Mixed Up Love Read online

  “It isn’t locked. I got into it just by pressing the button. Nice screensaver,” I tell her and expect her to be shocked or maybe surprised, but she isn’t either of those things.

  Instead, she shrugs her shoulders and puts her drink down. “Well, I didn’t know where I left it, so I thought maybe if I sent myself a message, the person who found it could bring it back to me,” she says, opening her hands in front of her in an “obviously, I had a plan” gesture.

  “What if I was a serial murderer?” I ask her again. “Or I was trafficking women?”

  “Oh my god.” She rolls her eyes. “Seriously, I knew I either left it in your car or at Guadalupe’s.”

  “How could you have been so sure?” I ask her, and she laughs at me again.

  “Because I sent my best friend a text when I got in your car,” she tells me, and I don’t know what to say. “You know, after you came into the restaurant and went all apeshit on me about drinking?”

  “I didn’t go apeshit on anyone. I merely …” She holds her hand up, stopping me.

  “You went apeshit,” she says and then continues. “Anyway, I sent her my location when we got to the restaurant. You know, in case you were an actual serial killer,” she says, laughing.

  I pick up my fork and point it at her. “You’re a nutcase, you know that, right?” She just shrugs.

  “I may be, but what does it say about you, coming back for a second date?” she points out as she grabs a forkful of eggs, eating it and then saying, “I have to say I like this look better than the suit.” She moves her wrist up and down, pointing at me with her fork.

  “Good to know,” I say, grabbing a forkful of my own egg and eating it before I tell her that I like her outfit way better than yesterday, too. I’m trying to be a gentleman and not notice that her nipples are pebbled and waiting to be pinched. I shake my head.

  “So, what do you want to do today?” she asks me, then continues to talk. “There is a food truck festival I’ve never been to. Do you want to do that?”

  Everything is telling me to say no and walk away. She doesn’t even know my real name because she thinks I’m Anthony. I came to return her phone and tell her how stupid it was to share her information with a stranger. She could tell her mother that she had a semi nice date, and that I was a gentleman. “Sure,” my mouth says before my brain catches up to it.

  “Great. I’ll go change, and we can head out.” She smiles at me, and once I see her smile, I don’t have the heart to tell her that I can’t go.

  She gets up and grabs her plate, putting her utensils in the middle and bringing it inside. She comes back out. “I got it,” I tell her, and she just nods at me.

  “I’ll go get dressed and be right back out,” she says, turning and walking back inside.

  I gather the plates and bring them into the kitchen, rinsing them and putting them in the dishwasher as I battle the thoughts inside my head. On one hand, I’m thinking, why can’t I go? I’m not Anthony. While on the other hand, I’m thinking how great this will look when Anthony’s mother gets the phone call that we went out on back-to-back dates.

  “I’m ready.” I hear her say, walking into the room. I look at her, and nothing, I mean nothing, will stop me from taking her out today. She’s wearing white cut-off shorts, leaving her long tan legs on full display. Her shirt is a loose cold shoulder V-neck with spaghetti straps but also long sleeves. Her hair hangs down to her waist in long curls. Strappy gold sandals complete the look. “Is this okay?” she says, and I just nod.

  “Yeah, it’s fine,” I tell her. “You might get hot,” I say, looking at her long sleeves.

  “It’s okay. I’m wearing a bikini top under this shirt.” She grabs her oversized bag. “Shall we?” she says, sliding on her big sunglasses. She looks like a model stepping outside the magazine.

  I let her lead the way out, turning to watch her lock her door. “See? I’m safe,” she says, putting her keys in her bag and coming to my side.

  I laugh as we walk down the steps together and get in the car. I turn on the air conditioner. “It’s really hot,” she says, reaching behind her and grabbing her seat belt. “I’ve always wanted to go to this food truck thing,” she says with a smile, “but no one ever wanted to go with me.”

  “I’ve never even heard about this,” I tell her. “Where is this place?” I ask her. She grabs her phone to pull up the address, then I put it in my GPS and wait for it to calculate the route. I pull out of her parking lot and follow the directions. When I look over and see her looking out the window, I ask her the question I’ve been thinking about this whole time. “How did you text yourself this morning with no phone?”

  “My iPad,” she says, looking over at me. “I have iMessage set up on there also, so I texted myself.”

  “What if you had dropped it on the street by accident?” I ask her. “What if I wasn’t the one who had it? Do you know what could have happened?”

  She shrugs. “I was hoping it was you.”

  I turn and look at her. “What?” I ask her, shocked. “You hated me last night,” I tell her, laughing.

  “I didn’t hate you at the end of the night. Your broodiness grew on me,” she says, looking out the window again.

  “Laney.” I say her name softly, and she turns back, her lips forming a shy smile. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “Anthony,” she starts saying, and I shake my head. Fuck no. There is no fucking way she is going to call me Anthony.

  “If we do this thing today, you call me T,” I tell her. I’d rather her call me asshole than someone else’s name.

  “Fine. T,” she says, “how about this? I won’t even tell my mother about this second date. We will leave it at we had coffee and decided to speak some other time.”

  I want to say no. My head is saying this isn’t a good idea, but my car just leads us to this festival. I follow the herd of cars to the parking area. I park the car, and then just as fast as I park, another car parks next to me. I get out of the car, lock the door, and meet her at the back of the car. I look around, scoping out the exit routes. “You do that all the time.” I hear her say as I look at the giant parking lot.

  “Come on, let’s go,” she says as she takes my hand in hers and leads the way. When we walk through the gates, a woman hands us each a map of the festival. I look down and see that there are over a hundred food trucks. “I don’t even know where to start,” she says, and I look up at her.

  “You always start at one end and go to the other.” I look down at the map. We walk to the right of the map and look down the path, food trucks on each side of us. Each food truck has a canopy over their ordering window and three white plastic tables in front of them for people to sit down. We walk down the path, looking at the different foods. She doesn’t release my hand, and I don’t release hers as we walk from truck to truck.

  “We should try at least one thing per row,” she says, looking at the map with the hand that isn’t holding mine. “Fried Oreo is my pick,” she says, folding her map and placing it in her purse. “You choose your pick.”

  I look down and scan the first two rows. “If we are going with fried Oreos, I think we should try the mac and cheese.” I look up at the menu for the food truck with the mac and cheese. “We are getting little portions, right?” I ask her, and she just nods her head.

  “So, what do you think?” she asks while we stand here in line. “Traditional or lobster?” She looks up at me, and I look down at her, and the soft breeze blows her hair. With her hand in mine, I’m tempted to lean down and kiss her lips. I just stand here watching her, and she leans in a bit. I’m about to throw in the towel and lean forward when I hear the man.

  “Next!” he yells, and I look at him. “What can I get you?”

  “We’ll have the small portion of the lobster mac and cheese,” Laney answers and opens her purse to take out her money, and I look at her.

  I release her hand and go into my wallet, pulling out a twenty. “
Don’t even think about that shit.”

  I don’t need to see her eyes to know she is rolling them. “Simmer down there,” she says, putting her hand on my chest.

  The man hands me back my change with a number. “You’re number seventy-five,” he says, and I nod.

  “Can we have two bottles of water please?” I ask him, giving him back the money. He reaches behind him and hands me two bottles of ice-cold water. “Go find a table,” I tell her and watch as she walks to one of the three tables and grabs the one in the shade.

  “Seventy-four and seventy-five!” the woman yells, and I step forward.

  “I’m seventy-five,” I say, and she hands me a small white cardboard container with two plastic forks sticking up from it. I smile at her and then turn to go to the table where Laney is sitting at.

  I sit down next to her, and my eyes go to the entrance as I watch people come and go. “Okay, here we go,” she says, grabbing one fork and then bringing it to her mouth. “Oh. My,” she says, chewing and grabbing more, “this is hands down the best mac and cheese I’ve had in my life.”

  I grab my own fork and nod, eating a forkful. “Yup, it’s pretty good,” I say. I grab another forkful and stop eating.

  I sit back in my chair and watch her take another bite. “That was so good,” she says, and I look inside to see we ate half of it.

  “There is half left,” I tell her, and she leans back in her own chair, grabbing the water bottle and drinking it.

  “Well, then have at it,” she tells me, pointing at it. We stay at the table a couple of more minutes, and then I get up, grabbing the cardboard plate and taking it to the garbage. She joins me, then looks over at me. “Now on to that Oreo,” she says, pointing at the truck and the little line forming in front of it. “I literally only want one,” she says, though when we get to the front, she orders three.

  “I thought you said you only wanted one?” I say after we step aside to wait for the order.

  “I felt weird ordering just one when we are two people,” she says, leaning, and I laugh at her. When our number is called, she steps up and grabs another white cardboard container and comes back. I look inside and see three golden deep-fried Oreos with white powdered sugar on them. “Okay, here goes,” she says, grabbing one and biting half of it. I grab one myself, and my teeth bite through the puff pastry and sink into the softness of the cookie inside. The middle of the Oreo is melted and drips on my lips. “Ugh,” I say. She laughs and leans forward to wipe my lip, and then she does the most erotic thing I’ve seen—well, today anyway. She takes the thumb she used on my lip and brings it to her mouth to suck it off. My cock springs into action before her thumb is even halfway to her lips.

  “I think,” she says once she takes her thumb out of her mouth, “that if you eat more than one of these, you can have a serious heart attack.” I’m still looking at her lips. “Are you okay?” she asks, and I just nod. “Let’s walk, so we can digest the seven thousand calories we just ate.”

  I nod my head again, and she reaches for my hand and pulls me along. We do the same things on the next row, sampling different things.

  By the time we get to the third row, I think I’m going to throw up. “I can’t eat anything else,” I say, taking the last bite of the rib I was eating.

  “You said that right before you ordered the ribs,” she says, laughing at me as my bite of rib falls, and I move my foot out of the way so it falls on the ground instead of my shoe. I grab the napkin, then bend down and pick up the rib, walking to the trash where I toss it. I grab the wet wipe they gave us and wash off my hands. She walks next to me, putting one hand on my hip as she leans in to throw her own things out. Her little touches have been driving me crazy all day long, and if I thought I was tense yesterday, today is one for the records.

  She’s soft and funny and snarky, and she just makes me laugh. I put my hands on her hips, pulling her close to me. Don’t do anything stupid. I hear my inner voice, yet I bend my head a touch. Her breath hitches, and I’m about to kiss her lips, but her phone buzzing in her pocket breaks the moment.

  “Hello?” she says, answering the phone. “What?” She looks at me. “How bad?”

  I look at her, now worried. “Can you drive me to my office?” she asks, and I nod right away, grabbing her hand and leading us to the car. “Okay, I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

  “What’s the matter?” I ask her when we get in the car, and she gives me the address to her office.

  “My best friend, Sandy,” she starts and then looks down and shakes her head. “She and her new boyfriend were trying out a sex swing.” She looks at me. “It was one of those portable ones, and well, it snapped and …”

  I put my hand to my mouth “Oh my god. Did he break his dick?” I ask, putting my other hand to my own crotch.

  “No,” she says, laughing. “He fell and knocked a tooth out. Before she got on it with him.”

  “You’re a dentist?” I ask her and realize we never even spoke about what she does or what I do.

  “Yeah,” she says when I pull into a parking lot and see that little house of sorts. “This is my practice,” she says with a smile on her face, reaching forward and opening the car door.

  I get out with her, standing beside her when a car swings into the parking lot and parks beside us.

  We stand here waiting, and I’m shocked when I see Anthony rounding the back of my car. I look at him, and he looks at me, and I look at Laney. “I can explain,” I tell her right before all hell breaks loose.

  “Hunter, what the hell are you doing here?” he says, holding an ice pack to his mouth.

  “Hunter?” Laney looks over at me, her voice going soft. “Wait. What?”

  “Laney, thank god you could meet us here,” her friend, who I think is Sandy, says from beside Anthony. I look at the little girl with the pixie cut wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Anthony is wearing jeans and a white T-shirt and what looks like blood down the front. “Anthony, this is Laney.” She introduces the two and Anthony looks at me and then at Laney, his eyes going wide.

  “Holy shit, you’re Laney?” Anthony says. “It was supposed to be one date.” He looks at me, then back at Laney. “Jesus fuck. My mother is going to kill me,” he says.

  “What?” My eyes never leave Laney’s as she looks from me to Anthony and then back again to me.

  “I can explain.” I go to her and put my hand on her arm as she shrugs me off.

  “You lied to me,” she says, and finally, Sandy shouts.

  “What the fuck is going on right now?” She goes to Laney’s side. “Who is this?” she asks her, and I swear I want to rewind the day and tell her the truth when I showed up at her front door.

  “This is my blind date Anthony,” Laney says, shaking her head, “or who I thought was my blind date, but he’s just a liar.” I’ve been to the war and I’ve been shot at more times than I care to admit, and I’ve broken bones, but these those four words just hurt me more.

  Chapter Seven

  Laney

  I’m standing in the parking lot of my dental practice after one of the best dates I’ve ever been on, and it all comes crashing down that it was all a game and a lie. “He’s just a liar,” I say, and his eyes close and then open. I see the war going on in them, and I want to reach out.

  “Let’s go,” I say to Anthony and then look at Sandy, turning around. Walking to the steps of my practice, I take my keys out of my purse, unlock the door, and turn off the alarm. “Take him to the second room, and I’ll be right there,” I say, heading to my office to grab my stuff.

  “Laney, wait.” I hear Anthony, or Hunter, as it’s his real name, calling.

  “I don’t have time for this,” I tell him, dumping my bag on my desk and grabbing my lab coat and my glasses with the magnifying glass. I turn and see him standing in the doorway. Why does he have to be so fucking dreamy when I’m supposed to hate him? “Move,” I tell him, trying to walk past him, but he just stands there, blocking t
he way.

  “Laney, let me explain.” He tries again, and I just shake my head.

  “No,” I snap and then close my eyes. Tears threaten but I’m so angry right now that I keep them at bay. I open my eyes and look at him. “Explain what exactly?” I ask him. “How you duped me into pretending that you were someone else?” He just looks at me, and I don’t give him a chance to speak. “How you pretended to give a shit about the date, knowing full well that you would never see me again? How you came in there pretending you were someone else, meanwhile probably laughing your ass over the poor girl who didn’t know any better?”

  “It isn’t like that,” he says, and I throw my hands up.

  “It’s exactly like that,” I tell him. “You took me on a blind date that he didn’t even have the balls to cancel. You sat at a table with me and had about fourteen meals, if we count all the food we ate today, and not once did you say, ‘Laney, so there is this funny story that I want to tell you.’ No, nothing like that.”

  “Laney!” I hear Sandy yell, and when he lets his guard down for a moment, I push past him, going to the room and seeing this man in the chair. “Will he break this chair?” she asks me, and I see his feet are way off. “I mean, he isn’t really normal size.”

  “No, but we need X-rays before we even start,” I tell her, and he nods, trying to get up. “Stay seated. I have X-ray machines in each room,” I tell him, getting set up for the X-rays and waiting for it to be done. I grab the heavy blue vest, then walk over to him, and put it on him.

  “So,” he starts saying, “this is awkward.” I glare at him.

  “You didn’t even have the decency to cancel the date or even show up and just brush me off,” I snap at him, grabbing the white mouthpieces. I put on gloves and go back to him. “Bite down on this.” He does, and I grab the machine to take his X-ray, placing the circle of the machine on the front of his mouth.

  “Oh my god!” Sandy finally says out loud. “Is this the blind date you had yesterday?” She points at Hunter, who is still here, smiling. “High-five.”