“I’m in,” I volunteered immediately. Although my stomach dropped a bit at the realization that if I started brunch at Bianca, I couldn’t actually be in. I would have to be out. Very, very out.
“Me too!” Molly agreed.
“You’re in charge of the pastries,” Kaya told her. “You’ll probably be able to freeze everything we don’t eat and bring it over.”
Wyatt grabbed a third donut. “We probably have enough here for the next… thirty to forty brunches.”
Molly threw a donut hole at him, but he ducked and caught it in his mouth. “Not if we keep inviting you, Wyatt. You’re like the donut version of Cookie Monster.”
Ezra bounded down the stairs and joined us. “Stop giving Molly a hard time,” he ordered, wrapping his arms around her immediately. “She orchestrated this all by herself. I’m proud of her.”
And then he kissed her on the top of her head, painting them as the most perfect couple of all time.
My stomach dropped further, like it had been trapped in a faulty elevator shaft right before it plummeted eighty stories to its death.
She looked up at him, gazing at my brother like he had hung the stars in the sky. “I told you when you first met me that ordering takeout was one of my top life skills.”
He nudged her nose with his. “That you did.”
Moved by the romance in the room, Kaya leaned on Wyatt. He wrapped his arm around her, his hand still clutching a half-eaten donut.
Good thing I hadn’t eaten anything yet. Or I would have puked it up all over.
Ugh, what was it about couples that made me simultaneously want to be in one and swear on all that was holy that I would never be ooey gooey like these mushy love birds?
Thankfully, there was a knock on the door, and I didn’t have to dry-heave my loneliness all over Ezra’s kitchen floor.
“I’ll get it!” I moved before anyone could talk me out of it. Conversation continued in the kitchen, but I tuned it out, assuming they were all declaring their undying love for each other and blah, blah, blah.
I ripped open the door. Vann stood on the other side. The temperature instantly dropped, and goosebumps rose all over my arms.
We stood there for a prolonged moment, time and space and all the universe ceasing to exist as we tried to figure out what to do next.
“Brunch?” he eventually said, holding up a netted bag of Clementine’s.
He hadn’t shaved this morning. There was stubble roughing up his usually smooth jawline. And he had ditched his preppy look for a navy-blue Cycle Life t-shirt, a pair of gray sweatpants and a loose stocking cap. God, it was unfair how sexy he looked.
And this should not be a sexy look, by the way. I had only ever been exposed to the buttoned-up, I-have-a-trust-fund-and-private-plane gentleman attire. And because those were the kind of men I had previously dated, they were the only ones I had experience with. I imagined a man that could take me to a five-star dinner and be able to afford the tip. I thought I wanted the nice car and country club membership and standing golf outings with his college buddies.
Vann, like this, was the opposite of everything I knew about men.
And yet…
I licked dry lips and tried to keep my breathing steady. “This way.” I gestured toward the kitchen.
He stepped inside the door but didn’t move beyond the entryway. “I didn’t know you were going to be here,” he confessed in a low murmur.
I leaned in, accidentally inhaling his freshly showered smell. “I did know you were going to be here,” I whispered. All I could smell now was crisp soap, men’s deodorant, and citrus. It had completely stolen my ability to lie.
Or think clearly.
He flinched, my words sparking curiosity. “Thought we were going separate directions, Baptiste. But you keep finding ways to run into me.”
Some of my senses came back at his accusation. I stood straighter, realizing I had been totally crowding him. “The gym was an accident.” It was an accident. “And it wasn’t like I could tell Ezra no when he invited me to brunch. Although, be on guard, Molly’s trying to set us up.”
Something flashed across his face, but it happened so fast, I couldn’t grab the emotion and put a name to it. “Seems about right. I think we’re the only single people she knows.”
“We’ll just have to make it clear we’re not interested in each other,” I told him. “So, she doesn’t keep trying.”
