Page 7 of Sugar Dusted Dad Bod

“Thank god.”

The coffees are hot and strong, chasing the sleepiness from earlier away, but the shots of whiskey make everything mellow. Jasper and I laugh easily, teasing each other and reminiscing about funny stuff in the bakery. We chat about stuff we’ve never covered before—personal stuff. Family and childhood and hopes and dreams.

“I’ll tell you a secret.” Jasper rummages around, pulls a rumpled old wreath from the box, then wrinkles his nose and puts it back. “My old man was in the military. A real macho guy, you know? Our family vacations were like practice boot camps. I remember this one year he made us run up and down the beach for so long in the hot sun that my older brother threw up on some kid’s sandcastle.”

I’m frozen cross-legged on the sofa, horrified. “Oh, god. That’s awful.”

Jasper waves a big hand. “That wasn’t the secret. No, the secret is that my folks didn’t want me to be a baker. They cut me off for it. Said it was no job for a real man; said it would make me soft.” He laughs ruefully, patting the curve of his belly. “Guess they weren’t wrong about that. Still, we haven’t spoken in years.”

“Even now?” My heart is pounding uncomfortably hard, thudding against my rib cage. Are Jasper’s parents insane? Why would you ever cut off contact with the best person in the whole world? “Do they know that you’re a super-famous baker that people go on waiting lists to buy from? Do they know about that movie star flying over in her private jet to get a batch of your blueberry muffins?”

“No.” Jasper grins down into the box as he keeps sifting through the decorations inside, but the expression is all wrong.There’s no humor to it. “I’ve never told them that. If I need to impress them to keep them around, what kind of parents are they? Besides, I’m grown now anyway.”

My throat is so tight. I clear it and nod.

“I guess that’s something else we have in common.”

Jasper glances over, piercing me with those blue eyes. “Your folks have cut you off?”

My laugh is flat. “Nothing that dramatic. It’s more that they were never that interested in the first place. They had a kid because that’s what people do, but they really wanted to get on with their own lives. I was an unwelcome distraction.”

Jasper is quiet, his jaw working beneath his beard.

“My Grandma loved me, though.” The box contents blur when I look down. “She was the best.”

Jasper reaches over and cups the back of my neck, his thumb rubbing at my bare skin. “Cady. Ah, hell. Don’t cry, baby.”

Too freaking late. I’m gonna blame the whiskey for this, because even when I sniff and blink a dozen times, the tears keep streaking down my cheeks. I blot them with the sofa throw, laughing weakly as my boss curses and frets beside me.

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Jasper mutters. “I started us down this path.”

He starts to pull away, but I clap a hand over his, holding him against my neck. I keep his touch there, soothing me and electrifying my bare skin in equal measure.

“I’m glad you did.” I sniff again and give him a big, watery smile. “This is the closest I’ve felt to anyone in ages.”

Jasper softens then, even as a storm rages behind his blue eyes. “Still shouldn’t have made you cry.”

He turns back to the box. We both do, eager for a distraction, and for a while we laugh at goofy reindeer statues and an old snow globe I bought in a flea market that has those little greenaliens from Toy Story in it. My tears dry, and we both relax, melting into the sofa.

Then Jasper pulls something new out of the box. A crumpled sprig of dark leaves and white berries. It takes a beat for us both to realize what we’re looking at, then I draw in a sharp breath while my boss goes rigid beside me.

Mistletoe.

A little dusty and rumpled, but unmistakable.

Mistletoe.

Jasper is a human statue. It’s like his heart has stopped beating. Mine, meanwhile, is racing a mile a minute, pounding fast enough to rattle my ribs.

Mistletoe. This is it. If we’re ever gonna kiss, it’s now.

I wet my lips and turn to my older boss.

But Jasper’s staring at the sprig in his hand with mute horror. His eyes are wide, his mouth turned down, and when he finally jolts back to life and shoves the mistletoe back in the cardboard box, he practically punches a hole through the base.

“Don’t know what that was,” Jasper scrapes out, and he’s such a liar, but I don’t call him out. I’m too stunned, too heartbroken to say anything. “Just some old tinsel.”

“Right,” I whisper. “Old tinsel.”

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