Page 34 of Suddenly Dating
“The party? Oh, that’sright. I forgot to text you. I was going to come, but Dad wanted to go out for dinner and talk about the candy shop. He’s all about profit.Gah,” she said, as if that were unreasonable. “So how was it? Did you have fun with Nolan? He’s so much fun!”
“No,I didn’t have fun,” Lola said grumpily. “It was a big party with a lot of drugs and alotof people pairing off for sex. There was no Amy Schumer! It wasn’t even a cool house. And there was a guy who wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Mallory gasped. “Tell me!”
Lola filled her in on her horrific night. When Lola had finished, Mallory said, “That’s soweird.I thought Nolan was on the wagon. Didn’t I tell you he was on the wagon?”
“Nope. He’s not on any wagon, Mallory. In fact, he was run over several times by the wagon last night by the look of things.”
“So how did you get home?” Mallory asked. “Cabs stop running after midnight. Did I tell you?”
The list of things Mallory had neglected to tell her was getting quite long. “You didn’t, but I discovered it soon enough. I had to a call a friend.” And then she’d nibbled his ear like a drunk girl character in aSaturday Night Liveskit. The sad thing about it was that she hadn’t been drunk. Nope, what she’d suffered was just a plain old-fashioned lack of impulse control.
“Afriend?” Mallory chirped. “Have you been holding out on me, Lola?”
“He’s not that kind of friend. He’s a guy who’s staying here for a few days. Just passing through.”
“Ah. Hey, come into East Beach later. I’ll buy you a latte to make up for not being there last night.”
“Nah,” Lola said, casually examining her blistered toes. “I’m going to stay in and work today. But I’ll meet you for coffee tomorrow?”
“Great,” Mallory said.
When she’d hung up, Lola stretched her arms overhead and decided it was time to get to work.
She’d managed to draft two rough chapters by three o’clock, at which point, she was feeling a little bleary-eyed. Her girl had just ventured into Home Depot to buy some body-cutting tools. That seemed as good a place as any to quit for the day.
Lola wandered into the kitchen and looked around for something to eat. She thought of Harry coming to her rescue. When her gaze landed on a bowl of apples, it occurred to her that she ought to do something nice for him. She was going to make him an apple pie. The man always seemed so hungry! If she wasn’t mistaken, she still had some steaks in the freezer, too, courtesy of her brother Ben, who had driven out one day to bring some of her stuff.
It was perfect—she would feed the man to thank him for rescuing her last night.
She hoped he was coming back for the weekend. She did not want to be alone in the house with a full apple pie.
Eleven
Harry pulled into the parking lot of Taco Tornado, but he didn’t turn off his truck. He stared at the blinking neon taco dancing on the roof. While it was true that he was so hungry he could eat his arm, he didn’t think he was hungry enough to choke down a pink-slime burrito.
He backed out of the parking lot and headed to the lake house. If he could just get through one more night on junk food, he’d make a run to the grocery store tomorrow and treat himself to a really good meal at the Lakeside Bistro. Maybe, if he was lucky, Lola would let him have some more of that mac and cheese.
But Harry grimaced when he stepped out of his truck; even on the drive he could smell something delectable. Surviving on frozen entrees was doable as long as there wasn’t any other food in the house. He opened the door and stepped inside, put his briefcase and hardhat down, and looked toward the kitchen. There was the source of the torture, clearly visible from the kitchen bar: a pie.
“Oh hey!”
Harry noticed Lola then. She was standing on a wobbly wicker chair, reaching into a cabinet above the fridge.
“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming back tonight. Do you like wine?”
“What?”
“Wine,” she said again.
She was wearing a skirt and T-shirt, and her hair was tied in a messy knot at the nape. And as she reached overhead, her breasts were clearly outlined against her shirt. They were the size of oranges.
Damn, even breasts were beginning to remind him of food.
“I prefer red, and I just happen to have this great bottle of wine that my friend Mallory gave me. It’s organic. Want some?”
“Ah...”
