Testing Recipes for Disaster (Emberwood #2)

Chapter 8- Jeremy

I f she did not stop moaning about my damn muffins, she was going to see how quickly I could cross into pervy territory. I white-knuckled the steering wheel and thought about doing tire rotations.

“I’m not discounting your talent at your job or anything, but can I ask how you bought your house at, like, what, twenty-one?” I asked, always wondering how she pulled that off.

“You don’t think I’m raking it in as a small-town hair stylist? Rude.”

I started to backtrack. I’d only been trying to steer the conversation away from the sounds she’d been making.

“Nah, it’s fine. And uninteresting. My grandma left Jesse and me money and said in the will that it had to be used for a home, school, or travel. I bartended through school, and I hated not being able to paint or decorate my apartment. The market had bottomed out like a year before, and I ended up getting an insane price on the townhouse. So, now I get to decorate how I want, and my mortgage is lower than my rent ever was.”

“I... well, I guess that makes perfect sense. You don’t give off the vibe of a real estate mogul, but I could see it.”

“Totally.”

“What’d Jesse do with his money?”

“Nothing, as far as I know. He had a scholarship for school. He’s probably saving it for something smart like his future kids’ college funds.”

“Boring.”

She let out a light laugh.

“So, did you think about cakes last night? I’m impressed that you’re that good. I bet you could get your own show on The Food Channel. They love hot guys who bake things,” she said, eyeing me covertly.

“Well, you don’t know that I’m that good yet, but the fact that you’re complimenting me already this morning is a positive sign. I usually have to go through seven levels of sarcasm and a couple vodka sodas before we get here.”

“ Right . Like you’re unaware of what you look like. You’re so ridiculous.”

She rolled her eyes and prepared to pop the last piece of muffin into her mouth, but her words made me feel bolder than usual. I grabbed her hand and pulled it to my mouth, eating the piece off her fingers.

“You can’t take the last bite! That’s basic food sharing etiquette, Jeremy Ash!”

“Whoaaaa, I wasn’t prepared for my full name. I’ll make sure to only take the second to last bite next time, I swear. But there are two more in the bag.”

“Yes, but I was anticipating that as my last bite, and I was going to savor it. Now I have to eat a whole other one!”

“What a hardship. I’m so sorry, Laur. Truly.”

She swatted me on the arm, and regretfully, I pulled into the parking lot where she’d left her car. She unbuckled her belt, and I had a moment where I felt like maybe I could lean over and kiss her, and we could skip all the awkwardness of figuring ourselves out and jump ahead to being comfortably together like Sam and Jesse. It was a nice moment.

“Thanks for the ride. And breakfast.”

“Did you mean it when you invited me over for fireworks?” I asked abruptly.

I had kind of planned on letting that go, but now the idea of sitting with her in the dark and watching the show over the lake was something I needed.

“Oh! I did say that, huh?”

Her silence was a beat too long, and I was ready to bow out.

“Well, yeah. Come over before sundown. I don’t know if Sam and Jesse are coming. They really like carnival rides, so they might stay at the fair... and it might just be you and me. If that’s okay, then I’ll see you Monday.”

“I’ll see you Monday. Er, wait. Don’t I have a hair appointment tomorrow?”

“Possibly. If it didn’t get canceled. I can’t be held responsible for the whims of technology, Jer.”

“Well, I’m going to assume that technology has taken one look at my almost man-bun and decided to let this one stand.”

“Yeah, yeah. Maybe. I’ll see you tomorrow then. Are you sure you’re not stalking me? This feels like we’re seeing a lot of each other.”

“Stalkers are usually stealthier than making appointments on a website using their real name. I think. I can’t be sure.”

“Perhaps.” She gave me a silly side-eye and bounced off to her little yellow Bug, and not even the looming number of oil changes I had on the schedule today could bring me down.

“ARE YOU smiling while being here before ten on a Saturday?” Rachel asked when I walked through the front of the shop to get to my closet-office.

I didn’t have a job title so much as doing whatever my uncle needed me to do. Sometimes, that meant ordering, checking on special orders, filing invoices, and sometimes, that meant spending the day doing seven million oil changes. Today would be mostly the latter, though I had to follow up on one phone call from the day before.

“For sure not. I must be having some sort of facial tic or something.”

“Did you have a date? Are you over Lauren? Oh my god, was the date with Lauren?” Rachel asked, her voice getting louder the further down the hall I went.

My relationship with Rachel went back to middle school, when we were always friends by association. She’d dated several of my friends over the years, actually. When she started working at the shop, she was coming out of a shitty relationship, and I was still barely getting my life together. We quickly fell into a someone-to-listen-to-my-tragic-life-story situation, and we hooked up all of one time. It should have worked because we got along well, and she was hot, but it just...didn’t. We were better off for it anyway, and we never stepped a toe over that line again.

I heard her shoes tapping down the hallway toward me.

“No. No. And no. Does that clear things up?”

“Also, no. Because you can’t even stop smiling when you’re being a dick to me. Something happened. I’ll take you to lunch soon. You can tell me alllll about it.”

She grinned confidently and turned on her heel to return to her perch at the front desk, her wavy black hair flipping as she did.

Rachel had started dating one of the newer mechanics recently. I liked him for her—he settled her down. But now that she’d found someone, she was insistent that I did, too. She was now the biggest supporter of me getting over myself and trying to make a go of things with Laur. But as much as she joked, she didn’t push. She knew my hesitation, and probably better than anyone, she knew my history. I sighed in resignation that I’d have to explain to her that I was all lit up because Laur liked my muffins and invited me over to plan a wedding shower. This did not sound like forward progress. This sounded like I was becoming her newest gal pal.

Not great. Not great at all.

I tried not to let that little revelation dampen my buzz, and I reminded myself that I got to research complicated cakes later, so today would be a work sandwich, bracketed on each side with either Lauren or baking.

Better.