“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!
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.
