“I wish I was kidding. How did you miss that? Kick! across the street? There’s no hope for me…he’s got the best candles in the state. Probably the Midwest. How much did we spend when we went last year? A couple hundred between us?”
As if starting my own business wasn’t scary enough, having the man I’d spent most of my life loving across the street terrified me. Having Renee jump for joy at the sight of Adrian’s sign hadn’t helped things, either. She’d offered to stay, but I’d been all to glad to send her home when Rochelle showed up. We’d needed to be alone for this, for Rochelle to tell me that my stuff was just as good as Adrian’s and to rebuke me for my negativity.
Not.
“We spent three hundred at least. We bought gifts, too, remember? To think, I wasn’t even into candles then. I burn his raspberry honeysuckle every night.”
But you won’t touch my stuff. “Same here. Lemon pound cake. The soy one.” I rubbed my chin, remembering all our undercover trips to Adrian’s store over the past couple of years. The candlelight lent an eerie effect and I’d often thought we might all go up in flames, but it worked somehow.
Tension drained out of me when I walked in there—after I made sure he or Sandy weren’t around, of course. I’d always want to stay for the next scent, but the thought of running into either of them made me run through the store grabbing stuff like a crazy person and then ducking into Rochelle’s car.
I stared across the street at the men struggling with the sign and Adrian giving directions from the sidewalk. The candles were the least of my worries. How would I ever avoid him?
A soft punch landed on my shoulder. I definitely couldn’t avoid Rochelle’s clutches. Should I show her the cheetah? I’d told the story up to his store moving across the street and stopped there. Maybe later. Rochelle didn’t know how to stay calm in these situations. She’d be having me fitted for a wedding gown…just in case. Not that I could fit much of anything right now. Maybe if I skipped the fries…But there was always Flex Points.
And Velcro jeans.
Rochelle turned on her heel, her paisley headscarf bobbing with her words. “I didn’t tell him anything about this.” She discarded the bun and wrapped her turkey in a leaf of lettuce. “He didn’t do this on purpose, Dane, if that’s what you think. He wouldn’t.”
“I know. He called the office. Renee told him. But he’d paid on this place already.”
She touched my arm in reassurance. “It will only help you to have Kick! here. That place is special and he’s drawing in your target customer.”
My point exactly.
My handsome nemesis dangled from a ladder across the street, straightening his new sign. He waved, leaning back almost far enough to fall. I waved back, and prayed he wouldn’t plummet to the ground. Although, admittedly, it might make this all a bit simpler.
Lord, forgive me.
I sure was saying that a lot lately. All Adrian’s fault. “Still, this shop looks half the size of the one he had in Chicago. He’ll probably go back once he gets this going.”
Rochelle shook her head. “Don’t you read that Black Enterprise subscription I pay for every month? He franchised a few months ago. All the new stores are smaller.”
A few months ago? All the new stores? How many were there?
I frowned. “Is there any other good news you’d like to share, Rochelle?” Is that where she’d been running off to those weekends she said she was busy? To every Kick! shop she could find? Not that I could blame her. I looked outside again. Neighbors. He had said that, right? Not competitors or partners or any other such thing? Suddenly I wasn’t so sure. Rochelle carries a tape recorder at all times. Today it would have come in handy.
“Nothing else I can think of to tell you.”
Cool. I had nothing else to tell her, either. It’d take a week of sleepless nights to figure out what I was thinking, let alone trying to decipher Adrian’s thoughts. “There’s just one thing.” I retrieved the cheetah from behind the counter. “He bought me this.” What happened to keeping my mouth shut?
“I knew it! You’d better act right, Dane. This is it.”
“This is something, that’s for sure.”
Rochelle counted out six French fries and nibbled them one at a time, like carrots. Though