Page 86 of Delicious (Delicious #1)

Chapter Two

Bas

“H ope you’re hungry, Hermano. I brought tacos,” I call out to my brother as I nudge the door shut with my elbow and kick off my shoes.

The apartment is dark, but his shoes are next to the door, so I know he’s home.

“Tony?” I call out, setting the tacos on the kitchen counter as I pass through.

There’s a light shining under the bathroom door, and I remember that he has some kind of blind date scheduled for tonight. I chuckle and pound on the door.

“Shaving your pubes in case you get lucky?” I tease. “I think there’s a box of condoms under the sink if you need them.”

I’m expecting him to shout something back about how long it’s been since I’ve needed to bother taming my bush or that the condoms are probably expired if I’m the one who bought them. Instead, there’s a retching sound on the other side of the door.

“Tony?” I put my hand on the doorknob. “You okay?”

“No,” he croaks.

My pulse skyrockets and I push the door open without hesitating. Whatever state he’s in, I’m sure I’ve seen worse. Hell, I cleaned him up when he got so drunk he shit himself on his twenty-first birthday.

The sour smell of vomit and sweat hits me immediately, making my stomach clench and bile rise in the back of my throat. Tony is hunched over the toilet in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs, his sweat-drenched hair flopping over his forehead. He coughs and spits, then pushes his hair back.

“Gross, you smell like tacos,” he rasps.

“Yeah, well, you smell like vomit.”

He laughs weakly then shrugs. “Must’ve caught a stomach bug. I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?” I eye him, trying to decide whether I should offer to grab him some ginger ale or insist on taking him to the hospital.

He nods. “Yeah. I need a favor though.”

He reaches to flush the toilet and then clambers to his feet. I lean against the doorframe while he turns on the tap and rinses out his mouth, waiting for him to tell me what he needs. My guess is he’s going to ask me not to tell Abuelita that he’s sick. She’ll be over here making a big pot of Caldo de Polla in no time, insisting it’s the cure for any ailment.

“You going to make me guess, Hermano?” I arch an eyebrow.

“My date,” he says with a hint of pleading in his weak, raspy voice.

I drag my gaze over his pale, sweaty face again as he braces his hands on the sink to keep himself upright.

“Doubt you’ll knock him dead looking like something a cat puked up. Reschedule it.” I shrug.

“I can’t.” He groans and splashes some more water onto his face. “Robbie set it up, but he didn’t give me the guy’s phone number. I can’t call or text to cancel and Robbie’s phone is going straight to voicemail.”

“So what do you want me to do about it?”

“Go instead?” he suggests.

“Be your blind date understudy?” I bark out a laugh. “That doesn’t sound weird or anything.”

“Please?” Tony holds his hands out in a begging gesture. “Robbie said he’s really sweet and I hate the idea of him waiting around, feeling like an idiot, thinking I stood him up.”

My stomach sinks. Shit, I can’t let someone think they got stood up. I sigh and drag my fingers through my hair, damp and flat from wearing a hairnet all day.

“Fine, I’ll go tell him you’re sick and reschedule it for you. You owe me big though.”

“Huge,” he agrees, bobbing his head eagerly.

Whatever. I can do my brother a favor and keep this guy from the trauma of wondering if his blind date showed up, saw him, and left. It’s not like I have to actually take him out. I’ll just let him know what’s up and then come right home. Easy peasy.

“Let me hop in the shower really quick.” I shoo him out of the way so I can turn the water on.

“You’re the best,” he says, looking slightly less pale already.

I muss his hair and then tilt my head towards the kitchen. “Go put my tacos in the fridge and get yourself a ginger ale. I’ll be out in a few.”

He disappears and I shake my head again. First date I’ve had in months and it’s not even mine.

Dylan

“Okay, now remember, Guillermo, if I tap my foot twice, I want you to start barking and pulling on the leash so I have an excuse to blow off this date. Got it?”

My dog chuffs and licks his lips, his tail thudding against the leg of the park bench with a hollow thwack, thwack, thwack . We really should have practiced this escape maneuver more. He had it down at home, but there are a lot more exciting distractions at the park.

I shift around on the bench, wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans and tightening my hold on Guillermo’s leash. Not that he’s going anywhere. He’s crawled under the bench and made himself comfortable at this point, and I’m sure he’d be happy to snooze there the rest of the night if it were up to him. This isn’t a leisurely trip to the park though, this is an embarrassing, awkward blind date and he’s my ticket out of it. I look over my shoulder, cataloging everyone who passes. I don’t even know what Tony looks like thanks to Robbie’s insistence that blind date means no pictures beforehand. I told him he was taking it way too literally, and then we cleaned maggots out of a cow’s prolapsed uterus and didn’t argue about it anymore.

The rhythmic sound of Guillermo’s panting is oddly relaxing. I glance over at Holy Guacamole. The order window is shuttered, but I blush anyway, remembering how tongue tied I got earlier. Thank god Bas isn’t still working. The last thing I need is any kind of audience for the shit show this blind date is bound to be.

As if I needed any further proof that there is a god and he’s extremely into irony at my expense, I spot Bas walking down the path into the park.

“Shit, be cool,” I mutter to myself. As if being cool was ever one an option.

My fidgeting has Guillermo crawling back out from under the bench and cocking his head with interest. I stare at the fountain in front of me, taking slow breaths and willing myself to calm down. Bas probably won’t even see me. He’s on his way home or out for a stroll. He has better things to do than come over here and?—

“Precious?”

“Fuck,” I gasp, swiveling my head in his direction and biting down on my tongue. “I mean, hi. Hello. Um, Bas.” I brandish my hand in a jerky wave, heat rising in my cheeks rapidly. “What are you doing here?”

He chuckles and cards his fingers through his hair. I follow the motion, momentarily entranced by the way his messy curls bounce. I’ve never seen him without a hairnet on. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen anything below his chest either. I sweep my eyes over him, noticing the way his jeans fit and the fact that his tennis shoes are hot pink. I sputter a laugh. I don’t know why, but hot pink tennis shoes are exactly what I would have expected Bas to be wearing if I’d had to guess.

“I’m supposed to be meeting someone, actually,” he says, looking around like he’s expecting somebody with a much better command of their own stupid mouth to appear at any second.

He has a date.

Why does that make me want to punch something?

Guillermo whines at my feet, drawing Bas’s attention. He smiles widely, a dimple appearing on his left cheek.

“I love dogs. Can I pet him?”

I nod. “Yeah, he’s friendly. His name’s Guillermo.”

Bas bends down and starts to scratch Guillermo’s ears. The dog whines again happily, thumping his tail and wiggling himself closer to his new best friend while painstakingly observing the rule to keep all four feet on the ground when greeting people. As soon as he’s close enough, Guillermo faints into Bas’s arms like a Victorian heroine and Bas laughs, rubbing his belly and cooing at him.

“You need to get a few more and name them Nandor, Nadja, and Lazlo.”

I sit up straighter, my nerves melting away momentarily. “I can’t believe you’d leave out Colin Robbinson like that,” I scoff with a grin.

“Oh no, those are your dogs, you need a cat named Colin Robbinson. One of those bald cats.”

“A sphynx,” I supply, and Bas nods.

“So, are you and Guillermo just out enjoying the weather?” He’s sitting all the way down on the ground now and letting the fifty-pound pit bull crawl fully into his arms like a baby, whining and still swinging his weapon of a tail wildly.

“I’m meeting someone too.” I can’t believe I forgot for a second that I’m here waiting for a date. I sit up straighter and look around again, trying to spot any single dudes who look lost.

“Your boyfriend?” he guesses, his smile wavering.

A fresh wave of embarrassment washes over me when I remember the last time Jake stopped by the taco truck with me and acted like a jealous asshole when Bas was his usual friendly self.

“No, we broke up.” I shake my head. “I let my best friend set me up on this stupid blind date.”

Both of Bas’s dark, bushy eyebrows jump up and his hands go still on Guillermo’s belly.

“You’re meeting a blind date here? Like right here?” He waves at the bench I’m sitting on.

“Um… yeah.” I twist around to look at the bench. Is there something wrong with it that makes it a weird place to meet a date?

“Is your date named Tony?”

“Yeah, why?” I frown, and Bas laughs again.

It’s a different kind of laugh than I’ve heard from him before though. Almost… relieved? Excited? Giddy even?

“Funny story…” His grin widens and he cards his fingers through his curls again. “My brother, Tony, sent me here to let his date know that he’s too sick to come out tonight.”

Heat creeps up the back of my neck and my stomach drops.

“He didn’t even have to meet me to know he didn’t like me.” I have no right to feel so slighted considering I brought my dog with me as a way to get out of this if we didn’t immediately hit it off, but it stings anyway. And having the guy I’ve been pathetically crushing on for months be the one to tell me I’ve been rejected is just adding an extra side of embarrassment to the rejection.

“No, it’s not like that. I swear.” Bas rushes to explain. “He was doing a full-on Exorcist when I left, spewing pea soup all over the walls and shit.”

I snort. “Liar.”

He holds his hands up and mimes drawing an X across his chest. “That’s a mild exaggeration, but I swear on my taco truck that he’s sick.”

I sigh and slump back. “Alright. Well, thanks for letting me know.”

Sensing my shift in mood, Guillermo climbs out of Bas’s lap and comes over to put his head on my thigh, his whole body still wiggling with every wag of his tail. I scratch the top of his head and wait for Bas to get up and leave. He stays seated though, his eyes on me. I wish he would go ahead and leave so I can get on with feeling like a loser. He cocks his head one way, then the other, reminding me a lot of my dog when he’s trying to work out something complicated.

After a few seconds, a look of determination comes over his face and he sits up a little straighter.

“Would you… can you wait here just a minute while I make a call?” he asks.

It’s not like I have anything else going on, I guess, so I shrug.

“Sure.”

Another wide smile breaks out over his face, and for a second, I wish that somehow, he was my blind date.

“Cool. Be right back.”