The door opens, and she’s standing there in her flour-dusted apron, cheeks flushed from the oven, glasses slightly fogged. She’s holding a wooden spoon she’s clearly forgotten about.
“Oh. Hey.” She glances past me into the dark. “Is everything okay?”
I can’t stop staring. The ponytail coming loose, blonde strands falling around her face. The flour on her cheekbone. Her lashes, long and dark behind the glasses. Her mouth, bare, no lipstick, the lower lip slightly swollen from where she’s been biting it while she concentrates. The neck of her T-shirt slipping sideways, exposing her collarbone, and I think about putting my mouth there so badly that I ache all over.
“Thing is,” I say, leaning my shoulder against her doorframe, “I was over there in the kitchen. Couldn’t sleep. Then I saw you through the window going at it with the baking and figured… whatever you’re making would go nicely with my company. And maybe some coffee.”
She offers me a lazy, lopsided, gorgeous grin, her whole posture softening, and there’s a flirtiness in her eyes I notice instantly.
“Sounds like you want to try my spinach twists.”
“Never had them. But yeah, I’m in.”
She holds my gaze. Her tongue touches her lower lip and retreats. “I love the way you say that,” she tells me. “?‘Yeah.’ It sounds cuter with your accent.”
“Can’t shake it. Most of my life here and the vowels still come out Kiwi.”
She laughs. “Come in.”
The smell finds me the second I step through the door. Butter, cheese, baking pastry, and underneath it, her scent. Blueberries and lavender. Faint, threaded through the flour and the heat, and my whole system locks onto it and doesn’t let go.
I follow her through the hallway. Her house is small, crammed with bookshelves everywhere, a reading lamp with a cracked base, a kitchen counter buried under flour and bowls and trays of golden spiraled pastry twists with spinach woven through them. She’s been at this for hours. There must be six trays. Maybe seven.
“So what’s keeping you up?” she asks, weaving through the chaos toward the coffee machine.
“Things I can’t shake that are driving me mental.”
“Want to elaborate?”
“Nah. Being here’s already helping.”
She laughs over her shoulder. “So are you planning to crash on my couch, then? Want me to get blankets?”
“If you’re inviting me…”
She blushes. The color rises up her neck and floods her cheeks, but she turns away fast, suddenly very focused on the coffee.
She’s definitely going to destroy me. To distract myself, I grab a spinach twist from the nearest tray and take a bite. The pastry shatters. Buttery, flaky, the spinach rich and savory with melted cheese running through it, and a groan rolls out of me.
She spins around. “Verdict?”
“Holy fuck, Claire. These are incredible.”
The smile that breaks across her face slices me open. Pure, unguarded joy at someone eating her food and loving it, andI swear to myself right there that I’m going to bring this expression out of her every chance I get.
I’m in deep. I know it. Forty-eight hours of knowing this woman, and my body has already made the decision that we’re keeping her. The scent match is a storm in my bloodstream, except it’s not just that. It’s her innocence, the way she bites her lip when she concentrates, her strength to keep fighting when so many would have crumbled.
She finishes the coffee and carries two cups toward me. Our fingers brush on the handoff, and the contact fires through my arm and settles behind my ribs.
“You know, Claire.” I hold the cup, my attention on her. “I hope you’re not letting that shit Louis posted get to you.”
The laugh she gives is hollow. “Not at all. He can go fuck himself.” There’s fury in her voice, and pain underneath, plus the exhaustion of someone who’s been fighting the same battle for too long.
“I appreciate what you three did for me,” she says, quieter. “Standing up for me online. In front of all those people. You didn’t have to, but I loved that you did.”
“Yeah, the only way to deal with bullies.”
She searches my face. Whatever she’s looking for, I want her to find it.
