One Funeral (No Weddings Book 2) (6 page)

She smiled, opening her door. “But from the few things you’ve told me, Cade already seems like a wise and patient man.”

I exhaled a deep breath, hoping his patience would hold out for however long it took.

I
walked into Cade’s house that night, both arms holding bags of groceries. He rushed up and took them from me.

“How’d therapy go?”

“It was good. We talked not only about my ex, but we also dug into childhood stuff too. Seems like the therapy is headed in a good direction.” I
hoped
.

“What did you think about Abigail?”

Nodding, I raised my brows. “She’s cool. Very nice. Intelligent. Perceptive. As if she knows what I want to say, or need to talk about, and teases it out of me. No pressure, like she’s a friend.”

He flipped on the faucet and started rinsing the vegetables. “That’s great. I hope it helps.”

“Me too. Oh, and you have an appointment. Tomorrow at 3:30 p.m.”

He coughed, then glanced over his shoulder with a wounded expression. “Why am I going to therapy?”

“Because if I have to go, you have to go. I’m making it a condition of our non-dating.” I paused as I unwrapped the chicken legs and leaned my hip into the counter, gauging his reaction.

Although he concentrated on removing dirt from the parsnips, his expression softened. “I could do that. Don’t like that time, though; cuts into my time at Sweet Dreams before my night class.”

I turned back to the meat. “I’m sure you’ll manage an hour a week away from me.”

“Nope. Not compromising there. We’ll make up the hour somewhere else.”

I glanced back, narrowing my eyes. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to, Casanova. You keep increasing our time together in small increments.”

He pointed the tip of a parsnip at me. “First of all, I am no longer Casanova. Talented? Yes. Gallivanting between lovers? A thing of my past. Secondly, it’s all part of the non-dating.”

I burst out laughing. “Gallivanting?”

He held a bouquet of parsnips and carrots between us. “I was only speaking Casanovian.”

With great effort, I suppressed stomach-clenching laughter, trying to stay on point. “And how’s that? Is ‘non-dating’ actually code for ‘attached at the hip’? Thought the idea was to hang out together without pressure.”

“It is. But for things to progress from non-dating to non-sex, we have to increase the rate of exposure until vibration occurs.”

I dropped the chicken into the flour, and a cloud of white puffed up into the air. Speechless, I turned around to find he actually wore a serious expression while dicing root vegetables with well-practiced strokes.

Unable to process everything at once, I blinked, focusing on the first shocker. “Non-sex?” The rest of the scientific mumbo jumbo froze my thoughts, tying my tongue.
Vibration?

His reply? A single nod. Nothing more.

Not wanting to have a detailed conversation about non-sex—whatever that was—in the middle of a kitchen where Ben and Mase could burst in at any moment, I kept my lips sealed and returned to my battering.

By the time the breaded chicken began to brown on its second side, Mase arrived, groaning. “You’re
killing
me, Hannah. When’s dinner?” He put his hands on my hips, pecking my cheek.

A low growl erupted from beside us where Cade whipped potatoes. “Touch her again and you’ll be eating KFC. Through a straw.”

Mase unapologetically punched Cade’s arm. “You don’t get to say we can’t touch her. She’s like our sister. I can hug and kiss my sister.” For effect, Mase wrapped his arms around my midsection and squeezed.

I cringed, readying for an all-out brawl. Instead, Cade remained where he was, glaring at Mase as he whipped the shit out of those poor potatoes.

Minutes later, Ben arrived with a wine bottle, six-pack of beer, and a loaf of herbed bread in a paper sleeve from the new bakery near their house. “Ben, you remembered!” I turned off the heat, pulled the chicken from the stove, and embraced him. “You do know the way to a girl’s heart.”

“Mmm-hmm.” He half hugged me, holding the loaf to the side. “I have a way with the ladies. Always show up with at least a foot, wide and firm.”

I winked at him. “Can’t wait to sink my teeth in.”

Cade glanced up from setting the table. “New rule: non-dating includes no flirting.”

“Pfft. This is
not
flirting. Trust me, you’d know if I turned on my flirt.”

A muscle in Cade’s jaw ticked, but he kept quiet.

I put my hands on my hips, digging my heels in. “No more rules. I agreed to non-dating. Exclusively. That’s it. Push me, and I might start experimenting.”

He growled. “Fine. No more rules.”

I grinned. “Consider it an extension of therapy.”

Cade grumbled something unintelligible, grabbed the uncorked bottle of wine, and began pouring our glasses. Mase, Ben, and I brought the platters to the table. Dinner was a blast, as usual. We chatted about random topics, teased each other mercilessly, and laughed until our sides hurt.

When I rose from the table, Mase and Ben stood with me, chairs flying backward. They raced around opposite ends of the table to me, but Ben made it first, grabbing me in a huge bear hug and lifting me off the ground. “G’night, Hannah. Great to see you.”

Mase shoved him out of the way when Ben held me one second too long. He wrapped his long arms around me and squeezed me with gentle care. Then he pulled back and palmed the top of my head, rumpling my hair until it all fell into my eyes. When I blew it off of my nose, he laughed and brushed it back with his fingers. “Have fun studying. Don’t let Cade step over that clear non-date line.” He arched a brow, casting a pointed look at Cade while still addressing me. “You need muscle for backup, text me.”

Cade slid a hand between us and planted it on Mase’s chest, shoving him backward. Ben and Mase laughed, enjoying harassing the hell out of Cade.

“’Night, boys!” I waved, laughing when Cade knocked my hands away and herded me into his room.

The frequent dinners had become cherished family time—something I missed and, what I’d recently realized, desperately needed in my life. My desire to keep those new bonds strong was one reason I was hesitant in taking things too serious too fast with Cade. Not the only reason, and certainly not the biggest, but a solid one nonetheless.

We’d fallen into a routine with the actual dinner: Cade and I did prep and cooking, then Mase and Ben cleaned up when we retired to Cade’s bedroom to study. Our study time was one disciplined hour of him tutoring me on the latest business theories and principles to help launch my start-up into a thriving business.

We started out our business mentoring under the guise of Cade needing a project for his master’s thesis. I’d been suspicious of his reason from day one, but with the number of outlines and papers growing in quantity and complexity as we progressed, I truly believed this was his project.

“So what’s on the agenda for tonight?” I plopped belly down onto the center of his bed.

He opened his laptop, scrolling. “How about R & D? Any thoughts on product innovation? Offering a product no one else has distinguishes you from the competition, setting you apart from the rest.”

“Like bacon in cupcakes for the cigar lounge?” I grinned.

“Exactly. Hey, did you ever give Roy a call?”

Roy was the owner of the cigar lounge Cade had referred me to. I nodded. “Yep. Brought over samples. He and his guys devoured them before I finished my pitch. He’s got me booked every Wednesday night for the next three months.”

He gave me a stern look over his laptop. “You mean he booked your cupcakes.
I’ve
booked
you
.”

Sighing, I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling. “Yes, Cade. Daniel offered to take those nights. In fact, he worked his way into Roy’s poker games as part of the bargain.” Like Chloe, my other employee, Daniel, had excelled in learning the baking ropes, but he’d also shown great interest in the business side of Sweet Dreams.

Cade raised his brows. “Really? Roy agreed to that?”

“Are you kidding? Daniel insisted, and Roy was bowled over by his excitement. Then Daniel pulled Roy and his guys into a game right then. After twenty minutes of male bonding, I was like ‘Okay, then. Thanks. I guess I’ll just be going now.’ All I got were grunts for good-bye. Daniel has found his people, and I think they were drugged with cream cheese frosted chocolate bacon cupcakes.”

“Huh. Well, I’ll be damned.”

Cade turned back toward his computer and scrolled through pages, switching gears in a heartbeat. He never failed to amaze me with all his diverse facets: serious student, dedicated businessman, cunning jokester, heated lover—or so I gathered with the intensity of the few kisses I’d sampled. He even seemed to be a philosopher at times.

“Were you serious about going to therapy?” I dropped my chin onto my hand, crossing my legs as I kicked them up behind me.

“Absolutely.” He looked up at me. “You’re important to me. This—us—it’s important to me.”

“The non-dating.” I smirked.

He chuckled. “Yes. The non-dating. How do you feel about that?”

“You sound like the therapist now.”

He tilted his head. “Is that what it’s like? Asking about your feelings every other sentence?”

I scrunched my face in thought. “No. It’s more like you’re standing in front of a mirror, but it’s fogged, and you can’t wipe away the mist. She clears it up. Or rather, she tells you how to clear it up yourself, something about cognitive therapy.”

“I remember seeing that term on her website.”

Shifting to sit up, I nodded, then crossed my legs. “It’s a way to reprogram how we feel about things that upset us. She called them triggers. The process is supposed to help us to change our responses into something productive and positive.”

He feigned a yawn. “Sounds boring.”

I tossed a pillow at him. “Better make it interesting. You’re paying her a hundred and fifty dollars for that hour of therapy. Every minute counts.”

His eyes widened, and he blinked at me. “Holy shit, Hannah. Can you afford that?”

I shook my head. “Nope. But I’m not paying for it. You are. You’re the one who suggested it and can afford it, Mr. Moneybags. I figured you’d see it as a sound investment in our future.” I stared at him, curious about what he’d say to my boldness.

“First of all, I’m not ‘Mr. Moneybags.’ Well off? Yeah. But I’m no trust fund kid. Dad and Mom gave us each enough to go to college and for down payments on a car and house. Everything else I’ve earned. The bar is doing well, but don’t get any gold-digging ideas into your head.”

“I had no illusions you were a millionaire. But I got the sense you were better able to pay our therapy bills than me. Second of all?”

“Second of all, both of us getting to a good mental place
is
a sound investment in our future.” He leveled a serious look at me, then laughed, shaking his head. “You’d have made one hell of a negotiator, Maestro.”

I exhaled a sigh of relief before smiling. Cade had determination
and
patience.

T
he next morning as I worked in the kitchen with Chloe and Daniel, I thought about what Abigail had said during my therapy session about putting myself out there to make friends. Other than Cade, his sisters, and Ben and Mase, my only other regular exposure to acquaintances was my two employees. I worried for a split second.
How do I even begin?

When Daniel loaded a dozen cupcakes onto the transfer board and walked up front to slide them into the display case, I glanced at Chloe, who was icing a row of red velvets with cream cheese frosting. An idea came to mind as I finished setting the last of the carrot cake batch onto a cooling rack.

“Chloe, would you like to get out of the shop with me for a bit today?”

She looked up from her task and puffed a wayward lock of hair from her face. “Sure. What did you have in mind?” She quickly frosted the last two cupcakes, then put her spatula down and stepped away from the food, refastening her wavy red hair into a ponytail.

Unsure about how to start the whole acquaintance-to-friend process, I stuck with work reasons—the rest would have to work itself out. “Well, we could do two things. We can box up a dozen cupcakes to solicit local restaurants, then do lunch.”