey’s tiny car with Nacho in my lap.
“The Poundcake Factory?” Aubrey asks as she puts the car in drive.
“Well, if you weren’t calling it The Pound Palace I wouldn’t have had to make that up.”
“No. If you didn’t bang them I wouldn’t have needed to call it The Pound Palace.”
“I didn’t bang them,” I point out.
“But you will. Or really, you better. Say, tonight?” Her voice rises with hope.
At a light, I turn to her, uncertainty racing through me. “I honestly don’t know if they want to again.”
She rolls her eyes. “He invited you to stay with him.”
“But he didn’t say it was to bang him. Or them.”
“Because that would have seemed transactional. But trust me, he’s wanting to make another transaction,” she says with a naughty little purr in her voice, then she hits the gas and cruises through the city.
“You’re going to be a legend among women soon.
You’re going to be the patron saint of Double Teams. I bet women are going to build a shrine to you at your bookstore. You should tell the book club.”
“I’m not going to tell the book club about my escapade.”
“Then just tell me. Like, did you spend the entire day googling different positions for three-ways?” she asks salaciously as we hit a light.
Laughing, I roll my eyes.
“I’ll take your silence as a yes.”
I smile. “Not the entire day. Just during my break. I want to be prepared.”
“If you want to be prepared, I can help you out with that. Here’s a little something I picked up for you.” Aubrey reaches a hand into the back seat, fishing around, then grabs something, and tosses it onto my lap.
A bottle of lube.
This is much better than a plant.
But I still have the cake problem to solve, so I start a group chat with the guys and ask: Do you happen to know any place nearby that sells pound cake?
Well, they’re competitive. Maybe they’ll get on my new pound cake problem as fast as they handled the O drought issue.