7. Nessa

Nessa

Roasters 92–58

F all was right around the corner.

I could feel it in my bones—an overwhelming desire for flannel sheets and pumpkin spice. The basic bitch starter pack.

The temperature had dropped low enough to justify pulling my fall and winter clothes out of storage. We were still a few weeks—and a good fifteen degrees—away from official sweater weather, but who could blame me for being excited? Fall in Rose City was something special.

In just a few weeks, the streets of our little downtown would be crawling with visitors from near and far. We were already expecting a record turnout for this year’s festival—largely thanks to the dates coinciding with the baseball playoffs—and we hadn’t even had our first committee meeting yet.

I made a quick mental note to email the list of festival volunteers later today, in between packing book box orders and setting up for this evening’s visiting author event.

I had one hell of a busy day ahead of me, which meant I was going to need reinforcements of the caffeinated variety.

A bell chimed over the door when I stepped inside Would Smell as Sweet, nearly plowing into a familiar head of hair. There weren’t a lot of six-foot-something strawberry-blonds running around these parts.

“Ma’am,” Matty greeted over his shoulder.

His silky-smooth twang might have done something for me if not for the Southern pleasantry.

I’m at least ten years away from being a “ma’am,” right?

“You know my name, Matty. Feel free to use it.”

He tipped his imaginary hat.

“Noted, ma’am .”

He grinned when I rolled my eyes.

“ Mi amor, ” Jo greeted from behind the counter, elbows deep in dough. “You saw my Instagram?”

I smiled. “Of course.”

Jo had posted on the bakery’s social media pages last night that fall flavors were back. Unlike Clarke and Dani, who had access to the Roasters’ on-site coffee shop, I relied solely on Jo for feeding my caffeine habit.

“You know I wouldn’t go anywhere else for my taste of fall.”

“And that’s why you’re my favorite customer.”

His biceps bulged as he dug into the dough with his elbows. Forget baseball players; bakers were built. And they smelled like cookies.

“What am I, horse manure?” Matty playfully demanded.

As the cashier boxed up his treats, I couldn’t stop myself from scanning the room. From what I could tell, Matty was on his own, but you never could be too sure. These Roasters tended to travel in packs.

“What’ll it be, mami ?”

“Let’s do a brown sugar latte and a cardamom morning bun.”

“That sounds good,” Matty said, stating the obvious. “Can I add a couple of those buns to my order?”

“Of course. Got to make sure my boys win tonight.”

“ Gracias, Jo.”

“Seven more wins, yes?”

“Seven more.”

From what little I knew about baseball—most of which I had learned from watching Bull Durham and A League of Their Own —the Roasters were vying for the top position in the playoffs. And they only needed a few more wins to make that happen. That must have been exciting for a first-year team, not to mention all their fans.

Matty held up his overflowing pastry box. “Thanks for the grub. Pink’s going to love it.”

“Give the birthday boy my best. I’ll be rooting for you both.”

It took a moment for Matty’s words to sink in. Just long enough for him to gather his coffee and treats.

It’s Pink’s birthday?

“It is,” Matty said, softly chuckling. “I’m kind of guessing you didn’t mean to ask that aloud.”

My cheeks warmed. “Um—”

“Should I give him your birthday wishes, too?”

“No!” I protested, much too fervently judging by the growing smile on Matty’s face.

The lady doth protest too much.

Except I was far from a lady, and I had no problem telling somebody how I felt about them. As somebody who had been on the receiving end of my wrath more than once, Pink knew that better than most.

“You can tell him yourself if you prefer? He’s just around the corner at the hardware store.”

I swallowed, the roof of my mouth suddenly bone-dry. It had only been a few days since my Jared Pink-induced ovary explosion brought on by seeing him play with his coach’s daughter.

While shirtless.

And showing off that secret garden of tattoos he kept hidden on his side and back. The way I wanted to trace those lengths of ivy to see how far down they went and if they wrapped all the way around his—

Matty cleared his throat, bringing me out of my daydream. I could feel the sweat starting to pool between my boobs, and this time it wasn’t because of the heat.

Another Pink encounter might mean catastrophe. Birthday or no, I had to protect my reproductive health. There would be no more ovary bursting on my watch.

“Maybe later.” He made for the door. “Oh, good luck tonight!”

“Thanks, Nessa.”

A few minutes later, after I’d gathered my breakfast—and wits—I walked the two blocks toward the bookstore, slowing my pace to soak up the sun’s morning rays. As much as I longed for the impending seasonal shift, I would miss this. Oregonians went days, sometimes weeks without sunshine. One hundred and seventy rain days per year wasn’t for the faint of heart.

Still, I’d take the doom and gloom of the Pacific Northwest any day over the hot and humid South. I could always put on an extra sweater; I couldn’t peel off my skin.

“Nessa Princessa!”

I looked over my shoulder. Only one person in the world called me that, and she was currently barreling at me in a pair of neon green biker shorts and an oversized hoodie, like we were ten years old again. Some things never changed.

“Lani Loo!”

I had just finished setting down my purse and latte when she hurdled into me, wrapping her lithe legs around my waist like a sloth on a tree.

“You’re here.” I spoke into her neck.

“Girl, you know I’ll always come back for you.”

Tears pricked my eyes.

I had never really believed in soulmates—that was June’s thing, not mine—but if I did, Kaylani would be mine. Because my understanding of soulmates had nothing to do with sex or romance.

Our relationship was one that transcended distance and time. We could go months, sometimes years without seeing each other or even texting, and then hang out like no time had passed. That was the rarest type of friendship. The kind worth fighting for.

“You smell like cinnamon.”

My chest vibrated with laughter. “Cardamom.”

She rolled off my body after that, nearly taking my leggings down with her. “When did you get to town?”

“Just now. We caught the first flight out of Anchorage.” She pointed at a minivan parked down the street. “Dad insisted on stopping at the market, and I was hoping to catch you at the store before I go home to sleep for three days.”

It was hard to miss the dark circles under her eyes, though on her, it looked more like a smoky eye. That was how it had always been with Kaylani. What looked like yesterday’s makeup on her, looked like a trash panda caught in the act on me.

“Two days,” I corrected. “The first festival committee meeting is on Saturday.”

“That’s right,” she said around a yawn.

“But you just got back. If you’re not up for it—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” she stopped me, holding up her hand. “Trust me, after forty-eight hours of sleep, I’ll be back to my usual, peppy self.”

I barely heard a word she said, too distracted by the blinding light bouncing off the four-carat diamond on her finger.

“Excuse me,” I said, pulling her hand to my face. “What is that?”

Her smile soured. “Oh, yeah. That. ”

“Oh, yeah. That ,” I mocked. “Girl, you got engaged and didn’t say anything?! When were you going to tell me?”

She withdrew her hand from mine, tucking it behind her back. “We wanted to tell you together. In person.”

“We?”

Kaylani’s teeth dug into her lower lip. “Here’s the thing, Ness—”

A whistle pierced the air. We both turned to face the supermarket, just in time to see a familiar face—one that had haunted my dreams for four years of high school—and he held up two pumpkins.

“Kay,” he called across the street. “Come help me pick out a pumpkin.”

“Gimme a minute, Ry,” Kaylani called back to him.

“Hurry, babe. Willy is in the checkout line.”

This couldn’t be happening.

Ryan. Motherfucking. Mitchell.

Somewhere in the last thirty seconds, I had fallen off a Tilt-A-Whirl and landed straight into some parallel universe. One where my childhood best friend was marrying the entitled, jock-hole fuckface who had tormented both of us incessantly throughout high school.

“Ness?”

I spun back to her, moving as though I were bogged down in quicksand. It certainly felt like I was drowning.

“Give me a minute, yeah?”

I must have managed a nod because she took off across the street and bounded straight into the market, hand in hand with Ryan.

Her fiancé.

The brown sugar latte swirling around my stomach suddenly threatened to come back up. I leaned against the nearby trash can—just in case my acid reflux got the best of me—and caught my breath.

Questions raced through my mind. How long had Kaylani been dating Ryan? Why had she kept this relationship hidden from me? Was Mr. Hu okay with Ryan calling him Willy?

Kaylani and I had made a pact years ago—sometime between watching reruns of Facts of Life on Nick at Nite and shopping for our first thongs together—that we would always have each other’s backs, especially when it came to the so-called “big ones.” Momentous occasions like graduations, breakups, and childbirth—hers, not mine. That ship had sailed when I’d gifted myself a tubal ligation for my thirtieth birthday. Kaylani had been working in Japan, but that hadn’t stopped her from chipping in on the “I got ninety-nine problems but a womb ain’t one” surprise party June had thrown me.

It was safe to say that engagements also fell under the “big one” category, too. So, no matter how much I wanted to ditch my oldest friend while she and her husband-to-be picked out pumpkins, I owed it to her to wait and hear her out. Even if I didn’t want to. If our roles were reversed, she would be there for me.

Not that I’d be tying the knot anytime soon.

In fact, this was the first time in a long time that I wished I had somebody by my side, holding my hand. And that momentary crack in confidence was most likely what had me flagging down the blond baseballer in skintight joggers heading in my direction.

“ You .”

Pink looked up from the canvas bag in his hands. Fuck. The man used recyclable bags. The gray sweatpants molded to the outline of his cock combined with his surprisingly sexy eco- consciousness was enough to tip the scales (momentarily) in his direction.

“Morning, angel.” He sauntered over, a pep in his step that had no business being there so early in the morning. “You going to wish me a happy birthday?”

“Yeah, yeah. I need a favor.”

His brows furrowed with surprise. “Let me explain to you how birthdays work—”

“ Jared .” I groaned, the desperation leaking through my voice. “I don’t have the time for you to mansplain birthdays to me. I need you to be my boyfriend for the next five minutes.”

“Um, what—”

“No questions asked, no stupid jokes.” There wasn’t time for either. Kay and her . . . Ryan would be back any second.

“Fuck, they’re about to cross the street.”

“Who are you—”

I didn’t give him the time to look over his shoulder, instead grabbing two fistfuls of his sweat-drenched shirt and yanking him closer until his chest collided with mine and he released an audible, “Oof.”

His fingers found purchase on my hips, sending shivers up my spine. “Look,” I told him squarely. The curb gave me the added inches I needed to look him in the eye. “Fuck everything I told you at the bar. If you care about me at all like you say you do, you’ll do this favor for me. Please. I need you.”

This wasn’t a game. Well, maybe it was, but the stakes had changed, and I wasn’t going down without a fight. I needed him to understand the severity of the situation.

Those baby blues of his shifted to a hue darker than the depths of the ocean.

“You need me,” he repeated. It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes.”

“You need me to be your boyfriend.”

“My pretend boyfriend.”

“And you’re not going to punish me later for anything I say or do in the next few minutes?”

I hesitated. It wasn’t like I was asking him to fuck me outside the Green Goddess, our local dispensary. Yet.

“I need to hear you say it, angel.”

My attention slipped over his shoulder, just as Kaylani’s and Ryan’s feet met the curb. It was a terrible idea, one that, no doubt, I would regret ten minutes from now. But bad idea or not, it felt good— really good—made better when those rough, limber fingers of his slid around my waist, dipping beneath the hem of my blouse. I wanted to feel them lower still.

Ah, hell. If I was going to go down swinging, I might as well enjoy the ride.

“ Angel ,” he growled.

With one hand, I traced the rough edge of his jaw, coasting over his barely parted lips. “Are you gonna kiss me or what?”

It was the last thing either of us said before his mouth covered mine, leaving me breathless.

If this was how Jared Pink kissed, I might never breathe again.