Page 12 of Remember Me

I nodded. “Yes, here. You stole the last cream puff right from under me.”

She grinned around a mouth full of pastry. “I can understand why. This is amazing.” She paused. “The best I ever had.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t too happy. Not that I was rude or anything, but I really wanted that cream puff.”

Ask me about it, my eyes begged.

And she did.

January

IBLEW THROUGH THE DOOR TOSMOKEY’S, SETTING THE BELL AT THE TOP TO JINGLING AND BRINGING THE CHILLJANUARY AIR IN WITH ME.Lifting my chin to a guy I recognized from the number theory class I’d just been in earlier, I made my way to the back of the store and the pastry counter.

I’d been coming in here every weekday except Friday for the past couple of months, officially addicted to their cream puffs. Technically I shouldn’t be eating them. The baseball team was on a strict diet that accounted for every carb and gram of sugar or protein we consumed, but what Coach didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. I had no plans to go pro, so an indulgence every now and then wouldn’t kill me.

An indulgence every day, now, might launch me into dad bod category before I was a dad, but I’d suffer that indignity for Rosa’s cream puffs. I looked for the middle-aged woman who did the baking. She was usually standing behind the glass pastry case waiting for me. We had an excellent flirt game going on.

Today, though, a pasty pale dude with red hair stood in Rosa’s place, and a slim girl with burnished brown hair and winter pale skin was standing in front of the case. Her hair was long and thick; even in a sloppy braid it fell to the curve of her waist. Even as my eyes swept over her, noting skinny jeans, a slim fit tee shirt, and braid pulled through the opening of a ball cap, I watched the ginger bag the last fucking cream puff and hand it to her.

Aw, hell no. I didn’t care how cute she was — and she was a pocket-sized bundle of adorable — that cream puff was mine. In fact, I’d wager it had my name stamped on the bottom of it.

I placed myself in her path, in the middle of the narrow aisle, forcing her to either bump into me or pivot to walk all the way around the fixture of jerky and potato chips.

“Hey, girl.” I’d always wanted to use that line.

“Um. Hello?” She looked up at me warily, the brim of her hat necessitating her tilting her head way back, exposing the fine boned column of her throat. Her mouth was pink and lush, framed by the same cap that shielded her eyes. As my eyes settled on her mouth, the tip of her tongue flicked out and swiped over her bottom lip, flashing a bit of metal with the action.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, this chick had a tongue stud.Blood rushed south with embarrassing haste and I shifted my stance, thinking twice about the cream puff. I didn’t usually have such a visceral reaction to a pretty girl, but this one…damn. Maybe I needed to be worried about satisfying a different kind of sweet tooth.

“Did you actually need something, or were you planning on standing there and staring all afternoon?” The girl cocked a hip at me and crossed her arms over her chest, the bag with the cream puff dangling from one hand. I rubbed the corner of my mouth with one finger, trying to forget about the length of her hair or that flicker of silver.

I cleared my throat. “I do. That’s my cream puff.”

“Excuse me?” Whatever she was expecting, it wasn’t that.

I pointed helpfully at the bag. “That cream puff right there…it’s mine.”

“No, it is not. I just bought this cream puff.” She made to push by me, but I didn’t give way and she stopped again, so close I could feel the warmth pouring off of her skin.

“No, ma’am. It’s definitely mine. You see, I come in here every afternoon after practice for a sugar fix, and that there cream puff is my fix of choice.”

Her grin was all teeth and mockery. “Well, I guess you’ll just have to start getting here earlier. I can see myself making a habit of this.”

“No can do. Baseball practice ‘til three.”

She rolled her eyes. “Jocks.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I take it you don’t like athletes?”

“Do I like douches who think they’re God’s gift to women and cream puffs everywhere? Hard pass. Look, I have some work to do if you don’t mind. Or even if you do —”

“I have a proposition for you.” I talked fast. The cream puff wasn’t that important, but it was an avenue to this girl who was twisting me inside out with nothing more than sass and salt. A necessary avenue, judging from her elaborate yawn. “I’ll pay you for it, buy you a cup of coffee, and we’ll split it.” I gestured toward a table in the corner, a little apart from the crowd. “Over there.” She opened her mouth, already shaking her head, and I rushed on. “We don’t even have to talk. We’ll just share space.”

She stared at me a long minute before shaking her head and flouncing toward the table. “Fine. Your wig’s a little loose, but you can get me a cappuccino, extra sugar.”

“One cappuccino, coming up.”

The girl had her books stacked on the table, several multi-colored pens lined neatly up next to their spines and was bent over a notebook when I brought her cappuccino and seated myself opposite her. She had already sliced the cream puff down the middle, placing the halves on two separate napkins. With a grunt, she pushed mine towards me.

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