As usual, I ignored it.
“And don’t forget your rolls,” he added, passing me a paper bag.
“Oh shoot!” I said and remembered the bag already in my hand. “I brought you something.”
I put the plastic bag on top of the metal counter and pushed it toward him.
Zach bit his lip and glared at it.
“It isn’t…is it?”
I smiled.
“It sure is.”
Zach squealed and did a happy dance that made his hood drop, revealing his short buzz cut with the cute, coiled rings at the top and I once again stood there marveling at his beauty.
“Wait, is it for me, or the truck?” he asked.
I chuckled.
“It’s for both. There’s two in there.”
After the last time I’d dropped off one blueberry pie that had sent him into an agonizing dilemma, I’d learned my lesson.
“Hmm, you say that as if I can’t eat both myself.”
“You can. If you want,” I said.
He tapped his chin.
“Decisions, decisions.”
I watched him stare at the boxes inside the plastic bag until he took one out and popped it in the fridge.
“I can’t. Your delicious pie needs to be shared with the people,” he added and took the second box out so he could put that pie on display.
Something tickled in my chest when he acted like that. When he, a wonderful, talented baker, cherished something I’d made as if it was unique. But even so, even after almost a year of bringing him blueberry pies in exchange for cake, it still had the capacity to give me goosebumps and to make my heart combust.
Too bad my heart was so badly damaged it was barely holding on with all the duct tape and barbed wire and the last thing I needed was to let anyone—even my small ray of sunshine—in.
“See you tomorrow,” I said, after he waved my credit card off and I picked up my paper bag that felt slightly heavier than it should have been for a couple of rolls.
“Not if I see you first,” he winked, and I held my breath before I did something stupid like wink back or fall in love with him or something.
I couldn’t. Not ever again. Not even with the ray of sunshine that had made the past year bearable.
TWO
ZACH
As soon as Dare turned his back on me, I felt as if I could breathe again. Yet, watching him leave left me just as bereft.
Ten months. Ten months I’d been swooning after him. He just walked up to my truck one day, ordered a cake—a lavender cheesecake loaf—and a pumpkin spice latte. He walked away that day with his order and my heart, and he hadn’t returned it since.
“You’re just latching onto the unattainable, so you don’t have to deal with the past.” It was like I could hear my therapist.
Oh she’d have a field day if she knew what I’d been up to this past year. Instead of dealing with my problems, I’d run away from them. How could I not, after everything I’d been through?
