Page 37 of Side Hustle
The flame on the two white candles I had burning on the tiny table wedged between the kitchen, the front door, and the living room fluttered in the breeze as I walked over and opened the door. Hazel stood there in a flowered sundress and a jean jacket to keep her warm, her big smile loosening the choke hold around my throat. This date might be a disaster, but with Hazel there, it was at least guaranteed to be fun.
“Hey.” I swallowed hard and thought about what a normal person might say when their date shows up looking like she should be in a calendar for hot girls next door. “You look…amazing. Stunning.”
Her grin intensified as she took a step inside. “Wow. Such effusive praise. I wasn’t expecting that.” She handed me a bottle of red wine.
I took the wine and shoved my other hand in my pocket. So this was what normal people did on a date. I shut the door, pretending this whole thing was something I was comfortable with. Like I invited women over all the time. Total natural right here.
Her nose went in the air and the bottom dropped out of my chest. “Uh-oh, I think something’s burning, Rip.”
I winced. Of course she’d smell the carb carnage in the kitchen. She was a professional scent sniffer. She had the nose of a bloodhound.
“Yeah. That would be the French bread. I, uh, left it in a little too long. Titus will be dropping by another loaf any minute now.”
Hazel scanned my face, hers frozen in an expression I couldn’t read. She looked toward the kitchen, then over at the tiny table with the candles and the fresh bouquet of flowers in the new vase I’d had to buy to put them in. Then she swung her gaze back over to me, her grin growing by the second until it took over her whole face in that way I loved. The smile that said she didn’t care about the wrinkles in her future or the fact that her eyes were almost squeezed shut. It was uninhibited and natural, and I wondered what it must be like to feel that way.
“Are you nervous, Mr. Bennett?” She stepped closer, her finger drilling my stomach. She poked a few more times, then dragged that finger across my chest. She was teasing me.
Somehow her touch was magic. I wasn’t nervous anymore. Nope, those butterflies had turned into straight-up lust. I wanted her to put her other nine fingers on me and forget about dinner. I grabbed her hand and whipped it around to her back, pulling her up against me, her head automatically tilting back.
“I was.” I shook my head nice and slow. “Not anymore.”
Her eyes widened and I didn’t miss the way she sucked in a huge gulp of air. Maybe my no-sex rule for tonight was stupid. Very, very stupid. I leaned down and she strained upward, our lips just brushing when the stove timer let out a loud series of beeps.
Hazel jolted back and the moment was lost. Unless I wanted another kitchen fire on my hands, I should back off and get the boiled pasta off the stove.
“What are we having tonight?” Hazel’s voice had a nice little tremor to it that told me she was right there with me on the lust scale.
I kept my hand in hers and tugged her into the kitchen, putting the wine down as we went. “Hopefully spaghetti.”
The burnt bread sticking out of the disposal looked worse seeing it through her eyes, the density of the charred areas showing I didn’t slightly overcook it. I burned the shit out of it. She snorted behind me, poking one end of the bread like a kid with a science experiment.
“Fuck,” I grabbed the pot handles, seeing the boiling water overflowing onto the stove top, but immediately yanked my hands back when my brain registered the pain. Turning in a circle, I saw my potholders, grabbed them, and then moved the pot off the burner, water slopping everywhere.
Hazel giggled and danced out of my way in the small kitchen. Maybe one day I’d laugh at this too, but right now I was embarrassed. I’d cooked spaghetti before. It was literally the only thing I could cook. And here I was bungling it in front of Hazel. I should have just called in takeout like a normal guy trying to impress a girl.
After I got the noodles drained and the spaghetti sauce dumped into the pot, I breathed a sigh of relief. Dinner was saved. Unless I’d oversalted the beef, which was a very real possibility. Hazel helped me get the plates and forks while I placed the huge pot of spaghetti on the table, nearly taking up the whole surface, such was the size of my table. I grabbed the French bread off the doorstep that Titus had left and plopped it on the table uncooked. Cold bread was better than burnt bread.
“You know, we could add some shredded carrots and zucchini to that to up the nutrition factor,” Hazel suggested while I got the cloth napkins I’d also bought that morning.
I tamped down the nausea at her suggestion and pulled her chair out for her. I shouldn’t have been so worried. Hazel was literally the worst cook in the world. I was sure the spaghetti would be fine. “Sometimes you just want to stick to the original recipe.”
She shrugged and had a seat. “Buon appetito!”
I came around and sat down, smoothing the napkin on my lap. “Italian, huh? Didn’t you take Spanish in high school?”
She grinned and looked more beautiful than I’d ever seen her there in the candlelight. In my house. Eating my food. “I did. Good memory. But I also worked at that Italian restaurant a few towns over for five years after graduation and the owners shouted in Italian at us all the time. I’m fluent in Spanish and almost fluent in Italian, though a lot of what I know is curse words.”
My jaw dropped. “Seriously? I had no idea.” I shook my head, a warm glow of pride catching me by surprise. “And you think you’re not smart?”
She blushed, but shoved a forkful of spaghetti in her mouth so she didn’t have to answer. We ate dinner—which had turned out perfectly, thank the cooking gods—and had great conversation that had nothing to do with either of our parents. It was nice to see we had plenty to talk about even when our families weren’t being discussed. When Hazel couldn’t eat another bite, I cleared our plates and sat back down to discuss the next phase of my plan.
“So I say we out my father and his illegal activity next. He’s so busy running around trying to find a way to strip me of my land, he won’t see it coming.”
Hazel nodded. “I think we should involve Chief Waldo first, though. He needs to be up to speed so that when you bring all this to the public’s attention, he can arrest him.”
She made a good point. Exposing my father for what he was meant I needed law enforcement on my side. Otherwise, my father might just leave town and then justice would never be served. I wouldn’t put it past him to up and run.
“Your mom will get caught in all this. Have you thought about that?” Hazel said softly, wringing her hands on top of the table.
