Page 28 of Playoffs & Promises

"I need milk, do you want milk?" I ask abruptly, setting my fork down as if it's suddenly too hot to hold.

Escaping to the fridge, I grab two cups off the shelf beside it before opening the fridge. But Lou follows, and when I reach for the milk, he's reaching for it too. Our fingers brush as he pulls it out for me, and we return to the table together. He pours the milk, leaving me with no distractions, nothing to do with my hands or my racing thoughts as I set the glasses of milk down.

In our cozy, quiet, bubble, he starts to lean toward me.

Too anxious to sit still, I snatch the milk from him and return it to the fridge. Needing something to do, and seeing the butter and eggs I pull them out. Then I'm grabbing sugar, flour, and salt too.

"What are you doing?" Lou asks me, watching me with a bemused smile.

"You'll see," I say, my voice tight. Then a thought hits me. "You don't have to get home soon do you?"

"Well Cinnamon is there, but if you're asking if I want to leave, the answer is no."

At the mention of Cinnamon, guilt hits me. I start packing the ingredients away. "I can make these just as easily at home."

"Cake to go?" He asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Perfect." I reply, with my customer service smile. "I'll get this all put away, then we can get going."

Lou offers to help, but I wave him off, needing distance and to keep my hands busy with the task of tidying up. As I do, Carrie's warning from earlier flits through my mind, destroying a little bit of the happiness I'd found. Before I can push it aside, I remember the cupcake order and pause, butter and eggs still in my hands.

"Actually, can you grab a notebook from my office? I need to jot down some details for a cupcake order before I forget," I say over my shoulder.

"Any chance I can get a cupcake as a reward?" Lou asks, half serious, half teasing.

He disappears into my office and I put the butter and eggs away. He's still in my office when I finish cleaning up everything else too.

"Is the notebook that hard to find?" I tease, but my smile drops when I see what he's looking at.

He's staring at my vision board, eyes fixed on the judges' scorecard for my lemon meringue pie.

"Why do you keep this?" He asks, his voice full of confusion and something close to anger. "They wrote such horrible things. Untrue things."

A stab of bitterness tugs at my heart, but I force a smile. "I really don't want to talk about it. Let's go before Cinnamon eats your lucky hockey slippers or something."

He groans theatrically. "Why would you wish that on me when I'm already cursed."

"Cursed?" I ask, genuinely curious.

"All season," he replies, his tone losing its levity.

"Can't you get uncursed?"

The look he gives me says he's tried it all.

"Have you considered that maybe you just suck." I tease trying to lighten the mood.

His grin returns, but the playful spark isn't quite as bright as before. "I think a very wise, and beautiful I might add, baker once told me that. Of course, she also told me that I could have lemon bars, and the two seem to go hand in hand with my curse."

"Oh you are not pinning this on me," I say, laughing despite myself. "Let's leave so you can check on your slippers."

We keep the conversation light on the drive back, but there's no getting rid of the awareness of the tension simmering below the surface. I offer the rest of the cake to Lou and use getting up early for the bakery as an excuse to cut our time short. But inside my apartment I can't turn my mind off, and the urge to bake, to make something won't go away. The urge to drown out the lingering doubts and the memories stirring in my mind.

As I start mixing ingredients, I keep replaying the moment he asked me about the judges' scorecard. I'd thought that the date on the card might trigger a memory for him, or at least help him connect the dots. But why would it? To him I was just a stranger in a grocery store.

The rhythmic motion of stirring batter isn't enough to keep my thoughts from wandering further, back to the day that we first met…

Cold rain pelted me as I ran inside the grocery store, soaked to the bone. My once carefully styled hair was now a sopping mess, clinging to my face and neck. I wrung out the water as best as I could before pulling my hair up into a quick messy bun. So much for the professional and put-together look. Might as well embrace the chaos as I gathered the last of the ingredients I needed.

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