“Wha…?” he asked, reaching up to grab the biscuit and licking his lips.
“You were supposed to take it!” Embarrassed, Aevrin couldn’t help but laugh along, too. Sheepishly he bit the biscuit in half. Cassia was gasping for air. The back of his neck burned.
“I dunno how I was supposed to know that, Miss Cassia,” he managed to say at last, as she wiped at a streaming eye, another thread of giggle erupting from her lips.
“Well, do I get fed, too?” she wheezed.
With an abashed grin, he opened up the cherry drudd and loaded a scoop on one of the biscuits. The hard wafer moved easily through the soft custard, rich brown with swirls of deep red.
“I’m not sure you can handle this, Miss Cassia. You’re about to lose so bad.”
“I can take it,” she told him, and cracked up again, then forced herself to quiet and nodded at him solemnly. He could see her lips trembling from withheld laugher. “Give it to me,” she told him, and leaned towards him.
He guided the biscuit towards her soft mouth, certain he was having an out-of-body experience. Aevrin stared as her pink lips parted, then closed around it an inch from his fingers, her lips pursing as she tasted the custard… and then she twisted away with a laugh, collapsing into giggles again and leaving the custard-topped biscuit in his fingers.
“I can’t,” Cassia gasped, barely breathing.
“What’s so funny?” Aevrin demanded. Still laughing, Cassia waved her hand, leaned back against the cart, and panted until she could breathe normally again.
“I handed you the biscuit and you just leaned forward and ate it,” she said again.
“Aw, c’mon, Cassia.” He was still holding hers out to her. “I misunderstood. It’s embarrassing.”
“It was cute,” she told him. “Don’t be embarrassed.”
Aevrin wasn’t sure he liked being called cute. It wasn’t exactly a compliment among ranchers.
“Yeah, well… you done laughing about it?” he grumbled.
“For now,” Cassia said, and wiped her streaming eyes again. “You’d better just give me that biscuit, though, or else I might .” He offered it to Cassia with a sigh, then sat in moody silence as she finished eating the custard. He was nervous to meet her eyes now, certain he’d just find laughter instead of the deep, pooling heat he’d felt at her nearness.
“So?” he wanted to know.
“Yeah, it’s pretty good,” she said. Cassia rummaged for another biscuit and dug it into the plain. He silently followed suit, tasting his own. Aevrin’s custard was rich and warm, bold and oaky from the drudd, tart and sweet from the cherry. The plain custard had tasted like nothing.
“Oh, yeah,” Aevrin said. “This is way better.”
“No way.” Cassia shook her head at him. He glanced at her, gaze landing on her tongue as she licked a dollop of custard off her biscuit. Aevrin's core clenched. He looked back down at his own custard, embarrassed at the strength of his longing for her and how much of a fool he was proving to be.
“You kidding? This has so much more flavor.”
“This is as good as it gets,” Cassia told him, tapping her biscuit against the lip of her paper bowl. “It’snuanced. Refined.”
“You just don’t wanna kiss,” he guessed out loud. “It’s okay, Miss Cassia. I never knew you were a sore loser, but, well, we all have our flaws.”
“Yours was good,” she admitted. “Mine’s just better. You don’t have to be embarrassed aboutthat,too.”
He stared at her for a moment, wondering where shy, sweet Cassia Clarek had gone to leave this wicked girl in her place. For a moment Cassia stared back, straight-mouthed, with serious eyes. Then she giggled again, all composure lost.
“You’ve got a silly side, Miss Cassia,” he informed her solemnly.
“Sorry. Sometimes when I start laughing I just can’t stop,” she admitted, and giggled again.
His heart thrummed in his chest at all the pure charm in that one sentence.
“So how do we settle this?” he asked. “We gotta pull a third party in?”
“Nope,” Cassia said, digging more softening custard out of her cup, with another shiver from the cold storming around the cart. “We already know.”
