“Libby!” Tony’s eyes were dark with heat, but he balanced his expression with a laughing smile. “About something other than a bed, please.”
“Oh.” Color flushed her cheeks. She busied herself loading the display cases with fresh muffins. “Wel Mom and Stuart did have some pretty great news. They are sending me to Rome.”
“What? You’re going to Italy? Like a summer vacation?”
“No, for school. They are paying for year abroad.
I guess Stuart feels bad about excluding me, uprooting me…” A roling motion with one arm showed that he had many reason and she wasn’t realy concerned with what they are. “So I am going to Rome.”
“For a year? You are leaving for—a year.” Tony was floored. Here he had been about to lay out his heart to her. Declare his intentions, so to speak. And she was leaving. He was nothing more to her than Parker had been.
When had he ever thought he would be feeling bad for Parker? But now he was. She had cast him aside just as she would be doing to Tony at the end of the summer…
when she left the country.
His silence seemed to encourage her so she kept talking as she unlocked the front doors, and finished her morning routine. “I told him it wasn’t necessary, but he was determined. And I realy want to go, so I gave in pretty easy. There is a cooking school an hour or so away from the colege with a great pastry program, and I could be learning from the best about biscotti, budino, and tiramisu, and al while I work on my business degree. I think I realy needed to do something like this. I mean you have your writing, and Mel has her designs, and Parker’s forever going on about law school choices…”
“I don’t want to talk about Parker!” Tony was angry
“Ok—ay” Libby drew out the word thoughtfuly.
This was ridiculous. Here she was blabbering on waiting for him to screw up the courage to ask for no-strings sex? No way. “Listen, we’re good Tony. This was probably a bad idea. We aren’t that kind of friends, right? We just got caught up in the moment, forget about it.”
“Of course. You’re right Lib. I gotta go okay? I’l talk to you tomorrow, kay?” Tony strode quickly out the front door, and when he got to his car he puled out his cel phone and caled the Talahassee News Journal to cancel his job interview.
Tony was gone 20 minutes before Libby realized that he hadn’t gotten around to teling her his ‘something else’.
Chapter Twelve
“Oh my god! I can’t believe you are leaving!” Mel gushed at the airport. Just like she had gushed in the car on the way to the airport, and like she had gushed on the phone when Libby had tried to tel her it was sily for her to come al the way home just to ride to the airport.
“We can talk al the time Mel—the marvel of modern technology.”
“It won’t be the same!”
“Okay babe—give her a hug and let her get through security. We don’t want her to miss her flight.” John tried to calm Mel down. Sily John. Mel lived for this stuff. “Have a good flight Libster; cal us when you get settled.”
“Oh! I almost forgot! Tony said to wish you good trip too.” That got her attention. Libby hadn’t seen Tony since the day of the bakery incident.
Apparently he had gotten a cal that afternoon to go to a meeting with some people from his publisher about the Isaac Raines books and had left that night. They had talked of course and emailed. But things felt weird between them.
They both determinedly avoided discussing the kiss in the bakery, but Libby guessed it would take some time before the weirdness could dissipate. She was glad anyway— she was wiling to accept that Tony was okay with casual sex.
That was fine, but she would be damned if she was going to be his warm and willing body. Al week, al summer realy, after the kiss at the bakery Libby’s brain had battled with her hormones. At the time she had wanted him more than she had wanted her next breath, but she only needed to remind herself of Mel’s graduation party when he had explained about not being able to help how his body reacted. Explained to her that his only reactions to her were physical. That hurt she had felt at being nothing more than an itch to scratch had lasted months and she wasn’t wiling to go through it again.
“Tel him thanks for me, and I’l cal him… you know after I cal you.”
Mel snorted. “Yeah sure right after you talk to me. Listen Lib, do yourself a favor. Find some hot Italian guy and work my idiot brother out of your system. Have a hot and steamy European adventure.”
“I am not going to Europe to have a fling!”