Passion on Park Avenue (Central Park Pact #1)(50)

Oliver stood and shoved his phone back in his pocket. “Maybe not yet.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She asked, as he headed to the front door.

He gave her an enigmatic smile over his shoulder, opening her front door. But he said nothing.

“What’s that supposed to mean!” It was a near shout now.

The front door clicked close, and she opened her mouth to tell him he forgot his ice cream.

Damn it. Just as well. If she and Oliver Cunningham were going to continue being in the same orbit, she was going to need the entire carton to herself.





THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18

Whoa. You do know it’s just the three of us, right?” Audrey asked as she opened her front door to Naomi and took in the copious amount of wine bottles Naomi was holding.

“It was cheaper to buy six,” Naomi replied, handing over the bottles and shrugging out of her jacket. “Also, trust me, I need at least half of that to myself.”

“Uh-oh. What happened?” Audrey asked, leading Naomi into the kitchen.

“Let’s wait until Claire gets here so I only have to explain the nightmare once.”

“Here,” Claire announced, holding up her arm from where she sat on Audrey’s couch.

Naomi craned to look at what she was watching on the TV. “Dang, you really are a baseball nut.”

“Yup. But for you, I will turn it off.” She reached for the remote, then paused, watching something on the field that had the announcers shouting. “Correction. For you, I will mute.”

“If Brayden hadn’t jabbed his chopstick into our dumplings, would you have turned it off for us?” Audrey asked.

Claire wrinkled her nose, and Naomi gave Audrey a look and shook her head.

“Damn,” Audrey said. “I’ve been working on that one. Okay, what are we eating?”

“Not Chinese,” Claire muttered, joining them in the kitchen and checking the labels on the various bottles Naomi had brought. “Naomi can pick.”

“You don’t want me to pick. My favorite food used to be Chef Boyardee. The off-brand kind.”

“No, pick!” Audrey protested. “Except maybe not Chef Boy-are-whatever you just said.”

“You’re missing out, but I’ll start you off easy. How about pizza?”

“Done,” Audrey said, pulling out her phone. “There’s a place around the corner that does this classic Neapolitan crust, with homemade smoked mozzarella and—”

“No, not fancy pizza,” Naomi interrupted. “Homemade cheese? Are you kidding me?”

“Well, where do you get your pizza?”

“Let’s just say it’s not the kind of place that has an online ordering system,” Naomi said, already dialing a number from the Favorites menu of her phone.

“Hey, Claudio,” she said the moment an almost unintelligible rumble of Italian sounded in her ear.

“Naomi! Mia Bella. The regular?”

She grinned at the familiar greeting. “The regular times three. I’m about to introduce two friends to the best meal of their life. Grab a pen though, ’kay? I need Jorge to come to my friend’s house.”

A minute later she set her phone back on the counter. “Done. They should be here in an hour. Or so.”

“An hour? It’s Thursday night. My guys’ smoked mozzarella could get made from scratch faster than that!”

Claire handed Audrey a glass of red wine. “Probably not. The mozzarella, yes, that can be done in thirty minutes. The smoked part would take longer.”

“Are you making this up?”

“Nope.” Claire sipped her own wine. “Brayden and I took a cheese-making class once. Back before I knew he was, you know. Dipping into other fondue pots.”

“Nice.” Naomi lifted her hand and Claire gave her a high five, while Audrey pouted.

“How is that better than my chopstick one!” she protested.

“Well, for starters, nobody sticks a chopstick into a dumpling. Second of all, the word dumpling is just . . . no. Keep working on it.”

“Fine,” Audrey muttered. “But for real, Naomi, is your pizza coming from Italy?”

“Nope. Belmont.”

“Oh God, is someone trying to create some new Manhattan neighborhood where there isn’t one again?” Claire asked.

“Nope. Belmont is in the northwest Bronx.”

Audrey’s eyes bugged out. “You order pizza from the Bronx?”

“And they deliver?” Claire added.

“They do when I pay them an extra fifty bucks, plus extra for the delivery guy.”

“An extra fifty bucks for a pizza. It must be amazing.”

“Not really,” Naomi said. “But when I was in seventh grade, my mom went through a rare patch of being able to keep not only one job, but two. Claudio fed me dinner pretty much every day that year while she worked back-to-back shifts. This is my way of paying him back.”

“Well then, I can’t wait to try it,” Audrey said with an approving nod as they all went into the living room and sat on the couch. “Now, how about you tell us why your wineglass is filled to the brim. Bad day?”

“Not really,” Naomi said, swirling her wine. “It’s just been . . . weird.”