Page 31 of Wish You Would

Returning his smile with a weak one of my own, I stepped through the doorway. The kitchen was bright, cheery. Even in the middle of the night. And it only brightened more when Parker turned around.

Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and her face was free of makeup. She wore glasses, tortoiseshell and cat-eyed, a pair of sweats, and a t-shirt that had a squirrel and moose on it.

She’s gorgeous, no?

Fuck, I thought, the pit in my stomach widening. I should have canceled.

“Hey.” She grinned, crossing the kitchen to join us. “There you are. Come on, sit. I made cookies.” She put a platter on the island and waved at the stools. “I wasn’t sure if you were a chocolate chip girl, or a peanut butter girl. Or maybe a rebel oatmeal raisin fan.” She gestured to the platter. “So I made some of each.”

“You made three different kinds of cookies?” I stepped forward and got a better look. “How—”

She waved me off. “Baking relaxes me.” She whirled to the fridge and opened it. “Milk?”

“Sure?” I sat down on the nearest stool, gob smacked.

“She does this,” Simon murmured. I jumped, forgetting he was there. “Baking is her love language.”

Parker grinned over her shoulder. “And you love it.”

“Not a complaint to be had,” he agreed. He reached for a chocolate chip cookie and backed away. “You two behave yourselves,” he said with a wink before leaving the kitchen, the door swinging shut behind him.

“Anyway.” Parker took the seat next to me and reached for a peanut butter cookie. “How are you?”

“I’m…good,” I said, urging my brain to catch up. “I’m good. You?”

“Oh, you know.” She held up the cookie and gave a sort of chagrined look. “Working out my anxiety the best way I know how.”

“What are you anxious about?”

A soft chuckle left her. “What am I not anxious about?” She broke her cookie in half and set it on the saucer before her. “This,” she said, gesturing between us, “for starters.”

My stomach lurched. For a moment—for a dizzying, delusional moment—I thought she meant us.

But then she kept talking.

“I’ve always been an excellent student.” She kept her eyes on her plate as she spoke. “Straight A’s all through school. Not a single B. Once, my French teacher gave me an A minus on a quiz, and I begged her for extra credit to make it up.” She shrugged, self-deprecation in the wrinkle of her nose. “I don’t want to fail at…” Trailing off, she glanced up as if searching the air for her next words. “Flirt class?” Shaking her head, she looked at me. “Isn’t that silly?”

Beneath the counter, I wrung my hands together and squeezed. Hard. I would not be reaching out to smooth away her worry. I would not be touching her at all. “No,” I said, my voice barely audible over my pounding pulse, “not silly at all.”

At this, she smiled. “Thanks.” Brushing the crumbs from her fingers, she angled her body my way. “So. What’s on the syllabus tonight, professor?”

My slow and agonizing death, I thought, steeling my spine against the fissures that raced through me as our knees brushed.

“Lesson Two,” I said, both regretting and thanking every decision I’d made that led me to this moment. “Body language.”

14

PARKER

KISS ME

“Body language,” Gigi said, pivoting on her stool to face me. “Is the most important part of flirting.”

I nodded, the cookie I’d just bitten into forgotten. Rubbing my hands over my sweats to rid them of crumbs, I turned so that I was face-to-face with Gigi. In a flash, it was last night again. Our faces inches apart, the air between us charged and heavy.

My stomach flipped.

After I left Heathcliff’s last night, I was wound up. I couldn’t sit still to study, I couldn’t sleep. And so I baked. I baked and I fixated and I tried to forget. Because there was no way I’d read the moment right. Not a chance the zap of awareness had been real. Had been mutual.

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