Cream of the Crop (Hudson Valley, #2)(84)

“Okay,” he replied, turning back to his customers. “What do you want?” He always accentuated the you, making it sound like the customer was somehow putting him out.

“Wait, so, you’ll go?” I asked, breath moving back into my lungs.

This was happening—this was really happening! The budding panic was gone the instant he said yes, and I realized how very much I wanted to introduce him to my world and my family. This. Was. Happening.

He turned toward me with a grin. “Sure, no big deal. Not sure I have anything to wear, though. I didn’t bring anything fancy.”

“We can go shopping after we’re done here!” I squealed, giddy over the idea that my boyfriend and I would be stepping out on the town tonight. “I can call Barneys or Bergdorf’s and have them set some things aside for you—”

“Can we go to Macy’s? The one that has the parade?” he asked, his face lighting up. “We always watched the parade every year, before the football games started up. I’ve always wanted to go there.”

He was smiling. Even at his customers. And between orders, he actually began to . . . whistle.

Macy’s it is.



We took the subway to go shopping, something he’d never done before.

“We can just take my truck, no biggie,” he said, gesturing to where it was parked behind the stand.

I shook my head. “It’ll be faster this way, and we won’t have to worry about parking. Besides, no one drives in the city.”

He looked around at all the traffic with raised eyebrows, then turned to me with a “tell me that again” expression.

“Seriously, look again at those cars. They’re all cabs, Uber guys, or private drivers. It’s much faster to move underground,” I replied, taking him by the hand and leading him toward the station on Thirty-fourth Street.

They had a helluva men’s department at Macy’s, and within an hour we had him outfitted in a nice oxford shirt, a new tie, and a jacket. He refused to buy new pants, though. “Jeans are fine. I always see guys in jeans in those fashion magazines,” he’d said.

And I agreed. He looked damn fine in jeans.

Back on the packed train afterward, we stood front to back with the other Saturday shoppers, our bags and bodies jostled about with everyone else. I spied someone with a Brannigan’s bag, and I realized now was as good a time as any to give him my good news.

Turning to face him in the tiny space I’d created, I beamed up at him, tucking into the spot below his arm, where he was holding tight to the bar above. “I have news for you, mister.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?” he asked as he looked down at me.

“Ever hear of Brannigan’s?”

“Sure. Gourmet food store, expensive food for fussy people. They just opened a new store in San Francisco.”

Stifling an eye roll, I leaned up on tiptoe to press a kiss on his chin. “I wouldn’t call Bailey Falls Creamery fussy, would you?”

“I don’t get it,” he said, confusion on his face.

“I know the woman that heads up their marketing, and I touched base with her a few days ago. I might have mentioned a certain creamery in the Hudson Valley that was making some pretty great cheese.”

“Oh?”

“I also might have sent over a sampling of my favorites to their offices.”

“Oh.”

“And she might have sent me an email this morning telling me how batshit crazy everyone went over your cheese, especially the Brie.” I smoothed out his jacket, patting his chest as I went. “And you know how I feel about your Brie.”

He was silent.

“So anyway, she asked me who was in charge of your marketing, and I told her that there was a very good-looking farmer who handled most of that, and if she was interested I could put her in touch with you, and—”

“Wait, hold up. What did you do exactly?” he asked, his face not angry but not happy, either.

“I didn’t do anything, other than put someone with the fastest-growing gourmet foods franchise in the country in touch with one of the best local cheese makers I know.”

He was silent again, his eyes distant.

“The best, but not the most chatty,” I mumbled.

I didn’t get it—why wasn’t he excited? Before I could say anything else, tell him more about what an incredible opportunity this was, how people would slaughter a Camembert for the chance to get their product in front of a company like Brannigan’s, he caught my chin, tilting my face up to look at him.

“I appreciate what you tried to do here, and I know why you did it. But no thanks.”

I gaped up at him. No thanks? No thanks? Who said no thanks to something like this? I must not have explained it well enough; he must not know what—

“And I know what a big deal this is, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“How’d you know I was thinking that?” I asked, amazed.

He smiled, a little sadly. “I’ve gotten to know you pretty well, Pinup. I can see when you’re working something over in that pretty head of yours.”

“But if you know what a big deal this is, then why don’t you—”

“I just don’t,” he said, his jaw clenching. “I just don’t,” he repeated, as if there wasn’t any more to say about it.