His jaw was on the floor and he stood, blinking furiously. Dark hair, gorgeous eyes, and the muscled upper body of someone who did hard work for a living. His shirt fit nice and tight against his pecs and his hair was cropped short. Forearms bulged under the strain of the serving tray, but he didn’t seem to struggle with the weighit.
And he stared.
“Hello?” Josie said, half standing to help. “You’re keeping us from a mouthful of your luscious stuff.”
“Excuse me?” He choked, nearly sending the tray onto Josie’s lap. A quick movement from Laura held it in place, the pie balanced precariously on the edge.
“Caleb, what the hell?” Good old Madge appeared, eyes clear and blazing as she jumped in, delivered the food, and tucked the empty tray under her arm. “You planning to throw the food at people now in an effort to streamline efficiency?”
“No, it’s just—”
“And you!” Madge snapped at Josie. “Are you talking about balls and threesomes and did I hear a sex swing comment?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Josie’s face was a careful mask of restraint. If Madge weren’t her boyfriend’s grandfather’s girlfriend (say that five times fast…) then Laura knew Josie would rip her a new one. Instead, she demonstrated remarkable tact, and it made Laura realize how much they’d changed.
Both of them.
Stunned silence from Caleb, who—in Laura’s humble opinion—could sit there and look shocked and pretty all day long. Stealing a chance to study his rugged cheekbones and noting the alarm in those perplexed eyes, she noticed the similarity between him and…Madge? Wasn’t a grandson helping to run the place and develop new menus? Bingo. She put it together all by herself, all while eyeing a guy whom she had no right to admire.
But hey—a girl could look as long as she didn’t touch, right?
“Good.” Madge cracked a wide grin and patted Josie gently on the cheek. “I’m glad to see Alex is being well taken care of.”
Josie’s turn to choke. Literally. The bite of pie she’d started to munch on went down the wrong pipe and she whacked herself in the chest several times as both Caleb and Madge beat a hasty retreat.
“Heimlich?”
“How about bleach?”
“Bleach? For what?”
“My brain. I don’t need sex tips from Madge. Not about Alex.” She whooped her way back to a normal respiration pattern, then cringed as if she’d tasted something that had gone bad.
“Seems like she and his grandfather have a healthy sex life.”
“Lalalalalalalala, I can’t hear you!”
“It bodes well for you, actually.”
“What the hell does Madge’s sex life have to do with me?”
“If his grandpa’s going at it in his eighties, then when you and Alex are in your eighties, you have a sense of what to expect.”
Josie froze, her eyes going huge, her breathing stopping. Leaping to her feet, Laura came to Josie’s side of the booth and leaned into her face. “Josie!” she shouted with alarm. “Are you choking again? Can you breathe?”
“Why are you screaming in my face?” she gasped. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Your eyes…and you stopped breathing!”
“Because of what you said. Your fault! Not the pie!” As if to prove a point, Josie stabbed another piece and shoved it in her mouth, chewing pointedly this time and not gagging, thank God.
“What on earth did I say?” Tears threatened her nose and eyes, her face suddenly swollen and puffy, feeling too big for her bones. Knowing this feeling, she realized she was overly sensitive and on edge, in need of a friend and a pow-wow. What she hadn’t expected was an edgy Josie. If the rule said only one of them could fall apart at any given time, then it was Laura’s damn turn right now.
“You implied that Alex and I would still be together in fifty or sixty years!”
“Why would that make you freak out?”
“Because I only recently let him take up an enormous amount of my apartment! Nearly half!”
“Josie, a toothbrush in a drawer and some underwear is not ‘nearly half.’”
“Says the woman who defines half a piece of key lime pie using the same metrics.”
“Touché.” At least they had their own pieces this time. “So you’re still that commitment shy with Dr. Perfect? Why? He’s…perfect.” He really was, and Laura never thought she’d say that about any guy Josie dated. The handful of men over the years that Laura had been allowed to meet were suspiciously familiar at the time, and months later she’d catch a rerun of some reality show about cheaters and realize, oh—that’s why.
Not Alex. Every time she thought about the two of them together, she smiled. Just like her and Mike and Dylan. The fit was so…perfect that there was no need to search any longer. Done. Signed, sealed, delivered.
And Josie knew it. Knew it deep in her dried-up little terrified peach pit that masqueraded as her heart. She just needed to give herself permission to let go and be with it, giving Alex a lifetime to get her to let go of the shield that was looser each day.
“We’re not talking about my relationship,” Josie said archly. “You’re the one with problems.”
Hearing it stated that bluntly didn’t sit well with Laura. “Not problems. Complications.”
Josie pointed her fork at Laura’s head. “Don’t you say it!”
“What? That it’s always complicated?”
Josie groaned and threw a sugar packet at her.
“It is, though. It really is. The complication comes part and parcel with the love.” Both took deep sighs and filled their mouths with blackberry drizzle and key lime perfection. Food was truly perfect with greater consistency than men. And it didn’t hog the bed or leave beard shavings sprinkled all over the sink. Food didn’t leave the toilet seat up or shove balled-up dirty socks between the couch cushions.
Food also couldn’t fuck you silly and whisper dirty love sayings in your ear while it asked you—begged you—to share a fantasy you’d never told any other person in the world. And then give you that little naughty dream right then and there with strokes and licks and squeezes and pinches and moans that lingered in your mind for weeks.
But man, if food ever could do that, then men would be done in a second, replaced by kitchens with insemination stations.