ONE NEW THING
Everly
This avocado sushi is melting in my mouth. It’s so good, I want to groan. No, I want to Food Network moan. But that’d be wildly inappropriate for a business dinner.
Which is clearly what this is with Max, which is why I dressed for work. Trim slacks, a white blouse, and my hair in a high ponytail. I always wear it back at work.
I’ve learned that in a male-dominated field, it’s extra important to have boundaries. I’ve set plenty for myself—dressing only in a professional way, looking the same day in and day out with my hair and makeup, and acting above board.
Most of all—having no crushes on players.
At least, no crushes on players that I’d admit out loud to anyone but my friends.
“This is amazing,” I say after I finish the piece of sushi. That’s a much safer assessment than going all orgasmic eye-closing.
“Yeah, it sure seemed like you liked it,” Max says dryly.
What’s that supposed to mean? Except, fuck a duck. I think I might know. “Well, it’s good,” I say defensively.
His smile is ludicrously cocky. “I could tell you were enjoying yourself.”
Shoot. Was I food moaning even when I tried not to? That’s a bad habit of mine, and I blame Marie. Heat creeps across my cheeks, and for a few seconds, I stall, hunting for a plausible excuse, then offering up the first one that comes to mind. “I haven’t had sushi in a while. So I was excited.”
And that was weak. But I add a big smile to try to sell it. Like, maybe he’ll think I’ve just been smiling because of my love for this food. That’s all. Just a sweet, innocent smile.
With his chopsticks in that big right hand—how much of my ass could he cover with that hand?
No. Don’t think that—he reaches for a yellowtail roll, takes his time swirling it in a soy sauce and wasabi mix, then leans closer, dropping his voice to a bedroom whisper.
“I think they could even tell you liked it in the restaurant next door.”
My jaw drops. I was food moaning. And he caught me red-handed.
I don’t know how to backpedal on this one, but…
maybe it’ll help us work together. I can admit something awkward about myself, then we can get to the reason for this dinner—the battle plan I have with me on my goes-with-me-everywhere tablet.
“I’m sorry,” I say, then shake my head. “It’s this thing my best friend and I used to do.
We had contests every time we went out to eat.
We pretended we were Food Network chefs.
She wanted to be one—a chef. She was an amazing cook. ”
And holy shit. I just went full word-vomit confession.
His smug smile evaporates. He sets down the soy-sauce-and-wasabi-drenched roll before he even brings it to his mouth. “Was?” he croaks out.
A one-word question that asks everything.
But it’s hard for me to say everything that happened the day I lost her, and a part of myself too. So I say the simplest thing. “She died three years ago. In a car accident.”
“I’m so sorry,” he says, and for a few blurry-eyed seconds, I think he’s going to squeeze my hand, and for a few more seconds, I want him to.
Maybe he senses it. As my vision swims and I blink back unwelcome tears, his hand settles on my wrist. Warm, comforting, reassuring. “You must have been close to her,” he says gently, squeezing my wrist.
I nod, unable to speak and feeling foolish for the intensity of my reaction. It’s been three years. I should be able to say she died without crying. But sometimes I just can’t. I was the driver, after all. Even if we were hit by another car, I was still the driver. I’m also the survivor.
Instinctively, I reach for my shoulder, feeling the silk strap of the lacy lavender bra I’m wearing today, then the hypertrophic scar there under my shirt, the harshest reminder of what happened.
It’s hard not to touch it when I think of her, or that evening, or the terrible broken days that followed as I tried to heal. A choice she never had.
But I have to stay rooted in this moment.
Quickly, I take inventory of the surroundings.
How does the table look? Like bamboo. What’s on the walls?
They have Japanese art, stylized prints of blue waves and orange line drawings of fish.
Where is the door? To the left, past the hostess stand.
Crowds stream down the corridor of this complex in the heart of Japantown, a mall of sorts full of sushi, ramen, and shabu-shabu places along with gourmet grocery stores and tchotchke shops.
I’m here, not caught in the pull of the past.
I blink away the sting as best I can and meet Max’s gaze.
“She was like a sister. I’m an only child and we were best friends since we were kids.
We met in kindergarten, and we rented an apartment together here in the city.
Before…” I take a deep breath and scan the room again. The art. The table. The door.
“I get it—why it’d hit you hard,” he says, his hand still on my wrist. “I haven’t lost a sibling, but I imagine it must be like having your heart ripped out every time.”
“Yes,” I say, then swallow past the knot of emotions clogging my throat.
His blue eyes are usually piercing, icy even. But now they’re softer, gentler. Filled with heartfelt sympathy. He gives one more squeeze then lets go. My skin feels lonely without his touch.
“Tell me more about this Food Network moan,” he says. It’s asked genuinely, without his usual teasing or taunting—it’s like he really wants to know.
I should move on. Talk to him about my three-step plan for the makeover. But I’m a car, stuck in first gear. Or maybe I don’t want to shift just yet. “She made me watch a ton of cooking shows, so it became this thing we did. Perfecting the orgasmic food moan.”
His eyebrows shoot up, saying tell me more.
I can picture Marie perfectly—her short dark hair, cropped in a pixie cut.
Skull earrings crawling up her lobes, right alongside butterflies.
“I am a rebel and an animal that won’t hurt you,” she’d said of her favorite jewelry one night when she lounged on the couch in the two-bedroom apartment we shared.
Best friends for life. That had been the plan, at least. But later, I learned that skulls and butterflies had more in common than I’d thought—they could both mean a new life, and the life beyond.
I shake off the memory, focusing on the story instead. “Every time she made a new dish—and she was always making new dishes and always saying just try it—if it was good, we’d do the food moan.”
I laugh, and wow that feels surprisingly good, the shift from tears to laughter in a few minutes. “Which is weird, I guess.” I sigh, then shrug. “It was our thing.”
He nods, his eyes serious. “Let’s get a new thing.”
“What?” I ask, like I didn’t hear him right when of course I did. But I didn’t expect him to say that.
“Try a new thing,” he says. “They have a good menu.”
Call me skeptical, but one kind moment does not change the prickly dynamic between us. I’m not his buddy. He’s not mine. We are strictly professional. I don’t want to let him into the food moan world. “So I can food moan?” I ask, my guard all the way up again.
He rolls his eyes, then sears me with them.
Now they’re piercing again. Gone is the softness.
In its place is the cool, unknowableness of Max Lambert.
No wonder he’s so good at playing the grump.
He doesn’t act out the role—he lives it.
His expression is impenetrable and unflinching for a long beat.
But then he shifts again. “Sunshine, I’ve already heard the sound you make when you like something,” he says, his voice deep, raspy, a little smoky—and far too sexy.
We’re talking about food, but he’s looking at me like he knows what I’d sound like if he touched me after dark.
If he brushed those fingers along my jaw, down my throat, over my collarbone.
“I meant…let’s try some new sushi,” he adds.
Right. Yes. Of course. I grab the menu from the holder, and scan it again. But it’s hard to focus with the heat still flaring through me. I even catch the faint scent of his Midnight Flame cologne, and it’s making my mind a little fuzzy as I look at the offerings, barely able to read them.
Focus, girl.
“Have you had octopus?” he asks.
The question grounds me. “Actually, I don’t eat fish. Or meat,” I say.
He peers quickly at the food I ordered. Avocado rolls and cucumber rolls.
With a quick nod, he jumps to the next page, then frowns. “Well, shit.” He looks up, meeting my eyes again. “They only have avocado, cucumber, and asparagus rolls. Also, tamago. You eat eggs?”
“I do.”
Then, with a quickness I didn’t see coming, he’s flagging down our server who’s here in seconds. “Question for you, my man. Can the chef put all four of these together? In a specialty roll? If you can, that’d be awesome.” Max flashes a rare smile the server’s way.
“I think so. I’ll ask the chef.”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate it immensely.”
When the server leaves, I give Max a knowing stare. Maybe topped with a bit of an I was right smile.
“What’s that for?”
I let my gaze sail toward the server then back to him, like Max has been busted. “You can be charming.”
He pffts.
“Don’t pfft me,” I say.
He pffts again.
“You were charming,” I say, pointing at his big, broad chest. “Like when the Beast didn’t interfere with Belle reading at dinner.”
He scratches his jaw, all casual. “I don’t think we’re watching the same movies. Pretty sure he bellowed at her to join him for dinner or else.”
“And then he was charming. Eventually,” I say.
“Fine,” he relents. “I was charming with the server. Does that mean I’ve passed and you’ll graduate me?”
I laugh. “Not on your life, Lambert.”
“You sure? You seemed pretty impressed I asked nicely for something. Why don’t you put in a good word with team management, and we’ll call this good?” He pushes back slightly in his chair.
“Nice try but sit your hockey butt down.”