Free Apples & Oranges (The This & That Series) by Brooke Moss

recipe?”
    I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. My conversation with Yiayia had stuck with me for most of the day, and I’d replayed it about a thousand times. She’d clearly assumed that Demo and I were going to wind up together, thus making me ‘family’ and someday worthy of her recipes. But then again, some senior citizens thought their dead relatives were in the room. My guess was that as sharp as Yiayia was, she didn’t see the deep-rooted distaste her grandson and I had for each other.
    Apparently she hadn’t picked up on the fact that I’d come to Triple D’s this morning to make him want me… only so I could drop him on his face later, too.
    Thank goodness.
    I sighed. “She said she only gives her recipes to family.”
    Lexie snorted. “So when’s the big day?”
    “Don’t get carried away,” I warned her with a scowl. “But don’t you worry, either.” I nodded at a woman who was biting into her roll. “I’ll get it.”
    Lexie chuckled. “I can Google another recipe—”
    “No!” I yelped, making an old man with a mushroom jump. “Sorry, sir.” When he walked away, I dropped my voice to a whisper. “You don’t understand, this woman’s cooking is amazing. The baklava made my toes curl.”
    “You said that about my baklava,” she hissed.
    “Well, this is even better.” I widened my eyes at her. “It was better than sex, Lexie.”
    One of her auburn eyebrows rose. “That’s a bold statement, coming from you.”
    It was true. I’d spent the bulk of my adulthood—thus far—with a fairly liberal sense of sexuality. When done properly, sex could be a lot of fun. And in an attempt to reject my mother’s warped sense of marriage and its fiscal benefits, I’d supported myself financially and scoffed at any use of the “R” word (relationship). I used sex as a really cool way to pass the time and cure boredom. No commitments, no strings, just safe, consensual humping amongst friends. It was a win/win, right?
    Wrong. Needless to say, my friends—both of whom were happily married with kids —were mortified by my lackadaisical attitude about the horizontal boom-boom. They seemed to think I’d been so scarred by my mother’s seven marriages and my father’s inability to commit to anything that I was completely disconnected from what mattered most in life.
                  Marriage. Home. Family. Whatever.
                  “Orgasmic baklava?” Lexie sucked in a sharp breath. “That’s something I’d like to try someday.”
                  “Well, you will, if I have anything to say about it.” I muttered as a woman took two rolls, then scurried away like a rat. “I’m working on this problem and intend to fix it sooner rather than later.”
                  “So you are marrying the mechanic?”
                  “No. But I will date him.”
                  Lexie rolled her eyes back at me. “Okay, yesterday you were going to date him just so you could dump him. Now you’re going to date him for his grandmother’s recipes?”
                  “Yes,” I said. “Don’t say I never did anything for our business.”
                  Lexie shook her head and laughed. “This is a new low even for you, Mar.”
                  I lowered my voice as a group of people passed. “Oh, don’t make it sound so dirty. I’m not going to sleep with him for the recipes. Though it is tempting. He’s really quite beautiful, in a greasy, gritty, he-might-punch-me-in-the-face sort of way.” I jutted out my hip and laughed.
                  “Ugh.” Lexie wrinkled her nose. “You have such a way with words.”
                  I smoothed down the front of my apron. “Thank you.”
                  “So you’re not going to sleep with him?”
                  “No.”
                  “Even though he’s kind of