Once in a Lifetime(47)

“Okay, that’s pretty bad,” Ali said after a moment of silence. “But I’ve made some pretty damn spectacular mistakes myself, so there’s no judgment here. Would you like my opinion?”

“Could I stop you?” Aubrey asked drily.

Ali laughed. “Probably not. I told you that I saw you and Ben through the window of your store, right?”

For a beat, Aubrey’s heart stopped, until she realized that Ali was referring to the kiss, not the…deed.

“What I saw was really hot,” Ali said. “So hot you nearly steamed up the glass. But it was more than just lust. He cupped your head, Aubrey.”

“Aw,” Leah said on a dreamy sigh. “He did? Really? God, I love that man.”

Aubrey shook her head to clear it, but nope, she was still confused. “What does it matter that he cupped my head?”

“It means it wasn’t just a kiss,” Ali said. “It was more. And we”—she gestured between herself and Leah—“having recently found the loves of our lives, can tell the difference between sex and love.”

Leah nodded in agreement.

“When you do it with Ben,” Ali went on, “it won’t be just sex. It’ll be love.”

Aubrey inhaled wrong and got a bunch of powdered sugar down the wrong pipe.

Leah jumped up to get a glass of water.

Ali helpfully pounded Aubrey’s back. When she could breathe without wheezing, both her friends were looking at her rather seriously.

“So you already slept with him,” Leah guessed.

Aubrey took a moment with that one, because in all truth, there’d been no actual sleeping involved. “Was it only okay with you when I was just kissing him?”

“No.” Leah covered her hand with her own. “No, it’s not like that. I think you’ll be fantastic for him.”

“We’re not together,” Aubrey said. “Not like that. It was just a one-time thing.”

Ali laughed. “Yeah, okay.”

“No, really.”

“I saw you,” Ali said. “I saw the chemistry. Remember when the town hall caught fire, and the entire town was covered in smoke?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I saw more smoke generated between you two than I did at that fire.”



At that, Aubrey rolled her eyes.

“I’m serious,” Ali said. “Whether you like it or not, you and Ben have something.”

For the record, if this was true, she didn’t like it. Not one bit.

“Which means you should really tell him about the list,” Leah said.

No one was more aware of that than Aubrey. That damn list was starting to eat her alive. “He’s seen it. He’s guessed about it.” She let out a breath. “But he doesn’t know that he’s on it. I’m not telling him that part.”

“You could tell us instead,” Ali said, fishing.

Aubrey shook her head, and Ali sighed.

“I still think you should tell him,” Leah said.

“No,” she said firmly.

“That might come back to bite you on the ass,” Leah said.

No doubt. “The grudge he earned from me with that whole coil-wire stunt is currently scheduled to last years,” Aubrey said. “So there won’t be any more…smoke. And we’re done talking about this.”

Like good friends, they dropped the conversation and ate some more doughnut holes.

“These are amazing,” Ali said. She smelled like roses today, which made sense, since she was looking like she’d rolled in them. They clung to her clothes, as did the scent of the petals.

Aubrey agreed with her friend’s assessment of the doughnut holes, but her mouth was too full to talk.

Leah was pulling pies from her oven. “These should go like hotcakes—”

The door out front opened, and the bell rang, signaling a customer. “Damn it,” Leah said, and eyed both Ali and Aubrey. “Aubrey. You get it.”

“What? Why me?”

“Because you look the most presentable. Just tell whoever it is I’ll be right out. Or better yet, serve them.”

Ali grinned. “This is why I dress in flower gunk.”

Aubrey sighed and jumped off the counter, heading out front. She stopped short at the sight of Ben. She was still mad at him, really mad, but some of that anger faded without her permission at the sight of him standing there with a little girl clinging to each of his hands.

The girls were tiny, a little scrawny, and one of them was dressed in pink from head to toe. The other’s hair was falling out of her pigtails, and her dress was smudged and dirty. Also, she had the beginnings of a black eye. It matched Ben’s.

His eyebrows went up at the sight of Aubrey. “You take a second job?”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s called eating doughnut holes.” She smiled at the girls, her heart melting a little. They were a little bedraggled and so damn precious. “Hey, there,” she said to them. “What’ll it be?”

“We don’t got any money,” the one all in pink said, eyes locked on the display case.

“I’m buying,” Ben told her. “Whatever you want.”

“Wow,” Pink said reverently, nose pressed up against the glass. “Whatever we want? Really? What about those pretty red cupcakes? Oh, wait, no—look at those cookies; they’re black and white with little pink dots! Oh, oh! Those pink-and-chocolate thingies! Look at all the pink—”