Page 22

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SADIE

I am not dressed for this.

Couples clink their glasses as a string quartet plays Bad Romance under the pergola covered in grape vines.

I nervously cross my legs, but my jeans are the least of my worries.

I’m wearing my peanut butter shirt, so named because I wear it whenever I smear peanut butter on toast then inevitably drop it onto my chest.

“You didn’t tell me we were going to the winery,” I whisper at Aubry. He’s fine for the evening.

Holy hell is he fine. Unlike the suit minus the jacket look from before, he’s rocking a patterned button up in a sea blue with little shells all over it.

In his usual fashion, he’s left it all unbuttoned so I can drool over his undershirt fighting to contain those pecs.

That had to be on purpose. What I don’t understand is him not warning me to put on a dress…

There was still time.

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” he says and takes a sip of a chablis that goes well with our tomato ceviche salad according to the waiter who’s an ex of my roommate.

While he’s happy to dote on Aubry, I’m getting the cold shoulder from him, and death glares from all the other patrons in their fancy attire.

“It’s a surprise all right.” I stab at one of the tomatoes when he holds a hand out.

“Is that safe?”

“I don’t think anyone’s hidden a razor blade in it.” Even as I say it, I look. Who knows with Trent. Olivia is fast and brutal with her dumpings.

“No, I mean are you safe to eat it…?”

“Yeah,” I tell him. Some people either laugh off my allergy and try to test to see if I’ll really die from it. Others can become more hyper vigilant than me, which is saying something. “I’ve got it.” To assure him, I swallow the whole tomato slice in one go and smile big. No choking here.

Aubry plants his elbow on the table and rests his chin on his knuckles. “Forgive me for being protective. The idea of watching you suffer is…” He winces then papers on a smile. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

The intense focus in his eyes causes me to gulp, catching the tomato in my throat. Oh, shit. I can’t cough. He’ll panic. But it’s starting to burn. With tears in my eyes, I force out a little laugh that turns into a sputter and lunge for my water glass.

“Do you do that often?”

Nearly choke on a tomato because a man looks about to dive on a bomb to save me…or fuck me? No, that one’s new.

“What?” I cough and tap my chest like I meant to do it. “What do you mean?”

“Take pictures of vegetables? Tomatoes, peppers…” His voice grows so cold, I shiver. I swear, as he stares at me, purple shimmers in his eyes. “Eggplant?”

“Not usually. I get more finished products, boxes of cereal, protein bars, jugs of yogurt.”

“You mean tubs?”

“I wish. I’m Indian, and I struggled getting through all the yogurt they sent me.

Course it was strawberry and blueberry flavored so…

you don’t want to use that in your tikka masala.

” I start to laugh before I remember he asked a question.

“It’s nice to have produce. I can use them for sandwiches. Well…”

Except for the eggplant.

“It’s kinda funny that they asked me to photograph eggplant.” I snicker at myself, but his stare goes from attentive to piercing.

“Why?”

“Because… Because I don’t eat it, like you.”

He glances his wine glass to his lips, says, “True,” then drinks.

I stare at my glass that’s down to dregs. Would it be bad if I asked for another glass at this prix fix meal?

The next course arrives. It’s fish. I miss the type of fish but I get that there’s some sauce of almonds while I take in Aubry listening attentively to the menu. I didn’t expect him to show.

I really, really hoped he would, but my little list of demands was his way to bow out gracefully.

Sorry, I’m only in it for what’s between your legs. Be seeing you never.

But not only is he here, he brought us to a vineyard with fancy dinners on tiny square plates and a hundred wine glasses. A man like that could…no, should have supermodels hanging onto his biceps for dear life. So what’s he really doing here with me?

“You never mentioned what brought you to Loomis,” I say trying to delicately flake off my fish square covered in orange something. With each stab of my fork, it splits apart. “Las Vegas to here is quite the change.”

“I’m still adjusting to the cold and quiet,” he says.

I think about how startled he got with the coyotes and joke, “Though there’s a lot more screaming now.”

“What?” He snaps up, his eyes back to piercing.

“From the…when we were outside. Remember?”

A smile rises on his lips but nowhere else. “Right. The coyotes. That was new.”

“Is it for business?” I ask, trying to chip even an inch off of his backstory.

Aubry places down his wine glass and stares into the crimson depths. “In a way. I was…weary of my old job and wanted a change. Needed a change before I lost it.”

“I get that,” I say. He whips his head up to stare at me in disbelief.

“When I finally graduated college I got a job doing shit with my degree. It was in a big gray building in a big gray office moving tiny gray numbers from one gray box to another. I was losing my mind. The pay was frankly shit, about on par with what I get now, and I was exhausted body and soul. When I found dust on my camera, I knew I needed a change.”

It’s not glamorous, but I’m surviving.

Smiling at him, I say, “Just got to get my food pics out there more. Do videos.” I sigh with my eternal war against the algorithm. “And maybe I can give up the day job too. What, um, what about you? Same thing?”

He collapses his hands together in what I’d call a prayer if they weren’t clenching.

“There was a…night that went bad.” Closing his eyes, he sucks in a breath and releases it like a meditating dragon.

“I’d had worse. I’d cleaned up worse without batting an eye, but something about it, about the… cargo. I couldn’t do it anymore.”

“Cargo? I thought you were a bouncer?”

“We would help with people’s bags in and out of the casino,” he says so fast I blink. It makes sense.

The waiter returns, still giving me the stink eye, and Aubry’s back to his usual quiet and contemplative self. I could talk circles around him, I probably have, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

As Trent’s reaching across the table to clear things, I blurt out, “So, about your banana sauce…”

At that moment, the whole restaurant goes dead quiet. The final strings echo in the air, people poised to clap, and they all hear me asking Aubry about his banana. Heads swivel toward the girl in her ratty tee and my face hits five-thousand degrees.

“I was just wondering about it, about you in the Philippines. Did you move here when you were a child?” Am I shouting? I feel like I’m shouting.

“Ah, no. I was born back east. New Jersey. When I was ten my parents were going through some…” He’s stone, his face blank, his eyes staring through me. “Troubles. They decided to send me to my Lolo’s, my grandfather’s farm. Where I got to learn all about…vegetables.”

“That sounds nice.”

“It could be when there weren’t any tourists.

” A little smile rises before crashing back under the waves.

“Every day was a reminder that I didn’t belong.

I couldn’t speak Tagalog tagging me as an outsider.

But I also wasn’t…American enough to blend in with the tourists.

” He swallows deeply and his mouth parts.

Pulling in a quick breath, I brace for something, but Aubry just smiles. “What about you?”

“Born and raised in Sacramento,” I say with joy, but notice as he pulls apart his hands there are little red marks across the back of both.

“There was one other Indian girl in my grade. She drove a Tesla and had an elephant at her sixteenth birthday party. If I’d tried to talk to her, I’d probably have burst into flames. ”

I start to laugh at the idea, but he’s staring at me.

Probably wondering why I brought her up.

Why did I bring her up? “I had friends,” I say, then wince at how pathetic that sounds.

“Um, I did soccer for a bit. My dad’s idea.

Well, his first idea was to get me into cricket, but when I ran away from the ball it became soccer. ”

Aubry’s face brightens. “I spent morning, noon, and night with my ball. Every day kicking it around the farm when I wasn’t doing chores.”

“I was awful,” I confess.

To my shock, he leans across the table, and says, “Me too.”

We both laugh when fingers glance up my palm. I twist my hand around, seeking out his. As our fingers entwine, I gaze into his eyes. My heart pounds faster than ever and I melt in my chair. Even though he’s been inside of me so many times I lost count, I’m blushing over a simple handhold.

“Sadie,” he says with a smile. Then his face hardens and voice drops. He damn near tears my panties off by growling, “Sadhvi.”

Not really getting the cousin feeling now.

My body breaks out in goosebumps as he runs his thumb over the back of my hand. I want to tear his clothes off right now. The string quartet can play as he eats me out on these tiny plates. Forget stupid rule three. Why did I even come up with that?

“Aubry…” I whisper.

I don’t want to be treated like a cheap meal. I’m at least better than a Taco Bell run. But his hands, the veins rising up his forearm, the way his pecs flex as he holds me. My brain wants me to be treated like a lady, and my body wants him to fuck me like top ramen.

I know what I meant.

“Why don’t—?”

“Hello.” The waiter flies in with two steaming plates. Aubry lets me go and we both snake our hands back as a triangle of beef dotted with red and green sauces lands before us. “Are we ready for round three?”

I eye up the man across from me. My pussy’s screaming at me for round ten, twelve, two hundred. But I grab my fork, cross my leg tight, and smile. “Bring it on.”

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