“Takes one to know one.” I’m so mature I should win an award.

“Nice. Why are you so jumpy?” he asks, looking down at me and making my skin flush.

I don’t have an answer to his question, though. At least not one I’m willing to voice. You turn me inside out.

He shoves his hands back into his pockets and gives a chin lift to Stacy, who is waving at him from behind the bar while she waits for the mom and her kids to make up their minds. “Hey, Stacy. This place looks awesome.”

She beams back at him. “It’s all June! She’s the mastermind behind it all.”

I don’t like the way the spotlight suddenly shifts to me. It feels too bright.

“Ha! Mastermind. Pshhhh, no. Barely even.” Basically, I just took a bunch of words from thin air and strung them together until it felt like a real sentence.

Ryan shifts his eyes to me, amusement and concern mingling in them. “I’m gonna look around now. Do I need to strap you to that booth while I do, or are you going to be okay walking with me?”

His taunts bring me back to life, and I jump in front of him and spread my arms in a mom-bear-protecting-her-cub pose. “This is my shop. You’re not going anywhere in it without me.”

“Good. Show me the kitchen.”

See, here’s the thing. I shouldn’t find that statement ominous and sexy. But he’s a chef. Like, a freaking good one. So that sentence coming out of his mouth feels like he’s just told me, Show me the bedroom.

My knees feel like Play-Doh, but I do an admirable job of walking as I lead Ryan back to the kitchen. He walks too close to me, though. Stacy watches us, and she chuckles, shaking her head at me because, apparently, I look like I am actually walking him back to my bedroom. I push through the swinging door that leads to our little kitchen and then hold my hands out in front of me. “Here it is. Where the magic happens.” I cringe at my word choice.

Ryan looks over his shoulder with a tilted grin and then stalks around my kitchen like the king of the jungle inspecting another lion’s pride. I try to look at the space through his eyes, and just as I feared, it doesn’t look very impressive. Tall metal shelves hold clear containers of various ingredients and dough starters. A long silver worktable sits in the middle of the room, sprinkled with flour from our morning of rolling out donuts. I have two industrial-size mixers, lots of extra-large mixing bowls, and several drying carts for after we finish icing the donuts. It’s all pretty standard, and I wonder if Ryan thinks it’s small fries compared to his prestigious big-city kitchen.

He loops around the worktable, and I don’t realize I’ve been lost in my thoughts until he stops in front of me. “Why do you look so sad?”

“Hmm? I’m not.”

He ignores my protest. “Do you not like having me in here?”

“I—I don’t know. I guess I’m still getting used to this new version of you.”

“What version is that?”

I lean back and grip the counter behind me, hoping to look at ease and not like I’m using the counter to help hold myself up—which is exactly what I’m using it for. “The one that doesn’t hate me.”

“You mean the one that’s into you?” I jerk my gaze up to his. I’m so used to Ryan playing games with me; honesty is just not something I was expecting.

Ryan is into me? As in currently. Not past tense? I suspected it. But there’s a difference between suspecting and knowing.

He smiles, and I’m happy to see he still has the same dimple in his right cheek. “Let’s talk hypothetical for a second.”

“Okay.”

“What if I wanted to take you on a date?”

So, on a completely unrelated note to what Ryan just said, what’s a healthy heart rate? I’m pretty sure mine is tipping over into cardiac arrest right now. “I would remind you that you are going back to Chicago after the wedding.”

“Forget Chicago.”

“But it’s where you live.”

He steps closer, the tips of our shoes touching. “You’re bad at hypothetical.”

He’s too close, and I need some air. I slip away from him and move to the other side of the worktable, pulling my hair up into a bun to let some airflow onto my neck. He turns around slowly and watches, amused. I roll up my sleeves and wash my hands before pulling down a tub of dough and dumping it out onto the counter, ignoring the fact that Ryan’s eyes never stray from me.

“Fine. Hypothetically, I would say sure. What would one date hurt?” I say after so much time that he probably thought I had given up on the topic altogether.

“You’d hold me to your one-date rule?”

I pause rolling the dough and look up at him. “I hold everyone to it.”

“Forever? You’ll never go out with someone past that first date ever again?”

He’s not the first person to ask me this. That’s why I’m able to answer without thinking. “Not unless that first date is life-changing. Like really, truly something, and I know that he’s the man I want to spend forever with.”

His eyes narrow ever so slightly, and then he nods slowly. “Noted. All right, show me how to do this.”

“What?” I ask, pulling my brows together. I guess it really was just a hypothetical, and he’s not really going to ask me out. I had nothing to worry about. Super. Wonderful. Perfect.

He unzips his hoodie and hangs it up on a peg beside the kitchen door. And SHOOT, his arms look good when he moves. He has those amazing man veins that wrap around his biceps all the way down to his fingers. And that shirt of his is hugging his every muscle in a way that makes me consider suggesting he take it off so he doesn’t get any flour on it. Because, you know, flour is sooooo messy. And who wants to go through all the trouble of dust, dust, dusting it off at the end of the day. See? So impractical. Strip that shirt off, buddy.

Ryan turns around and catches me ogling him. “You done?” he asks in a sexy voice that instinctively makes me clear my throat. It’s fine, though. I’m so good with all my resolves. So what if Ryan is into me? I don’t care. Not one bit.

I narrow my eyes at him and aim my rolling pin at his smug face. “Listen up, Chef. You’re in my kitchen now. Insubordinate comments come with consequences.”

He lifts a brow.

“Dish duty.” I jerk my head toward the sink full of sticky mixing bowls.

I watch warily as Ryan rounds the worktable to come stand on my side, nearly hip to hip with me. I don’t want to smile. I really don’t, but it’s hard. I’m losing my fight against Ryan. I like him near me. I want him near me. And over the next hour, as we work side by side, rolling and cutting dough and flirting with flour like a cheesy Hallmark movie, I feel my heart physically crack a little.

It’s both painful and healing at the same time.

Once we both finish and wash up, I try to walk past Ryan to leave the kitchen, but he catches my arm. I stop and look up at him. He smiles softly, making my nerves twist and zing. “Thanks for letting me see this today.”

“I didn’t really have a choice, did I?” I say, going for a teasing tone, but instead, it comes out breathy and oh-so small.

His thumb glides up and down my arm, and his grin hitches. “Not really, no.”

We stand here, frozen in this limbo between what we were and what we could be. He inches closer, and my heart knocks painfully against my chest. I’m worried he can see it trying to burst out of my skin.

“I wish I’d come back sooner,” he says as his calloused fingers glide down my arm to rest on my wrist. I look down and wish his fingers would fall to lace with mine, but I can see that he’s waiting for me to make the next move.

I fill my lungs with air and look up to him, contemplating letting the truth out for once, when the door to the kitchen flies open.

I jump a mile away from Ryan and pretend to wipe down the counter with the closest rag I can find…which is actually my apron. Nothing polishes quite like stiff canvas!