Page 25 of Rewrite Our Story

Pippa groans, tossing her piping bag to the counter. “Ew, Cade, stop looking at my best friend like that!”

The smile disappears as quickly as it came, but I have it burned in my mind to remember forever. There’s still the glint of humor in his eyes as he walks to the sink and uses the back of his hand to turn on the sink.

“Tell me, Pip, how was I looking at Goldie?”

Pippa begins to carefully place the cupcakes she’d iced in a white box. “Like you wanted to eat her or something. I don’t know. Don’t let it happen again.”

Cade’s eyes find mine for a fraction of a second. He shrugs, acting nonchalant. “Had to have a taste for myself.”

Using the same finger that’s covered in his saliva, I take another swipe of icing and pop it into my mouth. “And what’d you think?” I ask.

His words are said to Pippa, but his eyes stay locked on me. “I think that’s your best batch yet, Pip.”

I feel his wordseverywhere.I tell myself there’s a hidden meaning in it. The thought is confirmed when his gaze lingers on me longer than necessary.

“I tried out a new recipe,” Pippa announces, wiping her hands on her neon pink apron, completely unaware of the moment happening between her brother and me.

Which is probably for the best. She made her feelings clear on how Cade was looking at me.

At least she saw it too.

At least I know my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me.

I’d stupidly wished that things would change between Cade and me three years ago on my sixteenth birthday. I’d been so confident that something would happen between the two of us after that night.

Nothing ever did.

But something seems different this summer. He doesn’t seem afraid to look at me a little longer. To find ways to talk to me alone.

I’m wondering—hoping—that maybe Cade is finally coming to terms with the inevitable.

There’s something between us.

I’ve known about it since my sixteenth birthday. I’ve just been waiting for him to play catch up.

He didn’t on my sixteenth, seventeenth, or eighteenth birthday. But today is my nineteenth birthday, and maybe this one will be the one that really changes things.

Or maybe it won’t.

Pippa and I are off to college in the fall. This summer kind of feels like the last summer for me to find out if everything with Cade is all in my head or not. It’s another year under my belt and the last year I’m silently holding out for him. I’m about to be in a big city where I’ll be around a bunch of guys who won’t make me guess where we stand. This is the last summer for anything to happen.

During the day, Cade and I seem like friends that maybe look at each other a little too long.

But at night, when life seems to get a little too hard, it seems like there’s no way Cade and I could ever just be friends. He holds me too tightly, caresses me too tenderly for there not to be something more.

Pippa bumps her hip against mine. “Mare,” she sing-songs, dragging my name out into two syllables instead of one. “Why aren’t you listening to me?”

I plaster on a fake smile and look up from the bowl of icing. “Sorry. I spaced out for a moment. What’s up?”

Pippa narrows her dark eyebrows at me. “Did you lie to me?”

I take the cupcake she hands to me. It’s always been a rule that I get to eat what she calls her reject cupcakes. “What do you mean?”

Cade opens the fridge on the other side of the kitchen. I try not to stare too long as he pulls out a water bottle and eavesdrops on our conversation.

“Were you up past midnight to celebrate your birthday? I would’ve hung out with you.”

I chew on my lip as I avoid looking at Cade again.

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