CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Kate
Ugh. Why did I even admit that? Out loud. Voluntarily. With my own mouth. Now he’s going to use it to tease me forever (okay, three months, but still a lot of opportunities).
I’m not bitter about the fact that I’m what people here call NBSB—No Boyfriend Since Birth.
I’ve always said it’s because I have values.
Standards. A personal code of conduct. I’m not here handing out my heart like free samples at the grocery store.
I’m waiting for something that feels… right. Like, click, this-is-it-right.
But if I’m being truly honest? It’s not that I’ve turned people down left and right. It’s that no one ever really asked.
It’s one thing to be NBSB because I’ve raised the bar too high for any mere mortal to reach. It’s another thing entirely when the bar’s just been sitting there… untouched.
And while I can tell myself that I’m just low-maintenance and not really “on the radar,” there’s a small, inconvenient voice in the back of my head whispering, Or maybe you’re just forgettable.
Okay, I don’t really believe that. Not all the time. But every now and then, it creeps in uninvited.
And now, of all people in the world, Michael Lee knows.
“Hey,” I say when we arrive in front of my house. Michael looks at me with eyebrows raised. “Could you, maybe, just keep quiet about it?”
He chuckles slowly. “About what?” he adds with a wink.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me,” he replies. “You just officially owe me now. Again.” He tips an invisible hat, and walks off to his house next door.
I don’t respond to that, but somehow it makes me smile.
He’s still annoying most times, but I have to admit, he’s okay to be around.
I arrive inside and change into pajamas. Then I start preparing my cookie batch for the next two days. I take the leftover dough from the freezer, and pop it in the oven. While that group is baking, I’m making another batch. Flour, eggs, sugar, butter, repeat. It’s so therapeutic.
I developed my love for baking when I was in high school. Haley and I needed something for a bake sale. Of course, her plan was to buy overpriced brownies from the café, rip off the sticker, and pass them off as ours. “They’re basically homemade,” she said, “someone made them at home… just not us.”
I could have agreed, but even at thirteen, I had a weird moral compass. So I baked. From scratch. People bought them and it gave me this burst of serotonin. And now, it’s just part of my coping mechanism. Even when I didn’t have anything to cope with.
There’s something incredibly satisfying about baking.
The precision. The transformation. The way everything makes sense once it’s measured and mixed.
Unlike, say, revealing your lifelong romantic drought to your next-door neighbor-slash-national athlete and then spending the rest of the evening replaying every word in your head like a courtroom cross-examination.
I scoop the dough onto the tray, spacing them evenly. Little blobs of hope.
Just as I put the tray in the oven, I hear footsteps coming.
“Ooooh, fresh cookies,” Haley says as she strides into view. “I didn’t notice you leave, why did you leave with Mike?” she asks.
“You never notice anything when you’re with Richard. You’re always too engrossed in your little world,” I say with a sly smile.
“Don’t even start that again. You’re deflecting,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You’re the one walking at night with the hot new neighbor.”
“Yeah, right, like something can come out from that.” I wipe the counter clean and put the baking bowls in the sink.
“You never know, Katherine,” Haley says. “But… what do you even talk about? Did anyone get a whiff of your secret romance yet?”
I roll my eyes. “We’re not Emily and Joshua,” I say. “But it might have slipped… that I haven’t had a boyfriend in forever.” I shake my head.
Haley gasps. “OMG. You told the national crush that you’re NBSB?” She laughs. “Is that why you’re spiral baking?” Haley asks, sitting on the counter stool.
“I’m not spiral baking.” The term ‘spiral baking’ originated five years ago, when my first date ever stood me up and I spent the evening baking ten batches of brownies and cookies. Everyone was fed and happy, at least.
“That’s your third batch,” Haley points out, deadpan. “Look,” she continues. “Kate. We’ve talked about this. You can’t just go blurting out your personal lore to attractive men. That’s dangerous.”
“I know! I didn’t do it on purpose, it just slipped,” I say, defending myself.
“Did he make fun of you? Did he tease you? I swear to God if he does, I will hire you a boyfriend to spite him. I’d do that for you.”
“No! No, nothing like that,” I say. “He… just said he couldn’t believe it.”
Haley squeals and stands up from the seat. She walks over to me and shakes me on my shoulders. “I bet he likes you.”
“Haley, no.”
“Yes! I can see it. You are the cute, quirky, clumsy ball he didn’t see coming!” She chuckles. “You should know more about this, Kate, with all the romance books you read.”
I stare at her flatly. “I bake when I’m anxious, Haley. I am not quirky.”
“Oh but you are! You’re really cute too,” she says, pinching my cheek.
I swat her hands away. “Please leave.”
She giggles—genuinely giggles—and starts backing up toward the stairs, smug as ever. “Okay, fine, but when Michael Lee gives you a cheesy confession, don’t say I didn’t call it.”
I roll my eyes so hard they nearly get stuck in the back of my head. “Goodbye, Haley.”
“Goodnight, future girlfriend of the national heartthrob!” she sings, disappearing up the stairs.
I know she means well, they all do, when they say I’m cute or charming, or just so lovable.
But “cute” is what people call kittens, or marshmallows with faces, or babies that drool on themselves.
No one grows up fantasizing about dating a woman who resembles a kitten.
Speaking of kittens, Siopao arrives just in time, sprinkling fur on my kitchen floor.
I sigh as I sweep it away.
Men in movies fall in love with the confident ones. The sparkly ones. The ones who walk into rooms like they own them, not ones who pace nervously outside, then turn back because they forgot how to knock.
I glance toward the oven as it dings.
Cookies are done.
Well, if nothing else, at least I can bribe the universe with baked goods.
I put the cookies in the cooling racks and climb up the stairs to grab a book while waiting to store them.
As I reach my room, I take a glimpse out of my window.
And I see him. Michael. Shooting hoops, oblivious to the fact that he’s being casually observed through sheer curtains.
He’s wearing another one of his suspiciously well-fitted t-shirts and those sweatpants that are somehow more criminal than any tuxedo.
His movements are relaxed—fluid in that way athletes move, like their bodies already know what to do.
He dribbles. Shoots. Scores.
Of course he does.
He does that a couple more times until the ball bounces off the rim. He jogs to retrieve the ball, sweat glinting on his forehead.
I lean against the window frame with a sigh. What must it be like to move through the world with that kind of confidence? To post a blurry hallway photo and not instantly spiral about whether people think your hair is too curly or your arms look weird?
For a second—just a second—I wonder if I have a tiny, microscopic crush on him.
Because who wouldn’t? What kind of woman, who has never been in close proximity with a man, wouldn’t?
But I shake that off almost immediately.
It’s not a crush, it’s just… admiration. The way you admire a really well-executed cake. You don’t want to date the cake. It’s just a really cool cake.
It’s just Haley’s words polluting my mind.
I roll my eyes. I am not that girl. I am the girl who bakes cookies at ten p.m. to cope with mild emotional turbulence and who considers getting bangs every three months out of sheer restlessness.
I’m not the girl men write songs about, I’m the one they text for recipes so they can cook for the girl they actually write songs about (unfortunately something that truly happened to me).
Still, a part of me hopes I can be that girl. Not necessarily to Michael, but someone who sees me, all of it, and wants to be with me—who wouldn’t just think aw she’s cute, but also think wow, she’s beautiful.
I glance one last time at Michael, who’s now sitting on the edge of his patio, chugging from a water bottle and checking his phone.
And then I close the curtain, just in time for my phone to buzz. My eyes widen at what I see.
Unknown Number: Either join or stop staring, Miss Noodles.