On Any Given Sundae (13 page)

Nick pointed at Elizabeth and laughed. “And
she
was so
nervous
about you coming here. Now aren’t
you glad it all worked out this way?” he said to her.

Elizabeth, who until a minute before had been
sharing a laugh with Gretchen at the counter, opened her mouth. No
sounds immediately came out.

Then, finally, “I-I—well, um…” She paused,
stared at him in an intense way that made his toes squirm and then
tried again. “Rob’s done a g-great job with the s-shop.”

“But, I mean, aren’t you glad you’ve gotten
to know him again so personally?” Nick said. “Now that you’re both
all grown up and out of high school? That’s gotta be such a trip. I
mean, he was this amazing football star and you were this total
academic. You guys probably had, like,
nothing
in common,
and now you’re here together handling your uncles’ business and
being friends and all.” He nodded at them and grinned. “That’s so
cool, isn’t it?”

A look of something—man, it seemed like
fright—flashed like a lightning bolt across her face. And it
occurred to him that, no matter how many how many family dinners
she went to, it was no easy task getting her to feel comfortable
with their “relationship.” That the supposedly
real
one—their friendship—was probably just as much a sham as the dating
game they’d been playing for Mama’s benefit.

But, then again, it was a friendship that
wasn’t quite so pure anymore. There’d been that one kiss, after
all. Even if she didn’t remember it yet.

A final customer came in, silencing Nick
temporarily, but Rob couldn’t help but notice the way Elizabeth’s
gaze kept finding his own at odd moments during clean up. She kept
shooting these confused looks in his direction and, when Nick
pulled out a bottle of ouzo to accompany the gooey baklava he’d
made, she stared at the licorice-flavored alcoholic beverage and
then at Rob again.

As if she’d made some connection between the
two.

As if memories were floating back to her.

As if chunks of last night’s experience, ones
that’d broken apart from her now-frozen memory and drifted away for
the day, were returning and melting into her consciousness.

Well, she
should
remember, dammit. He
was a memorable guy. He wasn’t someone who could just be kissed and
forgotten.

Jacques pulled back the foil from his tray.
Rows and rows of little jam tartlets.

“Gretchen talked me into making these,” he
explained, popping one into the blonde’s mouth.

“Mmm,” Gretchen moaned. “These are even
better than I imagined when I saw that recipe. Pretty please will
you let me make them with you next time?” she asked Jacques.

“My pastry knives are at your disposal,
chéri
. Now, what kind of truffles did you bring us
tonight?”

Gretchen opened up a large tin box of perfect
dark chocolate confections with green squiggles across the top of
each one. “Irish crème. Two dozen.” She popped one of her creations
into Jacques mouth.

“
Mon Dieu.
This is heaven.”

Rob broke open the milk-chocolate-covered
fruit slices Miguel sent up, and the gang’s Ooohs and Ahhhs
indicated their delight. Relief and a little pride swept over him.
This was quite the culinary crowd.

Only Elizabeth’s contribution to the Treat
Swap remained. She unveiled it: Cherry cheesecake.

“Oh, my! Did you really?” Gretchen said.
“It’s been so long since you made it. I know it must have brought
back memories…were you okay?”

Elizabeth nodded.

“Well, it looks positively sinful,” Gretchen
said, hunking off slices for everyone and putting one on each
plate, right next to the generous slabs of baklava Nick dished out.
“When did you have time to make it?”

“A month ago,” Elizabeth admitted. “I made
three in May and gave one of them to Uncle Siegfried and one to the
lady collecting donations for the hospital bake sale. This one I
froze for all of you.”

Jacques leaned over and kissed her, which
left a prickly aftertaste in Rob’s mouth, despite the silken
truffle he’d just devoured.

“You are a saint among women,” Jacques said.
“A goddess.” Then he paused and his tone turned serious. “This was
your mom’s recipe,
oui?”

She nodded again.

“Then it’s going to be the best cherry
cheesecake we’ve ever had.” And something in Jacques’s voice
indicated that no one had better dare disagree.

Nick splashed ouzo into glasses, Elizabeth
made sure all the plates were loaded with treats, Jacques dimmed
the lights and Gretchen pulled a few candles and a pack of matches
out of her handbag.

This troupe was beyond weird, but Rob had to
admit he was getting into it. Elizabeth’s face and hands looked
softer and smoother than ever in the candlelight. Her eyes glowed a
bright green, and the smile that touched her lips appeared more
relaxed than he’d ever seen her. This was familiar territory for
her. This was home.

He’d tried the Greek ouzo once before—“It’s
like Good & Plenty for adults,” Nick told them—but it’d been
years ago and, even then, he hadn’t tasted more than a few sips.
Elizabeth, he noticed, regarded her glass of ouzo skeptically. He
doubted she’d planned on drinking much of anything tonight, but
Nick wouldn’t shut up until he got them all playing a grownups’
version of “Truth or Dare.”

“What’s the dumbest thing you ever did in a
car?” Nick said. “Either tell or drink.”

Jacques spoke first. “I tried eating soup
while you were driving,” he told Nick. “A
très
stupid
idea.”

Nick laughed. “And you got cream of chicken
with broccoli and rice all over my passenger’s seat. Yeah, that one
ranks high for me, too, but probably the stupidest thing I did was
pick up a hitchhiker.”

“You did that?” Elizabeth said, her sweet
lips parting in surprise.

“Yep. That’s how I met Micah.”

“His first long-term partner,” Jacques
explained to Rob.

“I was an idiot,” Nick said and, even though
he’d “told,” he drank a few swigs anyway. “What about you,
Elizabeth?”

Her brows creased in concentration. “Mmm. I
think it’s got to be trying to transport an ice sculpture of this
beautiful angel to Milwaukee, in the m-middle of a July heat wave,
in my old Plymouth.”

“Oh, my gosh,” Gretchen said. “The car that
had no air conditioning!”

“She was a fallen—and a melted—angel,”
Elizabeth said with mock sadness.

“Let us all pray,” Nick said, raising his
glass solemnly. He drank again. “Rob?”

He’d done many a stupid thing in his day, the
worst being the night he and Tara had almost…well…they hadn’t but…
“I’d better drink,” he said, taking a small sip of the clear liquid
that tasted like licorice-infused lighter fluid. Elizabeth shot him
a wide-eyed glance.

“Gretchen?” Jacques said.

She pressed her lips together, shook her head
and brought the rim of the glass up to her mouth. She took a drink
and grimaced. “Jeez, Nick! You trying kill us?”

Nick laughed and poured some more alcohol
into his glass, the only one that was now empty. “Next question.
Who did you have the biggest crush on in high school? For me, it
was Andy Northrop, the biggest, meanest and, unfortunately,
straightest hockey player at Wilmington Bay High. But, oh, what a
sexy slap shot he had.” He paused as if in awe, remembering. “How
about you, Elizabeth?”

Gretchen looked at Elizabeth, kind of oddly,
Rob thought, before interrupting. “Oh, but I wanna go next,”
Gretchen said. “For me, it was Jeremy Alexander Brennan. He sat
right behind me in sophomore geometry and would trace shapes on my
back with his fingertip.” She shivered. “It was
such
a turn
on. What about you, Jacques?”

“I was in love with Mrs. Larousse.” He
grinned. “She was young—maybe twenty-five—and was the school cook.
Her
quiche végétarien
was unbelievable.”

They all laughed.

“Rob?” Gretchen said.

“Had a thing for Heidi Klum,” he said, which
was only a partial truth, but close enough. He had no intention of
drinking any more of that stuff if he could avoid it.

“Elizabeth missed her turn,” Nick said, his
voice getting louder and more insistent. “So, who was your
high-school fantasy?”

Elizabeth looked around their small group,
caught Gretchen’s eye for a split second and then wrinkled her
nose. She sniffed the ouzo, turned an interesting shade of pale
before taking a sip…and then a few shades paler after it.

“N-Next question,” she said, her green eyes
watery and her voice a little hoarse.

Three rounds later, they all were laughing,
no one more heartily than Nick, who’d downed five or six full shots
of ouzo in under an hour.

“Oh—oh, I know the next question,” the guy
said, flopping to the ground and covering his eyes with his palms
for a moment. “Who was the first person you ever slept with?” He
raised his head and glanced at everyone with a silly expression.
“Oh, wait. You don’t have to answer that one, Elizabeth.”

“Why not?” Rob said, noting the strange
dynamic bouncing between Elizabeth, Jacques and Gretchen at this
question.

“I’ll go first,” Jacques said, trying, from
the look of it, to cut Nick off.

“Anybody want more cheesecake or tartlets or
anything?” Gretchen asked, waving a few sweets at them. “Oh, and
don’t forget the baklava, truffles and chocolate-covered fruit. We
have lots of—”

“Because she’s a virgin,” Nick explained
loudly, to which Gretchen sighed, Jacques slugged Nick’s arm and
Elizabeth squeezed her eyes shut.

“Ow,” Nick said.

“I’ll t-take a truffle to go,” Elizabeth
said, getting up. “It’s pretty late and I didn’t sleep v-very well
last night.” She tossed a few things in the trash and said to him
in a strained voice, “Rob, could you please lock up when you’re all
ready to go home?”

“S-Sure,” he said, stuttering for probably
the first time since he was a toddler. A virgin! Oh, God. And since
this wasn’t news to any of them—except
him
—the reason for
her embarrassment and quick departure was because of him, too.

He had to let her know somehow that this was
all right. That it was admirable even, especially in this day and
age when restraint was rare. That—that he was grateful, of all
things, that she hadn’t given herself to someone who wasn’t special
to her. But she wouldn’t look at him.

“Okay, t-thank you. Gretch and Jacques, could
one of you drive Nick home? I don’t want him to die a horrible
death before I can kill him.”

“You got it,” Gretchen said.

Elizabeth sprinted out the door. One of the
candles extinguished itself when the wind rushed in. The room
seemed darker.

Jacques slugged Nick again.

“Ouch. Stop it, would ya?”

Rob got up and handed the keys to Jacques.
“Could you lock up for me? There’s something I’ve got to take care
of.”

The Frenchman gave him a hard look, but he
swallowed and nodded slowly.

“Thanks.”

Rob said goodbye to all of them, even the
nearly passed out Nick on the floor, and told them he’d do all the
cleaning up in the morning. Then he ran out after Elizabeth.

He caught up with her by her car. “Can you
hold on a minute?” he said.

“Why?”

“Because—because I’ve got something to—to
tell you.” And in his mind he spoke very eloquently about how much
he admired her and appreciated her moral strength and intelligence
and how he thought she was just lovely, both now and even back in
high school. But none of those words would come out.

So, after an unbelievably long moment of her
staring at him and him saying nothing, he reached out to her and
drew her body to his. Her eyes became the largest spheres he’d ever
seen on anyone’s face, but he figured if she wanted to stop him she
would.

He gave her another five seconds to push him
away, if that was her choice. When the time ran out and she hadn’t,
he brought his mouth down on hers.

Hang on tight, sweetheart. This is one
kiss you’re damn well going to remember
.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Elizabeth had racked up plenty of experience
with lightheadedness in the past twenty-four hours. A long,
thorough kiss with Rob Gabinarri, however, did more than make her
feel woozy and unsteady on her feet.

She felt like she could fly clear to
Tibet.

This went beyond fantasy. This surpassed any
daydreams she’d ever had of Rob during high school, or even this
summer. This couldn’t possibly be for real.

“W-What are you d-doing?” she managed to ask
him when he let them break for air.

“Last night’s kiss wasn’t a good idea. You
were drunk and I wasn’t. Tonight, babe, we’re both sober and it’s a
different story.”

He looked at her all serious and sincere. She
squinted at him. What the heck was he saying?

“That kiss really happened yesterday?” she
said.

Now he was the one who squinted. “You’ve got
me going out of my mind here, Elizabeth. Do you or don’t you
remember kissing me last night?”

Oh, God. She hadn’t dreamed it after all.

“I-I-I thought I’d j-just imagined—”

He shook his head and smiled slightly.
“Nope.”

Their few moments on her sofa came rushing
back to her, as if all she’d needed was the confirmation that she
hadn’t been hallucinating to solidify the baffling memory into
reality. Oh, heavens. In her dream she’d practically attacked him
last night. Only, if it wasn’t a dream then…

She buried her head in the fabric of his
shirt. “S-Sorry.”

He pulled her away from her hideout and
stared her down. “I’m not. Not about last night and not about now.
Not unless—” He paused. “Unless you’d rather be with Ivan.”

She squinted at him. “Who’s Ivan?”