Authors: Linda Francis Lee
But when she tried to move to the smaller door leading down to her apartment, she realized she wasn’t going to fit. Momentum had gotten her through the wider door. Nothing short of a good hard shove was going to get her through the other one.
Gabriel’s raised brow raised a little bit more.
Damn, damn, damn.
“Need some help?” he asked.
What Portia would have given to be able to say
“No need to bother your little ol’ self,”
flip her hair, and sashay off. But just as she had never been much of an eye roller, she had never been good at hair flipping or sashaying either. That was Olivia’s department.
“Bless your heart. Maybe a tiny push,” she conceded.
“‘Bless your heart’?”
“Just give me a push,” she practically growled at him.
It took more than a tiny push to get her levered down the stairs without pitching headfirst like an overlarge bowling ball. While Gabriel angled her down the steps, Ariel called out if he started to make a move that would have her tumbling. But then they came to a grinding halt with Portia only halfway down the steps.
“We’re stuck,” Gabriel ground out.
“Hold on!” Ariel said, shoving her shoulder into the burger suit and flailing around underneath, trying to get a better look. “Found it! The lettuce is caught on the banister.”
It wasn’t bad enough that her husband had come home and announced out of the blue that he was divorcing her. Or that her former friend Sissy was now living in the house Portia had worked so hard to make a home. No, she had to get stuck in a burger suit and be manhandled down a stairwell by the kind of man who made her want to forget she was a lady. She really was going to kill her ex-husband, right along with the Burger Boy manager.
Gabriel and Ariel managed to get Portia to her apartment door, but then she came to a halt again. She stood on her toes, trying to see over the burger suit, then didn’t bother to swallow back a curse. Not even a good Texas woman should have to live through this humiliation.
“A problem?” Gabriel asked, his tone utterly even. But he was grinning. She could just imagine him having a wonderful time telling all his sophisticated New York friends about the hamburger who lived downstairs. Though it hit her with surprising certainty that this wasn’t a man who told tales out of school. In fact, she felt equally certain he was a man who didn’t surround himself with friends at all, or even confidants.
Never having imagined she’d be wearing a burger suit, she had forgotten all about how she planned to get back inside. “Thankfully, I keep a key under the mat.”
His grin flatlined and his brows slammed together. “You keep a key under the mat? In New York City?”
Portia’s eyes narrowed. She’d had it. With him. With life. With this whole damned employment disaster. “Last I heard, burgers don’t carry handbags.”
Ariel gave a snort of laughter, which earned her a glare as well. “Go upstairs,” he snapped.
“What did I do this time?”
“Upstairs.”
It took a second, but Ariel stamped her way back up the stairs into the vestibule, then slammed the door to their apartment.
When Gabriel finally got Portia through her door, she waddled with determination over to the kitchen and managed to pluck the sharpest knife out of the drawer. With the grace of a sumo wrestler, she lifted the blade high like a samurai on the verge of seppuku. But before Portia could plunge the knife deep into the rubber bun, Gabriel was on her, grabbing her wrist and twisting it so that the knife skittered across the cracked linoleum floor. “Are you insane?” he demanded.
Her mouth fell open, then closed, then open again as if mimicking the very pedestrians who had gaped at her when she barreled down the sidewalk, a pack of yapping minidogs behind her.
“I’m not trying to kill myself, you, you … you!”
Quick comebacks had never been her strong suit.
“I am not trying to hurt myself,” she said, enunciating each syllable. “The zipper’s stuck. I have to cut myself out of this thing.”
Gabriel fell back a step, and started to say something.
“No more sarcastic comments or weird assumptions,” she snapped icily. “Just get me the knife.” She wasn’t feeling icy, though. Gabriel’s eyes had changed. He wasn’t looking at her waist—or her lack of one, given the suit—he was looking at her mouth.
Portia’s heart sped up.
He didn’t retrieve the knife. He turned her around, his hands impersonal. But when he jerked the zipper, it wouldn’t budge. “Bend over and hold on,” he said, pointing to the counter.
Portia turned slightly to look at him over her shoulder and glowered.
“Please?” he added as an afterthought.
Murder, she decided, was too good for Robert after putting her in this situation.
With a low growl, she shook her hair back, trying to get her curls out of her face again. Then she bent over.
But nothing happened.
She tried to glance behind her again. “The zipper? You? Working it?” She gave a scoffing laugh.
“You know, Ms. Cuthcart,” Gabriel said, surprising her because suddenly he was so close his lips nearly touched her ear. “Once I get you out of this contraption, if I ever lean you over anything again, you won’t be laughing.”
Even in this damned burger suit a pulse of awareness shot between them that could have set all that rubber on fire.
Portia swallowed, then forced herself to roll her eyes, not that he could see. It was that or beg him to throw her over whatever he pleased the minute he managed to get her burger-free.
“Men always think that women never laugh at their technique,” she managed. “I can assure you that you’re all wrong.”
She felt him stiffen, and then he burst out laughing. “God, you’re a piece of work.”
Before she could come up with a fitting response, Gabriel gave a good hard yank and the zipper came free.
The ceiling fan whirled above, and as soon as the burger fell open into two parts, she drew in a ragged breath, turning around. “Oh, my Lord, that feels good,” she breathed.
She tugged at the suit, but he had to help before her arms popped out. Her little white tank top was damp with sweat and clung to every curve she had.
Glancing up, she saw his eyes had darkened again, as if he wanted to peel the rest of the burger right off of her. And not in a helpful Boy Scout kind of way.
Portia had been divorced only a little over a month, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had sex. Not that her ex-husband suffered a similar fate. He’d had plenty of sex, with Sissy. The only person not having sex in her marriage was her.
Everything around them evaporated. The sounds of traffic. The thoughts of outrageously expensive groceries she couldn’t afford. Even her ex-husband and ex–best friend’s betrayal seemed distant.
Gabriel reached out, but he dropped his hand just before touching her. “What kind of a woman goes around in a burger suit?” he asked, his tone quiet.
She told herself to step away, but couldn’t. “The kind who’s looking for gainful employment.”
“So you’ll stoop to anything tossed your way?”
She stiffened, the mood sharp again. “No, not just anything. I turned down the position of Hot Dog, complete with an ‘Eat Me’ sign.”
His features hardened before suddenly he shook his head and the side of his mouth quirked up. “You’re impossible.” He reached for her again. “Come on, let’s get you out of this.”
“I can do it.”
He stepped back and raised a brow.
She struggled with the rubber before he pushed her hands aside, gently this time. She looked at him for a second, the air around them charged; then she gave in. As he started tugging the suit away, his gaze held hers, until finally he focused. In seconds he had sprung her free.
Thankfully, she was wearing some of Evie’s old leggings. She wilted back against the counter, his eyes traveling down her body and then back up to her face.
“You need water,” he said finally.
“I’m fine.”
He went to the cabinet anyway, found a glass, and filled it from the tap. “Drink.”
She felt too exhausted to do anything. “I’m fine, really.”
“Portia.” Just that, his tone warning.
She didn’t know if it was the way he said her name or the way his voice settled deep in his chest, but suddenly she felt emotional. Suddenly everything was too much. She took the water and sipped.
“All of it,” he stated, but softly.
The words ran along her senses, and he didn’t take his eyes off her until she did as she was told. As soon as she was done, he took the glass from her hands, his fingers brushing against hers, and put it on the counter. Then he looked at her as if searching for something, just as he had that first day she saw him when she was sitting on the front steps. After a second, not seeming to find the answer, or maybe just not liking the one he found, he reached out and tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “You should eat something, then take a cool shower.”
He stood close, and with her back against the counter, there was nowhere for her to go. She realized she wanted to sink into this man, and probably would have. There were moments in life, she had heard about, when a person finds where they are meant to be. She had thought that was the case with the knowing. Then again with Robert. And both times the feeling had been proven wrong. But there was something about this man, in this place, that made her feel like a parched traveler stumbling out of the desert and finding a cool sea.
“Who are you really?” she asked without thinking.
But just then his cell phone buzzed and he glanced at the screen.
“I’ve got to take this.” He ran his gaze over her, yet again assessing. “Then we need to talk.”
He retucked that same errant curl behind her ear that had sprung free again, and smiled, seeming amused, then headed for the door.
“You with the talking,” she managed, a bit of her old self returning. “Next you’ll be asking to do facials and braid my hair.”
He gave a surprised laugh before he shook his head and kept going.
“Just so you know, there’s nothing to talk about!” she called after him. “Especially not the apartment. The only thing I’m prepared to sell is this burger suit, but it’s seen better days.”
His rumbling laughter was shut off by the closing door.
Seven
A
RIEL’S SOCIAL STUDIES
teacher droned on.
Mr. Wickman was old—ancient, really. Probably forty. He was tall, thin as a rail, and had one eye that drooped. The kids called him Wink. Ariel hated that, hated how mean the kids could be. But she hated Mr. Wickman’s assignment even more.
A report on ancestry.
Ariel got it. No sense belaboring a topic that had been massively boring the first time around. The last thing she wanted to do, on top of writing in a journal, was poke around in her family history. Yeah, right, she could see that.
Hey, Dad, tell me about Mom and her family.
When pigs flew, maybe.
A better topic was Portia downstairs. Ariel still laughed every time she thought of her barreling into the building dressed as a hamburger and practically squeezing the life out of them. Even more amazing, it was the first time Ariel had seen her dad smile in, like, forever. Granted, he swallowed it back before it took hold. But she’d seen it.
Whatever. It was a good sign. The only way to tell for sure if Portia could distract Dad was to have her over for dinner. Ariel had read on the Internet that you could tell a lot about a person by the way they ate. Did they throw salt over their shoulder if they spilled something? Did they chew with their mouth open? Did they tuck their napkin under their chin instead of putting them in their lap?
She was pretty sure Portia would pass the test, because she was smart and funny. Plus there was the whole
she can cook
thing. If she invited Portia to dinner and asked her to bring a cake, even if the dinner turned out to be a train wreck, they’d at least get a dessert out of the deal.
The only problem was that Ariel knew if she mentioned dinner to her dad, he’d never say yes. So really, why ask? On top of that, she had to do something, and fast. That morning she’d found a new guy’s name written all over Miranda’s journal.
Dustin
Dustin Ferris
Mrs. Dustin Ferris
Miranda was kind of young to be thinking Mrs. Anything. Hadn’t she heard about being a feminist, breaking glass ceilings, and keeping her own name? But it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Miranda liked some new guy named Dustin. Which explained why her mood was getting better. Though if their dad found out about it, things would get a whole lot worse.
That was an even better reason to haul Portia upstairs and make her join them for dinner. Miss Potentially Bonkers Burger couldn’t be worse than another Family Night of Miranda ignoring Dad, and Dad pointedly
not
ignoring Miranda.
Ariel bolted out of class feeling better despite the fact that she had to find a way to dig around in her family tree without anyone in her family knowing. She had a plan to distract her dad.
As soon as Ariel got home, she wrote out the invitation.
Dear Portia,
You are totally invited to dinner.
Tomorrow night with the Kane Family.
7
P.M.
Don’t be late.
Your upstairs neighbor,
Ariel Kane
P.S. Feel free to bring a cake.
Eight
P
ORTIA STOPPED DEAD
with the urge to bake a cake.
The need hit her hard and strong, surprising her. She hadn’t woken to, or felt a single stab of knowing since she’d made the meal that first day in the apartment. But the image of that same chocolate cake she had woken to that day circled through her, making it difficult to breathe.
“Control, Portia,” she whispered. “You’re in control of your life now. Not Robert. And certainly not the knowing.”
Despite the hamburger debacle, not to mention her dwindling bank account, she felt freer than she had in years. For the first time ever, she was living her own life. For the first time, she wasn’t at the mercy of things she couldn’t control. The money situation had to be solved, sure, but that didn’t negate the fact that she felt alive.