Chapter 13 – Luke
LUKE
“You’re going to love this place,” I assure Eden as we stroll up to Olive and Branch. “I know, the name is kind of dumb—why couldn't they just call it the Olive Branch? But they’ve got amazing bread.”
“I’m sure I’ll like it,” she says.
“It’s Robert’s favorite. It’s where we usually go when he’s in town. Maybe I should have made reservations somewhere else, though. You know, proof that I’m turning over a new leaf.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“You don’t know Robert. He’s very conservative, very by-the-book. Maybe a business lunch would have been a better idea, but I guess it’s too late to—”
“Luke,” she murmurs, interrupting me. “You need to calm down. It’s going to be fine. Robert’s going to be fine.”
“I’m calm! Why would you think I’m not calm?”
“Because you’re rambling and your palms are sweating.” I instinctively try to pull my hand out of hers, but she squeezes it hard. “It’s okay. You’re going to charm them, like you do with everyone. I can tell this one just means something to you.”
I let out a breath. “Yeah. It’s just, Quebec is the first place where Twisted Devil really took off.
Like, they started ordering way more than we had in stock.
I thought I was screwed. I didn’t know that businesses go under when they get too popular too fast. They can’t keep up with demand, and people write them off.
Robert talked me through it. Helped me figure out some pricing strategies to keep up. ”
She nods. “So you feel like you owe him.”
“Yeah. The thing is, he’s kind of conservative. When the Peppermint article went viral, he started acting really formal on phone calls. He didn’t say anything, but I could tell it bugged him.”
I brace for her to tell me that I was reading too much into it. That he probably likes me fine. That’s the kind of shit I hate, when someone acts like I read a social situation wrong. I’ve learned to read when someone doesn’t like me—I’m a goddamn expert.
Eden just nods. “If he still feels that way, then we’ll handle it.”
“We’ll try, anyway.”
I open the restaurant door for her. As we wait for the ma?tre d’, Eden shrugs off her coat, revealing a black, off-the-shoulder sweater dress that reveals the creamy skin of her neck and shoulders.
Shit. As if I didn’t need another reason to be nervous.
It’s not like Eden’s never worn anything revealing in front of me before. It’s just that now I know how her lips taste, and that makes my body anticipate things. Things that can’t happen. Things like yanking the top of her dress down and dragging my lips all over her.
Please, let the patio heaters be broken so she puts her coat back on.
Unfortunately, the heaters are still burning merrily when the waiter leads us outside.
Robert’s already sitting at the table, wearing a thick woolen sweater under a blazer, his square glasses high on the bridge of his nose.
Next to him, his wife, Katherine, wears a high-collared dress with so many flouncy ruffles, I can’t make out what her body looks like at all.
Short, tall, wide, muscular—she could look like anything.
For a second, I wonder if Eden and I should have dressed up more.
No, screw that. Eden looks fantastic. I wouldn’t change a thing.
“Hello, Luke,” Katherine says in her high, nasal voice. “You look…clean.”
It’s as close to warmth as I can probably expect from her. Even when Robert and I were on better terms, she was never exactly warm to me. She’s very involved in the abstinence-only scene, and even before Peppermint’s article, my reputation wasn’t chaste.
It doesn’t help that their daughter, who’s close to my age, always had a crush on me. Thank god they didn’t bring Roberta—last time we were at dinner together, she tried to cop a feel under the table. Of course, Katherine would probably rather die than expose Roberta to a sex toy pervert like me.
“Thank you,” I force myself to say. “It’s been too long.”
Robert’s expression doesn’t shift. We usually get dinner during his quarterly trips to Toronto, but ever since the Peppermint piece went viral, he’s found reasons to skip them.
“This is my girlfriend, Eden Locke,” I continue.
Eden extends her hand to Katherine first. “Pleased to meet you. Luke has told me so much about you both.”
“He has?” Robert grunts.
“Yes, he was just telling me how you helped him manage the unexpected growth in Quebec when Twisted Devil first took off. Sounds like he owes you a lot.”
I'd expected to sit next to Eden tonight. Unfortunately, Robert and Katherine chose to sit on opposite sides of the rectangular table, meaning we’ll also have to sit on opposite sides. That’ll make the photo op complicated.
Last week, my publicist suggested that we should try to get some photos of Eden and I in the press, to help with my public image.
She tipped off the Toronto Tea, letting them know to send a photographer.
At some point tonight, my plan was to conveniently kiss Eden in front of him.
It’ll be hard to manage that with a table between us.
I pull out the chair next to Katherine for Eden and take my own seat next to Robert. The waiter appears to drop off a basket of bread and take our drink orders. Eden snatches a piece of bread as he leaves.
“I can’t wait to find out if the bread lives up to the hype,” she says, grinning. “My mom used to bake a lot, so I’m picky.”
“Do you bake as well?” Katherine asks primly.
“Not nearly as well as Mom,” she says. “I spent a lot of time in the kitchen growing up, though. My family has a ranch in Alberta, and Mom needed some help feeding my brothers and staff.”
“Sounds like quite a traditional upbringing.” Katherine nods approvingly.
“Oh, yes. Extremely traditional. My parents were wonderful role models, and family is so important.”
For anyone else, Eden would be laying it on a little thick. Katherine seems to be eating it up, though.
“It’s good to hear young people talking like that,” she says. “Nowadays, all anyone seems to talk about is s-e-x.”
I almost choke on my water as she spells the word out, but Eden doesn’t flinch.
“Oh, I’d rather not discuss that at the dinner table,” she says. “Tell me about your family. Luke mentioned you had a daughter?”
“Roberta. She actually just got engaged!”
“Congratulations!” I say, meaning it. The sooner Roberta’s taken out of the dating pool, the safer the world will be for men everywhere.
“That’s fantastic,” Eden says. “Has she started planning yet?”
“Well, she’s planning on getting married in our church. Other than that, she hasn’t started.”
“Feel free to reach out if you need any recommendations. I work with Flair Events, and we know almost everyone in the city. I just helped with a baby shower for our friends, James and Maura, and the baker we used was unbelievable.”
“James Keller, right? The Sequel CEO?” When Eden nods, Katherine nods approvingly. “How lovely. If that’s the level of events you’re used to working, maybe you could be helpful after all.”
Katherine starts asking Eden questions about modest wedding dress designers, which Eden answers easily. It doesn’t take long before they’re scrolling through dresses on Katherine’s phone.
Robert grunts. “The women seem to be getting along.”
“Looks like it. I’m not surprised. Eden was looking forward to tonight.”
“She seems like a special girl.”
I glance over at Eden. She throws her head back, laughing at something Katherine says. “She is. I didn’t know what I was missing before I asked her out.”
“Sounds like she was just the change you needed,” Robert says. He’s finally softening, so I go in for the kill.
“I'm not proud of how I conducted my personal life before Eden,” I say. “She made me realize I had to make a lot of changes to be worthy of her. She's already made me a better man, and I know I’m going to stay on the path we’re on.”
Robert uncrosses his arms and grabs his glass. “I like the sound of that.”
The rest of the dinner goes as smoothly as I could have hoped.
Katherine gives Eden the full biography of Roberta’s fiancé, a corporate lawyer who, to hear Katherine tell it, had such a traditional upbringing that he never so much as watched a R-rated movie.
I work hard not to crack a smile, imagining Roberta, the woman who showed me her belly button piercing three times, marrying a man who had his first kiss at the age of twenty-two.
Halfway through our dessert, a chocolate lava cake, I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. A man sitting at a corner table has his phone aimed at Eden and I, snapping away photos. Here’s my chance.
“Eden, baby, you’ve got some chocolate on your lip,” I say.
She reaches down for her napkin, but I’m quicker. I lean over the table, taking her face in my hands and kissing away the chocolate. It’s quick, just long enough for the photographer to get the shot.
“Sorry for that,” I tell Katherine. “She just looked too sweet.”
Katherine just sniffs. She might be head over heels for Eden, but I’m clearly still in her bad books.
“Don’t judge them too harshly. They’re in the honeymoon stage,” Robert says, taking his wife’s hand.
Eden looks down at her plate, her face slightly flushed. She quickly changes the subject to gardening. I’m not sure if it was a lucky guess, or if she could read Katherine that well, but Katherine happily launches into a long discussion of her favorite perennials.
Convenient, since I’m not sure I have much to add to any conversation right now.
I kissed Eden, and I want to do it again. A brief brush of our lips wasn’t enough. I need more, not just because she looks so goddamn good in that dress. Because she calmed me down before dinner, because she charmed Katherine and Robert, because she’s so comfortable in her own skin.
Maybe what I told Robert wasn’t a total lie. Being with Eden makes me want to be a better man, if only because it’s obvious, if I were really pursuing her, I wouldn’t be anywhere close to worthy.