Page 32 of Temptation at Randy's

“I’ll buy all the baking things you want, if you agree to give me private classes,” they hummed. “I’ll need many.”

Shit.

The innuendo in their voice was impossible to ignore. My stomach fluttered, skin heating up.

“Yeah. Okay.” It wasn’t my smoothest delivery, but words clung and stuck to the back of my throat. “I can do that.”

“You don’t sound too convinced.”

I swallowed. One quick look showed Claude was just teasing, their lips tilted up in a grin.

“Maybe I’m just processing the lack of flour in your kitchen.”

“Hey, you had enough to make pancakes.”

“Barely,” I grumbled.

Claude just chuckled.

It was fine. It was all under control.

“So, are you going to stay? Or do you have to work?”

“Why would I work on a Saturday?”

“I don’t know.” They shrugged. “Aren’t finance types the ones that work 80 hours a week on a good day?”

I frowned. That had been my father’s mentality before my mother forced him to slow down.

“I don’t.”

I felt guilty about it sometimes, though. I believed my father when he said he was happy now, and when he said he wanted to look into doing more pro-bono, charity type of stuff. But there was a voice at the back of my head that sometimes wondered if it had taken him so long to slow down because of me.

I was just terrible at hustle culture.

“Good to know,” Claude hummed. “I mean, not that I want to assume anything…”

“I’d love to stay.”

“You would?” There was wonder in Claude’s voice before they realized and shut it down. “I mean, cool.”

“Yeah.”

I should tease them about it—if anything, it would be payback for yesterday and show them that I could tease, too. Well, I was probably gentler about it, but…

But I got the feeling that this was, in a way, newer for Claude than it was for me. I could let them work through it while I finished getting the stack of pancakes ready.

“No chocolate chips?”

So, Claude didn’t do well with silence when they were unsettled.

Got it.

“There would be chocolate chips if you had any.”

“Oh.” Claude cleared their throat. “Sorry. I’ll go update my grocery order.”

“Okay.” It was hard not to laugh.

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