she said. Actually, Hoop had said it first all three months ago when they’d been at Olympus and had shared one hot kiss.
Not hot enough for him? Too hot for him? She didn’t know. All she knew was that he’d seen her to a cab and sent her home alone.
“Is this because of…” Hayley gestured to Cici’s stomach.
“My pregnancy? Yes, that’s part of it,” Cici said. “Let’s talk about something else. Something fun for the summer at the Candied Apple & Cafe.”
Cici turned the conversation to business and was happy enough when they finished breakfast and she waved her friends goodbye. She was on a week’s vacation from the Candied Apple & Cafe so didn’t have to be in the office. It was a forced vacation of sorts, since Hayley had been on one and Iona was going to be spending a week in the Hamptons. Her friends had insisted she take a break as well.
She’d decided to move into her new apartment and try adjusting to being pregnant. Cici knew her life was about to change forever.
Jason Hooper, known to everyone as Hoop, had screwed up. It wasn’t the first time. After all, he was thirty-three and had been a cop for five years before giving it up to become an attorney. Growing up in the foster system had honed his natural instincts of being a loner. He let people in but it took him a while to decide if he should let them stay. He wanted to say that was where he’d made his mistake with Cici. He’d needed time to think. To plug the facts into a pro/con list and then decide if the heat between the two of them was worth exploring.
Stupid.
Now, he was drinking club soda but it tasted like regret as he watched her talking with her friends and mingling in a way that kept her far away from him as she worked the room at the summer kickoff party at the Candied Apple & Cafe.
Manhattan’s trendiest new chocolate shop was on a roll and if the crowd at tonight’s event was anything to go by, they were going to continue that momentum for a long time.
Cici Johnson, with her short wavy hair, thick rimmed glasses and curvy figure was temptation incarnate. But his track record with the opposite sex wasn’t the best. He didn’t do long term and it had seemed wise to him to avoid any kind of complications that would impact his friendship with Garrett.
Idiot.
“Dude, you’re staring at her,” Garrett Mulligan observed, handing him a beer.
Hoop dumped his club soda on the tray of a passing waiter and took the beer from Garrett. Garrett was his best friend and a cop. They’d known each other since high school when Garrett’s parents had become his surrogate family. Garrett was the reason why he’d screwed up with Cici.
“It’s all your fault.”
“How do you figure?” Garrett asked.
“If you hadn’t been dating Hayley then I could have comfortably had my usual fling with Cici and moved on.”
“If I hadn’t been dating Hayley you never would have met her.”
“Fair point.”
Hoop took a swallow of his beer and skimmed the room, hoping that some other woman would catch his eye. But no one did. It was Cici for him. It was as if the moment he’d told her that a few hot kisses were all they’d ever share, fate had a deep chuckle at his expense and made her impossible to forget.
“So…”
“So?”
“Are you going to go talk to her or continue to try to stare her down from here?” Garrett asked.
The party was to celebrate the start of summer and a new menu at the Candied Apple & Cafe. The trendy Fifth Avenue confectionery that was co-owned by Garrett’s fiancée Hayley, Cici and their friend Iona.
“Possibly. She’s been avoiding me. I’ve called her a dozen times.”
“I’ve never known you to let something like that stop you,” Garrett remarked with a laugh.
Hoop thought about it, and then finished his beer with one deep swallow. He wasn’t going to let it stop him. He couldn’t. He had been dating a lot the last three months since their one date. Sad that he knew exactly how long it had been, but there it was. Every time he leaned in to kiss another woman, he compared it to Cici. Every time he made another woman laugh, he remembered how much he liked Cici’s laugh. Maybe it was that he’d put her off limits. Something that could be easily fixed if he could go out on one date with her. But she had moved on.
Now he was panting after her…well not exactly panting…but close enough.
He handed his empty bottle to a passing waiter and moved through the throng of party goers toward Cici. She wore a sundress that hugged her endless curves and ended just above her knees. It was a straight sort of A-line skirt with a fitted bodice and as he got closer he noticed that she wore a thin gold necklace and the charm had moved around to nestle at the back of her neck.
She said something he couldn’t hear and the man she was talking to responded and then she laughed. He felt a bolt of awareness go through him along with a tinge of jealousy. Another man had made her laugh.
He knew it was irrational. He’d been the one to push her away, but this weird emotion that she inspired in him wasn’t rational.
“Cici,” he said softly, coming up behind her and putting his hand on the small of her back. “It’s been too long since I’ve seen you.”
She tensed immediately and he noticed that goose pimples spread down her arm as she turned to look at him. She pushed her glasses up her nose. Her bow-shaped mouth parted and her lips seemed to beckon him, but he knew that was just his own desires and not necessarily hers.
“Hoop. I didn’t realize you were at the party,” she said. “Do you know Theo? He’s Iona’s brother.”
“I do,” Hoop said, holding his hand out toward the young Greek man. Iona’s brother looked like he should be in Hollywood, starring in the big movies. Not tending bar three nights a week at a night club and DJing in his spare time. Theo shook his hand and then moved on to talk to another group of people.
Cici delicately took a step to the left, breaking contact with the hand he’d placed on her back.
“How have you been?” she asked.
“Not bad. How about yourself?” he countered. Small talk. Really? This was what he was reduced to.
“I’m okay. Listen, I’m really embarrassed that I haven’t called you back,” she said.
“You are?”
“Yes. It’s awkward, right? Our best friends are engaged and I’m dodging your calls. It’s just, I was embarrassed after that night we all went out.”
Hoop was afraid it was something like that. He had been so firm in saying no to her. “Well, I’m the one who screwed up and I’d appreciate it if you’d let me make it up to you.”
“How?” she asked.
“Drinks.
