In Her Wildest Dreams (9 page)

Gavin’s head rose from whatever he had been attending to and their eyes connected through the glass.

With a steadying breath, Erica opened the door and entered the shop.

Gavin’s eyes tracked her as she made her way to the counter, even as she stopped at one of the display tables to look at chocolate made in the shape of an alligator. Nervousness, unease, and just a touch of excitement had her heart beating triple-time within her chest. 

“Hi,” Erica said as she finally approached.

“Hi,” he returned. “Long time no see.”

“It’s only been three days, Gavin.”

“Three days without a word from you is pretty rare. I was wondering whether something had happened to you.”

He knew darn well what had happened to her. He’d rocked her world when he’d put his lips against hers.

Over the past few days, Erica had wondered how the conversation would play out when they next saw each other. She wasn’t sure whether she should come right out and address the kiss, or if they would mutually decide to pretend it didn’t happen.

She should have known Gavin wouldn’t allow that. As if he’d read her mind, he asked, “So, are we going to talk about what happened the other night, or are we going to pretend we both didn’t share the kiss of a lifetime?”

Erica’s eyes closed. “Do I have a choice?”

“No,” he said. “How could you even try to pretend that didn’t happen, Erica? And just what in the hell is so wrong with your kissing me?”

“This conversation feels like déjà vu.”

“Because we’ve had it already, but you won’t give me a straight answer.” He walked from around the counter and captured her arm, then pulled her into the kitchen. “Tonya, can you man the front?” he asked.

Tonya looked between them both, the piping bag arrested in her hand. She placed the bag on the counter and quickly left them.

“Gavin, I don’t want to get into this,” Erica said.

“Tough,” he countered. “Answer my question. What’s so wrong with the two of us being together?”

“We’re friends,” she said.

“That’s bullshit. I don’t want to be your friend.”

She flinched at the ferocity of his words.

“Dammit, Erica.” Gavin ran a hand down his face. “Do you have any idea what the past year has been like for me? Do you know how it makes me feel to listen to you talk about those stupid blind dates, when I’m standing right here, knowing that I can treat you better than any of these guys you’re going out with? It’s been killing me.”

She pulled her trembling bottom lip between her teeth. “But…things are so good the way they are.”

“For you, maybe, but it’s not enough for me, Erica. I’m tired of pretending that I’m okay just being your friend, because I’m not. I want you,” he said. “You need to decide if you’re ready to accept that you want me, too.”

Erica’s heart beat so fast she could hear the blood rushing in her ears. The prize he dangled in front of her was too good to contemplate, but so was the heartache if things didn’t work out.

She
knew
this would happen. This is exactly why she’d avoided coming into any kind of contact with him for the past three days. She knew Gavin would make her face these questions, questions she was not ready to face.

“What if it doesn’t work out?” Erica asked in a small voice, bringing her true fear to the surface.

“Don’t ask that before you even give us a chance to see if it
will
work out.”

“But it’s a legitimate question. You can hardly mention Whitney Parker’s name without grimacing. Do you think I want you to feel that way about me if things don’t work out between us?”

“Would you ever cheat on me?” he asked. “That’s the reason Whitney’s name leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Would you do what she did to me?”

“You know I wouldn’t,” she said.

“Then we don’t have that to worry about.”

Erica pinched the spot between her eyes, trying to fight off the blossoming headache. Why couldn’t she have a do-over day? Why couldn’t they rewind to a few days ago, when Gavin was the friend whom she traded fun, teasing remarks with and who fed her chocolates? Back to before he’d kissed her.

But did she really want to go back there?

The question forced its way to the forefront of Erica’s mind, compelling her to explore the other side of this issue that, until now, she’d been sure had only one correct answer.

Did she want to go back to three days ago, when her only romantic prospect was another mediocre blind date with a man she couldn’t see herself seriously dating in a hundred years? Did she want to return to that feeling of sheer panic she’d felt when she thought Gavin had been on a lunch date with his ex-fiancée?

Why would she go back there, when she had this man—her best friend—offering her so much more?

Erica couldn’t deny that his kiss had provided fodder for her dreams these past few nights. And as much as she tried to tell herself that she’d never envisioned Gavin as anything other than a good friend, she knew better. She could remember being on dates, bored out of her mind while she listened to some guy she wasn’t attracted to talk about himself, and wondering what Gavin was doing at that moment.

He’d started out as her friend, but their relationship had evolved over this past year. It was inevitable that they would end up here.

But what would happen if things didn’t work out? The potential risk of losing him caused Erica’s breath to seize in her lungs.

“Just to be sure,” she started, then had to take a fortifying breath before she could continue, “Are you saying that our friendship is over if I say that I just want to be friends and nothing more?”

A nerve jumped in his jaw and his nostrils flared with displeasure, but he shook his head. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. But it won’t be the same,” he added. “I can’t go back to hiding the way I feel about you, Erica, and don’t pretend that you can do it, either. Not after the way you kissed me back.”

Her eyes flashed to his.

“Don’t think I didn’t feel the way your body reacted,” he said.

Her face flushed, but there was no denying it. She’d felt his kiss in every part of her body. If she closed her eyes, she could still recall the heated sensation that had lit her up like a bonfire.

“So, there is no going back,” she said.

Gavin shook his head. “No.”

“What if things don’t work out?” she asked, staring at the floor.

He caught her chin and lifted her face. He looked her in the eyes and asked, “What if they do?”

Chapter Seven

Gavin could feel the blood rushing to his head, but not in a good way. Why in the hell was she being so stubborn?

“Have you asked yourself that, Erica? You’re so focused on what would happen if we ever broke up; why don’t you try to imagine how it would be if we didn’t?”

He captured her face in his hands. “Look, I know you went through a lot with your mom and her string of boyfriends, but there’s nothing written in some rule book of life that says things have to be the same way for you. We can go slowly, but we have to move forward. I refuse to go back to being friends only. We both deserve to see where this leads.”

She gnawed on her bottom lip again. “How do we, uh, go about seeing where this leads?”

Her shyness—something Gavin had
never
seen in Erica—wrangled a smile from him.

“For starters, we can do this.”

Just as Gavin leaned in to pick up where he and Erica had left off the other night, Tonya burst through the kitchen’s swinging door.

“Gavin, what did you do?” Tonya growled.

He and Erica broke apart as if they were two teenagers who had been caught necking. He whirled around to find his saleswoman nearly breathing fire.

“What’s wrong?” Gavin asked.

“This!” She held out a newspaper clipping.

Gavin took it from her and ran a glance over it, realizing it was the coupon he’d placed with a local paper. “I told you I was putting a coupon in the paper to advertise for Valentine’s Day,” he said.

“You said it would be for twenty percent off.”

“It is…” Gavin’s voice trailed off as he spotted “50% off” in bold lettering.

“I just had two people come in and use these in the past five minutes.”

“Dammit,” Gavin cursed. “The paper must have made a mistake. I’m calling the guy I placed the ad with right now.”

Just then, the bell over the front door of the shop chimed, indicating that another customer had walked in.

Tonya’s head fell forward as her eyes shut. “This is a disaster,” she said as she backed out of the kitchen.

“Let me see this,” Erica said, taking the paper from him. She looked over it as she followed Gavin to the storage closet he’d converted into an office. He pulled up the number for the paper and dialed.

“They’re going to collect every damn paper they’ve put out,” he said.

Gavin recognized the guy by his gravelly voice. He tore into him, telling him about the mistake that had been made with his coupon ad.

“I didn’t make any mistake,” the guy said. “I printed what you sent.”

“I had twenty percent off in my email,” Gavin retorted.

“Check your Inbox,” the guy drawled. “I just sent back the email that I got from you.”

Gavin disregarded the incoming email and went straight to his Sent folder. He opened the email he’d sent the other night and felt the color drain from his face.

“Shit,” he whispered.

“Don’t bother apologizing,” came the voice on the other end of the line just before the guy hung up.

Gavin’s head slumped on the desk. “I can’t believe this.” 

He remembered exactly when he’d sent this. It was right before Dalton had come over to show him the gaming program. He raised his head, slapping his open hand on the desk. “I didn’t read over it before I emailed it,” he said.

“There’s got to be something you can do,” Erica said.

“Yeah.” He snorted. “Sell my chocolates at a loss.”

“Something other than that,” Erica said. “Put up a sign at the register letting people know that the coupon was misprinted. It’s done all the time, Gavin.”

“And risk alienating customers? The whole reason for running the ad was to gain new customers,” he said. He flung a pen at the wall. “We’re going to end up losing money this Valentine’s Day season instead of making any.”

Gavin pitched his head back and kneaded the bridge of his nose. Why in the hell hadn’t he let Tonya place the ad?

But he didn’t have to ask. He knew why. It was the same reason he’d insisted on ordering the special packaging for Valentine’s Day, and picking out the new light fixtures for the display case, and being the one to handle the job posting—something he
still
hadn’t done. 

More than once Tonya had called him a control freak. Gavin hadn’t been ready to own up to it, but he knew it was true, especially when it came to Decadente. And he knew the reason why. He’d managed to lose control of the last business he’d built from the ground up; the thought of somehow allowing this one to slip from his fingers had caused him to hold onto the reins too tightly.

But look what it had cost him!

“This is my fault.”

Tonya came into the office just as he said the words. “I know it is,” she said. “You should have let me handle this, Gavin.”

“Tonya, that isn’t fair,” Erica told. “You know this was a mistake.”

“No, she’s right,” Gavin pointed out. “And she has every right to be upset. This is going to cost us.”

The disapproval on Tonya’s face hadn’t lessened, but her tone, when she spoke, wasn’t nearly as biting. “I’m not ready to let you off the hook yet, but you look so pitiful, I can’t stand it.” She walked over to him and patted his back. “It’ll work out in the long run. That coupon will definitely bring more people in the doors. Decadente will just have to eat the loss and hope that it turns into many more sales in the future.”

“I still think you can tell customers that it was a mistake and maybe offer them one of your four-pack samplers for free for their trouble,” Erica said.

“Too risky,” Gavin and Tonya both said at the same time.

“It’s hard enough to sell high-end chocolates,” Tonya continued. “We just have to hope that our product is good enough to bring them back in the store.”

Gavin grabbed his saleswoman’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s done,” she returned. “You need to get in that kitchen and start making more truffles now. I have a feeling we’re going to be busier than ever.”

***

Gavin picked up three empty Coke cans before he found one that still had something left in it. He drained the lukewarm soda before setting the can down with the rest of those cluttering his computer desk. He’d lost track of how many hours he’d been sitting here. He’d typed until his fingers had gone numb, then gone to the freezer, rubbed them with ice, and then run them under hot tap water to get the feeling to return.

He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and lost himself in the coding again, shutting out the rest of the world.

As his fingers flew across the keyboard, blood rushed to his head. He’d missed this, feeling the adrenalin pumping through his system as he went on a weekend-long coding marathon. He’d earned his credentials as a bona fide computer nerd by spending untold hours writing up programs.

His stomach growled, demanding sustenance.

He knew he should probably eat, but stopping to make himself some food would just distract him. Once his mind was in work mode, any stoppage could knock him completely off track. This was crazy. He wasn’t a twenty-something-year-old college student anymore. He needed a break before he completely burned himself out.

Just as he pushed away from the computer, the solution to a coding problem he’d run up against popped into his head. Gavin turned back to the computer, his fingers racing.

Two hours later, with his stomach protesting with growls loud enough for his neighbors to probably hear and with blisters on the pads of his fingers, Gavin pushed back from the computer desk and let out a satisfied sigh. He stood on shaky legs. His shoulder muscles screamed from being hunched over for so long.