When I’m done, I say goodbye, grab a coffee, and google my favorite options from the short list The Dating Pool sent over. Checking the time, I pick the best one for tonight, then open my text app and tap out a message to Oliver.

Summer: I know you hate classes, but . . .

Oliver: Please tell me we’re not going to learn to knit hats or make booties. Or candles. I draw the line at candle making.

Summer: Candles? That’s the line in the sand?

Oliver: A man has to have some lines.

Summer: Then you’ll love where I’ve drawn this one.

Oliver: Can’t wait.

Summer: You do know I can hear the sarcasm even through text messages?

Oliver: I wasn’t trying to hide it.

Summer: See you at five on Perry and Hudson, then we’ll go to your client’s dinner, and we’ll have a hostess gift that’ll be perfectly unique.

Oliver: Lawyers are generally known for giving great hostess gifts. We’re often praised as a collective group for our excellence in that area.

As I drink my coffee and reread the thread, a pang pulls on my heart.

This should be a good thing—that we can return so seamlessly to the way we’ve always been. We are a rubber band, snapping back into friendship shape.

But in a way, it feels off, like this isn’t who we are anymore.

Or maybe it’s not who we could be.

I had a taste of that last night, and I want another drink.

But I sigh and close the app.

30OLIVER

In the grand scheme of things, I have nothing against pink. I mean, it’s not my color. I don’t wear it. I don’t decorate with it. Not that I decorate anything, for that matter.

Point being, pink is fine, except when it’s not fine. Except when I’m surrounded by it.

“I feel like I’m swimming in a Pepto Bismol bottle,” I whisper to Summer as the pink-haired instructor with the world’s cheeriest smile hands us aprons at the Cookie Academy.

“It does have a rather strong Candy Land-slash-My Little Pony vibe,” Summer whispers, tying an apron around her neck.

I fasten mine at the waist, then gesture to myself, reaching for humor and normalcy. “Domestic god is a good look on me, right?” I lift a brow and give her my best smolder. “You’ve always wanted to see me in an apron—admit it.”

Wait—

I frown, second-guessing myself.

Was that flirty?

Yeah, that was flirty.

I shouldn’t be flirty with Summer if we’re going back to the friend zone. And we are, since we’ve agreed that last night was not the norm.

But this is a cookie-making class. Cookie dough won’t be tempting. It’s not like we’re making sensual massage oil. Now that would be a class I could get behind.

“You look absolutely dashing.” Summer pats me on the shoulder as we set out ingredients on the pink counter. If she’s feeling awkward after this morning’s let’s-never-go-there-again decision, it’s not showing.

At the front of the kitchen classroom, the instructor cups her mouth to make a megaphone. “Who’s ready to make the best cookie batter ever?”

“We are,” shouts the couple behind us.

“Woot, woot,” shouts another.

I groan inside. Classes should not include a cheering section.

The instructor sings out her instructions, and we set to work mixing and measuring, Summer taking pics as we go.

“I think The Dating Pool included this date idea on its short list because it’s highly Instagrammable.” She snaps a shot of me measuring sugar.

“Isn’t that the main criterion for a date these days? Because who will believe you had a date if you don’t post pics on social media?”

When Summer laughs, I take it as a sign that this is where we’re supposed to be. No, not this pic-friendly, cotton-candy-pink cookie school. I mean the friendship we’ve managed to pull out of the sex nosedive. We’re flying at cruising altitude into the friend zone so damn easily it’s like we live there.

This proves last night was a blip. Just a bump of turbulence.

“We’re adorbs,” she says. Now she’s snapping a shot of us working our KitchenAid blender—pink, of course. Then she pauses. “Wait. How about a kiss? What’s a photo op without a kiss?”

“Things I ask myself every day.” I drop a chaste one on her cheek.

This is our frequency, this saccharine cute and absolutely fucking awful class where we stir up a concoction we could make at home. But in this day and age, we need a course in everything so it can be chronicled for social media, thus proving we’re having the best time ever.

All I want to do is rip off this apron, bring her close, and kiss her senseless.

Toss her over my shoulder.

Carry her out of here.

I want to strip her, touch her, have her.

Tell her how I feel all night long, and then in the morning tell her that I want to do it again and again.

Instead, I’m shaking rainbow sprinkles into cookie dough batter while pretending I don’t want to do any of that with the woman next to me.

I sneak a glance at her—the girl next door who’s become the woman I want.

Become so much more than a friend.