Page 6 of Sugar and Spice
“It most certainly is not!”
“You wanna talk? Then it’s a date, sweetheart.”
She wavered and I crossed my fingers that I hadn't pushed her too far. Her eyes closed briefly and she sighed before frowning.
“Fine. A date. But nothing fancy, because I am not dressing up for anything with you. You got it?” She bit out, each word sounding more like a threat than a woman accepting a date.
I winked at her, undeterred. Daisy didn’t scare me. She never had. “Tonight at 7. I’ll come by Sweet Treats and pick you up.”
We stared at each other then, the tension that had always existed between us as loud and clear as always. I could feel it pressing down on us, but now there was the memory of our kiss on my lips. I looked at her mouth and smirked. I had always wondered about kissing Daisy, had thought it might be good, but fantasy was nothing compared to knowing. And now I knew. Now she knew it too.
Daisy bit her lip and I tracked that movement too. I didn’t miss the quick intake of her breath before her hand came up, fingers brushing against her lips. A split second later she was taking a quick step back from me. She knew what I was thinking about, was doing it now herself. While I liked that, I didn’t like the distance it made her put between us. I frowned watching her turn away from me.
She stomped towards the door. “One date,” she said, voice rough with no sweetness to it. Nothing had ever been easy or sweet between us. No reason for it to start now, just because we were fake married and there was a reality show set on showcasing our wedding bliss for all the nation to see. The door slammed shut behind her and I turned to finish my now cold coffee.
CHAPTER3
DAISY
“This is bullshit.” I leaned forward in my seat and looked at myself in the mirror. I was putting on eyeliner for my so-called date with Austin later that night. I was going to it unwillingly but I couldn’t bring myself to show up not looking my best. If I did, I’d never hear the end of it in town. I might be a fool for going along with this date, but I wasn’t fool enough not to know that people would be watching our every move on this so-calleddate.They’d have plenty to say about it but what I looked like was not going to be one of them.
“It’s not bullshit. It’s a date,” Piper said. I looked at her in the mirror and rolled my eyes before I reached for my mascara.
“Same thing,” I replied.
“It’s really not. Besides, you guys are cute together.”
My hand froze and I raised an eyebrow. “Cute? Since when do you define wanting to murder each other as cute?”
She paused and then crossed her arms, looking away as she spoke. “Since all the tension changed from homicide to Big Sex Energy.”
“Big what?”
“Big Sex Energy,” she said again, looking at me in the mirror before wagging a finger at my reflection. “Listen up, missy. I know you don’t want to go on this date, and maybe I should be able to hold my wine a little better.” I scoffed but Piper forged ahead, ignoring me. “But that doesn’t mean you and Austin don’t wanna bang it out.”
I flicked the mascara at her. “Don’t say that.”
“You know I’m right. You’re hot for Austin. You got Big Sex Energy for him last year at the holiday bake off. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It was when he got in that guy’s face for calling you a bitch over you beating him in the gingerbread competition. You were handling it, because duh. It was the holidays, which meant you were already on a Terminator vibe,” she told me and I instantly remembered what she was talking about. It had been a bake off. Something local that was good for keeping our name out there, and we’d done well. The gingerbread bake off she was referring to had been a fever dream of a competition with us having to bake, construct, decorate and present “the holiday gingerbread scene of our Christmas fantasies” to the judges. It didn’t matter that I thought Christmas was the worst holiday known to mankind, I had killed that competition and walked away with the two thousand dollar cash prize, plus I’d beaten Austin which was always something to feel good about. But I’d also beaten another baker with a temper who accused me of cheating. How, I didn’t know, since we were all given the same materials, equipment and time, but he’d called me a bitch and gotten in my face.
That had lasted all of two seconds before Austin wasin his face. I hadn’t even gotten to bash the guy over the head with my gingerbread scene, like I’d planned to the second he’d cussed at me. Austin had handled it neatly enough and maybe, just maybe, Piper was a little right that I’d felt a little somethingsomethingfor Austin Finnigan that holiday season.
I snorted but said nothing.
“Big Sex Energy,” Piper said again. “That man is hotter than a two dollar pistol, so don’t even try to pretend you don’t know it.” She was right, of course. I’d been into the idiot since high school when one day in the middle of an argument I realized three things: just how big Austin was, how green his eyes were, and that I was into both of those things.
Big men and green eyes had been my undoing for years, and in a town like Clarity there were only so many options to sate my hunger. Austin Finnigan, for all his idiot behavior, was physically at the top of that list even if I’d never gone near the man to do anything but shove him over.
Well, except for today when he’d kissed me. My skin went hot remembering the kiss and I set my mascara down when Piper cleared her throat and gave me an accusing look in the mirror. She’d seen me blushing. Just great.
“Fine, he’s hot, but so what? There are a lot of objectively sexy people that I can’t stand.”
“Well, in your hypothetical scenario none of those people live in Clarity.”
“How do you know that?”
