“Are you free Saturday night?” he asks. “After you run out of food and have a massive success with the samples? I know the timing isn’t great. You might be too tired.”
“I won’t be.” Maybe I should play it cool, but after he just kissed the heck out of me like that, the only thing I’m really thinking about right now is,When can I do it again?
His mouth twitches, like he’s trying not to smile but decides to anyway. “Okay.”
I smile back. “Okay.”
An actual date.
With Miles.
Without the barrier ofjust friendsoroff-limits. Without the desperate attempt not to feel all the things I’ve been feeling since the first night we kissed.
“Okay, now go and let me do this—” I nod toward the dough.
“All right.” But he lingers, full lips teasing in a lazy grin. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He leans in and kisses me gently on the cheek, squeezes my hand, and walks out.
As he leaves, my heart sputters because tomorrow, when I’m decorating and baking and filming videos for social media, when I should be concentrating on redeeming my name, all I’m going to be thinking about... is Miles.
Chapter 33
Friday morning, I grab my bag and open my apartment door, stopping short when I find Miles sitting in the courtyard facing my apartment. He stands.
“Are you stalking me?” I ask.
“Yep.” He grins.
I frown and hold up my phone. “Do you have one of these?”
“If I called you, I wouldn’t get to see your face.”
I bite back a smile. “Is this how you’re going to be? Totally sappy?”
“One hundred percent.” He sticks his hands in his pockets and grins. “Coffee walk to start your day?”
“I was going to get coffee on the way in, so Isupposeyou can tag along.”
“Can I hold your hand?”
“Do you want to carry my books too? Write ‘TLA’ in my yearbook?”
He laughs. “That’s a deep cut. I may as well tell you to keep in touch over the summer.”
The comment makes me wonder what Miles was like when he was younger, and I realize I want to know. I want to know all of his stories and share all of mine.
“Are you nervous?” he asks.
I nod. “I am. I feel like I have a lot to prove.”
“You’re going to be amazing. You’re ready, Claire,” he says.
“I hope so. I tasted everything twice. Made more than I need. I checked the sugar before I poured it in every single time I used it.” My laugh is nervous.
“I think it’s going to make a great story on the back of your menus ten years from now,” he says.
I glance over, thinking about the night we met. Me in my alien face mask and him with his casual charm. I think about the way he’d said,“When people ask us how we met, I’ll tell them the story of the half-naked woman stalking me in the bushes.”
I’d been so sure nobody would ever ask me that question.
