Page 26 of It Happened Duo

Toward the endof the race, my boat was neck and neck with the competitors. Then I spotted Chelsea, Maisy, and their friends on the shore, rooting for my team. I encouraged the crew, all of us working harder, less one man.

“Faster, guys. There’s a bottle of Macallan for each of you when we win,” I shouted.

“Something tells me he wants to show off with a win for that pretty redhead who’s waving on the dock,” Brody hollered.

“Oh yeah? Where’d you meet her, Rex?” Gage asked while manning the comms and keeping an eye out for the other boats. I said nothing.

Xander snickered. “Must be someone special. Usually you’re boasting about your latest conquest.”

“All right, enough. Let’s win this fucking race,” I snapped back, eyeing the steering compass. These guys were all some of my best friends, and I’d do anything for them, but sometimes they knew me too well.

It was touch and go, but finally we pulled just enough ahead to pass the final bouy and take the win. The guys cheered and high-fived. After we docked, I searched for Chelsea on the shore. She waved, but before I could reach her, other people crowded us.

When I finally glimpsed her again, she and her group drove away, headed back toward New York. If I thought about her often before, now I couldn’tstopthinking about her…of everything I’d do to her if she were in my bed again…and of a proposition I’d have for her very soon.

15

LADY IN RED

CHELSEA

Rex had yetto walk into the deli and ask me out. I started hopeful every day and developed a nasty habit of checking the door each time the bells chimed, announcing another customer entering the deli.

By Friday, I resigned myself to being just another notch on this playboy’s bedpost. I wasn’t mad, exactly, just…disappointed. I enjoyed our night together in the Hamptons as much as I thought he did. Great sex was hard to come by these days. I guess I had hoped for something more.

Oh well. I peeked at my NYC bucket list where I’d hastily scrawledHave a grand affairat the very bottom as an after thought back in Holly Creek when I wrote it. If a one-night stand could be considered an affair, I snorted and crossed that achievement off the list as done.

I was about to do a pre-lunch post on social media about our hearty autumn beef soup special, when his assistant, Pearl, came in early before the lunch rush, having easilybecome one of the deli’s regulars. She motioned me to the side.

“In case you’ve been wondering, I haven’t ordered two pastrami sandwiches all week because I have a huge appetite. Rex asked me each day to bring him one back.”

“Oh? Why didn’t he just come down and order one himself?”

“I don’t know, but all week he’s been really nervous, sweating about something, talking with his lawyer a lot, and I’ve heard your name mentioned a few times. I wondered if you knew what it was about.”

“Me?” I wrinkled my forehead. “What would make you think I would know?”

“Well, he asked me to come down here and get your cell phone number today,” she said, cocking her head and eyeing me. “But I told him to come down and ask for it himself.”

“Oh, poor guy. I know he gets anxious about the deli. Here, I can give it to you for him.” How silly of me to think I’d cured him of his deli issues? My heart surged, thinking all week he’d wanted to ask me out, but his anxiety stopped him.

She put a hand over mine before I could jot the number down. “Listen, honey. If my instincts are correct, I think he’s smitten with you. The other bimbos he dated all catered to his whims. But you’re different. Make him sweat a little.” She wrinkled her nose and reached on the counter for one of the sandwiches, leaving the other. “Why not deliver his personally to his office?”

Smitten? Interesting. I kept playing over our timetogether on his boat, and how Rex knew his way around pleasuring a woman’s body. And that’s one reason I tried to keep myself in check, not letting thoughts run rampant.

I viewed him like a wild horse I wanted to tame and saddle. A horse-whisperer I wasn’t though, and hardly had the answers how to do that. But I could certainly deliver his sandwich and see where we stood after finishing a live video post about our lunch special.

“Mm. Nothing beats the flavor for fall more than a simmering hearty soup.” I zoomed the camera in on my spoon, stirring up the beautiful veggies. “Look at all the fresh vegetables that go into my recipe. And beef? Trust me, when you dip your spoon in for the first bite, you won’t have to ask where the beef is because we put extra in it to—beef—it up.” I chuckled at my joke.

I never wrote this stuff out, only winging it. I knew my cooking, and I knew good comfort food. That’s all I needed to convince someone to try it.

I glanced at the names of people who watched my live video and commented, only to double take at a name. Dino B who wrote,Hi Sweetness.There’s only one man who called me that. Could it be Rex Buchanan? As in Tyrannosaurus Rex—Dino B? Was he watching my social media accounts? Now I was even more self-conscious knowing he might be.

Was Pearl right and he was pining away for me way up there in his office? There was only one way to find out.

“I’ll be back,” I told Annie behind the counter, tearing off my apron, and grabbed Rex’s sandwich. “Making a specialdelivery.”

The entire way up the elevator, I thought about what I’d say to Rex. I needed a cute line, something that said I was just casually delivering this. No big deal, it doesn’t mean we’re an item or anything.

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