Love Lessons (42 page)
Authors: Heidi Cullinan
“
Dios mio,
” Mama said. She’d inched around Gavin to see what had stopped him. “Oh dear, that’s going to stain.”
“My mother made this from scratch,” Cutie Pie said to the bowl of sauce.
“Most of it is still in there,” Gavin replied.
He thought it sounded helpful, but Cutie Pie gave him a sour look. “It splashed all up on my shirt. Do you think people want to eat cotton fibers with their cranberry relish?”
“Sorry.” That sounded horrible, even to Gavin’s ears. “I mean, I’m sorry about hitting you with the door.”
“My fault too.” He gave the cranberry relish such a forlorn, kicked-puppy look that Gavin was struck momentarily speechless—and that didn’t happen often.
“Look, dinner doesn’t start for twenty minutes,” Gavin said. “I’m sure we can find some canned sauce somewhere.”
“On Thanksgiving Day?”
“No need,” Mama said. “We have some in the stock room. We can doctor that up and use it for today.”
Cutie Pie blinked. “Why does Dixie have canned cranberry sauce in stock?”
“For Barrett’s Gobbler Panini. It’s a lovely sandwich he does on special once a week.”
“Oh.”
Gavin gave himself a mental head-knock. Ever since Dixie had splurged on a Panini press two months ago, her night cook Barrett McCall had been experimenting with combinations. The Gobbler had been a success from the first day. Mama had called Gavin in to taste test it before it went public, and he’d called it “Thanksgiving on a bun”.
Barrett had corrected him and said it was “Thanksgiving on ciabatta”.
“Great. Problem solved,” Gavin said.
Mama ushered the three of them into the small, cramped back room of the diner. She took the bowl of ruined sauce from Cutie and stuck it in the large industrial sink, then disappeared to root around for the canned sauce.
“Half the problem is solved,” Cutie said. “I need to change.”
There is absolutely nothing wrong with you, sweetie,
very nearly popped out of Gavin’s mouth. That would have been incredibly embarrassing. The simple fact that Cutie Pie was here helping out with Dixie Foskey’s annual Thanksgiving Feast meant she knew his family, which meant Gavin should know him too. After all, Gavin’s mom had worked for Dixie for over ten years and Cutie Pie was awfully familiar.
“I mean, my shirt’s ruined,” Cutie added.
“Not necessarily,” Gavin said.
“So big red spots on white shirts are fashionable now?”
The light-hearted tease gave Gavin hope that he hadn’t made a total disaster of a first impression. “Well, maybe in a hipper town than Stratton, but we can save the shirt.”
“How?”
“Take it off.”
“Hey, Jace, what’s—oh.” A brown-haired girl stopped in the back room doorway, eyes wide as she took in the pair of them. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Minor accident,” said Cutie Pie, whose name was apparently Jace.
Light bulb!
Gavin knew exactly who they both were now. Jace and Rachel Ramsey, twins, college sophomores, children of Keith Ramsey, local police officer. The Ramseys had been staples of the diner for years, and Gavin had seen Jace dozens of times before without getting lost in the dark shaggy hair, the wide brown eyes or the dimples that wanted to say hello even when he wasn’t smiling.
College had been good to Jace Ramsey.
“But we’re going to fix it,” Gavin said, giving Rachel a bright smile.
“How?” she asked. “With blindfolds?”
“Cute. No.”
Gavin rescued the ruined cranberry relish from the sink, grabbed Jace by the wrist, and dragged both items around to the small bathroom. He ran the water in the sink until it warmed up, then pulled the stopper and dumped half the cranberries into it.
“Take your shirt off, please,” he said again.
Jace gave him a dubious look but unbuttoned his shirt. Gavin reigned in his instinctive need to check him out—ogling while trying to be helpful was rude—and took the shirt once Jace had stripped it off. Gavin shoved the whole thing into the pink water, which enticed an adorable squeak of protest from Jace.
“Trust me,” Gavin said.
“Do I have to?”
“It’s too late now.”
When the sink was half-full, Gavin turned off the water and swirled the shirt around in it. He realized too late he should have been using gloves, because the water quickly stained his cuticles pink. After a minute of soaking in silence, he released the stopper.
“There should be a hair dryer in that basket of stuff beside the toilet,” Gavin said. “Can you find it and plug it in?”
Jace hesitated then turned around to rummage. He bent over, instead of squatting down, and the narrow room gave Gavin a lovely view of his ass in those black linen dress pants. An ass that was connected to a trim waist and a lean, smooth back… Nope. Gavin snapped his attention back to rinsing out the shirt. The white material was now stained pink all over, instead of only on the front, and by the time the rinse water ran clear, Jace was back with the hair dryer at the ready.
They tag-teamed the shirt until the newly pink fabric was dry enough to wear and only smelled slightly of fruit.
“That was kind of brilliant,” Jace said after he’d put the hair dryer away.
“I was an accident prone kid. Sometimes you have to get creative when there’s no money to buy new clothes.” Gavin wasn’t ashamed of growing up poor. Most people in Stratton knew him and his mother, and they also knew his father was a deadbeat asshole who Gavin had vowed to kill if he ever laid a hand on him or his mother again.
Jace eyed the shirt but didn’t put it on. He didn’t seem to know where to focus his attention—the shirt, the floor or Gavin. The bizarre nervousness made hopeful little butterflies spring loose in Gavin’s stomach. He hadn’t actually lucked into meeting someone his own age in town who was—
“Hey, you guys coming?” Rachel asked. She appeared in the doorway, and her thin eyebrows shot up when she saw the shirt in Jace’s hands. “Wow, you fixed it.”
“Kind of,” Jace said.
“It’s all one color now. I call that fixed.”
“It’s pink.”
“Yeah? So are roses and baby butts. Suit up, bro, I’m hungry.”
Gavin laughed before he could stop himself. He liked Rachel already.
Jace gave him a look that seemed to say, “Don’t encourage her,” then put on the shirt. Gavin didn’t say it out loud, but he allowed himself a moment to appreciate the fact that Jace looked very good in pale pink. It lightened up his brown hair and made him even more boyishly adorable than he already was. Gavin, with his mixed Mexican and Hawaiian heritage, never had the complexion for pastels.
“All you need is a black string tie,” Gavin said once Jace buttoned back up and presented himself for inspection. “And maybe a jacket to sling over your shoulder. It’s very Sinatra.”
“Great, I’m channeling a dead singer,” Jace said. He was smiling though, which gave Gavin hope that he hadn’t made a complete fool of himself.
“A dead singer who had men and women falling all over him.”
Jace’s eyebrows jumped. “And probably a mafia boss or two puppeteering his entire career.”
“A man who knows old Hollywood.” Gavin had to mentally stop himself from falling head over heels into insta-crush with Jace. “Where have you been my whole life?”
Love Lessons
Heidi Cullinan
Love doesn’t come with a syllabus.
Kelly Davidson has waited what seems like forever to graduate high school and get out of his small-minded, small town. But when he arrives at Hope University, he quickly realizes finding his Prince Charming isn’t so easy. Everyone here is already out. In fact, Kelly could be the only virgin on campus.
Worst of all, he’s landed the charming, handsome, gay campus Casanova as a roommate, whose bed might as well be equipped with a revolving door.
Walter Lucas doesn’t believe in storybook love. Everyone is better off having as much fun as possible with as many people as possible…except his shy, sad little sack of a roommate is seriously screwing up his world view.
As Walter sets out to lure Kelly out of his shell, staying just friends is harder than he anticipated. He discovers love is a crash course in determination. To make the grade, he’ll have to finally show up for class…and overcome his own private fear that love was never meant to last.
Warning: This story contains lingering glances, milder than usual sexual content for this author, and a steamy dance-floor kiss. Story has no dairy or egg content, but may contain almonds.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Love Lessons
Copyright © 2013 by Heidi Cullinan
ISBN: 978-1-61921-827-7
Edited by Sasha Knight
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: October 2013
