Chapter 6

 

 

Belinda waited by the bar of The Blue Room, close to the entrance. So named, she figured, because of the blue light glowing around her in the darkness. A jazz band played, making it tough to hear even the bartender right next to her.

She'd been standing there for about ten minutes and hadn't seen Sawyer yet, and was seriously considering slinking back out, when a hand grabbed hers, leading her around the tables and out on the dance floor. At first, she thought some random guy had picked her as his date for the night, until she focused and made out the back of a blonde head and a dark blazer. Sawyer. He spun her around to meet him, pulling her in a little closer than necessary.

He was back in his red zone charm level. Belinda wondered if he just put his off-moods in a drawer, or if his confrontation with Mrs. Sykes was really settled.

"I don't know what you heard this afternoon, Belinda." Sawyer leaned in closer, a mix of mint and alcohol wafting her direction. It was the opposite of how Bennett always smelled—spicy and warm like a sunset. Maybe that sounded weird, but it was how she felt. "But I want you to know that it's nothing to be concerned about. Mrs. Sykes is going through a lot right now, and I'm trying to help her. That's all."

Belinda tilted her head. This was an interesting turn in the evening's events. She had convinced herself that Sawyer would act like that never happened. And certainly wouldn't bring up the private conversation he was having with Mrs. Sykes. "Are you in the habit of helping females in distress?"

Sawyer smiled, his eyes skimming below her chin.

"It's gutted," she blurted and started stammering. "My house...it's under renovation. So I thought you might have suggestions for an alternate location for the party. Because I'd use my house...but it's–"

"Gutted?" Sawyer arched his brows, a twinkle of amusement on his face. "Are you living out of a suitcase currently?"

She cursed her inability to keep it together. One little thing and she unwound like a ball of yarn. "Sort of." Belinda shrugged. "My brother and I are sharing the guest house."

"Sounds crowded." He leaned even closer. "You can come escape with me if you need some air."

Belinda flushed. She doubted that would be any less crowded. "So you have ideas for how I can put together a cocktail party this short notice?" Belinda tried to discreetly put a gap between them, resisting the urge to just push away. She needed Sawyer's help and that might end it. "Thanks to my mother, I have a caterer who will squeeze me in, but that's as far as I've gotten."

He respected the space she put between them, but Belinda knew she'd need to keep an eye on him—and his hands. "I would think untraditional for the location," Sawyer said. "This crowd will love that."

So far, not so helpful. But they'd just gotten talking. "What constitutes untraditional to you? A VFW?"

Sawyer grinned. "I was thinking a shop or something. You've got plenty of small places around here that would probably be willing to earn some extra money to lend you the space for a party."

That got Belinda's head turning. Maybe not a shop, but with her family's connections, she could think of another possible venue. "How about an art gallery?" She knew most, if not all, the gallery owners in Portside. Several were close family friends.

Sawyer looked impressed. "Fashion designers plus art equals perfect cocktail party in my book."

Check. She mentally listed, in order, the people to call tomorrow. "Food then. I was going to let the caterer give us what she thought best based on the circumstances—and what they can handle so short notice." Sawyer nodded approval while they circled around. "Well, besides food, drinks of course, and a location, am I missing anything?"

"You do need guests, I believe." His eyes twinkled as he caught her off guard and squeezed in tighter.

Belinda flushed again. Hadn't she just told herself to keep an eye on him? "Right. Invites."

"I wouldn't worry about formality. Phone calls will do."

From the looks of him, decked out in a blazer and dress pants, Belinda had trouble picturing he did anything informally. Of course, he'd left out the vest and tie tonight and undone the first couple of buttons on his shirt, which probably was informal for him.

She decided Brooke could handle the inviting. She could feel her phone's outline as she gripped her clutch and wondered on a scale of one to unforgivable how rude it would be to text her while they danced.

While she calculated how much longer she had to stay before it was polite to excuse herself, Sawyer's blue eyes widened when he caught sight of something—or someone—across the room.

He turned back to her, less gleaming than before. Something had ruffled his pinstripes. Well, Belinda figured he couldn't keep up the perfect polish and charisma all the time. It had to be exhausting.

"Something wrong?" She tried to see around him, but he swiveled her away in the opposite direction.

"Business," he said brusquely. "I forgot about something I had to do." Sawyer seemed to check himself in a mental mirror, realized he hadn't properly adjusted his personality before speaking, and quickly set things right with a commercial-worthy smile. "I'm a creative, so business is never my favorite aspect. But it's a necessary evil."

"Don't you have a line coming out?" Of course she knew about his scheme with April, but he didn't know that.

"We'll see." His face lost some of its shine. Maybe business was falling through the cracks now that April had died. "I've heard you're opening up your own business. A cupcake shop, er, truck." He was good at turning the tables back on her.

"Oh. How did you know about that?"

Sawyer shrugged. "Someone mentioned it. Maybe Mrs. Sykes."

Belinda nodded. Strange, but all right. She explained a little about the idea and the opening that weekend, panic trickling down into her belly as she thought of the million things she still had to do. "Do you dance?"

Sawyer paused, quirking his eyebrows. "I'm not sure how we got from buttercream frosting to do I dance, but the answer is clearly no if you're asking me now."

Belinda turned red yet again. What was it with this guy embarrassing her? "I'm sorry. I didn't mean–"

"I'm joking." His face was right up against hers. Belinda swallowed. He'd done it again! And she kept telling herself to stay on guard. "Are you planning to ask me to go dancing?"

"Uh...no. I am planning a flash mob dance for my opening and I was going to ask if anyone wants to join. For something to do." Except for three of them, all the other participants were actual dancers. She wanted it to look cool and together, but a few more amateurs wouldn't hurt...probably.

"Well, I think you can count me out for that, but I will be first in line for the cupcakes." He gazed at her as if casting a charm spell. And she was convinced he wasn't referring to those cupcakes.

The song finally wound down. She was tiring of Sawyer's veneer, even if it was powerful, and he was clearly tiring of keeping it on. It was time to figure out a way to see Sawyer as he really was, and not just who he played in his public life.

 

 

~ * ~

 

 

"If I asked you to skip everything," Bennett said, "and come scope out an event site with me and count it as a date, you'd wrinkle your nose and tell me to try again."

The next day, Bennett and Belinda tasted samples set out on a stainless counter in the deserted kitchen in the back of the caterer's place. Belinda was finalizing arrangements for the cocktail party. Then in a few hours, guests would be gobbling up the food she'd just approved.

"How can you say that?" Belinda said in mock surprise, picking up a mini meatball to try. It was some fancy thing with veal and sage and she wanted to devour the whole plate.

"Because a couple weeks ago, I asked you to come scope out the runway show site with me as a date, and you wrinkled your nose and told me to try again."

Belinda grinned, tossing the toothpick from the meatball into a nearby trashcan. "I never promised to be easy to please."

"Fair enough."

"Try this." Belinda held up a mini meatball and he slid it off the toothpick, nodding appreciatively while he chewed. "The mini meatballs are in?"

He gave thumbs-up. "The mini meatballs are in."

Belinda clapped. "Phew. That was easy. We've got fancy meatballs, their killer bruschetta, and a random assortment of other foods." Belinda pulled out a notebook, listing off the items, and checked off caterer.

"What's next?" Bennett popped another sample in his mouth.

"We have an appointment at the art gallery so I can see where we can set up the food. Then," Belinda's eyes lit up, "we pick up the baking truck!" She wanted to scream—and throw up. "We're doing a dry run later, to test everything and just get used to it beforehand. Will you be a customer?"

"I might even leave a tip." Bennett took the plate with the rest of the meatballs and they let themselves out, walking a few blocks to the other side of the same cross street.

Bennett grabbed Belinda's hand as they dashed across the divided road that cut through town. Once they made it to the other side alive, they both slowed to a stroll. She had a lot to do, but this was the first time she and Bennett had been able to do anything alone in over a week and she wasn't rushing it.

At the end of a set of shops was a white brick building with a couple of abstract canvas pieces in the windows. Bennett held open the glass door for her. "You know the owner?" he said.

"Yep. Mom was one of her first major patrons."

They passed through the first floor and took a set of stairs to the second, which was much more like a gallery and less like a store. The white brick offset the canvasses and sculptures and felt like a modern art museum. Belinda admired a painting on the center wall while Bennett wandered toward a piece closer to the windows.

Natural light streamed in through the front, and Bennett studied a sculpture of...well, that's what he was trying to determine.

"This is perfect." Belinda joined Bennett near the windows. "Sawyer was right." She visualized a long table with a white cloth right there. It would fit perfectly. Nodding in approval of her own idea, Belinda directed her attention to the piece in front of them. She pulled a face. "I'm decidedly not a sculpture person."

Bennett folded his arms. She thought she'd lost him in the artwork, but then he spoke. "What do you mean, 'Sawyer was right'?"

Oops. She'd kinda, sorta, unintentionally on purpose forgot to tell Bennett about her visit to the jazz club. "He suggested it," she said dismissively. Maybe shrugging it off would help. "Actually, he offered some ideas that made me think of it."

"You asked his advice?" Bennett was no longer studying the sculpture, so shrugging it off didn't work. All eyes, meaning the two storm cloud gray ones in front of her, were on her.

"Not exactly." How to explain this without it sounding like more than it was? Because now that she went through the scenario—slow dancing with a man in a sexy jazz club—she wished she'd looked at it more objectively before going. "He just offered suggestions and since I have a lot to juggle right now, I accepted. He seems to go to a lot more of these things than I do."

"So you talked about this when you saw him with Victoria?"

His tone was taking on an accusing edge, and it was making her nervous. "I met him at the jazz club where some of the designers went last night. It was almost a complete waste of time, but he did give me this suggestion."

Bennett's face went sour. And there were no more meatballs.

"Maybe I should've said something earlier." Or left out the jazz club detail. Or simply come up with something without Sawyer's help.

"Maybe."

The art gallery owner came out of her office to meet them and graciously cut off that unpleasant conversation. They didn't talk about it again, even once they'd left the gallery, but she could feel it hanging in the air as they talked about other things on the way to the food truck place way outside of Portside. Belinda wanted to say something to smooth it over, but she sensed it might make things worse right then.

A while later, Belinda honked the horn of the Cake Diva truck, and stopped on the foot of grass in front of the bushes guarding their yard and blocking a direct view of the house. Kyle paused his hull painting of Sea Stud, which was now positioned slightly in front of and to the side of the carriage house. It meant Kyle would be around more, which was nice, but it also meant double the sound of power tools, which was not nice.

He ran over, his bronze face and hands splotched in white and a mask dangling around his neck. His brown and gold hair was matted to his skull with sweat and paint. He wiped his face with a sleeve and appraised the truck from the middle of the street. "You drove this all the way here?" Kyle said. Bennett pulled up behind her in his truck and hopped out.

Belinda pointed to where they'd come from. "I drove it from the farm stand to here."

Kyle laughed. "That's probably safer."

Belinda made a face at him. Safer? Hmph.

Bennett came around and slapped the side of the truck. "She's in good shape. Should hold up well."

Belinda smiled. "I did good?"

"You did good." Bennett leaned up and kissed her. Maybe he'd gotten over his little snit about Sawyer on the drive back.

Kyle made bow-chick-a-wow-wow noises.

"Get back to your painting." Belinda shooed him off.

Kyle readjusted his mask, looking like a World War II alien, and made Darth Vader breathing sounds en route back to his boat.

Belinda swung her legs out the door.

"Are you happy?" Bennett leaned on the side, squinting up at her.

"I am. And terrified." She nodded. "They're competing for my attention."

Bennett leaned up on the step, kissing her again now that no one was watching. Except for the car that passed. "I would never get away with calling this a date," he said.

Belinda giggled and hopped out. "How about the cocktail party tonight? Does that count?"

Bennett contemplated her question. "Nope."