DON’T ASK ME how we ended up in a craft store, but that’s exactly where Bea decided to take me. Someplace I’d never stepped foot in before called Michael’s, to be precise—which, judging from the items dotting their sidewalk out front, seemed like an oversized warehouse full of bright, colorful things I had no clue how to use or even what they should be used for.
Plastic flowers? Seriously? Although now that I thought about it, my grandma would probably like a lot of things in here…
“You do realize that I’ve probably never stepped foot inside a craft store before in my entire life, right?” I asked in a semi-daze, unfolding my legs to climb out of the vehicle while the bright-red backlit sign filled my eyes.
Bea barely spared me a glance over her shoulder, because she was already bustling toward the doors. “Perfect reason for you to come in one now.”
“I don’t do crafts.”
“Well, maybe you didn’t before, but that’s going to change if you want my help, like you say you do. You just need to figure out which kind of crafting is right for you.”
“But I don’t want—”
“There are tons of options in here,” she said, effectively cutting me off before the thought had even finished forming.
Crafts. Seriously? I hadn’t done anything like this since I was a kid at summer camp, and I hated it then. So I would sure as shit hate it now. What the hell did she think this would accomplish?
Still, I matched my strides to hers and headed into the store—mainly because I wanted to spend more time with her, even though I knew she wasn’t so fond of spending time with me. I couldn’t change her initial impression of me, but maybe, with time, I could change the way she saw me now.
It was like an explosion of colors as soon as we were inside the front doors. To my left, thousands of silk flowers and ribbons in every style imaginable were spilling over into the aisles in a cacophony of color that would give Grandma heart palpitations. To the right, there were rows and rows of canvases, brushes, and paints. Straight ahead, I could see what appeared to be various types of wall art and decorative pots and other things to scatter throughout a room and make it look homey.
There was no telling what we’d find the deeper we went into the store…and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out. The only thing I felt certain of was that the bright, noisy colors everywhere would be imprinted on the backs of my eyelids and were sure to haunt my sleeping hours.
No doubt, I’d wake up in the middle of the night tonight (if I even managed to get to sleep in the first place) with visions of plastic flowers exploding like confetti all over me. Just the thought of it was enough to make me want to gag in revulsion.
Already, my legs were itching to book it out those doors again—but I’d made the mistake of letting Bea drive me here, so I couldn’t leave until she was good and ready to go. I was stuck.
Stuck in my own personal version of hell.
I had to fight back the urge to shudder. It wouldn’t be enough to dislodge me from my predicament, so there was no point.
She set her purse in the kiddie seat of a smallish shopping cart and headed toward the back of the store, as if she knew exactly where she was headed and what she’d find there once she arrived. I got the sense that she spent a decent amount of time in this store on a regular basis.
Probably shouldn’t surprise me, since she had artsy-crafty things up all over her classroom. She might get her supplies here, and maybe some of her ideas, too.
“Maybe I should just get a pet,” I said in the hope that I could convince her we should leave this place, and sooner rather than later. “I could get a guinea pig like you’ve got.”
“Have you ever had a pet before?” she asked, slowing down to scan down an aisle filled with tubes of paints in more colors than I realized existed.
“Nope.”
“Maybe you should start with a plant. If it’s still alive after six months, you could move up to a fish. And if they’re both still alive after another six months, then you could possibly graduate to something like a guinea pig. We could get you an ivy. Ivies are hard to kill.”
I scowled, not that she could see it with her back to me. But damn. Talk about wounding my pride. “Maybe I should start with a pet rock if I’m really that bad,” I grumbled. “I can’t exactly kill one of those.”
“Hmm,” she murmured in a tone that suggested she agreed with me. “So if you haven’t lost your rock after six months, then you could move up to getting an ivy or something…”
The sound that left my mouth must have told her exactly how much that stung, because she finally slowed down and looked over her shoulder at me. “I’m teasing you,” she said. “I don’t really think you’re that awful.”
“Teasing? Meaning we’re good, you and me?” I had to ask because of the whole difficulty-with-understanding-basic-human-interactions thing I had going on. But I was almost positive she understood at least that much about me, which should help both of us.
Shouldn’t it?
“I don’t know that I’d say we’re good,” she said. “But we’re getting better. Okay?”
I groaned. But at least it was a start. “Fine.”
Bea gave me a curt nod, and then she turned down another aisle. This one was filled with markers, colored pencils, crayons, and all sorts of coloring books. Halfway down the aisle, she came to a stop in front of a section of books filled with complex mandala designs, complicated animal portraits, and even a few scenic views of nature with so many components I couldn’t imagine how to color them properly.
Really? This was what she brought me here for? I shook my head in disbelief. “Coloring books…”
“They’re an option,” she said, ignoring my dismay. “It works great for most of my students who have ADHD. And if we get you a book or two full of intricate designs, they could possibly provide enough stimulation for your mind to keep you…”
“Out of trouble,” I finished for her.
She gave me a sheepish grin while shrugging.
“I’m not taking Scooby Doo coloring books and crayons on road trips to keep me occupied on the team plane.”
“No one’s suggesting that. These are adult coloring books. They’re a lot more interesting than Scooby Doo, not to mention they’re more complicated, so they’ll challenge you. They’ll engage your creative brain better, anyway. And you can get colored pencils, art markers…whatever floats your boat.”
Without really looking at them, I grabbed three random books off the shelf and tossed them into the cart. Then a little farther down the aisle, I selected a case of art markers with thirty-six colors and added them to the basket, as well. “All right, so is that all we’re here for?” Because the sooner I got out of here, the sooner my skin would stop crawling.
“Nope.” Bea pushed the cart down the aisle and turned to the left again, heading deeper into the store.
I didn’t really have much choice but to follow her.
She power-walked through the aisles, the same way she did at her school. More than that, it seemed she knew exactly where she was headed and what she’d find when she got there. Yeah, she definitely spent a lot of time in this store.
After a few twists and turns I’d never be able to replicate without her leading me, she came to a stop in an aisle filled with puzzles of all sorts—traditional jigsaw puzzles of famous artwork, puzzles with large pieces and famous cartoon characters, 3D puzzles of intricate buildings like Notre Dame in Paris and the White House, and so many others I didn’t even recognize.
She moved toward the really complicated ones—a thousand pieces or more with elaborate designs—and pointed. “Pick a couple of puzzles.”
“I don’t want to pick puzzles.”
“Tough. You asked for my help. This is how I’m helping.”
“I don’t see what puzzles and coloring books are supposed to do for me,” I complained.
“They’re supposed to help you focus your thoughts. Maybe coloring won’t work but puzzles will. Maybe neither will help and you’ll need to keep trying other hobbies until we find the right thing. But the point is that you’ve got to try out a few of these hobbies to see what sticks.”
I scowled at her.
She put her hands on her hips and raised a brow in a move that mimicked the school’s secretary.
Even though I didn’t want to, I grabbed a couple of puzzles off the shelf. One was of a Harley Davidson. If nothing else, I could send it to Grandma. She’d get a kick out of it. The other was a gorgeous white snow leopard or something—to be honest, I wasn’t sure what animal was on the design, but I liked the looks of it.
I’d barely tossed the boxes into the cart before Bea had taken off again, wending her way through the aisles. The next time she stopped, we were surrounded by… Hell, I didn’t even know what this shit was.
“Ever try counted cross-stitch?” Bea asked me, scanning the packages hanging from the shelves.
“Never even heard of it.”
“Well, you’re going to try it.” She found one that had an image of a couple of kittens crawling over stacks of books and shoved it toward me. “Here. Instead of getting a pet, you can learn to cross-stitch a pet. You can’t kill these cats, even if you forget to feed them. This is a much safer way of going about it. Granted, you could stick yourself with the needle…hmm. On second thought, maybe you shouldn’t try cross-stitch, after all.”
“You’ve seriously lost your fucking mind, haven’t you?”
In lieu of answering, she shrugged and tossed the package into the shopping cart and took off again. “No skin off my teeth if you stick yourself with a needle, now that I think about it.”
“I don’t want to do this shit,” I called after her, cursing some more beneath my breath as I trailed her.
A couple of gray-haired ladies heading the other way passed annoyed looks in my direction. Apparently, I shouldn’t curse while shopping for shit at Michael’s.
The only good thing about this shopping trip so far was that I got to stare at Bea’s ass a lot since she was constantly about two to five feet in front of me.
“I don’t care what you do or don’t want to do,” she said, not bothering to slow down.
That much was obvious.
“You asked me for help,” she said when I had almost caught up to her. “I’m helping.” Then she stopped so suddenly that I almost barreled into her.
Hell, maybe I should have. Then I could have steadied myself by putting my hands on her. It’d probably be the only way she’d ever allow me to touch her.
I needed to get all thoughts of that sort out of my head, and for good, because that wasn’t what this was about.
This time, we were surrounded by yarn, knitting needles, and books filled with designs.
“Oh, hell no. Not even my grandma knits. I’d never hear the end of it if the guys found out I’m knitting baby blankets or some other shit like that.”
“They don’t have to know,” she said, eyeing the shelves shrewdly. “You can do it in the privacy of your own home. But I don’t know how to knit, anyway—I crochet. So that’s what I can teach you, or you can find some online videos to help you learn to knit if you’d prefer it.”
“I’d prefer to get the hell out of this store before this shit becomes permanently affixed to my retinas and I see it all in my sleep.”
She laughed and shook her head, but she was still scanning the shelves. Then she reached for a book called Simple Crocheted Afghans for the Beginner. After a couple of minutes of flipping through the pages, she stopped on a page with a cozy-looking green blanket wrapped around the shoulders of someone’s mom. She studied the page opposite the picture for a moment and then nodded with a soft, humming sound coming from her lips. “You could absolutely make this one. It’d be a good design to start with. Nice and simple.” Then she grabbed a metal thing with a hook on one end from a nearby shelf and headed for another aisle.
I followed, almost bumping into her again when she stopped in front of a bunch of yarn.
“Pick a color,” she said.
“I don’t see the right green from the picture.”
“You don’t have to use the color in the book. You can do whatever color you want. What colors do you have in your house?”
“Everything’s brown…beige. Neutral.”
“Smart,” she said, still scanning the shelves full of yarn.
“Smart?” I repeated.
“A lot of colors can be distracting if you’ve got ADHD. Keeping everything neutral will help calm your mind.” Then she reached for a cream-colored yarn and held it up for me. “You like this?”
“Sure?” To be honest, I didn’t like anything about being in here, so I’d agree to whatever she wanted, just as long as we could get the hell out of this store as soon as possible.
She glanced back at the book, then at the label on the yarn, and she tossed five of the balls of cream yarn into the shopping cart.
“Can we please get out of here now?” I begged.
Finally, she looked up at me, and then a hint of understanding flooded her expression. “Yeah, we can go. I’m sure a place like this is overwhelming for you, but you won’t have to come back often. Just when you need more supplies for whatever activities end up helping you settle your thoughts.”
Fat chance of that happening. Even if I found something that helped me out of all of these projects, I could surely find a way to order more supplies online. That was bound to be easier—at least for me—than being swamped by the insanity of a place like this.
We headed for the front and stood in line to check out. I could barely hold still while we waited for our turn. Finally, the cashier got to us and started ringing up my purchases.
“That’ll be two hundred forty-two dollars and twenty-seven cents,” she said.
Two hundred fifty bucks for a bunch of art projects I doubted I’d ever touch? Damn, this shit was expensive.
But I forked over my credit card and paid, and then we carried three large shopping bags out to Bea’s SUV.
“That wasn’t too painful, was it?” she said, climbing inside.
Not too painful? Ha. My eyes would likely be burning for days after all of that.
I glared in response, which made her laugh.
Damn, but I did love her laugh, though. Even if she was laughing at me.
DANI BENT HER head low over the bowl of ice cream I’d brought her, sniffing it suspiciously. “Is this some of that fake shit you eat all the time? Are you trying to poison me with something? I want oodles of fat and sugar and salt and all the other garbage that makes food taste good.”
She didn’t need to know that it was Halo Top ice cream—much lower in calories and sugars, and much higher in protein and fiber, and therefore much better for her. So in lieu of answering her, I arched up a brow and said, “Are you going to eat it or not? Because Cody isn’t going to give in and bring you anything even remotely resembling ice cream, so you’d better make do with what you can get your hands on.”
“So it is your healthy, poisonous shit.”
“Fine, give it back to me,” I said, holding out a hand. I crossed one ankle over my other, making myself comfortable next to her in her bed, where she was propped upright with countless pillows supporting her from every angle. “I’ll eat it and you can go without.”
She tugged the bowl away from me and tucked it by her side. “Not a chance, chica. Hands off my ice cream.”
“I’m just trying to be sure you and the baby stay healthy.”
“I’d rather you try to be sure I stay sane.”
“Might as well be the same thing,” I said, winking.
“You’re not as funny as you think you are.”
“And you’re not as scary as you think you are.”
“Hmph,” she muttered, but she started shoving the ice cream into her face, nonetheless. “Oh, God, this is so good,” she said around a mouthful.
“Told you.” I laughed and filled my own spoon with a bite from her bowl.
She tugged the bowl away. “Hands off. Get your own.”
“Good grief. You know I’m only going to eat two or three bites and then I’ll stop. And I brought you four different flavors, too, so you’re stocked up for a while.”
“I don’t care. I don’t wanna share. I’m already sharing everything with this little leech,” she said, fondly rubbing a hand over her ever-increasing belly.
All I could do in response was laugh.
Dani shoved another spoonful in her mouth. “You need to tell Cody exactly where to find this so he can buy me more. What store, which aisle, where on the shelves… I need at least three pints a day from now until this baby is out of me.”
“Um, you do realize you need to eat real food, too, right?”
“You do realize you’re supposed to be my best friend, and I’ve already got more than enough people nagging me, between Cody and Mom and my army of doctors. I need you to be on my side.”
“I am on your side—which means I want you and your baby to be healthy. Which means I’m going to do everything in my power to be sure you follow doctor’s orders.”
Instead of responding, she glared and shoved her spoon back into the bowl for another bite, challenging me to take it away with a defiantly raised brow.
“Guess my nasty, healthy, poisonous stuff is okay then,” I muttered, holding back more laughter.
“If I can’t get my hands on the real deal, this’ll do in a pinch. But don’t tell Cody how much I like it.”
“Why not?”
“Because then he might not be willing to bring me either this or the real stuff when I have a craving at two in the morning.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“And you love me for it.” Dani smirked.
She was right about that part, at least.
“So,” she said, licking the spoon so as not to miss a single smidgeon of her ice cream, “what’s the latest on the Koz situation?”
“Situation?” I had to stifle a snort.
“Have we moved on from it being a situation, then? What is it now?”
“I don’t know,” I hedged. “It’s just…a thing.”
“A thing?”
“Yeah.”
“An obnoxious thing? A we-want-to-stab-his-eyes-out-with-a-rusty-spork thing? An it’s-not-ideal-but-we’re-finding-a-way-to-deal-with-it thing?”
“Just a thing,” I said.
Dani’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head, and her jaw dropped. “You like him,” she said, sounding shocked and confused, and maybe a little bit peeved.
“I don’t know if I’d say I like him.”
“You do,” she insisted. “I thought you did before, but then he did a typical Koz thing and we hated him, but now you’re back to liking him again.” She shoved another bite of ice cream into her mouth. “Damn it. I wanted to keep hating him. I like hating Koz. I don’t want to like him.”
“You don’t have to like him. And you don’t have to hate him, either. You don’t have to feel anything about him one way or another. This doesn’t have anything to do with you, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Whatever. If you like him, I have to like him. If you hate him, I get to hate him like I want to. That’s how this shit works.”
I snort-laughed. “What shit?”
“This hos-over-bros shit.”
“Did you just call me a ho?”
Dani shrugged, shoving another bite into her mouth and practically moaning in pleasure. “Called myself one, too.”
“Is that supposed to make it better?”
“Fine, you’re not a ho. Actually, if ever I met someone who was the opposite of a ho, it’d be you.”
“Exactly.”
“We need to change that, and stat, if you’re thinking that you might like Koz. You need to go have a wild one-night stand with a rock star or something. I bet we can have Katie help you out there. She’s got connections in the business. She knows people.”
Dani’s sister, Katie Babcock, had worked with some big names in the music industry for years. These days, she was spending most of her time writing songs for some of the hottest acts in the business instead of pursuing her own singing career.
“I don’t want a one-night stand with anyone,” I argued, struggling to keep my tone serious so Dani would listen to me.
“Oh, please let me set you up with someone. I need to live vicariously through you since I’m stuck in bed.”
“You might recall that the last time you tried to set me up with someone was when this whole thing with Blake got started.”
Dani groaned. “Don’t remind me. But one failure doesn’t mean I’m doomed to fail again.”
“You’re doomed to fail again because I’m not going along with any of your plans.”
She pouted and stuffed another large bite of her ice cream into her mouth. “Well,” she said, speaking around her dessert, “if you’re going to go out with anyone, you’d better dress like a hottie. Even if it’s Koz.”
“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” I said.
“Meaning you’re going to wear something I made you? Or meaning you’re not going out with him?”
Meaning it didn’t matter one way or the other. I didn’t think he’d be interested in me in that way, so the point was moot.
I shoved my spoon into her ice cream container and stole a bite while she was distracted.
“You’re avoiding answering me,” she said, pouting.
“Maybe I am.”
“Chicken.”
“Bock bock bock!” I flapped my arms, making the droopy skin of my biceps and triceps jiggle around. Then I tried to scoop out another bite of Dani’s ice cream, but she tugged the bowl away from me so fast she nearly threw herself off the bed. I shot out an arm to stop her progress, barely preventing a fall.
We both laughed like loons, effectively forgetting all about the conversation.
A beep sounded on Dani’s phone. She reached for it and swiped the screen. “Game time,” she said. “Hand me the remote. You staying or going?”
I needed to work on lesson plans, and I had a stack of papers about half a mile high waiting to be graded. But the temptation to stay was strong.
I shifted a couple of pillows around to prop myself up next to her, settling in for the next little while. “Need to leave by first intermission,” I said.
“Mm hmm. Whatever. Next time, you just need to bring your work with you so you can do it while we watch.”
“But it’d just sit there, because I’d be watching.”
“True, but at least you could pretend to be working. Much like I pretend I’m going to be good about what I eat.” Dani reached into her nightstand and pulled out a couple of pieces of individually wrapped dark chocolate, tossing one my way.
I glared at her, but she grinned and winked as she opened the wrapper and put her piece into her mouth.
“Now that I know where your stash is, I’m going to get rid of it,” I said.
“I’ll just get someone else to hook me up.”
“You’re a mess, Dani.”
“And you still love me for it.”
Yeah, she was right. I did.
I settled back against the pillows, unwrapping my chocolate and focusing in on the television—because they were doing a pregame segment all about Blake, so his cocky, sexy grin was right in front of me in high definition.
I didn’t want to like him, but Dani was right; I did. I wasn’t sure it would ever be more than that…but there was something blooming inside me, and I felt powerless to stop it.
Blake Kozlow had worked his way under my skin. Damn it.