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“You cannot judge,” she said while pointing her fork at me across the table. “You have not eaten this man’s pie. I took some of your pie home after Thanksgiving and Murphy found it in my fridge. He said it was the best pie he’d ever tasted, so, naturally, I told him I made it. He thought I was lying because he’s not a complete idiot, but now I need to back up my lie by taking an equally impressive pie to Christmas.”
“And you can’t cook one?”
“Well, yes, but I am a caffeine dealer, that is my strong suit, not pie. Only yours will do. And maybe some ice cream because that stuff was good enough to get me a little wet.”
Hunter choked on his mouthful and Odette squawked out a laugh. Harley once again looked entirely unphased.
“Don’t. Judge,” she said, spearing a piece of pork. “You can’t, not until you’ve eaten it for yourselves. I thought Nash was good when he gave us a sneaky peek tasting of the wedding menu—it was blow your fucking socks off good—but phew, I tell you what, man, you have a gift with pastry.”
“Thank you, Harley,” I said, wishing this conversation would come to a swift end, even as my cheeks went warm at the praise.
“You’re welcome.” She beamed. “So, how much?”
“You don’t need to pay me, I’ll make you the pie and keep my mouth shut.”
“No. Way. That is your art, Mack, you can’t just give it away! It deserves remuneration for your time and skill. I would be robbing you otherwise.”
“I don’t want your money. My pie. My rules,” I said and couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Chase had spoken to her. Either way I was happy for Harley to take a pie and call it her own.
I was rousedfrom sleep on Saturday morning by a knock at the door. It couldn’t be Chase, she would have just invited herself in, but I couldn’t think of anyone else I knew that would be dropping by this early on a Saturday morning.
I was sorely tempted to ignore whoever it was, but then my phone started up and I threw out a hand, feeling blindly on the nightstand before bringing it to my ear.
“Is someone dead or dying?” I asked without bothering to look at the caller ID.
“Get your butt out of bed and let me in or I’ll start shouting about how you’ve got crabs,” my sister said, then promptly hung up. Someone was in a mood this morning. Not that she had any right to be when she was the one waking me up after roughly four hours sleep. Sometimes I wished I worked a nine to five, then I considered how soul destroying it would be for me to sit in an office all day and my hours at Rudi didn’t seem so bad after all.
With a groan I pulled myself to standing and shuffled through my apartment. Pip was standing on the doorstep with two large coffees and a bag full of something that made my mouth water. A wise choice.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, running a hand over my face, as she pushed past me. The scents of coffee and cinnamon had me following in her wake.
“I was doing some shopping and thought I’d stop by.”
“You were doing some shopping in my neighborhood?” Never had a lie been easier to shoot holes through, and that wasn’t even taking into account the fact it was barely eight in the morning. She must have left her place close to six.
“Well no, I haven’t done the shopping yet.”
“Right.”
“I wanted to talk to you about the Christmas menu.”
“The Christmas menu? You needed to talk to me about the Christmas menu, right now?”
“You’d rather I come back?”
I took a slow sip of coffee, hoping the bitter, caffeine-charged liquid would help to fire up the extra brain cells that I was in need of to make sense of this conversation. “I’d rather you just tell me what’s going on?”
“Why would anything be going on?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that you’ve turned up on my doorstep at eight a.m. on a Saturday is ringing a couple of alarm bells, is all.”
“Mack, we cannot all sleep until noon.” She whipped a notebook out of her enormous shoulder bag, flipped it open and sat, pen poised. “Now, how many pies will you be making and will Chase be coming along?”
“Considering Chase has been for the last four years, yes, I think that it’s fair to say she’ll be there.”
“Excellent, and has there been any progress between the two of you since we last spoke?”
“Why the fuck are you talking like a robot?”
