All Tied Up. Alison Kent

storm.

      It was now that mattered, now that counted. Living for and in the moment. Not worrying about the price of technology stock years down the road. She didn’t want to lose a minute of today planning for the future. Why couldn’t anyone see that?

      Lauren stepped inside, catching the balcony door with her hip and giving a gentle shove. With food, drink and all things paper, plastic and edible in place, she lifted a brow at Macy, looked back at the table, then to Macy again.

      Macy shrugged. “If you cook it, they will come?”

      “You’d better hope they come soon or I see a whole lotta freezer bags in your future.”

      As if on cosmic cue, the buzzer signaled the approach of the loft’s renovated freight elevator.

      “I don’t know how you manage to do that every time. But there’s something about a gift horse and his mouth that I think applies here.” Lauren scurried toward her rooms at the far end of the loft, her low-slung jeans topped by a billowy gauze shirt a shade lighter than the purple tube top beneath.

      “Hey,” Macy called. “Where’re you going?”

      “I need to check my stuff before Anton gets here.” And, with a wiggle of her fingers, Lauren disappeared behind one of the hanging panels of hammered brass that separated her living quarters from the loft’s main room.

      “Stuff? What stuff? Oh, never mind. Who cares about your stinky ol’ stuff, anyway?” Pouting, Macy headed for the kitchen and the guacamole. She could eat both her helping and Lauren’s, return for seconds and never gain an inch or an ounce.

      The only way the avocado salad would make any difference to her figure was if she scooped it directly into her bra. Sort of an edible implant. Kinky, but, hey. A girl had to do what a girl had to do if she wanted to have stuff of her own.

      And anyone worth checking it for.

      “THIS SHRIMP IS outstanding. Absolutely outstanding.” Eric Haydon shoved another in his mouth and gave Macy a closed-lipped, shrimp-eating grin.

      She added a fifth throwaway plate to the stack balanced from fingertips to elbow, added a hint of twisted wickedness to her parting shot. “Just doing what I can to fatten you up for the kill. Hansel.”

      Chipmunk-cheeked Eric stopped chewing. Then swallowed. “I was afraid of that.”

      “You know, Eric, if you weren’t so easy to tease, well, I wouldn’t tease you.” Macy reached the kitchen alcove separated from the rest of the loft by eight floor-to-ceiling lava-lamp bubble sculptures. She dropped the discarded plates into the trash. “Tonight’s game will be painless. I promise.”

      Longneck in hand, Eric leaned a shoulder on a turquoise figure eight. His dark-blue Henley shirt seemed hard-pressed to cover his broad shoulders, but did great things to his eyes. “I’ve figured something out about you, Macy Webb.”

      Well, that made one of them, because sooner or later she needed to figure out why he wasn’t her type. “What’s that? That no matter how creatively you beg, I’m not leaving gIRL-gEAR to come cook for you?”

      Eric owned his own sports bar, Haydon’s Half-Time, and had been after Macy for months to give up writing and editing to sling his hash instead.

      Except Macy only cooked for fun, not for money. Money made work out of play, and what kind of a life was that?

      “I wish. But I know you’re not going anywhere.” He finished his beer, tossed the empty bottle in with the plates and utensils. “Can’t blame a guy for trying, though.”

      “I don’t blame you. As the object of your culinary pursuit, I have been flattered.” Macy thought for a minute, then puffed out her lower lip. “As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, I’m going to miss being wooed.”

      “You want woo? I’ll give you woo.” Eric took a step closer and slowly smiled, allowing his dimples to deepen to maximum impact. Then he leaned down and poured all that macho charm into Macy’s personal space.

      She leaned up into his, pulling to a halt before she actually got stupid and kissed the man. “Yeah? You and whose football team? Hmm.” Eyes closed, she held up one finger. “Let me take a minute here to imagine the possibilities.”

      “Very funny, Macy.”

      “Okay. I’m done.” She opened one eye, then the other, laughed out loud as Eric rolled his.

      “You’re sick.”

      “And you’re gullible.” She punched him in the shoulder.

      “Hey.” He rubbed away the damage. “You know, just for that I think I’ll take one last shrimp and leave.”

      “You can’t do that.” She grabbed and ended up with a handful of loose sleeve minus the elbow she’d been aiming for. “I’m already one man short, since I don’t know where Anton is.”

      “I knew it.” Eric hung his head, his chin lowered in defeat. “This is going to be one of those games where we have to pair off into couples, isn’t it?”

      “And what makes you jump to that conclusion?” Besides the fact that at least fifty percent of her games were designed for interaction between the sexes, and her players knew the odds rarely changed from month to month.

      “Two things. The tougher the game, the better the spread. And you have fajitas coming out the wazoo. Second thing. If you’re a man short, that means couples.” He held up a second finger, jabbed it at his chest to make his point. “And there is no Mrs. Eric Haydon in my future.”

      “No need to be so touchy, Eric. It’s just a game. Not holy matrimony.”

      Eric braced both hands on the edge of the sink, shook his head and looked down.

      Macy moved in, massaged circles on his back between his shoulder blades. “Poor baby. Your breakup with Cathy was a tough one?”

      “Brutal. Totally brutal.” He pushed back from the sink, stood in the center of the kitchen with his hands at his hips as if waiting for a flying tackle.

      Macy didn’t know whether to hug him or push him over with a feather, which she was sure would be all it would take. She did manage to bite her tongue on a chuckle.

      If he wasn’t such a Tarzan…Hmm. Maybe that was the problem. She never had made a very good Jane. “You know, Eric, I hate to say it….”

      “Go ahead. Everyone else has.”

      “Okay then. I told you so. You and Cathy were totally wrong for each other.”

      “Well, it didn’t feel so wrong when we got together.” Eric rubbed the base of his neck, looked from Macy to the wildly paint-splattered kitchen floor and back again.

      She just waited, one brow lifted while he stewed.

      When his juices reached a simmer, he jumped from the frying pan into the fire. “Damn it, Macy. Just spit it out before you choke on your tongue.”

      “It didn’t feel so wrong when you got together because you didn’t get out of bed for a week.” She punctuated her pronouncement with a sternly pointed index finger.

      “Yeah, so?”

      “So?” Were all men so daft? “Man cannot live by bed alone.”

      “Aha! Wrong. Man can. Woman cannot.”

      Macy was gearing up to set Eric straight when a soft female voice cut into the conversation. “Sounds to me, sugar, like you haven’t met the right woman.”

      Both Macy and Eric turned, to find Chloe Zuniga with one hip propped on a bulbous red sculpture.

      With a gorgeously full Jennifer Lopez figure, naturally highlighted platinum hair and eyes that changed color depending on her choice of contact lenses, Chloe was fantasy pinup material.

      It