My show goes unnoticed, though, because Stacy is oblivious as she rushes in and grabs a tray of fresh donuts from the drying rack. “Are you coming back out?! I think a bus of tourists just unloaded or something, because the rush is wild out there. Grab another tray of Just Peachy on your way out.”

And then she’s gone, and the kitchen door swings shut.

“Smooth,” says Ryan with a taunting grin as he nods to the counter I’m still furiously scrubbing. “She’s gone, so I think you can stop polishing.” He’s loving my discomfort as he moseys over to the coatrack, pulls his hoodie down from the wall, and slides his sexy arms into it. “Well, this was fun, June Bug. Tell you what, since you showed me yours, next time, I’ll show you mine.”

He taps the wall with his hand on the way out the kitchen door and leaves me wishing I could hate him for that cheesy closing line instead of melting on the floor like I am.

Chapter 13 Ryan

“How’s the new junior chef working out?” I ask Nia, my sous-chef back in Chicago. She’s been running everything while I’m away, and normally, I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night, worrying about all the ways my kitchen will be run into the ground while I’m gone, but with her in charge, I know I have nothing to worry about.

“Slow. But he’s learning.”

“How many times have you made him cry?”

“Only three.”

I smile and switch my cellphone from the car speaker back to my phone as I pull up out front of June’s house on Friday morning. “Well, that’s an improvement.”

I cut the engine and look out my window. June’s not expecting me, so I don’t think she’ll be too happy to see my face. I’ve realized that she likes to be 100 percent in control of every aspect of her life. Which is why I make it my life’s mission to uproot her finely tuned plans.

“You’re coming back Sunday night, right?” Nia asks as I open my car door and get out.

I pause, taking in June’s white bungalow and teal front door. The wooden porch seat looks lonely. Sure, it has a sunshine-yellow pillow on it, making the whole scene look happy, but when I picture June sitting in that chair all by herself, I get the urge to drive straight to Home Depot and pick up another matching one to plop down right beside hers. I’ll put a dark-blue pillow on it. It’ll be my pillow.

I make a half-hearted grunt noise into the phone. “Yeah, Sunday.”

Nia laughs, misinterpreting the cause of my disgruntled sound. “I feel ya. Sunday is too many days away when you’re ready to get back to your kitchen. Don’t worry, though; I won’t let it burn down.”

Yeah, ’cause that’s really my problem: wanting to get back sooner.

I think if Nia called me tomorrow and said, So sorry, but I accidentally spilled gasoline all over the restaurant and then lit it up like the Fourth of July, I would only feel relief. What does that say about me?

Just then, movement catches my eye, and I see June’s front door open. She doesn’t see me across the street when she tiptoes out with bare feet to grab a package off the front porch. It’s only about fifty-five degrees outside, and her spaghetti-strap tank top and PJ shorts provide little in the way of warmth, so she crosses her arms across her chest and shuffles her feet quickly to retrieve the box by the stairs.

June is all curves, tan skin, and wild brown hair. She’s real and soft, and suddenly, I want to wrap a big parka jacket around her because I don’t want anyone else looking at her. Mine. Not sure when I became the jealous type, but here we are.

“Nia, I’ll call you back,” I say, keeping my eyes on June and ending the call before she replies. She’s going to add extra salt to my famous hollandaise sauce because she hates when I hang up on her like that.

June must have heard my voice, because when her hands land on the box, her eyes shoot up to me. And then she frowns, those brows pulling so tightly together they are practically touching. I smile and cross the street.

She backs toward her door, saying, “No, no, no! Why do you keep showing up at my house at the crack of dawn?”

“We need to go to the store to get the food for tonight. But, June”—I’m rushing up the front steps to catch her—“I swear, if you shut another door in my face…”

“Go to the store without me, Ryan!” She turns around quickly before I can look at her face.

June is the physical embodiment of Katy Perry’s song where I’m concerned. Hot and then cold. She’s telling me to get lost, but she leaves the door wide open after she storms inside. One minute she seems into me, texting me she was jealous of the girls I’d bring around in high school, and the next, she’s running away like I’m coming at her with fangs bared.

“I don’t want to go to the store without you,” I say, stepping through the front door and closing it behind me.

She turns around again and tries to dart to her room, but my voice stops her. “June! Wait. Please.” She slowly turns to face me, but zeroes in on the floor. Apparently, it’s the most interesting floor in the world, because she won’t turn her attention from it. “Look at me, June.”

“No.”

“Why? I don’t get why you’re so skittish around me sometimes.” I understand that there used to be bad blood between us, but that’s gone now, and I know it. We had a good time making donuts together on Wednesday. She smiled. We flirted. There’s a different reason she’s so hot and cold.

“Because you’re always showing up when I don’t want you to. Would it have killed you to give me even just a five-minute warning?”

“Surprise is the spice of life.”

She scoffs at my joke. “I disagree.” Now she’s shrinking—physically shrinking—under my gaze. Her shoulders are slumping in, and she’s crossing her arms and tucking her chin down. It’s so opposite from the strong June I know. “Are we done with this chat? Because I need to go.”

“Go where?”

“I don’t know, Cabo?”

“June.”

She finally looks at me—or rather, lets me look at her. Her eyes are literal daggers. “I just want to go put my makeup on, okay? Quit being such a jerk all the time.”

“I’m being a jerk? By trying to get you to look in my eyes instead of the floor?”

“You can clearly tell I don’t want to, and you’re pushing it! So yeah, that makes you a jerk.”

She stomps away, and I’m not too proud of it, but my eyes catch on her perfect butt for three full seconds before I go after her. Tiny pictures of Nick Lachey are printed all over her shorts, and he’s never looked so hot to me. “You don’t need makeup.”

A mirthless laugh escapes her. “Gosh, I hate hearing lines like that from men. They’re so untrue. You heard it in a romance movie, so you’re repeating it.”

“Not true. Stop walking for a second,” I say, but she doesn’t even slow a bit. I’m forced to jog to catch up with her as she races through her room toward her bathroom.

“Ughhh, Ryan, you’re like an annoying puppy following me around everywhere!”

“What’s gotten into you since Wednesday? I thought we were getting along better.”

She puts her hands over her face and sounds way more frustrated with me than the situation warrants. “Ryan, I swear to Dolly Parton that if you do not get out of my bathroom right now, I will burn you with my curling iron.”

“That’s it.” And that’s the last thing I say before I scoop her up in my arms. She squeals as I carry her into the walk-in shower.

“What the hell are you doing?! Put me down!”

I get us both in the shower and position us under the showerhead, one hand on the nozzle. “Tell me why you’re being so rude or else I blast us both with cold water.”

I don’t particularly want to douse myself in icy water, but I will if I have to. I have a feeling that everyone in June’s life lets her hide away, keep all her secrets pinned up inside so she can hurt privately. Not me. I’m not as nice as them.

“You’ve lost your mind,” she says, but she’s not squirming anymore.

“Tell me, or we both freeze.”