Sweet Talk Ch. 03

It was like they'd all conspired against him to keep rubbing it in his face that he hadn't talked to her in six damn days. And that whole time, he couldn't concentrate because he'd been too busy forcing himself not to think about her.

Then, like she was reading his mind, Nina asked, "So where's Anna these days?"

Jason stilled, the cinnamon roll dough only half-rolled up, and took a breath. But there was a low, insistent buzzing inside his head that he couldn't shake.

Finally he muttered, "She's around."

Not really paying attention to him, Nina leaned over and pinched a bit of raw dough off the roll he'd just formed. He clenched his jaw—he really hated when she did shit like that.

"I was just wondering," Nina said, absently playing with the tiny ball of dough. "She's usually, like, attached to your hip but you've been coming in for the past few days and I haven't seen her at all." Her eyes were on her fingers as she pressed the dough into a small, flat circle. "What'd you do, fire her?" she joked.

A wave of irritation went through him. Part of it was with Nina, but mostly, it was with himself. No, he hadn't fired Anna. But he might as well have since they weren't even talking.

Which was his own damn fault.

After a moment of silence, Nina looked up, wondering why he hadn't responded. Her eyes widened a bit and Jay realized he was glaring at her.

"Sheesh, I was just kidding, Jason," she said with a small, dismissive laugh. But when he just kept staring at her, the smile turned impatient. "Seriously," she went on, "I know how good of friends you are. I just hadn't seen her for a while…" she trailed off, her eyes narrowing as she studied Jay's grim expression.

"Okay, well, clearly you're no fun today," she said, sliding off the stool. "Anyway, I only came by to pick up my knives. So, I'm gonna go. See ya." With a final, lingering half-smile, she gathered her knives and left.

Now that Jason was alone like he'd wanted, it didn't even matter. Nina's words were enough to torture him.

I know how good of friends you are…

Fuck.

He'd been trying, so hard, not to think about Anna. He'd even been avoiding Sugar and Sam specifically so he wouldn't have to talk about it. So it figured that it'd be Nina, in the KIRA kitchen, who said the words just now that made him hate himself. Made him finally face the reality that he'd been avoiding for the past six days.

Anna was the good friend. Not him. No, he was just an asshole.

Anger, with himself, burned through him and, working hard to keep it in check, he wrapped up the uncut cinnamon roll dough. He couldn't work anymore. He'd been forcing himself to keep busy this whole week but now he had to take a break, do something else, or he might lose it.

Not really thinking about what he was doing or where he was going, he put the dough in the fridge and left the KIRA building, letting himself really, truly think about Anna for the first time in days.

He thought of her in all the places she'd been over the last two years: Anna standing on the sidelines during his tapings here at KIRA; her fielding phone calls from that pushy ass publishing rep who'd wanted him to co-write a cookbook for dog treats; her driving around to three different grocery stores at six in the morning because he'd bought the wrong phyllo dough for the baklava he'd made on his first show.

It took him about ten seconds to finally admit that he'd been a huge jerk—and about more than just the Sara Lee competition. He wasn't happy about her leaving, but still, he knew he shouldn't have reacted the way he had. It'd been the combination of stress and outright anxiety that'd gotten to him, which was why he'd flipped out so badly when she said she was quitting.

It was bad timing, all around.

When she'd quit, he'd already heard back from the Sara Lee competition people and, for weeks, the whole thing had been messing with his head. A hundred top-ranking chefs from across the country competing over four days on national television wasn't exactly something he looked forward to.

He loved being on camera, but this was an entirely different ballpark from the laid-back approach he had on Sweet Talk. With that, there wasn't any pressure, no one sizing him up, looking for flaws, but with the Sara Lee thing…shit. Just thinking about it right now was making him a little nauseous.

He made it out to the parking lot and got in his car but just sat there, staring out at nothing. All he could think about was that he'd run off the one person he needed most right now. But what was worse was that he didn't know what to do about it.

He couldn't just call her up and say, "So, yeah, sorry for being such a dick. Friends again?" But without her around, nothing felt right.

Every single dessert he'd made over the last few days just felt off for some reason. They looked fine and tasted fine, but something just wasn't right. About any of them.

Or his life, actually.

He needed Anna's opinion about his recipes for the competition. He needed her to look over all of the paperwork and rules to make sure he didn't miss anything. He needed her to help him calm the hell down.

His fist clenched around his car keys.

Hell, he just needed her.

********************

It was five past one when Anna settled herself at the bar in Sugar.

The shop's walls were painted a warm, honey-brown color that perfectly picked up the glow of trendy track lighting in the ceiling. Small, square tables and black, wrought iron chairs marched along the curved wall separating the bar from the main dining floor. And the actual floor was done in chocolate-brown tiles that were specially made to sparkle in the track lighting—as if the floor itself had been liberally sprinkled with sugar.

During the day, the bar was one of Anna's favorite places to sit because it gave her such a great view of the shop but right now, all of her attention was narrowed down to a single point. She kept stealing glances at the door, half expecting Jay to walk in. She didn't know if she was hoping he would or praying he wouldn't. Deep down, though, her heart was willing him to appear.

God, she really had no spine at all, did she?

Frowning, she glanced toward Sam and was surprised to find him studying her from behind the bar.

"Still bummed about the whole college thing?" he asked after a second.

Wordlessly, Anna nodded. Okay, so actually, she'd been hating herself for still wanting Jason Blake—but, technically, the 'college thing' just made the last few unpleasant days worse.

"Well then," Sam said, scooping ice into a cocktail shaker, "it's a good thing I happen to know the lady has a thing for chocolate."

"You know me too well," she said with a small smile, watching as Sam constructed her favorite cocktail, a chocolate martini with Godiva chocolate liqueur, half-and-half, crème de cacao and vodka.

Just before he was about to put the lid on the shaker, Anna laid a hand on his wrist and he glanced up. "Make it a double," she told him with a bigger smile.

"That's my girl," Sam laughed, knowing exactly what she meant. Rather than reaching for the vodka, he added in another liberal swirl of the dark, velvety chocolate liqueur.

He was just setting the glass in front of her when he looked toward the door, probably checking to see if Doug had shown up, and swore.

"What?" Anna said and, without thinking, turned to see what he was looking at—only to be caught up in Jason's gaze.

Even across the room, she felt him.

She'd been in love with him for half her life, but almost never had this strong of a reaction to his presence. It was the time away, she told herself. She hadn't seen him in days and her idiotic heart had gone through a withdrawal…but that didn't explain why her hands were shaking the way they were. Or why she literally had to drag her eyes away from his penetrating hazel ones.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sam hovering.

"Sorry," he half-whispered, "I really didn't think he'd show up, since—" but he stopped halfway through his sentence, just as Anna heard a familiar set of footsteps approach and stop next to her. She faked a single-minded interest in the contents of her cocktail glass.

Then, mercifully, Sam spoke. "Hey, Jay. I was starting to wonder if you were still alive."

There was a slight pause. Anna stole a glance at Jason and her stomach clenched when she saw that he was staring directly at her. Without looking away, he responded to Sam.

"Yeah…I've been busy," he said, then, "Hey, Anna."

"Hi," she murmured, for a moment, forcing herself to stare right back at him.

She tried to act as calm and he looked, but she felt her lips starting to quiver from the jumble of emotions inside her. Finally, she tried to look away, but this time, her damn eyes wouldn't obey her and she couldn't break the contact.

And, truthfully, she didn't want to. He was gorgeous. Even with a bit of stubble on his chin and jaw and his dark hair a little messier than usual, he was perfect. And part of her was angry with him for making her want him even when she was still mad.

So she drew on that irritation, called up all of the horrible, hurtful things he'd said to her on Friday and, finally, made herself look away. Toward Sam.

"I'm gonna go grab my purse out of your office, okay?" She slid off the stool and walked around Jay, ignoring the way his searching expression closed up.

"Anna—" he started and, growing frantic, she quickened her pace and half-ran through the door to the back room.

Jason was about to follow her when Sam stepped out from behind the counter and blocked his path. "Hold on a second, Jay."

Shooting him an irritated glance, Jason went to move around him, only to have Sam block him again. "What, Sam?" he impatiently asked.

Sam dug his hands into his pockets and didn't budge.

From the look on Jay's face, Sam knew he was probably sticking his nose into something that had nothing to do with him, but he didn't want Jay barging back there and making a bad situation worse. Jay might not notice it, but Anna was obviously struggling to hold herself together.

"Give her a minute, alright?" Sam said. "She's had a rough day."

Jay wanted to tell Sam to get the hell out of his way but a few deep breaths helped calm him. "What do you mean, a rough day?" he asked, trying not to care that, for the first time ever, he was having to ask someone else what was going on in Anna's life.

It bothered the hell out of him, though.

Sam shrugged. "Since you guys…uh…" he cleared his throat. "She's been trying to get into summer classes at the community college but she missed the deadline. Now she needs some signatures or something and they're giving her the run-around. Long story short, she can't get in so she's pretty bummed about that." He paused, shooting Jason a look. "Among other things."

Jay let out a heavy breath. Shit. No wonder why she'd just looked at him like she wanted to slap the crap out of him.

He really hadn't expected to see her sitting at the bar when he walked in. For a second, it was like the past two weeks hadn't happened and it was any normal day; like she was here waiting for him to take a break so they could go grab lunch, or for him to bring her in the back and have her taste-test one of his newest creations. That's what it'd felt like.

For a minute, at least.

But then, when she'd turned and looked at him with that guarded expression on her face, it was like she'd kicked him in the gut even though she hadn't said a word. It was the same look she'd had on her face when he'd walked out on Friday—and he felt like an even bigger asshole now than he had then. Fuck, he had to fix things, even though he didn't know what to say.

Again, he took a step toward the door and, again, Sam stopped him, this time with a hand on his shoulder. And this time, Jason didn't bother hiding the fact that Sam was pissing him off.

"Sam, seriously—move," he bit out.

"Jay," Sam said, "I don't know what you're planning on saying, but you might want to just…wait. For now."

Brushing him off, Jay shot him an impatient look.

"Relax, okay?" he said over his shoulder as he walked to the back hall. "I'm just gonna talk to her."

The door closed behind him and he took a deep breath, one thought echoing in his head: he had to talk to her.

He hadn't realized until just now, seeing Anna sitting in his shop, then walking away from him, how completely he'd screwed up. She was practically family and he'd been a complete ass. Waiting to talk to her meant going on feeling like shit, and hating the fact that it was his own fault.

No. He needed to talk to her. Needed things to be okay between them. Right now.

Anna was standing in front of Sam's desk with her back to the door, absently playing with a mini Magic 8 Ball he kept there, when she heard a knock on the half-open door. For a split second, she prayed it was Sam coming to check on her but she knew it was Jason before she even turned around.

"Anna? Can I talk to you for a sec?" he asked, and the quiet, raspy sound of his voice made her want to cry and kiss him all at the same time.

For a short moment, she closed her eyes. She knew she shouldn't have come to Sugar. She wasn't ready to deal with this. Or him. But, with a strength that she didn't really feel, she turned to face him.

Jay took two or three steps into the room, but stopped, leaving a wide space between them. Studying Anna. Her short, chestnut hair brushed against her shoulders in gentle waves. She had on jeans and one of those light cottony tops that she always wore. Everything about her was so familiar to him, from her huge, brown eyes to the gentle sweep of her cheekbones, down to the curve of her kind-looking mouth.

But damn, with the tension crackling in the air between them, he'd never felt so distant from her and it made him hate himself even more.

After a moment, he cleared his throat and loosely crossed his arms over his chest.

"I, uh, wasn't expecting to see you here," he said.

"I…I'm just waiting for Sam." She half turned back toward the desk and put the Magic 8 Ball down.

"For Sam?" Jay asked. "You guys are…hanging out now?" He searched her face, but she glanced away and shrugged.

"Kind of. We're going out for lunch."

Jay wanted to ask since when were she and Sam going out to lunch—without him—but he knew that was completely beside the point. Right now, he needed to get her to at least look at him for longer than three seconds at a time. God, he hated this.

"So…" he started, sliding his hands down into his pockets. "I, uh, called the Sara Lee people and confirmed my spot," he said.

Anna's eyes came back to his face, but her expression was flat.

"Good," she said, before looking away again.

Jay's stomach dropped. Shit. This wasn't going like he'd expected it to. At all. He ran a hand through his hair and stared at the floor.

"Look…Anna…" he said, even though he had no idea how he was going to end the sentence. "About Friday…" he glanced up and found her watching him. "I wasn't...I mean…" Fuck, why couldn't he finish a goddamn sentence? He took a breath and continued. "All that stuff I said…I was out of line. Way out of line. And I'm sorry."

In all honesty, his apology surprised Anna. This wasn't really his style. Usually, they both just got over something they'd argued about and never talked about it again. And, right now, part of her wanted to tell him it was okay, that she forgave him—but, at the same time, she was still hurting.

So, even though it was perverse, she was proud of herself when she simply said, "Good."

From the way he stared at her for a few seconds, she knew she'd thrown him off balance—especially when he started rambling.

"No, really, I feel like a huge jerk. And I," he let out a shaky laugh, "I've been working over at KIRA, but with you mad at me, everything's all messed up. I can't concentrate."

Anna's heart was pounding in her chest, partly from the fact that he was admitting this to her, but partly because she felt herself weakening. All of the anger slowly seeping away in the face of his apology.

Damn it, why did he affect her like this? Make it so that, in less than five minutes, she was ready to just get over how he'd acted on Friday? God, she couldn't do this right now.

Confusion and fear had her heading toward the door, even though it meant having to walk past him. She needed some space. But he caught her elbow as she tried to edge past him.

"Anna," he said, his voice low and sincere. "Come on. At least talk to me."

She knew she shouldn't but she looked up into his hazel eyes, loving him so much that it hurt, but hating herself for being so weak.

"What do you want me to say, Jason?" she asked. "Do you want me to lie? Say everything's okay? Act like you didn't treat me like crap last week?"

He sighed, his grip on her elbow tightening slightly.

"No, I don't want…I just…" he struggled for words. "I'm sorry, all right? I was an asshole. I know that. But I'm doing the competition and, I don't know…I need your help. I need you there. I need you to—" he'd been about to say that he needed her, so his life didn't seem so damn screwed up, but she cut him off.

Jerking her arm out of his grasp, Anna backed away, toward the door.

"What about what I need, Jason?" she asked him, jabbing a shaking finger at her chest.

Anger and disappointment washed through her. This was him apologizing? She couldn't believe how quickly he'd gone from being sorry to talking about himself and his needs.

"I have a life of my own. What about that?" she continued. "Me quitting and going back to school might just be an inconvenience for you, but those are the things that I need to do."

"That's not what I meant—" Jason said, following her as she backed into the hall.

But, again, she cut him off. "No, I know what you meant. That you need me to come back and fix everything for you." She stopped when her voice broke, but pulled herself together enough to say, "I have to go. Sam's waiting for me."

With a last look at him, she turned and walked down the hall, trying her damnedest not to cry. What had she expected? For him to wake up after their fight, realize that he loved her and couldn't live without her? God, this was so typical of him. Yes, he was sorry—but only because he needed her to come back and clean up his life.

Barreling out to the front, she almost ran into Sam. He grabbed her elbow to steady her.

"Are you ready to—" he started, but stopped when he got a look at her face. "Hey, you okay?" he asked. Goddamn, Jay, he thought. Why couldn't he just leave her alone for a while?

Anna set her chin, avoiding Sam's concerned gaze. "I'm fine. You almost ready to go?"

"Yeah. Doug just showed up. Let's get out of here."

Anna let Sam guide her through the shop with a hand at the small of her back. But just as they were about to leave the building, some perverse compulsion made her glance back over her shoulder. Her stomach knotted up when she saw Jason standing behind the bar. Watching her.

******************

"You know what'd be cool?" Sam asked from where he was sitting on Anna's couch.

It was Sunday and he'd shown up half an hour before and told her that he was taking her to the movies because, in his words, "This emo thing isn't really working for you."

She'd spent the last few days after seeing Jason at Sugar alternating between being angry and depressed. Thank God Sam had shown up because she'd just started making a batch of store-bought frozen cookies—the kind that Jay referred to as "prepackaged evil"—and had had every intention of eating a good half dozen of them.