Page 17 of Champagne Fizz

I can’t screw up this wedding.

Do you think Sue Blade has an episode on this? On how to not fuzz your way to the top, and other tips for keeping it in your pants? Ha!

I splash more water on my face, but it fails to do anything but make me think about the beach thirty floors below us and water crashing against the shore. Water Simon could be swimming in … shirtless.

One afternoon in Flambé and they’ve already corrupted me.

4

SIMON

“Okay asshole—”

I hear Arie’s voice outside my door, those two high-pitched words a less-than-polite warning before the typhoon of Arie storms into my office.

“I have work to do,” I shoot back as she bursts in full force.

“Which is it?” she snips out, tossing her cherry-red hair over her shoulder like she’s the star of Desperate Housewives Hawaii Edition. Kendall left a while ago with Olivia and Ned, and I know this intrusion is about to erupt into a full-fledged Weddings with Hart roasting session.

That, or she’s going to blow a gasket about the fact that I silenced her in front of a client.

“I’m sorry, which is what?” I ask, playing coy and leaning back in my chair. Arie’s been my best friend for enough years that I’m used to her patterns: fume, flame, burn down the house.

“Either Miss Queen of the Canaries and Pom-Poms has some sort of mystery investor, corporate franchising ace up her sleeve,” she fumes, pointing toward the dining room. “Or—”

“Wait,” I interrupt. “Investor, franchising? Are those your fancy I’m-a-chef-not-an-accountant words for business connections?”

I smile at her as she huffs at me in frustration.

“Connor is the one with the big vocabulary,” Arie seethes, her eyes narrowing at me.

“And by vocabulary,” I say, pushing my chair back and standing up, “you mean cock, right?”

“That too,” she harumphs.

I pick up the money wallet I was tallying, putting the one for deposits back in the safe and closing it. “Was there a point you were making?” I ask, walking past Arie and heading out toward the registers.

“Yes,” she grumbles, stalking behind me. “I’ve only seen you get a hard-on for two reasons—”

“Oh, we’re talking aboutmycock now,” I chide, moving past the kitchen to the register at the hostess stand.

“I’d talk about it more, hot shot,” Arie snips, “if you used it more.”

“I use it plenty,” I dismiss, unlocking the register and setting it up for this evening’s dinner service.

“If by plenty you mean never,” Arie throws back, “then I guess we’re on the same page.”

“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that.” I give her a smug look that only causes the Arie-dragon to unfurl her wings even more. Typical.

“As I was saying,” she snips. “I only see you get a hard-on for two reasons. One, you think there’s a business angle involved that will make us more money.”

“You like it when it’s that one,” I interject, lifting the stack of money in my hand and pretending to fling dollar bills from it like it’s raining cash. Arie frowns at my pantomime, annoyed that I’m not riveted by what she has to say. It’s the only way to be best friends with her. We’d be enemies if I took her too seriously. “Or two—” she emphasizes the word to get me back on the Arie train. “You have an actual real hard-on.”

“That second premise seems like a circular argument,” I say, drawing a circle in the air. “You have a hard-on because you have a hard-on.”

“I’m not interested in your Ned-Connor-lawyer fallacy whatevers,” Arie growls as I finish with the register and head for the one behind the bar.

“Fallacies seem exactly up your ally, Arie,” I tease.

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