“No.”
A light bulb went off. “Crumbelina?”
She giggled and the adorable sound echoed down the hall.
“You are one tough cookie, Chef Carolina.”
We walked side by side, her warm, light-brown hand swinging in mine with casual trust, like it was the most natural thing in the world. It caught me off guard—how easy it felt, how right. I had held a lot of hands in my life, but this one made my chest ache in a way I wasn’t prepared for.
Like maybe I was already starting to understand what it meant to be someone’s mom.
Just as we rounded the corner toward the coaching offices, a door slammed open hard enough to rattle the wall. Less than a second later, Brooks came barreling out, looking like he’d gonefrom zero to full panic in sixty seconds flat. Eyes wide, phone in one hand, his jaw tight enough to crack.
The second he saw Carolina beside me, he froze.
Relief washed over his face like a wave—sharp tension dissolving in real time—and he ran a hand down his beard before lowering the phone and exhaling hard.
“There you are,” he said, coming toward us. “Jesus, cutie. You can’t just wander off like that. I was about to send the entire security staff out after you.”
Carolina blinked up at him, unbothered. “I wasn’t lost. I was with Dani.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” he muttered, then looked at me.
“To be clear,” I said, offering a small smile, “she came for the snacks.”
“That sounds about right.” He crouched down to Carolina’s level and smoothed his hand over her hair. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. We were just making a list of names for my sourdough.”
Brooks looked up at me, half-exasperated, half-amused. “She told you about that?”
“She showed me the list. I’m invested now.”
He stood back up, and for the briefest second, I forgot how to breathe.
His fitted, black Roasters hoodie did nothing to hide the sculpted muscles underneath. He had pushed his sleeves up to his forearms, exposing his tattoos. The salt-and-pepper beard only made his jaw look sharper, more defined, and his square-frame glasses—fuck, those glasses—should not have looked that good on a man who coached for a living.
He met my eyes with something like gratitude and exhaustion in equal measure. “I owe you.”
Oh, I can think of something you can give me.
Fucking hormones.
I coughed. “That won’t be necessary.” Turning to Carolina, I added, “Next time, give someone a heads-up before you disappear like a tiny bread-making ghost.”
“Okay,” she said solemnly.
I thought about telling him then.
The words hovered on the edge of my tongue, ready to tumble out any second. But Carolina was still clutching her cracker wrapper, and Brooks had that weary, dad-on-the-brink expression like he hadn’t sat down in hours—he probably hadn’t.
This wasn’t the moment. It wasn’t even close.
Instead, I cleared my throat and took a step back. “I’ll let you two get back to your sourdough saga.”
“Bye, Dani.”
I waved my goodbye.
