Page 31 of Too Delicious

“…and the funny thing was, you could totally tell that the real issue with them was not vanilla or chocolate, it was?—”

“I fucked Cooper!”

Summer stares at me, wide eyed, mouth agape, for the longest three seconds of my life.

“It’s about time,” she says, snatching the bottle from me and taking a long swig.

I wince. “You don’t think it’s too soon?”

“Babe. You’ve been mooning over each other for weeks and weeks. You liked him from jump. What’s the problem?”

I exhale and accept the bottle when Summer hands it to me. I take a drink, then say, “I do like him. I’ve thought about him a lot. But I just need time to make sure what we have is real.”

I take another fortifying drink and hand the rosé back to my sister.

Summer sits back in her chair and hugs the bottle to her chest. “You already have something real. You two are stupid for each other.”

I can’t argue with that. I am attracted to Cooper. I think about him when he’s not around. I don’t have feelings for anyone else; if I ever did, those feelings don’t come close to how I feel when I’m around Cooper.

But simple attraction isn’t enough.

“You know my trust issues.”

“I do,” says Summer, nodding, then taking a drink. “And Cooper is not your ex. Nor is he the creep at the club who tried to serve you a tainted cocktail.”

I shiver at the memory. Thank god that one of the other servers where Summer used to work as a bottle girl spotted that man putting something in my gin and tonic. I’d been talking to him for five minutes. I was finally feeling like putting myself out there after being cheated on by my ex-fiancé. That experience at the club made me slam the door shut for good when it comes to men.

“I know he’s not my ex. And he’s not that creep.”

Summer is thoughtful for a moment. “And he’s been hanging around at your beck and call for weeks.”

“And yours,” I remind her.

“Yeah,” she says. “Because he’s a decent guy. Didn’t he fix the problem with the gutter? I didn’t used to be able to sit here without worrying I would get decapitated by falling debris.”

My sister’s so dramatic. But she’s correct. “He did.”

I look around my yard. It looks one hundred percent better than it looked weeks ago. And it’s all because of Cooper. I could characterize him as a good-time guy because he’s hot, outgoing, and confident. I could say he’s unserious because he breezed through college and, according to him and Carter, spent way more time on the disc golf course than he did in class. But the bottom line is, he’s being modest. He works hard. He earned his degree just like his twin did. He also makes time for fun, and what’s wrong with that?

“But I didn’t ask him for any of this,” I squeak.

Summer blows out a breath and takes a long drink.

“I know. You rarely ask for help,” she says.

“Exactly. I would never ask someone to give me this much of his time and labor. I never even hinted. He just did it. And somehow, it’s exactly what I wanted.”

Summer shakes her head. “Well, now you have a bigger problem.”

“What’s that?”

“He doesn’t like you.”

“Excuse me?” Where the heck is she going with this?

“Cooper loves you.”

I sit up and stare at her. “That’s crazy talk.”

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