Page 25 of Too Delicious

“Why? You have a perfectly suitable twelve-bedroom estate thirty minutes from here!”

My fingers comb my sweat-soaked hair. “You know, something about these old mill-worker bungalows speaks to me. I guess I just wanted to preserve a piece of history.”

When I turn back to face Harmony, her arms are crossed over her chest. “You just had to have one directly across the street from my house?”

“When you put it like that,” I say, “it does seem like a strange coincidence.”

“Cooper!”

“Harmony!”

“This has gone too far.”

“What’s gone too far?”

I pride myself on my ability to play dumb, but now I regret that. Harmony is infuriated.

“I’m not going to date you!”

My answer is too quick. “Harmony, have I ever asked you out?”

She takes a step back.

“Excuse me?”

“Have I ever asked you out? Or tried to make a pass at you, or anything like that? Have I ever been frustrated by being yourfriend? Have I ever made you feel bad since the day you made it clear that you only wanted to be friends?”

Her pretty brows come together, and she chews on her bottom lip, like she’s trying to figure me out.

“No. You’re the first to not complain about being friend-zoned.”

I drop my pruning shears and she jumps when they clank against the ground. “I hate that phrase. It’s stupid. It assumes that the default setting is that men and women can’t be on the same page. I fucking hate that shit.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I like being your friend. Seeing you every day is awesome. Doing things for you is fun, because I like it when you interrupt my work to talk to me. I like getting to know you as a person. I like everything about you. I can simultaneously want to grind your ex-fiancé into the ground and also want to chill and hang out and do nothing.”

I’m standing too close to her. I know she hates it when I don’t wear a shirt.

But before I can pull back, she reaches for me.

chapter

twelve

Harmony

How dare he?

How dare Cooper MacKenzie do this to me?

How dare he say all this to me, telling me about all of these shenanigans while shirtless and sweaty and dirty and acting like all of this is completely normal and…oh god, his lips.

I kiss him because I didn’t have any words left.

I kiss him because I couldn’t stand the thought of him thinking that our friendship could never be more than that.

I kiss him because life is too short.

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