She opened the freezer to get the ice – before noticing the peach and yogurt popsicles that she and Ash had made the other day.
Oh! Perfect.
She carefully warmed the tray a little and slid out three of the popsicles, holding the first one between her teeth while she extracted the other two, and then hurried back into the dining room.
She felt a giddy little jolt of joy as she saw Ash and Calvin sitting next to each other at the table, pencils in hand, hunched over Ash’s puzzle book.
Calvin was staring at the book, his forehead creasing cutely in bewilderment. “What do you mean, ‘bananas’ is an anagram indicator?”
Diana couldn’t help but smile – or as much as she could with the popsicle in her mouth, anyway. Clearly poor Calvin had been roped into Ash’s current hobby of cryptic crosswords.
“It means the word is going crazy – you know, like,bananas,” Ash informed him. “The letters are moving around all over the place, so it could be an anagram of some other word.”
“Oh – makes sense to me, I guess,” Calvin replied, nodding, though the expression on his face suggested it made anythingbutsense. “So… uh….”
“‘Analyze dusty bananas,’” Ash read from the list of clues. He looked up expectantly. “Do you get it now?”
“Uh…” Calvin began – and Diana decided he was probably in need of rescue.
“Hweeur yuu guh!” she managed to get out around the popsicle in her mouth, while she held the other two out to Ash and Calvin.
They looked up – and Diana couldn’t help but notice Calvin looked distinctly relieved beneath his bemusement. Handing over the other two popsicles, Diana removed the popsicle from her mouth so she could try again. “Here you go!” A sudden thought struck her. “Oh God, I forgot to ask. Do you like peaches?”
Or maybe he’s lactose intolerant,she thought in mild despair.I knew he had to have a flaw. Is that a flaw that I can live with?
It would be a close-run thing, given that dairy was possibly the third most important thing in her life after Ash and Bella… but she thought that maybe she could deal with it. If she absolutely had to.
To her relief, Calvin laughed. “Peaches are my favorite. And these look amazing.”
Relaxing, Diana laughed as well. Theydidlook amazing, with their enticing golden swirls of peach nestled amongst the creamy frozen yoghurt. It was a recipe from Sylvie’s new cookbook – she’d written it during the last month of her pregnancy when she’d been forced to take it easy and wasn’t able to be on her feet from dawn ’til dusk in the bakery. But – Sylvie being Sylvie – she’d still needed something to do, so writing out her vast store of recipes it had been. The book was being published in a couple of months, but Diana and the rest of Sylvie’s friends had been given advance copies.
“This is a new recipe that Ash and I were trying out, so I can’t say I know exactly what they’ll taste like. But hopefully they’re good!”
Diana understood the risk she was taking, shoving something she’d never made before at Calvin. She wanted toimpress him – or at least, not actively disgust him – and she wouldn’t exactly have called herself a talented chef. But with Sylvie’s recipes, how much could go wrong?
She took a careful nibble, and…
“Mmm.”
Itwaspretty good, if she said so herself. The popsicle was cold and creamy and refreshing, with a sweet undercurrent of honey and the warmth of vanilla, topped off with the tang of lemon, a slightest hint of coconut, and the satisfyingcrunchof frozen peach. It was just the perfect thing for a hot summer’s day, and she sighed happily.
“You happy with how they turned out, Ash?” she asked, and he nodded, too busy eating his popsicle to answer.
She turned to look at Calvin, a little concerned by his lack of response. Did he not like it?
But in the end, she shouldn’t have worried.
He was sitting there with his eyes closed, looking absolutely blissed out.
“Wow. Oh, wow.”
He opened his eyes almost reluctantly. “What did you do to the peaches? This is incredible.”
Diana’s heart fluttered with happiness at the compliment. She hadn’t felt this excited about meeting a guy since… well, sinceforever.
How could I be this excited about someone I just met?!
But it was undeniable. There was something about Calvin – beyond his obvious good looks – that was just getting her attention in ways that she hadn’t thought possible.
