I breathe in his words and smile when my lungs are full. I’m not sure what right turn I made in life to get me here, but I thank every act of courage, every broken heart, and every seemingly wrong turn that got me here, encircled by Ryan’s arms. Our life together won’t be perfect. Far from it. We will fight every day. I will salt his ice cream, and he will draw more mustaches on me while I sleep. But I look forward to every bit of it.

I raise up onto my tiptoes to brush my lips over Ryan’s as I whisper, “I win.”

June

One year later…

“I didn’t come for a visit to get caught in y’all’s weirdo cross fire,” says Stacy, the friend from whom I will mercilessly take back the Best Friend of the Year trophy I had made for her.

Yes, it is an actual trophy I had engraved, and I gave it to her ten minutes ago. But don’t think I won’t pry it out of her pretty little swollen fingers if need be.

I narrow my eyes at her. “No more complaining. Snap to it unless you want to say bye-bye to that shiny little trophy.” I extend the brown paper bag in front of me and twitch my head toward the bronze trophy that has a little boy kicking a soccer ball on the top. Oddly, the store didn’t have any trophies with two attractive women hugging on the top, so I had to settle for this one.

Stacy gasps. “You wouldn’t!”

“I think you already know the answer to that question.”

Stacy eyes the paper bag and then snatches it from me. “Be right back. But when I get back to California, I’m telling Logan about how you made me do your bidding, and you will definitely receive a strongly worded text about it.”

I’m undeterred by her threats and smile like an evil mastermind, because I am one. I try not to stand too close to the window as I watch Stacy waddle (she’s superpregnant, so I’m allowed to say that) across the street toward Le Café, where I know Ryan will be found in the kitchen—spices and seasoning set around him like an artist’s paint set. He’s been itching to create a new dish all month, and last night, he shot straight up in the middle of the night and proclaimed, “I HAVE IT!”

He clicked on the lamp, searing my eyeballs with painful light, and started scribbling away in the notepad beside the bed. I’ve learned over the last six months of our marriage that Ryan’s best ideas hit him during the night. It’s horrible, and I wouldn’t have married him had I known this fact.

Anyway, after he was finished writing down his masterpiece, I made him snuggle me until I fell back to sleep, but then that turned into something different, and now we’re both exhausted today. WORTH IT.

However, just because I’m deeply in love with him, and he’s deeply good at loving me, doesn’t mean the war we began as kids has stopped. Which is why I can’t resist pressing my face against the glass to see what happens next.

Stacy looks over her shoulder after she crosses the street and makes direct eye contact with me through the glass. I give her a thumbs-up and then a shooing motion, and she rolls her eyes. Now, she’s inside, and my stomach has butterflies.

One minute later, the door to Ryan’s café opens again, and Stacy comes out, Ryan hot on her heels, paper bag in hand. I quickly roll myself away from the window until my back is flat against the wall. Wait, busy! I need to look busy. I wipe my hands on my pink apron and start buzzing around like Cinderella. La-de-da, nothing suspicious happening here! I always sing while I tidy the bakery.

The door chimes as Stacy and Ryan step inside, and I shiver at the sight of him. He’s glorious. Gets hotter every time I see him. And today, he’s wearing a navy shirt that makes his eyes look like even darker pools of delight.

“Hi, babe!” I say in my cheeriest, nothing-to-see-here tone.

His smile hitches as he rounds my counter. “Stacy brought me this donut. Says it’s from you.” He holds up the bag.

“Yeah. We didn’t have time for breakfast, so I wanted to make sure you ate something.”

We’re holding locked-and-loaded smiles at each other. He knows something is up. In fact, I think he’s already learned the secret. “You’re too good to me.”

“The best.” I flutter.

His smile drops. “What’s in the donut, June?”

I look horrified at his implication. “Why, darling, why would you expect anything to be wrong with the donut?”

“Because I put Orajel in your toothpaste yesterday and made your mouth go numb.”

“Ha, ha, ha! Oh, Ryan! I’m not at all upset about that. It was funny. A great prank.” I might be going over the top now.

He shakes his head at me. “There’s no way I’m eating this donut, June. What did you do, crush up a laxative into the flour? Inject it with ghost pepper sauce?” Ghost pepper sauce! Why didn’t I think of that?

“I swear to you. There is nothing wrong with that donut.”

He stalks up close to me and stares down in my eyes. I can smell his bodywash from his shower this morning, and I want to grab him by the shirt and haul him into the kitchen and tell Stacy to man the door. In fact, I would if I weren’t on a mission.

Ryan leans down slowly, tantalizingly, dangerously, and hovers over my mouth. “What. Did. You. Do. To. The. Donut?”

I hold his bad-guy gaze, because I’m every bit the assassin that he is. “Nothing,” I whisper.

His eyes grow darker, because these games we play always get him going. I think he’s thinking of the back room now too.

I slide around him and pretend I’m completely unfazed by his masculine sensuality. You can’t tempt me, buddy. I bring a fresh tray of Just Peachy donuts from the back (Ryan’s favorite) and begin setting the glistening glazed treats up in the display case.

“All right then, June Bug. If nothing is truly wrong with this donut, you eat it, and I’ll take one of these fresh ones.”

My shoulders slump, and I flash him my most annoyed look. It’s paired with a flat smile. “I’m not hungry.”

“Mm-hmm.”

But I hate (love) when he taunts me, so I snatch the bag out of his hand and reach in for the donut. He reaches around me, making me have to lean back as he dips his hand into the donut case and grabs a peach-flavored donut for himself.

“You’re going to have to pay for that,” I say, and I’m completely serious.

Stacy chimes in from somewhere behind us. “You guys scare me.”

Ryan’s heart-melting, sideways smile just grows. “At the same time?” he suggests, lifting my hand holding the ominous donut I tried to get him to eat up toward my face.

I look down at it, my stomach recoiling at the sight, and nod. He raises his donut to his mouth, and I raise mine.

“I’ll count down,” says Stacy, clearly invested in the situation more than she was leading on. “Three…two…one.”

Ryan and I both take a bite, and I can barely suppress my smile when his face immediately crumples. He curses and runs to get a napkin to spit out his donut. With my mouth full of delicious, untainted chocolate goodness, I laugh like a con woman who just got away with the world’s most dangerous heist.

Ryan is scrubbing his tongue. “What was that?!”

Stacy and I are both doubled over laughing, and she says, “I can’t believe it worked exactly like you said it would!”

“You owe me ten dollars!” I brag.

She reaches in her back pocket and hands over a ten-dollar bill while I’m still trying to swallow my donut.

“All right,” Ryan says once he sulks back over to me. “Give me your villain monologue now.”

I don’t waste any time. With a finger poking him in his chest, I begin. “Of course you wouldn’t trust a random donut delivered to your door! And OF COURSE you would make me eat it! What do you think I am, Ryan? An amateur?” He’s rolling his eyes at how over the top I am. “HA! I’m brilliant, that’s what I am. I knew you couldn’t resist one of my freshly glazed peach donuts, so I glazed this whole batch with a special concoction of Elmer’s glue, water, and—”

“Orajel,” he states.