I smiled, letting him have what he wanted and drinking down the soft sigh, keeping the kiss gentle but letting him take as much as he needed.
If all Iggy wanted from me was to be kissed, I was giving him as many as I could manage.
“I’m baking,” I said. “And that’s final. You got a pen? I need to make a grocery list.”
“I’ll help,” Dante interrupted from where he’d been hovering by the espresso machine, listening in.
Iggy turned to him, eyebrow raised. “You bake?” he asked.
“My mom’s won the Annual Otter Bay Halloween Festival Pie Bake the last six years running,” Dante said. “You know that.”
“I do,” Iggy said, frowning. “I guess I just didn’t realize you helped.”
“I don’t,” Dante said. ”But I must have some genetic talent or something.”
Iggy blinked at him. “That can’t… possibly be how that works.”
“I’m a Gemini,” Dante said. “We make great bakers.”
Iggy narrowed his eyes. “That sounds like bullshit.”
“You think everything I say about astrology sounds like bullshit, how could you tell the difference?” Dante asked.
“So itisbullshit.”
“Bullshit or not,” I interrupted. “I could use the help.”
I liked Dante, Iggy liked Dante, and I couldn’t help hearing some sage advice from the Spice Girls playing in the back of my head. If I wanted to be Iggy’s fiancé, I had to make an effort to get along with his friends.
Even if it wasn’t real. I’d offered him the full experience, but I hadn’t realized until this morning how sincere I’d been about it.
I’d missed him. Maybe I couldn’t keep him, but I could have him for a little while.
Dante lit up, ducking into the kitchen and grabbing a spare apron, holding it out for me. “Here,” he said. ”You write the list, I’ll run to the store, you can get the lay of the land.”
“You don’t have to do this, guys,” Iggy said, looking between the two of us. “I can go one day without selling a cake.”
“You have to learn to accept help,” Dante said, pointing a tattooed finger at Iggy.
“We’re doing this,” I said, folding my arms across my chest, not about to let Iggy change my mind. Dante was right—he’d never been good at accepting help. “No argument.”
Iggy opened his mouth, squinted at me, wrinkled his nose, and then sighed. “Fine.Fine.”
“Tauruses are kinda hot when they’re being stubborn,” Dante said, giving me an approving once-over. “Starting to see the appeal of the bull.”
I had no idea what to say to that, so I grabbed the pencil Iggy had been strangling earlier and one of the blank order slips to write my list.
I’d just gotten as far asthe best dark chocolate availablewhen Iggy pressed a kiss to my cheek.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “I’ll make you coffee.”
* * *
“I’m just saying,you could do a lot worse. Pretty Boy in there bakesandeats ass, do you have any idea how rare that is?” Dante said as I approached the kitchen door.
I’d just been about to duck out for a second batch of ingredients—this time to make Iggy’s favorite chocolate brownies, the first recipe I’d ever attempted—but hearing Dante talking about me stopped me in my tracks.
“Do we have to call it eating ass? You’re making him sound like Hannibal Lecter.”
