CHAPTER 12
River
“So, there’s more stuff in the kitchen, obviously,” Jessie told her.
“I was going to tell all four of you the plan at once. Oh, well. We received your dietary restrictions, but not the list of things you liked, so I wanted to make sure I told you that there’s more in the kitchen if you don’t like anything here.
I have a chef arriving shortly to make dinner.
You and Lacey said you weren’t vegetarians, so he’s making a steak dish, I think, but I told him to have chicken and fish on hand just in case. ”
“We’re not really all that picky. We tend to eat take-out a lot,” River replied.
“Great,” Jessie said. “Well, grab whatever you need here. I’m going to check on a few things and make sure our chef didn’t get stuck in traffic, like you two did. Are you okay for a few minutes on your own?”
“I’m good,” she replied, wondering why Jessie seemed so worried about her wandering around on her own.
Maybe they’d gotten themselves caught up in some weird celebrity TV show experience or a psychological experiment where they were tested in different ways throughout the weekend, and the raffle for a charity had all been a ruse, or maybe River had been watching too many true crime documentaries lately.
She picked up a piece of cheese and ate it, not paying attention to the type she’d grabbed, and promptly coughed.
“Jalapeno cheddar,” a voice said.
River turned, still coughing, and was met with an outstretched hand holding a bottle of water.
“I saw it before. Can’t handle spice?”
“I…” She opened the water and took a long drink. “Can normally. I just wasn’t… expecting it.”
The woman in front of her looked tall and elegant as she sipped something from a glass that River hadn’t seen available on the table beside her.
“The good stuff is in the kitchen. I think they were hoping I wouldn’t grab any until before dinner, but I was a different kind of thirsty,” Kennedy Gannon said. “You’re River, right?”
“That’s me.” River capped the bottle and held out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too. Where’s your girlfriend? Hell, where’s my girlfriend?”
“I don’t know. They went to do a tour. I was thirsty.”
She held up the bottle of water.
“Ah. Want something stronger?” Kennedy asked, holding up her glass. “It really is the good stuff.”
“Um… Am I supposed to?”
River looked around and realized that there were no cameras nearby.
“They’re not supposed to film me right now. I got in trouble with Jessie a minute ago.”
“You got in trouble? For what?”
“Drinking this.” Kennedy laughed a little. “Want one?”
“Sure. If I’m allowed to.”
“This is your prize, isn’t it?”
“My girlfriend’s, technically.”
Kennedy nodded to the side then, indicating that River should follow her.
“She’s the one who entered the contest?”
“I didn’t even know about it until after she’d won,” she replied and followed Kennedy into a spacious kitchen where she saw a counter with just about every kind of hard alcohol she’d ever heard of. “Damn.”
“Yeah, I know. There’s beer in the fridge, too. I scoped that out, but I’m not a big beer drinker.”
“Really? How come? Have you ever had beer-flavored candy?”
“Sorry; what?” Kennedy said and took a sip of her clear drink.
“I own a candy shop.”
“Right. I remember being told that.”
“Anyway, I’ve tried making different kinds of beers in candy form over the years. Some experiments were better than others. Guinness in fudge isn’t great, for example. It’s like two strong flavors battling each other.”
“You’ve made Guinness-flavored fudge?”
“Yes. But I really like a citrus-flavored beer in my orange hard candies.”
“Do you sell them to little kids?”
“The alcohol cooks off, but no. The kids tend to go for the more obvious flavors anyway. I only make a batch when I feel like it, and that’s usually when I have a case of beer in my apartment upstairs. I sell it to the adults if they want it.”
“Upstairs from…”
“Oh, the shop. I live above it.”
“What do you want?” Kennedy asked.
“A beer, honestly.”
“Go to town,” Kennedy replied with a smile and pulled open the fridge with her free hand.
“Sorry; am I boring you? I tend to talk a lot about work when I get nervous.”
She looked inside the fridge and grabbed the first beer she saw.
“No, I’m not bored at all. I have no idea how to make candy. I assume there’s sugar involved and some kind of flavoring added to it.”
Kennedy took another sip of whatever she was drinking and walked back to the counter, leaving her to close the fridge and crack open her beer.
River watched her fill her glass with gin and tonic water before Kennedy sat down at a stool, and she walked to the other side of the counter and took a drink.
“It’s more than that, but that’s the basic part of it, yes.”
“How did you get into it?”
“I’ve always wanted to do it,” River replied. “I went to school for it, worked in another place first to learn more, and left as soon as I could buy my own place. I’m really proud of it. I brought some candy with me this weekend if you want to try any.”
“Is it beer-flavored?” Kennedy asked with a sexy lifted eyebrow.
River swallowed because she shouldn’t be thinking of Kennedy Gannon’s eyebrow lift as sexy.
“None of it is. I didn’t bring any of that with me.”
“Then, maybe I will try some,” Kennedy said and took another drink.
“Forgive me for not being a little more excited about this whole event. I don’t want to seem like one of those famous people.
I just got some bad news right before you got here, and well, now my publicist is mad at me because I broke out the booze before I was supposed to and didn’t give her the perfect Hollywood opening to her little show by meeting you and your girlfriend at the door.
Also, I’m a little tipsy, so I’m saying things I shouldn’t say. ”
River took a sip of her beer and said, “I signed one of those things, but even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t say anything to anyone anyway.”
Kennedy looked her up and down and said, “You really wouldn’t, would you?”
River shook her head.
“You don’t even want to be here, do you?”
“Not really, no,” she admitted. “Honestly, I’d rather be at my shop working. The weekends are my busiest times of the week.”
“Then, why did you come?”
“Lacey was excited about it.”
“You two have been together for…”
“A year and a half.”
“How does she like living over a candy shop? God, I’d be working out twenty-four seven if I lived over a candy shop. You mentioned fudge earlier, and now, I really want fudge.”
River chuckled and said, “I brought some of that, too. I didn’t know what to pack for this thing, so I brought jeans, T-shirts, a bathing suit just in case, and, like, half my carry-on bag is filled with stuff from the shop because I thought it might be a conversation starter.”
“You were obviously right about that.”
“Oh, and Lace doesn’t live with me,” she shared. “She has her own place.”
“Because she doesn’t want to have to work out twenty-four seven, either?” Kennedy teased.
River chuckled and said, “No, that’s not why. We’re just not there yet.”
“At the living together stage?”
“Yeah.”
“Cam and I took about two years to make it official.” Kennedy shrugged a shoulder. “It’s different for everyone.”
River moved to sit down next to her and began pulling at the label of her beer.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Why not?” Kennedy said before taking another drink.
“When did you know Cameron was the one?”
Kennedy nearly choked and set her glass down. River’s eyes went wide. She might be responsible for choking Kennedy freaking Gannon to death. She turned to her quickly and patted her back a few times.
“Shit. I can’t kill Kennedy Gannon. I’m pretty sure I’d get in trouble for that.”
Kennedy laughed and coughed a the same time before the coughing stopped, but she was still laughing a little.
“Good one.”
“Sorry. Was that too personal?”
“Uh… Yeah, a little.”
Kennedy reached for her glass.
River’s hand was still on Kennedy’s back, so she went to remove it and said, “Um… Let me get you some water.”
“I have coffee, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s just cold now.”
“I can heat it up for you.”
“Do you heat your coffee up after it gets cold, River?”
“Either that or turn it into iced coffee.”
“I think both of those are blasphemy, but I could use an iced coffee right now.”
“I’ve got you.” River hopped off the chair and found the half-finished coffee behind one of the alcohol bottles. “Think there’s a cocktail shaker here?” she asked.
“Oh, I’m going to enjoy this,” Kennedy said, leaning back.
River smiled over at her and opened a cabinet beneath the counter, finding even more alcohol and mixers along with margarita salt and a cocktail shaker.
“Bingo!”
“Did you just say, ‘Bingo?’” Kennedy laughed.
“I’m a big nerd; I get it.”
River laughed, too, and then filled the shaker with ice, added the coffee to it, and held it over her shoulder to shake it.
“I thought we would have a bartender later, but I didn’t expect one now. Want to add a little Baileys to that for me?”
“Nope,” River said. “If I have to be sober because I’m nervous about being on camera, you can at least be sober, too, since you’re a pro at this, and maybe help me out here.”
Kennedy nodded and said, “Touché.” She pushed her drink glass away. “And I knew I was into Cam pretty much right away.”
“Yeah?”
She finished shaking the coffee and found a clean glass on the counter.
“She had this way about her that piqued my interest immediately, and we worked. She got what it meant to be in this business, didn’t give me a hard time for having to work late or stay the night in my trailer because it was easier, and she understood that I had to travel a lot because she had to do the same.
She’s also funny and kind, and I fell hard for her. ”
“She seemed nice when she met us at the door,” River said as she finished pouring the coffee into the glass and slid it across the counter. “Not my best work. I usually make it from scratch.”
Kennedy took a drink and said, “Better than it was hot. Thanks, River.”
“Sure.”
“So, what about Lacey?” Kennedy asked. “When did you know that she was the one?”
“Oh,” she said, realizing that she hadn’t been ready for the turnabout to be fair play scenario. “I guess I realized that I liked her right away.”
She then also realized that Kennedy hadn’t exactly answered the question that she’d asked her and that River had avoided it, too. Kennedy had told her about why she’d fallen in love, but not when she’d known that Cameron Levine was the one for her, and River had just done the same thing.
“You’re in here?” Jessie asked, looking slightly horrified when she walked into the kitchen. “I mean, that’s totally okay; you can go wherever you want.” She turned to Kennedy. “Oh, you’re drinking coffee. Thank God.”
“I am not an alcoholic. I feel like I should tell you that now,” Kennedy said to River.
“Kennedy!” Jessie exclaimed.
“She’s fine, Jessie. Chill.” Kennedy took a drink of her coffee and added, “And I’m sober. All good, okay?”
“She’s not an alcoholic. You heard her say that?”
River laughed a little and said, “I did, yes. All good, like she said. We were just talking. She saved me from jalapeno cheese that I didn’t know had jalapenos in it.”
“Crap. Are you allergic to jalapenos?”
“No, but now Kennedy Gannon thinks I can’t handle spice, so my reputation might be ruined.”
Kennedy laughed and said, “I can have them bring in the hottest chicken wings in the city or something; see what you can do with those.”
“Have milk on standby,” River replied.
Kennedy laughed again, and River liked it. She liked making her laugh. She looked away from Kennedy then because, yet again, she shouldn’t be thinking about liking making another woman laugh how she was thinking about it, when that woman was not her girlfriend.
“We need to get an intro shot between the two of you,” Jessie said. “Then, Kennedy, you’ll take River here on a short tour of the house while the chef sets up and starts cooking. And I’ll get something with the four of you maybe outside or downstairs.”
“There’s a downstairs?” River asked and looked over at Kennedy for some reason.
“I’ve only seen it in pictures,” Kennedy told her.
“Cam and Lacey are down there now,” Jessie said. “So, we’ll start with the whole meeting thing. Then, tour the upstairs. We’ll go downstairs later.”
“I have to pretend to meet her? We’ve already met,” River said.
“Welcome to Hollywood.” Kennedy clanked her glass to River’s beer bottle. “Where even reality TV is fake.”
“Kennedy, how about you stand up away from the collection of alcohol bottles, shake River’s hand, introduce yourself, and tell her that you’re happy to have her here.”
“I am happy to have her here,” Kennedy returned, and it sounded almost like she was surprised.
“And Lacey.”
“Oh,” Kennedy said. “Right. Need to meet her, too.”
“At least, you can meet her for real instead of for fake,” River tossed back and took a drink.
“Okay. No more of that,” Jessie stated and took their drinks from them.
“Hey!” River laughed.
“You’ll get it back after you do your introduction for the camera.”
“I feel like I’m in class and just got my phone taken away for texting,” River said with a laugh.
“Were you a texting rebel in school?” Kennedy teased as she stood up. “Relax that vein in your forehead, Jessie. I’m moving away from the damn bottles.”
River laughed and said, “Yes, I was an all-around rebel in school. But I’ll have to tell you about that later because I think that vein might pop out of her head soon if we don’t pretend like we’re meeting for the first time right now.”
“Hilarious, you two. You’ll give me a heart attack, but that’s fine; as long as you have your jokes,” Jessie replied.