Page 67 of The Life-Changing Magic of Falling in Love

It feels … comforting?

I blink and try not to force myself to endlessly check what I’m feeling. All I should be focused on is being in the moment with him. ‘But I thought you’d been accepted for a loan?’ I ask him. ‘That’s a really big deal.’

‘Yeah. But I’ve been thinking if I start up now, I won’t have as much time to check on my mom, to see you, to, you know, have a life? When you start your own business it’s full-on from the get-go. Do I really need that in my life right now?’

‘Sure, but if not now, when?’

‘I don’t know. Sometime in the future. When it feels right.’

‘But what’s changed, really? Since you deciding to go for it, to getting the loan, to now, I mean?’ I’m aware I’m asking the type of questions I hate but I don’t get it – he seemed so passionate about it when he first mentioned it.

Please, please, I think, don’t let it be because of me coming into his life. That’s a lot to put on a person you’ve just met.

I stare up at him waiting and I think he’s going to say it and I’m going to be left wondering how I feel about that and it all seems too soon. But then someone knocks into me from behind and he swings me out of the way and the moment is lost, or is it?

I mean, if I don’t want to, I don’t have to let this go. How am I going to get to know him better if I don’t keep asking questions? I don’t need for us to bare souls on the middle of the street exactly but I wouldn’t like him to think I’m not interested, either.

‘You can’t let other people stop you from what you really want to do,’ I say.

‘But do I really want the hassle?’ Zach says as he pushes the door of Oscars open.

It occurs to me if you’re really passionate about something you don’t let “hassle” stop you but then I get distracted by the fact that there are no customers in the bakery.

A second later and I’m realising why. They’ve all left on account of the shouting. Zach and I exchange a worried look before heading straight back to the kitchen area where Carlos and Oz are standing either side of the prep bench with chests huffing and jaws clenching.

‘Um, guys?’ Zach asks trying to get their attention.

I don’t think it’s Zach’s voice so much as the ripple of air we discharge as we move into the tiny space that has them turning in unison to face us both.

‘This is all your fault,’ Oz snarls at me.

Chapter Twenty

MORE CONVERSATION LESS RUNNING

Ashleigh

I stare up at Oz. ‘What the what, now?’ How could his and Carlos’s arguing be my fault?

‘This.’ Oz points between himself and Carlos, then points at me. ‘Your,’ then waves his arms about, narrowly missing one of the sets of stacked bowls on the edge of a shelf. ‘Fault.’

None the wiser I turn to look at Carlos.

‘We got an offer to cater a swanky dinner party,’ Carlos explains.

‘From Mrs. Lundy?’ I whoop. ‘But that’s great?—’

‘But this one,’ Carlos says, pointing in the love of his life’s direction, ‘says he won’t do it because we’re a bakery not a Michelin star restaurant and how the Pastry Gods will never let him hear the end of it.’

‘But, Ozzie,’ I say.

‘Do not Ozzie-Baby me,’ Oz tells me. ‘He,’ this time it’s Oz pointing his finger at the love of his life, ‘already tried that. I’m a pastry chef. If she?—’

‘Mrs. Lundy?’ I ask.

‘If she wants a few pastries to serve afterwards, okay, but Oscars isn’t some pop-up kitchen?—’

‘I’m aware of that, Oz,’ Carlos says.

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