Deliciously Obedient (27 page)

Her
brother’s voice interrupted them. “Glad to hear my cooking is
equivalent to having someone’s dick up your ass. I’ll use that in
my proposal for a cooking show on HGTV. ‘About the same as anal
sex.’ I can imagine the billboards.” Caleb’s bitter words flew
out in a string of jabber as he cleared the booth next to them.

Krysta
somehow glared at her while having a foodgasm at the same time. It
took remarkable skill.

“
I’ll
bet Rachel Ray doesn’t have to listen to her clientele natter on
about anal sex,” Caleb muttered as he hoisted a bus bin full of
dishes up against his hip, storming back behind the kitchen doors.

Both
of them had the decency to wait for Caleb to leave before laughing.
Lydia filled a spoon with a chocolate-peppermint combo that took all
her thoughts away, mouth completely engaged in the duel for sweet and
salty in her mouth. Were those chocolate-covered salted caramels?

And
those little bits on top—bacon? Real bacon?

Now
she felt a twinge of guilt for needling Caleb. Especially if it meant
he might withhold new culinary delights from her.

Okay,
only
because he might withhold new culinary delights. He had
crazy chef moments. Caleb hadn’t earned the nickname “No Soup for
You” without good reason.

“
I
hope you’re enjoying that,” Krysta said, licking her fingers and
picking up her own spoon.

“
I
am.”

“
Good.
Because you’ll be eating Oreos and Little Debbie Snack Cakes for
the next two months now. He’s pissed.”

“
Pissed
because I talked about my back door?” Lydia laughed, stuffing more
ice cream in her mouth. A flash of memory—of Jeremy in bed in the
cabin, under the down comforter—hit her.

Then
there was that kiss with Mike in his building.

And
now there was tonight.

“
You’re
seeing him tonight,” Krysta said, as if reading her mind.

“
Yes.”
Neither of them needed to say Mike’s name.

“
And?
”

“
And
what?” Lydia’s stomach felt full, but she pushed on, because when
you still had more food in front of you and it tasted so divine, a
little thing like an exploding organ couldn’t get in your way.

Her
curves had become a bit more rounded these days, happiness always
making her gain a few pounds, that brittle anxiety and drive that had
dominated so much of her post-college life now a distant memory.

Besides,
the calories were all Caleb’s fault.

“
And
who are you going to pick?”

Why
do I have to pick just one?
The words stayed tightly coiled in
her mouth, even the tiniest twitch of unfurling forbidden and not
permitted. This was her best friend. She should be able to say
anything to Krysta, right? So why couldn’t she tell her about the
threesome dreams, about her increasingly deep relationship with
Jeremy, how her subconscious yearned for Mike even as her conscious
self felt so betrayed?

That
kiss.

That
damn kiss.

“
Why
do I have to pick one?” she joked, looking at Krysta from under her
lashes, head tipped down, eyes rolling up, hooded and tentative.

Krysta’s
surprised laugh carried throughout the restaurant. “You want them
both?”

“
Duh.”

“
How
would that work? Alternate days? Most guys want to be number one, you
know.” Her eyes flicked over to Caleb as he set a garnish on a
plate that made Lydia’s stomach feel ten times bigger. Horseradish
and fig reduced sauce smothering some kind of beef, with julienne
root vegetables and roasted cauliflower. The impulse to wrestle the
plate from her brother and devour it was almost too great.

Caleb
walked past unharmed, the food delivered a few tables away, Lydia’s
spoon clinking against the bottom of her empty sundae glass.

Krysta’s
half-eaten pumpkin cheesecake beckoned.

“
Caleb!”
Lydia called out.

He
stopped and turned. “Yeah?”

“
Can
we get some whipped cream?”

“
What
for?” he asked suspiciously, staring hard at her.

“
For
my threesome later tonight,” she intoned. “Seriously? For the
cheesecake!”

“
You
already had a cruet,” he said bluntly, shooting Krysta an
accusatory look.

Lydia
searched the full table and found the empty white dish. “You ate it
all?”

Krysta
looked guilty, then gave Caleb an appreciative look. “It was that
good.”

His
chest puffed with pride. “Thank you.”

“
So,
whipped cream?” Lydia’s voice was impatient, the tone one that
only an older sister could get away with using on a younger brother.

“
No
whipped cream for you!” he announced, like something out of a
Seinfeld
episode.

“
Told
you,” Krysta muttered, holding her fork over the last half of the
piece of cheesecake and pausing, rubbing her belly.

“
You
done?”

Krysta
made a pouty face. “I don’t want to be done, because it all
tastes so good, but my stomach is about to split open and an alien
baby will crawl out, crying for relief.”

“
Then
give me that,” Lydia said, snatching the cheesecake away. Angrily
attacking it, she polished the slice off—sans whipped cream—and
leaned back against the back of the booth, so sated she wanted
nothing more than to go home and sleep off her food coma.

Home.

Where,
exactly, was home?

“
Mom
called.” Caleb’s voice startled her, but not enough to stop the
fork from going into her mouth. “Grandma’s still doing well. The
surgery was a success and there’s no reason to come to the hospital
until tomorrow morning. Grandma’s got Mom and Ed there to keep her
company.”

“
You
mean keep her under control,” Lydia said, but she was smiling as
she said it through a mouthful. Lydia had spent the night with
Krysta. Her mother and Aunt Karen, who had come in early that
morning, were at Madge’s place with Caleb and Jeremy was staying
with Mike. The fractured nature of their dispersal rankled her, but
she couldn’t put a finger on why. Having space from Jeremy had been
a relief, actually.

Knowing
he was with Mike, though…that only fueled more, and increasingly
intense, threesome dreams. And tonight she had agreed to meet Mike at
a trendy tapas bar in Waltham.

Jeremy
had checked in every hour by text.

His
absence saddened her. There was no overt rift, and they hadn’t
broken up—whatever that meant in the context of a
brand-spanking-new relationship that still didn’t have enough
seasoning to be labeled. Girlfriend? Boyfriend? Fuckmonkey? Friends
with benefits?

Girlfriend
was what she called herself in her head.

But
what about him? They’d had no chance to sit down and really talk in
the whirlwind of Madge’s medical emergency, and it showed. In the
next few hours her father would sweep into town and take over with
Sandy, giving Lydia more time, but tonight was reserved for Mike.

Some
things just couldn’t be put off.

This
one needed to be faced.

“
Whatever,”
Caleb said, sliding the check on the table. Krysta picked it up and
read it, smirking, turning the sheet of paper over so Lydia could
see.

Long
before Caleb had turned to cooking, he’d been a very good sketch
artist.

The
anal sex picture defied verbal description, but looked like something
4chan would host.

Happily.

“
Been
reading a little too much tentacle erotica lately, baby brother?”

He
snickered and tipped his head down, giving her the stink eye. “You
could write some.”

“
You
suck,” she said, laughing, unable to pull her eyes off the
disgusting picture.

“
No,
but I’m often the recipient of suckage,” he joked.

“
TMI!”
she said loudly, drawing attention. “I don’t need to know about
your sex life.”

He
made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Hypocrite.”

“
Damn
right.”

If
he could have gotten away with just texting her, he would have, but
Jeremy knew enough about life to understand that you don’t tell
your…whatever Lydia was—girlfriend? Lover?—to go ahead and
sleep with another man if she wanted to, and to do so via text.

Some
things still needed the personal touch.

Spending
the previous night at Mike’s, on his couch, felt like a bizarre
transgression, as if he were the unwelcome college student whose
parents had taken his bedroom and turned it into a sewing room. Not
true, of course, and he’d stayed at Mike’s plenty of times, but
after spending so many nights with Lydia, warm and pliant and soft
and round, next to him, the sound of her breathing his own
lullaby—that made last night profoundly worse.

Meeting
her couldn’t involve having her come over to Mike’s—been there,
done that, still carried the trauma, as Mike had practically
fumigated his bed, even going so far as to spray the bare mattress
with enough Febreze to deodorize a Manson crime scene. Instead, he
found himself meeting her at the hospital, walking the now-familiar
path up to CICU, and finding Madge gone.

In
her place was an emaciated twenty-something man with no hair.

“
Um,”
he said to a passing nurse, “Madge…” Shit. What was her last
name?

“
Madeline
Kearnsey?”

Madeline?

“
Um.”
He paused. “the old woman in here?”

“
The
one with the filthy mouth?”

“
Yes
,”
he said, a little too loud, relieved.

“
She
had her surgery and was transferred.” The nurse read her room
number off a chart. Jeremy set off in search of Madge.

But,
really, he sought Lydia.

What
he found was a veritable party, Madge sitting up and talking, looking
a thousand times better than even the day before.

Lydia
and Sandy looked up to find him in the doorway. “Jeremy!” Lydia
jumped up and hugged him, melting into his form as he bent over,
burying his face in her vanilla-scented softness. Now he could
breathe.