Chapter 4
Chapter four
Dulcie
My game plan walking into the cabin castle for round two is to stick to the plan.
Unfortunately for me, my plan is still total shit.
Before, it was get in and then… figure it out.
Now, it’s just basically wing it, make pie, and somehow get Luca to listen to me for three point one four genuine seconds when he has every right to be fully and righteously pissed off about my cloak-and-dagger slash creepy stalkerish actions.
Fuggeting fuggets. It’s my special blend of fucking nuggets, because seriously, can there be a worse curse than that, with just the right blend of hilarious cuteness? Sometimes pie puns just won’t do.
Great, I know.
After another round of paperwork with the shadowy scarecrow-inspired lawyer with the real beaked nose and the villainous face, Adam appears.
He’s so sweet in comparison to the tall, imposing Stonewell. Even his name sounds made up to inspire insta-quaking. In contrast, Adam resembles a puppy dog. His deep brown eyes glisten with kindness and sincerity, and his sandy hair does a floppy thing over his forehead that is adorable.
“I have to congratulate you,” he says under his breath as he leads me to the kitchen. I hope. He could be taking me to the dungeon, and I’d probably follow him straight there. “No one’s had a second date. Ever.”
“This isn’t a date.” I clutch the paper bag with the fresh rhubarb and cherries that I bought this morning. I’ve got the bottom cradled in my arm because that wasn’t all I bought, and paper doesn’t hold up to a lot of weight. “This is friending. We’re just baking a pie.”
“Well, still.” He pauses in the living room, giving me a good view of the massive stone fireplace that reaches from the floor to the ceiling, the towering timber walls, and the huge array of windows that also overlook the lake, though I swear it’s from a different angle than the other windows in the dining room last night.
The furniture is all very dark and heavy, brown leather and wood.
It matches the whole hunting lodge vibe the place has.
You know, if the lodge were for royalty.
“Can I ask you to do something for me?” Adam looks less like a puppy and more like an angry guard dog now.
“S-sure.”
“Just try not to disappoint him. He might pretend he’s bulletproof, but his life changed a lot after the accident.
He went from having a vibrant career to pretty much enduring self-imposed isolation here.
He didn’t just cook. He travelled extensively.
He was set to spend his life with someone, and she dipped.
He’s not the kind of person who mopes around feeling sorry, but he does have feelings. ”
She dipped. Whoa. Information overload. How did I not find out about that?
Anton failed to mention anything about a fiancée.
You’d think that would be common knowledge, but there was nothing.
“Is this the part where you threaten me?” I ask, twisting humor through the words to cover up the pain stabbing me right in the stomach.
He ruffles his hand through his hair, pulling it back from his forehead, but it falls right back into place. “It would just really hurt, and he’s had too much of that already. I’m a nurse, but we’re friends. I’m pretty much his only in-person friend now.”
“You don’t want to pick up my pieces. Got it.”
“You don’t want to pick up your pieces either,” he counters.
“There’s that.”
He gives me a once-over like a human lie detector. “Can I try the pie after?”
“Sure. Get the lawyer dude to stick around. He could use some sweetening up.”
Adam’s seriousness breaks around his laughter. “You’re right. I’ll show you the way to the kitchen. This place was built quite a while ago, and the open concept floor plan wasn’t a high priority.”
“They built the darn thing half on the water. That’s impressive enough, I’d say.”
“They used some famous architect from somewhere. I can’t remember his name, but Luca did tell me that when I first got the job.”
We walk past the dining room and down a hallway, twisting and turning until I wonder just how many square feet a cabin could possibly be.
Not a cabin. A lodge. That’s what I’m going to call it, although timber mansion also has a nice ring to it.
I know we’re getting close to the kitchen when I hear punk music.
It gets louder the closer we get, until Adam turns a corner and motions me in.
He gives me a half-snarl, half-smile, and says, “Happy pie making.”
“Thanks.”
Then, he walks off whistling, just like he did last night.
I’m only distracted by him for a second, until what I’m seeing sinks in.
A full industrial kitchen. I very much doubt the place was originally set up with this.
It has to be something Luca got done after he bought the house…
err, lodge. It’s not huge—you can’t fit my dad’s bakery into it or anything—but it’s got everything you’d see in kitchens on those cooking shows.
I made sure I was on time today. Luca didn’t get impatient and start without me. He’s not in here cooking.
Instead, he’s sitting on the stainless countertop next to a turntable blasting punk music off a sky blue vinyl record.
It’s only slightly angry in tone. I’d call it catchy.
Luca’s dressed like he’s going to a festival, with black striped pants, combat boots, a heavy studded leather belt, a black button-up shirt with checkered black and white suspenders over it, and a heavy chain at his neck.
His hair is arranged a little too neatly, slicked back, and since nothing overhangs his face, it really highlights the fact that he’s wearing eyeliner.
And that his green eyes are gorgeous when rimmed in black.
I’m more than a little surprised. Surprise and I don’t get along all that well, despite all evidence pointing in the other direction.
All I can do is stare without blinking. At least his attention lands on my face and not on my nipples, which happen to be buzzing like an electric current has just been plugged straight into them.
Car battery and clamps, meet my ovaries, meet my nipples.
His look is more than edgy and far more than handsome. It’s downright dangerous to my panties. It’s a whole lot of holy fugget hotness.
“Why are you dressed like a punk rocker?” I choke past my extremely dry throat. I very nonchalantly step into the kitchen and set the paper bag down on the counter.
“I don’t have any occasion to dress up anymore. I thought it would be fun.” He eyes what I just set down. “You brought a paper bag. Is it for me?”
My heart hitches, but I roll my eyes and pretend all his pain doesn’t edge up on me and threaten to break me. Sure, I don’t even really know him, but that’s what happens when you’re a sensitive person, which I am. When I’m not getting caught up in schemes.
“I brought cherries and rhubarb.” Then, I pull the surprise out of the bag.
“And a jar of random jewelry from a thrift store.” The cherries and rhubarb were from the local market, and the jewelry was just a pure chance score this morning when I drove past the little shop after making my purchases for the pie.
He grins that scowl grin of his, and it hits me so hard that I have to grab the edge of the table. “I’m sure I can find something quite nice in there to augment my outfit.”
“It’s not for you! It’s for the crows!” I exclaim.
He blinks. “You want me to put that out for them?”
“They like shiny things, don’t they?”
“Them and the magpies. I’m sure they’ll appreciate your gifts.”
I smile. “Can you send me pictures when you do? I’d really like to see that.”
“Pictures?” he snorts. “Come around any day and we’ll watch them receive your offerings together.”
Whoa. That was so casual and so… tentative all at once. Adam’s warning echoes in my head.
I’m staying at a tiny little cabin I booked online.
It’s still exorbitantly expensive, even though it was the cheapest thing I could find that was relatively close by.
I have it booked for a week, but I might be able to extend it to two.
My mom hates that I’m here. She actually hates all of this.
I caught her chewing out my dad when I confessed I was going to New York.
She’s probably still mad, even if she gets why he asked me to do this.
He might have begged me to go, but I know he’s also worried about me being here.
I know we should just bake a pie, and I should come clean. Anything more seems like it’ll be signing us both up for a world of nasty… and not the fun, kinky kind.
I can’t look Luca in the eye when I respond. I pretend to be busy inspecting the fruit as I take it out of the bag. “Yeah, sure. Just let me know when and I’ll come by.”
He slides off the counter and turns down the volume on the turntable, which has two giant speakers on either side of it.
The turntable seems to be a permanent fixture in the kitchen.
I try very hard not to imagine him in here every day, cooking alone and eating alone like a tortured artist or poet.
The image isn’t even real because he has Adam and his parents.
I look up at exactly the wrong moment. He’s bent over the turntable, inspecting something, and those pants are tight. They pretty much broadcast his rock-hard ass. It’s the BEST ASS I’ve ever seen, in all screaming caps.
The new plan is not to thirst-trap a man who was working with your dad before you were even born. Your dad’s could-have-been best friend and the man he wanted to make his protégé and even a partner in his bakery one day.
He spins around and catches me ogling his ass.
Yes.
It really happens.
If I look away now, I’ll just appear even more guilty, so I cross my arms and lean my hip casually against the countertop like maybe I was just eying up his extremely nice turntable.
“I think my vibe matches yours,” he says.