I Hate, I Bake, and I Don’t Date! by Alina Jacobs

34

Beck

Istudied Tess’s profile as she sat on the sofa in the living room later that evening. She was reading her Kindle while the girls were working through the business book list I had given them.

I had a newspaper in my hands, but instead of catching up on the articles, I was staring at Tess.

She had a fire going and had laid out the most elaborate charcuterie spread I had ever seen outside of a wedding. The whole scene was so wholesome and cozy it made my teeth hurt.

I also wanted her. If she were actually my girlfriend, I would have just made up some lame excuse for her to come look at something in my study then fucked her brains out.

You need to calm down.

She had rebuffed me earlier that day. She wasn’t interested.

But what if she was? She just didn’t want it in the office?

Fucking Tess in my office? Hell yeah.

You’re just sex starved.

The worst thing was I couldn’t even find a casual hookup to get it out of my system because I needed people to think she was my girlfriend so that child protective services wouldn’t be called for my sisters.

And since she’s your fake girlfriend, it’s just a skip across the hedge to being a real one or at least a fake girlfriend with benefits.

It was even worse that night. Tess was just down the hall. I wondered what she would do if I slipped into her room with all that neon-colored paint and slid my hand under the sheets and into her panties. Would she be wet? Would she wake up and spread her legs for me? Beg me to continue?

“Dangerous road you’re going down,” I told myself. But it was like I was obsessed. The fact that I couldn’t have her made me all the more certain I needed her.

I threw the covers off, pulled on exercise shorts, and went to the kitchen. I had put a gym in the condo because I could not work out in front of the senior citizen fan club every single morning. I didn’t care what Greg had said.

It was dark in the kitchen; there was only a soft glow from the under-cabinet lights. I poured water from the pitcher in the fridge and remembered when I had seen Tess in the kitchen with no bra.

“Shit, Tess’s tits are amazing,” I whispered to the dark. “Fuck, I want to come all over them.”

There were sounds of choking from the adjacent living area that was connected in the open floor plan.

Fuuuccckkk…

I flipped on the light. There on the sofa was Tess surrounded by several containers of Chinese food. She was waving her hands around and making gagging motions.

I ran over and clapped her on the back, and she coughed.

“Turn the lights back off!” she shrieked.

In a daze, I flipped the switch back off, settling the darkness around us.

“You didn’t see me,” she said, hurriedly trying to clean up the containers.

“It’s three in the morning.”

“I had a stressful day, and I needed Chinese,” she wailed. “I have a problem. My life is in shambles.”

She peered at me in the dark. “And what are you doing?”

Had she heard?

Of course she had.

“Just going to work out,” I said.

“At three in the morning?” Tess countered.

“I needed a distraction,” I purred, leaning over her. Her eyes were big in the dark, her body barely lit by the light from the under-cabinet lighting glowing from the kitchen. She was wearing a soft T-shirt and no bra.

I slid my hand along her thigh, the skin soft.

Ibet she’s not wearing anything under that shirt.

“I keep thinking about how I just want to spread your legs,” I whispered to her in the dark, “and taste your pussy.”

She made a strangled noise. “I thought you wanted to come on my tits.”

“I want that too.”

“I think that’s a bad idea,” she squawked. “You’re my boss, remember?”

Right.

My hand paused a few inches below her panty line. “I am,” I whispered, “but you’re in my house, in my living room, wearing nothing but a T-shirt and panties that I’m sure are soaking wet. So you can understand how I might get confused.”

She swallowed.

I leaned in slowly. I wanted to kiss her. But I was afraid if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop until she was screaming my name.

I stood up abruptly. “Enjoy your food.”

Workthe next day was awkward.

“It would have been worse if you’d actually fucked her last night,” I reminded myself. In the light of the morning, it seemed like an even worse idea, and I was glad I had managed to control myself.

I watched Tess through the glass, shifting in her seat every so often, crossing and uncrossing her legs. I remembered how soft and warm her thigh had been last night under my fingers.

Mike:You want to pool resources for dinner?

Greg:None of you better be ordering takeout. It’s absurd the amount of prepared food you are feeding our sisters.

Walker:Who’s going to cook?

Greg:Are all of you that stupid? You can’t pick up a recipe book and follow it?

Liam:It’s much harder than it looks. I burnt the pasta I was trying to make yesterday. That’s why I had to order a pizza.

Greg:I’m hearing nothing but excuses.

Beck:I’ll make hamburgers.

Greg:They better be fully cooked this time.

My sisters were excited about the idea of a cookout when I went to pick them up at Svensson Investment.

Greg had set them and our other sisters, who were slowly getting expelled from school, up in a huge suite with a nice view.

“Did you figure out your app yet?” I asked them.

“We have a recipe app where people can upload and like different recipes.”

“Adorable,” Liam said when they showed us the app designs.

“They have quite an operation here,” Mike remarked, walking through their office.

“Tess said she’s going to help us with the interior design,” Enola told him.

“Just so you know,” Annie informed me seriously, “we may have to hire Tess to work for us.”

“Oh really?” I said, picking her up and swinging her around. “You’re trying to poach my assistant?”

My little sister giggled.

“We’re running a serious business,” Enola said. “We’re working on a pitch deck to secure investors.”

“I want to invest,” Mike told her.

“Okay, we’ll put you on the schedule for a presentation!”

I smiled. The girls seemed a lot happier now that they had projects to work on instead of dealing with all those tween-girl bullies at school. And even if their apps weren’t that successful, which I highly doubted they would be as they were just starting out, it was good practice for when they were older and ran their own real company or ran one of our brothers’ companies.

“Take a break?” Mike suggested. “Beck is making hamburgers.”

“You can’t cook!” Annie said.

“My sentiments exactly,” Greg said from the doorway. The two toddlers jumped up from their seats where they were coloring and ran to him.

“Says the person that’s only bringing pasta salad,” I retorted.

“Says the person who is still on my shit list,” Greg said with a cold look. “You need to put in more face time at the gym.”

“Don’t you mean bare-chest time?” Liam said with a cackle.

“I will have that tower,” Greg said loftily.

“You’re stealing Belle’s tower?” Annie asked him.

Greg paused and turned to face her. “Here’s a little tip since you all want to be girl bosses. All’s fair in business. If you want to be successful, sometimes you have to be a little underhanded.”

They nodded.

“I want each and every one of you to be a billionaire before the age of eighteen,” he informed our little sisters.

“That seems like too much pressure,” I said, frowning. “I didn’t become a billionaire until I was twenty-five.”

Greg sneered at me. “That’s because you’re an idiot. Our sisters are much smarter and have a lot more sense than you. I have high expectations, Svensson sisters,” he announced to them, hands clasped behind his back. “You’re part of the Svensson Empire now, and you must help build it.”

“You don’t haveto become billionaires by the time you’re eighteen,” I assured my sisters later when we were back in my condo. My unit had a large terrace where we could all congregate, perfect for the cookout.

“We’re going to do it,” Enola promised me.

“If you’re worried about disappointing Greg,” I said, “don’t be. Nothing’s ever good enough for him.”

“We’ll take your thoughts into consideration,” Annie said brightly.

Tess laughed. “You just got professionally dismissed, Beck. I see my How to Write a Corporate Email class is sticking!”

“Yep!” the girls chirped and went back to scooping out canned shrimp, tomato juice, and Cool Whip.

I winced. “We really don’t need a Jell-O.”

My sisters gave me horrified looks. “But you can’t have a cookout without a Jell-O!”

“What’s wrong with Jell-O?” Tess asked.

I pointed to the stack of ingredients and the cookbook Enola had on the counter.

“Oh,” Tess said, wrinkling her nose. “Girls, you can’t cook from that book. It’s just a novelty item. Cookbooks from the 1970s were a lawless wasteland. I thought you were making a nice Jell-O dessert.”

“We are! It’s very fancy,” Annie said, pointing to a grainy photo in the yellowing cookbook. “It has mustard, shrimp, marshmallows, and apples.” She stuck the book in my face. “Isn’t it pretty?”

“If they’re going to live in Manhattan, we have to break them of the Jell-O habit,” I said to Tess.

“The Jell-O habit? That’s a thing?”

“Jell-O is my prison food,” I said with a grimace.

Tess snorted.

“In the religious sect my father forced us to belong to, alcohol, coffee, and any sort of drugs really weren’t allowed. Sugar was as crazy as you could get. Every special occasion had some sort of a Jell-O for dessert. Also, Jell-O was cheap. You could buy it at the wholesale store for ten cents a carton, and so the sister wives would stretch the meat and fruit or whatever with Jell-O and make these elaborate Jell-O molds. I have nightmares about the Jell-O.”

Tess made a face as Annie opened a can of tinned oysters.

“I’m think I’m going to have nightmares about it.”

I took off my jacket and tie and rolled up my sleeves. Then I searched around for an apron.

I turned. “Tess, do you know where—”

She was giving me an odd look, mouth hanging slightly open.

I gave her a quizzical look.