Frenched Series Bundle (33 page)

Remain calm. Cool. Unemotional.

The Burger Bar’s vertical neon sign hung to my right, and I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other and move in its direction. As I got closer, I heard the music being played inside and smelled grilling meat and frying potatoes.

Five more steps and I’d be at the entrance. Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled the glass door open and stepped inside.

The cool rush of air conditioning hit me as I removed my sunglasses and looked around, taking in the details as my eyes adjusted. It was smaller than I’d expected. White honeycomb tiles on the floor, a bar to my left and small booths lining the wall on my right. Dark wood. Chrome. Chalkboards on the walls. “Folsom Prison Blues” playing on the jukebox in the corner. I almost smiled.

He still likes Johnny Cash.

The place was crowded, every booth full and every seat at the bar taken. The vibe was young and fun, unfussy but authentic. Somehow it felt both urban and country—the kind of place where you knew you’d get real food and have a good time, see and be seen,

feel both hip and virtuous since the chalkboard nearest the door boasted about Nick’s farm-to-table philosophy. The one right next to it said
If you are racist, sexist, homophobic, or an asshole, don’t come in. Otherwise, welcome.

At least it didn’t say “or my ex-wife.”

Servers moved quickly, carrying trays laden with baskets lined with blue and white striped tissue paper, on which rested thick, delectable hamburgers and piles of thick, seasoned fries, making my mouth water. Despite everything, pride bloomed in my chest. Lick My Plate was a ridiculous show—who really cares if chefs are hot as long as they know what they’re doing?—but it had given Nick a huge boost. He’d always wanted this, his own place, things done his way. Looking around, I could see that he’d put himself into every detail here, from the design to the menu to the music. When I heard the door open behind me, I took a few tentative steps forward so I wouldn’t be in the way of entering customers.

“Coco Thomas. I’d know that ass anywhere.”

I spun around to find Nick Lupo just inches from me, so close I could see the tiny crescent moon scar above his left eyebrow, a remnant of his scrappy childhood. He looked the same—thick dark hair, although threaded with a few surprising strands of gray at the temples, light brown eyes framed by ungodly long lashes, that wide mouth hooking into a grin at my expense.

I wanted to say something, but at the sight of him my lungs had ceased functioning, holding on to the breath trapped inside them as if it were the last one they’d ever get.

Damn. Why’d he have to look so good?

Nick was dimple-cute when he smiled and sexy-as-sin when he pinned you with that stare, the one that said Fuck Dinner, The Only Thing I Want To Eat Is You And I’m Starving. He could go from boyishly charming to hot and demanding in a heartbeat, and right then I wanted that heartbeat to be mine.

His dark, expressive brows rose. “Speechless, cupcake? That’s a first. Or have you run out of names to call me?”

“Hi,” I managed. One word, but it felt like a huge victory.

“Hi.”

When I couldn’t get another word out, he laughed. “OK, come on.” Taking my arm, he steered me over to the bar, every eyeball in the place trained on us. “It’s about time you came in here. Let’s find you a seat.”

He’s touching me. He’s touching me. He’s touching me.
Inside my head, a voice repeated the phrase over and over again. I’d seriously underestimated the impact his physical presence would have on me after all this time. My skin prickled with awareness of him, as if my body remembered the insane chemistry we had and it was just waking up from a seven-year sleep.

Nick led me around the far end of the bar, where there was an empty stool I hadn’t been able to see from the door. “Sit down right there and let me look at you.”

I slid onto the seat and crossed my legs, placing my purse on the bar. I kept my movements slow and deliberate, so as not to betray how flustered I felt. “Thank you.” There, two more words. Hallelujah.

Planting his feet wide, Nick crossed his muscular, tattooed arms and shook his head. “Damn if I don’t have the hottest ex-wife on the planet.” He spoke loud enough to attract the attention of other patrons, on purpose, of course. Nick loved a good show. Immediately I noticed more heads turning in my direction. Cell phone cameras aimed. Whispers and stares. I imagined the headlines on TMZ:
Hot Chef’s Secret Past Revealed, Ex-Wife Disappointing.
I patted my hair self-consciously.

“Ex wife?” said the guy on the stool next to me, a hipster type with a receding ginger hairline and huge, bushy Abe Lincoln sideburns. He swiveled his stool to face us and lifted his thick glass beer mug toward Nick. “I didn’t know you were married.”

“I was, Lou. I was. To this vision right here.” Nick gestured to my face. “Tell me, do I not have the most beautiful ex-wife in existence? I mean, how many guys can say that? Wait.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “Wait. Are there more of us? How many husbands have you collected so far?”

I smiled with tight lips. I would not let him provoke me. “Just one.”

He touched his chest, which was hugged by a tight black Burger Bar t-shirt, sleeves tight around his biceps. I noticed he wore a silver Shinola watch, which momentarily distracted me because I’d always been really turned on by Nick’s thick strong wrists and forearms. “Whew. For a moment there, I didn’t feel special. I mean, since you left me, you’ve had time for…” He checked the watch. “At
least
thirty more marriages as long as ours.”

Fuck it, I was provoked. “Left
you
! You left me, remember? In a hotel room in Vegas? On our wedding night?”

Lou’s eyebrows rose above the rim of his mug, and he looked at Nick as if waiting for an explanation. But I wasn’t about to give him a chance to defend himself. Fuck calm, cool, and unemotional—he wasn’t pinning this on me. “Or have you forgotten the note you left me on the nightstand, right next to your ring? ‘This was a mistake.’ That ring a bell?”

“I apologized, didn’t I? You’re the one who filed for divorce and left for Europe without talking to me, like a stubborn teenager.”

“Stubborn teenager! You apologized in a text message, Nick. Two words—
I’m sorry
.” Briefly I put my hands over my ears and took a deep breath. It was seven years too late for this, and I hadn’t come here to fight. “Look, it doesn’t matter anymore. Yes, I filed for divorce and left for Europe without talking to you.

Because you were right—the marriage was a mistake.”

Nick shrugged. “For what it’s worth, I disagree. And I tried to tell you that but you divorced me too fast.”

I fisted my hands in my lap so tight it felt like my fingernails might slice my palms. “We would have divorced anyway, Nick. We were young and stupid.”

“
I
was stupid.
You
were just mad. And I don’t blame you for that.”

I cocked my head. “But you blame me for other things?”

The air between us grew charged. Nick leveled me with his eyes. “In the end, it was you that decided we were done.”

“You cheated on me.”

“You lied to me.”

“You lied to me first.”

“That wasn’t the same.”

“Wait, you guys lost me.” Lou picked up his beer again and turned to Nick. “Let’s start with you. What did you lie about?”

“He lied about sex, for one thing.” I crossed my arms, grumpy at the memory. “When we were freshmen in college, he told me he was a virgin like I was.”

“I had to, or she wasn’t going to sleep with me.” Nick threw his hands up. “I had to have her, Lou. I’m sorry I lied, but I was in love with her and I had to have her. At least I came clean when it was over.”

Lou nodded, as if he was the arbiter of what was fair in this fight. “OK. Sort of a douchey move, but possibly understandable, give the…circumstances.” He gestured vaguely toward my chest. “And what did you lie about?”

“Wait a minute, what circumstances?” I sat up taller, narrowing my eyes at him.

“I think he means the circumstances protruding from your ribcage.” Nick’s grin lit up his face.

“The legs too,” added Lou. “And the face. Did anyone ever tell you you look like young Lauren Bacall?”

“Exactly.” Nick shook his head. “I was nineteen and in love with the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. I could not be expected to behave.”

I blushed, but anger won out a moment later. It was just like Nick to make me mad and then flatter me right into forgiving him. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. That does not excuse you.”

“Well, you lied about Paris.” He turned to Lou. “Her junior year she told me she hadn’t been accepted to this exchange program she’d always planned on doing. But she’s such a bad liar, I figured out the truth.”

“I didn’t want to go that year. You didn’t have a problem with me staying behind at the time.”
Probably because you spent a good part of that year screwing me from behind.

“Then the following year she told me she hadn’t even applied, another obvious lie. But she stuck to it, and I had to hear the truth from her friend Mia.”

“Because I didn’t want to leave you, asshole.” I’d been angry at Mia for weeks about that, but she said she’d only caved and confirmed what Nick suspected when he promised her he’d encourage me to go. Mia thought I was crazy to forego the opportunity to study in Paris for a guy.

“Leaving me wouldn’t have necessarily meant breaking up. We could have stayed together.”

“Ha!” I poked him in the chest. “You cheated on me every summer we were apart. You think you’d have been faithful with an ocean between us?”

Nick’s chin jutted. “I didn’t cheat every summer.”

I rolled my eyes. “Two out of three. And I bet there was a spring break I don’t know about, and maybe a Christmas vacation, and probably even a Martin Luther King Day too.” I turned to Lou and sniffed, feeling superior. “He can’t keep his hands to himself, he never could.”

As if to prove my point, Nick’s hand clutched my thigh. “Coco, come on. Two times I kissed other girls, that was all. And you broke up with me so often, I never even knew when we were together and when we weren’t.”

I removed his hand. “That’s because you were such a flirt.”

“That last year, I was totally faithful to you. I swear it.”

“Uh huh, right up until Mia told you about Paris. Then you ran out and screwed someone else.”

Nick looked away without denying anything or defending himself, and the night of his confession came back to me like a knife to the gut. I’d screamed myself hoarse, slapped his face, and shoved him out of my apartment. Then I threw every gift he’d ever given me out the window into the parking lot. I remembered how he’d watched, silently huddled on the hood of his truck in the dark.

Lou drained his beer. “Wow, this is really sad, you guys. So then what happened?”

“We broke up,” I said, teeth gritted. “But the next night he showed up at my apartment with a bottle of whiskey.”
And I didn’t say no, like I should have. Like I never could where he was concerned.

Nick’s eyes met mine. “We got back together.”

I lifted my chin. “We got drunk is what we got.”

“We caught the red-eye to Vegas.”

“We got tattooed, and we got married. Two idiot decisions.”

Lou watched us, his head moving from side to side like a spectator’s at the French Open. “And then?”

We stared at each other a moment longer, each of us reliving the pain and pleasure of that insane weekend. What could we say? No matter what, Nick couldn’t deny that he was the one who’d been unfaithful that spring—the act of betrayal that started the whole chain of crazy events. And in a whiskey- tears-and-sex-filled craze, I’d forgiven him, even married him—but then he’d abandoned me in that hotel room. No apology could make up for the hurt, and I sure as hell hadn’t wanted to listen to any explanation.

For God’s sake, why should I listen to him say that he didn’t love me enough to stay?

With my parents’ help, I’d quietly taken the necessary steps to divorce him quickly and left for

Paris. The three of us agreed it to keep it quiet; I wasn’t even sure my grandmother knew.

Later that year I’d had the small tattoo of his name and our wedding date on my left shoulder blade made into a swallow taking flight. Briefly I wondered what he’d done with the large tattoo of my name he’d had inked on his chest.

It doesn’t matter now.

“And then he left,” I said. Deep breath. “But I forgive him now.” The lie rolled off my tongue with surprising ease, especially for me. I’d never forgive him, of course. Did it show on my face?

Nick cocked his head, and I could tell he didn’t believe me. “Why?”

“Wh-what do you mean, why?” I blustered. “You asked my forgiveness and I’m giving it.”

“I asked for it then. You didn’t want to give it, and now you do. There must be a reason you’re here after all this time.” The mischief was back in his cocky Elvis half-grin, and I felt like punching him. But instead I saw the opening and took it.

“If you must know, there is.”

“I must know.”

“Me too,” said Lou, raising his hand for the bartender to bring him another beer.

“Fine.” I glared at both of them before focusing my full attention on Nick. “I need a favor.”

His grin widened. “Sexual, I hope.”

“No.” I sat taller, ignoring the wickedly pleasant sensation between my legs at the thought of a sexual favor from Nick. “A cooking favor, actually.”