Page 25 of Frosting and Flames

I cross my arms over my chest, ignoring the urge to comfort her in some way. A squeeze of her shoulder. A pat on her back. She doesn’t want those things from me.

“I can kick them out of the pancake breakfast, if you want,” I offer. It’s about the only thing I can do.

Her lips tug up the tiniest bit at the corners. “A part of me wants you to. But no, that’d be petty.”

“Hey, I can get on board with petty. Someone takes up two spots in a parking lot? I’ll park right next to their door so they can’t get in.”

Her smile widens a little more. Maybe all isn’t lost in the getting her to open up department. “No, you don’t. Half the people in that line were singing your praises.”

Ah, she noticed that? “Okay, well, I think about doing it. That counts for something, right?”

Her gaze meets mine, and a laugh escapes her before she stifles it with her hand. “I can’t believe you told him to fuck off.”

I’ll go over and do it again if it gets her to laugh like that.

“You don’t think he deserved it?”

“He did.”

I nod in agreement. “He’s an idiot.”

“You think?”

I can’t tell if she’s asking it rhetorically, but I answer anyway. “Yeah. I mean, he had you and he fumbled it.”

Her gaze holds mine for a moment before cutting away. I blow out a breath, hoping I didn’t make her uncomfortable.

“I’m sorry I put you in the middle like that,” she says, still not looking at me. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“To be fair, he took the first shot.”

She turns, gesturing toward the crowd. “Clearly, no one still sees you that way.”

She must mean him calling me an arsonist. I hope she’s including herself in that statement.

“Oh.”

I glance in the direction she’s looking. Chief is talking to Kyle and Autumn.

Rachel turns to me, dropping her voice. “Are you going to get in trouble?”

“Nah.”

She looks at me skeptically. “Really? If I told someone in the bakery to fuck off… Well, I would never say that.”

I shrug. “Chief has my back.”

He leaves Kyle and heads toward us, hands in pockets, a genial smile on his face.

Rachel watches him like she’s expecting him to reprimand her, her eyes widening when he instead approaches and says, “I heard the good news. You’re going to help Nick with our next fundraiser.”

She blinks a few times. “Kyle told you that?”

He nods. “And a few other things about some stuff Nick said.” He waves a hand in dismissal. “I’m sure you had your reasons,” he says to me, then turns back to Rachel. “But what I’m interested in is your idea.”

“My idea?” she repeats, face slack.

“Yeah. Because this one has got nothing.” He jabs his thumb in my direction.

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