Just Desserts. Jeannie Watt

“Are you all right?” the girl blurted out before her mother clamped a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Hard, judging from the way she winced.

       “I’ll get my wallet,” Layla said, hoping she had five bucks. “Just a sec.” She left the door open in spite of the cold and turned to find her purse in one of the living-room chairs. She dug through the contents. Frowned. Dug again, then dumped everything out.

       “Uh, that’s all right,” Mrs. Mendoza called.

       “No, really. I have the money.”

       “You can run it over when you find it. We have more deliveries to make. Come on, Kristy…Kristy!”

       “No, wait…” Layla called. She really didn’t want to face these two later today.

       But it was too late. Mrs. Mendoza was already guiding her daughter firmly down the sidewalk toward safety. Layla sighed and shut the door, the click of the lock making her head throb.

       After another futile search for the wallet in her coat pockets, she headed for the bathroom and faced her reflection with a sick feeling growing inside her stomach.

       She was a raccoon. A punk raccoon with ratted hair, and wearing morning-after clothes.

       What? What had she ever done to deserve all this?

       Dated Robert Baldwin?

       Her stomach twisted and she was afraid she was going to be sick again.

      JUSTIN©PARKED©IN©THE©ALLEY behind Tremont Catering and sat in his car for a minute before turning off the engine. Hell of a night. Well, the next two days weren’t going to be any kind of a picnic, either, so maybe it was just as well to tune up on an unrelated event. Tomorrow marked the tenth anniversary of the day he’d signed the papers that had changed his life, and even though he’d been happy at the time, now he wondered if he’d made the right choice. If he should have pursued other options....

       Not that there was anything he could do about it now.

       Justin let himself in the back door of the kitchen, where the smell of tomato sauce instantly hit him. It was Sunday and his sister Eden, who moonlighted as a personal chef in addition to her duties with Tremont Catering, would thankfully be busy making a week’s worth of meals for her client families—one of which she’d cooked for since beginning the business and the other brand-new, replacing the family she’d lost after her fiancé discovered they were involved in the drug trade. A tough chapter in both Eden and Justin’s lives.

       His eye was still throbbing where Layla had decked him, and he couldn’t say he was in the best of moods after spending a nearly sleepless night at her house. Hell, he could have easily stretched out on the bed beside her and been comfortable, but knowing his luck she would have woken up and smacked him again.

       If only she’d had a sofa…which made him contemplate just what kind of person didn’t own a sofa. Well, Layla wasn’t your normal type.

       He stifled a yawn as he came into the main kitchen area after kicking off his street shoes and putting on his clogs. He didn’t spend as much time standing in front of a stove as his sisters, but still put in long hours on his feet, creating every flower known to man, and some that weren’t, out of butter cream and a piping bag.

       It was a living, and fortunately, since he spent so much time at it, one that he enjoyed.

       “You’re here early,” Eden muttered when she looked up from the stove. She blinked when she saw his eye, which had swollen up nicely, but asked no questions. That was a sad commentary on how many times she’d found him in a similar condition throughout their lives.

       “Fight in a parking lot,” Justin said. “And no, I wasn’t drunk.”

       “Well, you look like hell.”

       “I feel like hell.” He wandered over to the stove, breathing in the savory smell of his sister’s homemade tomato sauce.

       “Where’s the oregano?” he asked.

       “Going straight basil this time.”

       “You shouldn’t mess with perfection.” His sister used a perfect blend of oregano, thyme and basil in her sauces.

       “There’s always room for improvement.”

       Indeed. Justin never stopped trying to improve his technique.

       Eden started chopping olives again. “Where’d you have your fight?”

       “The lake. It was more of a scuffle, really. I caught an elbow.”

       “No arrests?”

       “Not that I know of. Then I drove Layla Taylor home and stayed with her for most of the night to make sure she was okay.”

       The rapid movement of Eden’s knife had abruptly stopped around the time Justin said Layla’s name.

       “Run that by me again,” his sister demanded.

       “All of it?”

       “No. Just the Layla Taylor part.” Eden set the knife down and brushed her blond hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist. “None of this makes sense.”

       “Sam Taylor called me at the lake and asked me to give Layla a ride. We had a minor altercation in the parking lot with her ex-boyfriend, then she puked and I took her home.” It wasn’t quite the right order, but Justin didn’t think the chronology mattered.

       “She puked because she was…”

       “Drunk as hell.”

       “Layla? Drunk?”

       “Mmm-hmm. And for once it wasn’t with power.” Justin went into his pastry room and took a look at the list he’d left himself the night before. He didn’t turn on the music because he knew it wouldn’t be long before—

       “I want details,” Eden said, leaning her shoulder against the door frame.

       “I wish I had some. I don’t.”

       “Wow.” She processed his words for a moment, then slowly turned and went back into the kitchen, deep in thought. Even though he and his sisters had grown up up the street from the Taylors, neither Eden nor their older sister, Reggie, had ever warmed up to Layla, probably because she had nothing to do with anyone in their neighborhood. Reggie had thought Layla was pretty damned stuck up back in the day, which was saying something, since Reggie hadn’t been the warmest of people herself then. After their mother had died, their father took more and more long haul truck jobs, basically leaving the kids to fend for themselves. Reggie had been too busy running the household in their father’s absence to socialize, and too angry at his abandonment to be particularly warm and fuzzy to anyone.

       Eden reappeared in the doorway. “I forgot—Cindy stopped by yesterday.” Justin continued to study the list. “She dropped off a bag of clothes. Your clothes. It’s in the laundry room. She’ll get the key back to you when she picks up her stuff.”

       “Thanks.” He didn’t quite meet his sister’s eyes.

       “What happened?”

       “Things just didn’t work out.”

       “Damn, Justin. You finally date a girl I like and—”

       “You suddenly feel a deep need to mind your own business?” he asked.

       Eden wasn’t in the least insulted or deterred. “I thought she was perfect for you.”

       Yes, Cindy had been practically perfect. She worked in a downtown restaurant. They understood each other’s occupations; they’d had a lot of fun. And that was as far as he would let it go. He didn’t know why, wasn’t a huge believer in self-analysis, but once a relationship hit a certain point, he was done. Just…done.

       His relationship with Cindy had hit that point.