“Maybe they’re not Italian.” I shake some seasoning over the olive oil I’m about to coat the potatoes in before we roast them. “Maybe they’re Russians, or Irish.” I gasp, delighted, and look over at her. “If it’s an Irish gangster, I hope he has an accent.”
“Maybe you should grab a dessert from every country dangerous men might hail from, just so we can be sure not to offend. Although,” she says, pointing her tongs at me and pursing her lips, “they might not even be mobsters at all. There are gangs in prison. I don’t know which serious criminals he could get money from. Maybe they’re less organized, just a pack of standard Americans with dirty money.”
“What’s a standard American dessert?”
“I don’t know. We’re standard Americans. This shouldn’t be a hard question for us.” Mom frowns. “Why is ‘Jell-O’ the only answer I can dig out of my brain?”
“It’s Sunday. Our brains are tired.”
She nods, opening a container full of grape tomatoes and dumping them out on a cutting board so she can slice into them. “I guess I’ll accept that excuse.”
The back door opens and Ray comes back in the kitchen.
“Hey, what’s a dessert Americans like?” Mom asks him.
He stops and looks at her, uncomprehending. “Is this a joke?”
I look back and explain, “Our brains are tired.”
He shoots us both funny looks, then resumes his trek to the fridge. “I don’t know. Cheesecake? Cookies? Pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving.”
“Mmm, pumpkin pie,” Mom says longingly. “Is your investor Italian? Does he like cannoli?”
“I think he is Italian, actually.” Ray looks back at us and frowns. “Why does this matter?”
To save him the long, long road we took to get here, I sum up. “We were wondering if we should’ve planned a dessert course.”
“Oh.” Ray frowns. “Nah, I don’t think he has much of a sweet tooth. I mean, I could be wrong, but he seems pretty into fitness, so.”
Mom looks over at me as if enticed. “A sexy Mafioso—and he’s not bringing a wife to dinner. Maybe he’s single. Maybe you’ll like him and we can finally get you married off.”
I shake my head as I coat the potatoes. “Being a mob wife is not high on my list of potential life goals, sorry.”
“You sure? You like troublemakers, at least this way he’d be rich.”
“Hunter is rich,” I remind her.
She smirks. “Thought he wasn’t your boyfriend.”
I roll my eyes at her smugness. “He’s not. I’m just saying, if you’re determined to marry me off to a troublesome rich guy, we have an easier option than selling me to the mob. And, hey, Hunter is even half Italian.”
Mom nods, smoothly segueing. “Out of curiosity, how come you don’t want to be his girlfriend?”
“Mom.”
“I mean, you clearly like the guy, right?”
“It’s complicated,” I tell her. “And absolutely not something we should talk about right now when we’re about to have a business dinner with a potential colleague of Ray’s. Let’s keep our eyes on the prize here.”
The doorbell rings, alerting us to the arrival of our dinner guest.
“All right, you two behave yourselves,” Ray says, pointing at us. “I can see you’re in one of your moods, but I don’t want the guy to think you’re nuts.”
“If he doesn’t have a sense of humor, do we even want his money?” Mom calls after him.
“Yes,” Ray calls back as he heads toward the door.
Mom shakes her head, a disgruntled look on her face. “I say no. I don’t want stodgy money.”
“Let’s behave ourselves, just in case he’s boring,” I suggest.
Mom sighs. “Lame. If dinner gets weird and quiet, I can’t promise I won’t haul out obscure Wooster and Jeeves references.” Theatrically, she uses a hand to cup her ear as if listening for something. “Do I hear cats in your bedroom?”
“I can almost guarantee he would not understand those references. I don’t think anyone but us has ever seen that show.”
“I’m sure the British have seen it.”
“Are we expecting him to be British now?”
“If he is, I’m set. I’ll talk to him about Wooster and Jeeves, he will love me forever, and then he’ll give Ray all the money he needs.”
“As long as we have a plan,” I say with a nod.
“And hey,” she says brightly, “if he’s British, he’ll have an accent for you.” She pauses. “Now I’m kinda hoping he’s British.”
I smile faintly and dump the potatoes into their baking dish, then I walk them over and put them in the oven. When I straighten back up, I hear footsteps and murmuring from the entryway, so I paste on a polite smile, preparing for Ray’s guest to walk in.
Ray walks in, but he doesn’t have an investor with him—he has Hunter Maxwell.
My smile slips. An unfair reaction since he looks absolutely gorgeous in a crisp white button down and a pair of black slacks with a matching belt.
He looks like he expects to take me out, but he really should have texted me first instead of just showing up.
“Hey,” I say uncertainly, taking a step toward him. “What are you doing here?”
Before Hunter can say anything, Ray steals my attention, frowning as he glances from Hunter to me. “Uh… it seems like you’ve already met.”
I blink. “Um… yes. This is… This is my Hunter,” I say, since I’m not about to get into a label discussion right now.
Ray’s frown deepens. “Your Hunter?”
“He’s not her boyfriend like you’re not my boyfriend,” Mom explains.
I shoot Mom a quick glance before looking back at Ray. “Not exactly like that, but… yeah.” I look back at Hunter. “I can’t hang out tonight. We’re about to have a dinner with…” My words slow to a halt as it hits me.
Hunter smiles.
Ray sighs. “He’s the potential investor I was telling you about.”
“There it is,” Mom says flatly, shaking her head and looking over at me. “And, judging by the stunned look on your face, I can see you didn’t know anything about this.” She looks back at Hunter. “I think I would’ve preferred if you were a gangster.”
Hunter’s eyebrows rise in surprise. “Sorry to disappoint.”
“Well, you can’t win ’em all,” Mom says. “So, are you actually a potential investor, or is this some elaborate trick? I don’t really know how to proceed here.”
“I’m really a potential investor,” Hunter assures her.
“We were hoping you were British,” Mom tells him.
Hunter frowns. “What?”
“At least I can assure you he isn’t boring,” I tell her. “And you can make references he doesn’t understand—it won’t annoy him. I do it sometimes.” Despite reassuring my mom that everything is fine, I approach Hunter. Stopping in front of him, I demand, “What’s your game, Maxwell?”