Friends With Benedicts - Staci Hart Page 0,1

ironing.

I wondered momentarily how old Priscilla needed to be to learn how to iron. Probably kindergarten, at least.

Bummer.

When my hands were washed, I headed back out to the floor, checking the coffee machines, making sure something was brewing in all of them. My arm was elbow deep in a sleeve of filters when I heard a voice that slid over me like silk.

“Well, look at that. The rumors are true.”

Lightning struck me dead to the spot—shock, I realized distantly. The sensation was followed by the frying of my ovaries like a couple of unsuspecting eggs.

Sebastian Vargas had that effect on me and my eggs.

I turned, smiling through my surprise. And there he stood, tall, dark and smirking at me in that way that made all the girls fling their panties at him.

Memories were funny—what I remembered with vivid, certain clarity was a sad, watered-down version of the real thing. I didn’t remember him being so tall, though I’d come up to his shoulders since we were seventeen. I didn’t remember just how strong the cut of his jaw was, made sharper by his tidy scruff. Or the masculine line of his elegant nose, the abundance of his black hair, so thick, you couldn’t see his scalp, even with the ebony locks cut with ruts from his fingers. I didn’t remember the golden amber of his skin, the color so rich, it seemed to swallow sunlight thirstily.

That wasn’t the only thirsty thing in his general vicinity.

He was built like a runner, long and lean, with strong shoulders and rolling muscles. I noted every curve down to his pecs until his shirt hung too loose to count abdominal muscles that I knew for a fact were right there, chasing each other in pairs toward his narrow hips.

I tumbled into the depthless black of his eyes, such a deep shade of brown, you could only see his pupils in a certain slant of light. Those eyes I remembered, lined with enviable black lashes. That smile on wide, full lips, I knew. The flash of bright teeth when he laughed had been only for me for a few perfect summers, though we always broke it off when I went home to California.

Neither of us were dumb enough to think we could pull off long distance, smart enough even as teenagers to know better.

“Seb,” I said with a smile I hoped wasn’t too obvious to the fact that I’d have liked to climb over the bar and onto him face first, if things like manners and societal rules weren’t a thing.

“Come here,” he said with a movie-star smile if I ever saw one. He walked to the galley, and I paused, indecisive for a split second.

And then I nearly ran for him, giggling like the teenage girl I was when I’d fallen in love with him a million years ago.

He caught me with a laugh that rumbled all the way through me. And for a second, he just held me there.

I breathed him in—he smelled the same, an earthy spice that I remembered most of all. One whiff elicited a biological reaction that had my hands fisting the back of his shirt where I hung onto him.

I relaxed my grip, and he took the cue to put me down. But he didn’t back away, instead hanging his hands on my hips so he could peer down into my face.

It’d always been this way with us. Easy.

“Goddamn, Pres. What’s it been, five years?”

I laughed so I wouldn’t have to answer the question directly. Because it was somewhere around four years and nine months, if we were counting.

“What are you doing here?” I asked stupidly.

“I was looking for donuts without holes. It’s inhumane what you people do to them, disfiguring them like that.”

“I tried to petition Bettie about it, but she laughed, took a drag of her cigarette, and told me to fuck off.”

“Savage.”

For a moment, we were silent, just standing there staring at each other with stupid smiles on our faces.

At the same time as I asked, “What have you been up to?” he asked, “Where’ve you been?” and a customer said, “Excuse me!”

Sebastian smiled at me. I smiled at him.

“Can I see you tonight?” he asked.

“Only if you bring me hole-less donuts.”

“Order up!” Frankie called from the kitchen window. I ignored him.

“I mean, why should I have to pay separately for the donut and the holes?” he asked. “It’s bullshit, frankly.”

As I laughed, he reached for a cocktail napkin and stole a pen out of