Page 87 of Cream and Punishment
I wasn’t sorry.
“Tomorrow, then.” He glanced toward his teammates before looking me up and down until my heart sang.
“It’s a date.” I froze. Definitely the wrong choice of words, considering his dating hiatus.
But before I could explain that it was just a phrase and Iwasn’ttrying to intrude on his boundaries again, he nodded, his voice sure and with a hint of a smile. “Yes. It is.”
twenty-nine
IknockedtwiceonMax’s door, the monosyllabic word cycling through my head in the midst of all my other thoughts as it had all night.Date.Date. Date.
Holy minestrone, was this really a date? I desperately wanted it to be. That possibility had been the only thing moving my feet forward, knowing what conversation lay ahead of us.
Max grinned as he opened the door. “Thank goodness you’re here. I haven’t burned the place down yet, but I make no promises.”
I laughed, my nerves dissipating slightly as I settled into our normal rhythm around each other. “How have you survived the bachelor life so long, again?”
He closed the door behind me as I entered. “Baking and cooking are different. I can cook well enough to live, but baking is a whole different ball game.”
“In that case, consider me your coach.” I slipped my shoes off and padded further into his home, inhaling the scent of him permeating the place. Him and… burntsomething. Sugar, if I had to guess.
The brightly colored print of flowers on the wall lit up his otherwise minimalistic space and breathed life into it the way Max did with anything he touched. His apartment had the sameblahcolor scheme of grays and browns as mine. Without my baby blue kitchen appliances and quirky throw pillows adding pops of color, though, the drabness seemed accentuated. It was a wonder someone so happy lived in these conditions without losing his spark.
“I really need to get you some throw pillows.” I set my canvas tote on his—much more intact—couch. Another pop of color on the end table caught my eye.
“Oh, that’s—”
“The bodice-ripping book,” I cried, positively beaming as I picked it up. I gasped when I noticed a folded piece of paper for a bookmark near the end. “You’re almost done with it.”
“Uh, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck as his cheeks darkened. “It sounded pretty good, and if you liked it… I wanted to see why.”
Be still, my geriatric heart. He read a book I liked solely because I liked it.
“And?” I prompted. “What do you think of it?”
“I can see why you like it.” He cleared his throat and shoved his hands in his pockets. “That duke is hard to measure up to. And inspiring at the same time.”
I set the book down and chuckled. “For what it’s worth, I think you blow any of those fictional men out of the water.”
Aw,lamb chops. I hadn’t intended for it to sound so flirty, especially since my flirting skills were a solid two on a scale from one to one-hundred.
“In a purely platonic way,” I tacked on, convincing exactly nobody.
His eyes twinkled, and his smirk could’ve started the Trojan War. “Purely platonic, huh? That’s a shame.”
A high-pitched squeal took over any and all coherent thoughts. Did he really just say that? Was I even breathing right now?
No. No, I was not.
I sucked in a breath as my stomach flipped. I tried to say something coherent, but all that came out was a breathy “huhhh.”
I think he broke my brain.
He laughed and pursed his lips in the tote bag’s direction. “Did you happen to bring a miracle with you? I think my dessert is going to need it.”
“Uh-huh,” I answered absently, still unable to form real words. Once his meaning registered, I shook away the cracked pieces of my cerebrum. “I mean, maybe? How about you tell me what you want to make, and we go from there? But first” —I retrieved two aprons from my bag, tossed him the black one, and took my Bluetooth speaker out— “uniform and ambience.”
He unfurled the apron, laughing and sending me an appreciative look when he read the design. “May the forks be with you.”
