I’d been staring at the assortment of cakes and pies for an unreasonable amount of time, deliberating between the key lime pie (Skyler’s favorite, based on zero hard evidence and one offhand comment he’d made three weeks ago about key lime being “God’s flavor”) and a chocolate-bourbon-pecan situation that looked like it had been engineered in a laboratory to destroy willpower.
“The key lime,” I said. “No, wait. Both?”
“Both is good.” She was already boxing them up, done waiting for meto achieve clarity. “Big night?”
“Something like that.”
“Date?”
“Something like that.”
She slid the boxes across the counter with a knowing smile. “Whoever she is, she’s lucky. Anyone who agonizes this much over dessert is a keeper.”
I laughed, tucked the boxes under my arm, and headed for the door, feeling lighter than I had any right to.
Because I was excited.
It wasn’t nervous-excited or anxious-excited or the particular brand of dread-masked-as-enthusiasm that came with dating guys who were still figuring themselves out. I’d done all of that before. I knew what that felt like—the eggshell-walking, the constant calibration, and the quiet exhaustion of being someone’s experiment.
This didn’t feel like that.
Skyler had kissed me with the urgency of a man who’d been holding his breath for weeks and finally let himself exhale. He’d trembled against me, sure, but he hadn’t hesitated or apologized afterward.
Okay, fine, he’d tried to apologize, and I’d kissed the apology right out of his mouth.
He’d asked me to stay.
And he’d texted within hourssaying he missed me.
That wasn’t experimentation.
That was someone falling, hard and fast, and choosing not to fight it.
So yeah. I was excited.
The buzzing-under-my-skin, grinning-at-strangers, world-looks-brighter kind of excited that I hadn’t felt since—well, honestly, I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt quite this flavor of it.
My previous relationships had been fine—nice guys, decent chemistry, the kind of things that worked on paper but never made my chest feel like it was full of carbonation.
Skyler made my chest feel like Diet Coke meeting Mentos for the first time.
I set the pie boxes on my passenger seat and called Mia.
“Green shirt,” she answered, skipping hello.
“I know. You told me. I’m on it.”
“I’m telling you again. Green shirt. And don’t do that thing with your hair.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you try to tame it and end up looking like a news anchor from 1987. Just leave it. He likes the curls.”
She wasn’t wrong. The way Skyler’s fingers had moved through my hair yesterday, gentle andwondering, like he was memorizing the texture—that wasn’t the touch of someone who wanted me to look like a news anchor.
“Key lime pie acquired,” I reported. “Also a chocolate-bourbon-pecan, because I panicked.”
“Two pies. Bold strategy. I approve. Bring home whatever you guys don’t eat. I’ve earned pie in this. Probably dinner, too, but I’ll settle for pie.”
