4. Chapter 4
four
“You like to read, huh?” Max asked, perusing the stacks of novels pimpling the living room.
I blushed, grateful he couldn’t see it as I piped Oreo and cream cheese frosting onto the first Franken-cake.
Not that he seemed inclined to look in my direction, anyway, since the whole belt-snake fiasco was over, but it was back to business as usual.
“Basically any hobby you could picture a senior citizen doing, I enjoy it. Except knitting or Bingo, maybe, but that could be because I haven’t given them honest tries yet. ”
“What about croquet?”
“That sounds more like a rich person thing than an old person thing.”
“Fair point.” He flipped through one of my regency romances. “Pickleball?”
I furrowed my brows as images of someone swatting at pickles with a baseball bat came to mind. “What on earth is a pickleball?”
He chuckled. A low, intoxicating sound that cranked up the heat in the room by a few degrees all by itself. “I believe it’s kind of like a wiffle ball.”
I nodded, sagely, as if I had the faintest idea what a wiffle ball was. Probably British, if I had to guess. Wiffle ball. Wimbledon. Same thing.
“Pickleball the sport , however, is kind of like the love child of ping pong and tennis,” he continued. “Supposedly, it’s great for beginners and the elderly.”
“Beginners and the elderly, huh? Maybe I finally found a sport I could handle after all.”
Maybe. Probably not. Sports and I didn’t exactly get along.
He flashed a smile, though he scarcely looked up from the book in his hands. “If you ever try it out, let me know how you like it. I’ve been trying to find hobbies.”
“You don’t have any hobbies?”
“I enjoy working out for my mental and physical health.” He hesitated before continuing, staring at a box of DVDs to avoid eye contact. “I’m trying to figure out what I… like . If that makes any sense.”
Not really, but I wasn’t about to let him know that.
I added another swirl of frosting. “I imagine it’s hard to have certain hobbies with a work schedule like yours.”
He hummed noncommittally, his attention squarely on the books again. Then his voice took on a playful tone. “Ooh, this one has some bodice ripping.” He grinned mischievously and winked— winked! — at me. “So scandalous, Dekker.”
Oh , hazelnuts and cherry pie . I practically threw my piping bag down in my rush. If it hadn’t been for the belt-snake, I doubted I’d ever moved as quickly as I did to snatch the book from him.
Not that I was ashamed of my reading selection but thinking about my steamier romance books while being in the same room as Max had my blood heating for all the wrong reasons.
If I didn’t nip this in the bud, every book hero would look like him from here on out, no matter how the author described them. That was the last thing I needed.
He’d moved it a few inches higher while I’d scurried over, straining to continue reading it before I could wrestle it out of his grasp. “It’s really starting to get good now.”
Curse his long legs. He had a good six inches on me, minimum.
“Gimme. That,” I huffed, finally grabbing hold of the book with both hands. I bumped into him in the process, bouncing off until our chests were inches apart and I had to stand on my tiptoes.
We simultaneously froze at the contact.
He smelled like what I imagined testosterone personified would—spicy, savory, and like he could fight a bear single-handedly and win. It was too much for my frail, romance-less nerves to withstand, but nothing short of the sweet release of death would pry that paperback from my fingers.
His eyes darted to my legs, where my T-shirt had pulled higher over my thighs. My running shorts weren’t exposed yet, which actually made it worse. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat in a way that shouldn’t be nearly as attractive as it was. He looked away, released the book, and stepped back.
We stood there for a painfully awkward minute, looking anywhere but at each other. My skin crawled from embarrassment. I’d nearly climbed him, and for what? If I was trying to convince him to forgive all my debts, I was doing a horrible job of it.
Here, let me assault you and ruin your life .
He started to say something at the exact moment I blurted, “I’m wearing pants.”
His eyes flicked back to my legs before fixating on a spot somewhere above my left shoulder. “Okay?”
“Under my shirt,” I continued, apparently determined to prolong our suffering. I shifted uneasily. The tension in the room felt thick as cream. I’d made things weird. Again. “I’m wearing shorts. I’m not…I, uh…sorry.”
“I think I should be the one apologizing.” He smiled sheepishly, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what came over me.”
I cracked a sly smile. “It’s okay to admit you might have found your new favorite genre. Your secret is safe with me.”
His smile widened, genuine this time. “Oh, good.”
“Look at that, you already have a new hobby.” I returned to the kitchen, keeping the book out of his reach.
I considered sticking it in the fridge for time-out, but the book hadn’t been the one trying to scale him.
It was innocent. Instead, I held up a cupcake for him. “What hobby are you going to try next?”
He accepted the cupcake, his fingers brushing against mine. Our eyes locked for a heart stopping moment before he pulled away like I’d infected him.
Ouch. Warranted, but ouch.
He cleared his throat, effectively breaking whatever weird spell his touch had cast over me. “I don’t know yet. I made a resolution this year to try one new thing every week.”
I busied myself stacking cupcakes onto a plate. “Sounds adventurous.”
“It can be.” He paused and inspected the cupcake. “What kind of cupcake is this, exactly?”
I grinned, satisfaction sparking in my chest. “My very own creation. It’s like the lovechild of the brownie and red velvet with a bit of Oreo pixie dust sprinkled in.”
A brownie base with red velvet cake on top, covered in Oreo cream cheese frosting, to be exact.
It had taken a few test runs with the first three cupcakes to figure out how thick to make the brownie batter in the bottom, but I’d finally mastered it so the brownie and cake would cook equally.
The combination was divine, in my completely unbiased opinion.
“That sounds amazing.”
I tried not to stare as he bit into my creation, anxiously awaiting his verdict. I loved the difference in textures and flavors, counteracted by the sourness of the cream cheese frosting. But, some people didn’t like that much chocolate. Or happiness.
What if he hated it? What if he somehow got food poisoning from it and his hatred for me would be cemented for all eternity?
He hummed appreciatively, sending goose bumps up my arms. I clasped my hands behind my back to hide the effect such a simple sound had on me. What was up with that? Had our weird book wrestling really scrambled my brain that badly?
“You like it?” I asked unnecessarily. I may not be able to read people right all the time, but I knew when they liked what I made. And Max definitely did.
He nodded, swiping a stray splatter of frosting from the corner of his mouth with his thumb.
I swear, he could do nothing but eat a cupcake for a Betty Crocker ad and sales would skyrocket.
How could anyone make such a simple action so enthralling?
The movement of his hands and jaw, the subtle flexing of muscles under his skin.
I couldn’t explain it, really, but I didn’t want to look away.
Aaand I was staring like a creeper.
Terrified he’d noticed, I dove into my own cupcake with a little too much gusto. Frosting smeared onto my nose and up my nostrils. With my monster-sized bite, the cake and brownie shoved so far back in my mouth it made me gag until it overflowed into my bulging cheeks.
Like a chipmunk, except I was the nut, and my cheeks were full of regret and bad decisions.
Should I make a run for the bathroom where I could spit it out and clean off my nose in peace? Try to sneak half of the oversized bite into a paper towel and pretend nothing happened?
The frosting up my nose made it hard to breathe. My mouth was too full to chew comfortably. I was going to be stuck like this, chipmunk-faced and frosting-nosed, until either my pride died, or I did.
When Max looked in my direction, I panicked, and sank into a squat, praying the counter would hide me long enough to deal with my dilemma. I clapped my hands over my mouth to ensure no reddish sludge oozed out while I chewed like my life depended on it.
“Dekker?” Max asked, his voice coming from a little above me like he’d leaned over the counter to see. And with his height, he could probably see the whole thing. “You okay?”
“Mnnhnnn,” I managed to grunt out. It sounded as far from “okay” as possible, but at least he’d know I wasn’t choking.
“You sure?”
I’d only swallowed half of my monster bite, so I shot my hand into the air to give him a thumbs-up. Until I felt the breeze through the hole in my armpit. He couldn’t see that from here, could he?
I snapped my arm down just in case.
I’d barely gulped down the last of my bite when Max appeared in front of me, his brows furrowed.
He’d either finished his cupcake already or left it on the counter since his hands were resting on his knees as he squatted.
For once, I was grateful for the frosting in my nose since it blocked out most of his spicy cologne.
Oh, halibut and radishes —the frosting in my nose!
Right on cue, a twinkle lit his dark eyes, the muscles around them relaxing a bit. He tapped the tip of his own nose. “You have a little, uh…on your nose.”
Acting on my limited self-preservation instincts, I used the first piece of cloth at my disposal: my stretched-out shirt collar. I scrubbed until I could guide Santa’s sleigh all by myself and no longer smelled frosting.
“Did I get it all?” I finally asked, afraid of the answer.