Chapter 14
Lucky
I’m on time and admittedly, a little nervous as I ring Winnie’s doorbell. Of all the ways a man might imagine a woman opening her door to him, she fits my fantasy perfectly.
Winnie’s feet are bare and she’s wearing faded jeans. I take in the purple V-neck that says Let’s Get Figgy with It, complete with an image of a fig dancing under disco lights. I stare at it, trying hard not to notice how it accentuates her breasts, and laugh.
“You dress like this on purpose, don’t you?” I ask, stepping inside.
“I like to keep expectations low,” she shrugs.
And then there’s Buttermilk.
He’s parked inside the doorway like a small, judgmental bouncer, completely still, nose twitching.
His beady eyes track me like he’s calculating my worth in carrot credit scores.
I absently rub at my neck where I normally have my lucky rabbit’s foot, but I knew it would be in poor taste to wear it in front of Buttermilk.
“Does he always greet guests like a passive-aggressive doorman?” I ask, eyeing him suspiciously.
“That’s his nice stance,” she quips, shutting the door and nodding down at the rabbit. “If he didn’t like you, he’d attack.”
“Wait! What?” I ask, taking a step aside. Buttermilk thumps a back leg and that seems pretty aggressive to me.
“Relax,” she says with a straight face. “He’s had his rabies shots.”
“No pressure then.” I hold out the flowers I had been hiding behind my back—sunflowers and daisies, bright and cheerful, like Winnie. I keep one eye on the rabbit in case he makes a move. “I come bearing peace offerings.”
She smiles as she takes them, and I swear my brain shorts out a little.
“You brought me flowers?” she murmurs as she sticks her nose in the bouquet and inhales. I had sniffed them myself and didn’t find them very fragrant. She glances up at me. “They’re wonderful.”
“They’re one of the things on my list.”
She tilts her head. “What list?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“Well, come on in… want a beer?”
“That would be great,” I say as I look around.
Winnie’s house isn’t big or flashy, but it feels like her.
The walls are a warm, creamy yellow. The floors are hardwood, slightly scuffed in a way that says people live here.
String lights hang around the windows and framed art is scattered across the walls—some look like real paintings, some like her niece’s masterpieces from school.
There’s a ceramic bunny on a bookshelf next to a stack of what look like romance novels, a basket of dog toys, even though she doesn’t have a dog, so I’m guessing Buttermilk plays with them.
The teeth marks in the rubberized bone are a little disconcerting.
I drink in the faint scent of vanilla coming from the large lit candle on her mantel. I make a mental note—she likes vanilla.
I follow Winnie into the kitchen where a pot of red sauce simmers on the stove and a salad sits half-assembled on the counter. She opens a cabinet and pulls out a vase, taking it to the sink to arrange the flowers in it.
“Thank you so much. They’re beautiful.”
“My pleasure.” Leaning over the stove, I give it a good sniff and my mouth waters. “Smells amazing. You obviously can guess I’m a sucker for Italian food.”
She jolts and looks at me with what seems to be panic on her face. “Oh my God… you’re Italian.”
I laugh, shaking my head. “This I know.”
She slaps her forehead and grimaces. “Shit.”
I frown at Winnie. She looks completely ill with worry. “What’s wrong?”
Inhaling, she closes her eyes briefly, then lets her breath out with a sheepish smile.
She opens the garbage can and points to an empty jar of RAGú.
“I am nowhere near Italian, nor can I cook very well. But I do know how to cook some ground beef and spice up the sauce with more herbs. You’re going to be sorely disappointed, I’m afraid. ”
My laugh is uncontained because I find it amusing in the sweetest way that she’s worried about serving me jarred red sauce. I give her a wink. “I’ve eaten many plates of pasta with just RAGú… no ground beef, no herbs. I know it will be delicious.”
I get a grateful smile and that’s when I notice… she’s not wearing any makeup. None at all. Her face is scrubbed clean and her hair is in a high ponytail.
And damn—she’s still beautiful.
Not in a dressed-up, filtered, scroll-stopping kind of way.
Just… her. Smooth skin, freckles across the bridge of her nose, lips curved in an easy, unguarded grin.
There’s no effort to impress or dazzle. She shows up exactly as she is, and somehow that hits harder than any smoky eye or red lipstick ever could.
She wears it like armor—not the makeup, but the lack of it. Like she knows who she is and doesn’t need to be anything else. That confidence? That quiet kind that doesn’t scream for attention but still somehow demands it?
Yeah. That’s the kind of beauty that lingers, and before now, I hadn’t realized I’m a guy who appreciates that.
In fact, I think it’s downright sexy.
“You’re staring at me,” she observes as she starts cutting into a cucumber.
“Can’t help it. You’re beautiful,” I reply without thought and enjoy the blush that hits her cheeks.
“No, I’m not,” she says, not quietly or meekly, rather as a matter of fact, as if she were talking about the weather.
“Not going to argue with you about it. Got a beer?”
Another blush. “God… I’m sorry. Bad hostess but honestly, you threw me off with the flowers and I haven’t recovered. Beer is in the refrigerator.”
I grin and open the fridge, grabbing two bottles. “Your house is nice. Squirrel Hill is the place to be.”
She nods. “More accurately, I’m on the edge of Squirrel Hill. Not the rich side with yoga studios and Tesla charging stations. This part’s still a little… unfashionable.”
I glance around, still impressed. “And yet it feels kind of pricey for a kindergarten teacher.”
She accepts a beer from me and takes a small sip before setting it on the counter next to her cutting board.
“It was my grandmother’s. She left it to me.
Said my brothers were already settled with better-paying careers, and I needed a good place to grow something.
Caleb and Eli helped me fix it up. A lot of paint.
A lot of trial and error. A lot of love. ”
I smile. “It suits you. Cozy. A little eccentric. I like it a lot.”
She nods at the oven. “Flattery gets you garlic bread. My mom’s secret recipe.”
“Is she Italian?”
“No,” she says on a laugh. “But she cooks like she is.”
For the next hour, we finish preparing the meal—I’m in charge of stirring the RAGú—and we eat at her small kitchen table next to a window that overlooks the backyard. The conversation flows easily and I even brave petting Buttermilk who doesn’t seem to like me but isn’t chewing off my leg.
We delve deeper into topics we already discussed, mostly family. She tells me more about her siblings and their close relationship, but that her niece Sadie is the most important thing in her life. I didn’t ask, but I have no doubt she wants kids.
In turn, I share more about my deadbeat dad, how he left my mom when Daniela was seven and I was only three. That my mom raised us both by working two jobs and she is who I am closest to. I don’t share with her that I want lots of kids.
After, I insist on cleaning up the kitchen, which leads to our first argument. She insists it’s her job as the hostess and my counterargument is the universal rule that she who cooks does not clean.
“It was freaking RAGú,” she huffs.
“You’re even prettier when you’re mad,” I observe. “Just drink your beer and keep looking pretty.”
Winnie relents and leans against the counter while I make quick work of the dishes. It’s not that hard, because… bottled sauce.
“I saw your TikTok about your date with Chad.”
“His name was Nate.”
“Whatever. Mr. Multiplication Tables probably gives out gold stars for good eye contact during a date.”
Her lips press together, holding back a smile. “It was just for hummus.”
“That right there tells you all you need to know about the man,” I say with a pointed look. “But you said he was nice. Funny. That you liked how normal he felt.”
She watches me closely. “You jealous?”
“Yeah.”
The word hangs there. Blunt and honest.
Her eyes widen slightly, then soften. “You said you were okay with this being an experiment.”
“I was,” I say, stepping closer. “But now? I think it’s bullshit.”
She arches a brow. “Excuse me?”
“I think it’s bullshit because you already found someone worth dating. Me.”
She doesn’t reply right away, and I know she’s processing. I reach into my back pocket and pull out my phone.
“What are you doing?”
“I told you I made a list,” I say instead.
“Of all the normal things I want to do with you. Sunday dinner with your family. Grocery runs. Folding laundry with bad TV in the background. Bringing you tea while you grade papers. Kissing you good-night like it matters. And that list keeps getting longer, which means I need more dates.”
She blinks, startled.
“So I’m going to fight for them.”
I open TikTok, hit record on a live stream.
“Hey, everyone, Lucky Branson here,” I say casually.
“So, here’s the deal. Winnie—also known as the dangerously cute teacher I’m into—started this dating experiment to find one decent guy.
I’d like to propose a counterchallenge. Four exclusive dates.
Just me. Just her. No other guys. If she’s not convinced after that, I’ll bow out gracefully. But if she is?”
I glance at her.
“She deletes the experiment and gives real dating with me a shot. Hit me up in the comments and let me know what you think.”
I end the video, not even bothering to look at the comments that I know are already pouring in. I slide the phone into my back pocket.
Winnie blinks. “You just ambushed me on TikTok. Again.”
I shrug. “It was bold. But I meant every word.”
She steps in close, close enough that I can smell the vanilla on her skin and see the freckles across her nose. Her voice is barely above a whisper. “That was either very dumb or very romantic.”
“Can’t it be both?”
She doesn’t answer—just stares at me with those warm, hazel eyes.
I reach up, brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear, my thumb lingering on her cheek. “So that list… it’s pretty long.”
“Yeah?”
“It includes kissing you good-night like it mattered.”
“Oh,” she breathes out.
“I don’t feel like waiting though…”
Then I kiss her.
It’s not tentative. It’s not polite or unsure.
It’s a kiss that says I want more. That I’m done pretending this is a game. That I’m not going to lose her to hummus-loving men without putting up a fight.
She melts into me, arms winding around my neck, body curving into mine like she’s been waiting for this too.
When we finally part, she’s breathless.
“That…” she says, dazed, “was not normal.”
I grin. “I’m still me, Winnie. Can you accept the not-normal parts too?”
She’s quiet for a second, eyes searching mine. Her gaze flickers to my mouth and back up again. The heat between us is thick now.
She exhales slowly, like the answer’s been building in her all along. “I think I can,” she whispers.
And that’s all I need.
I dip my head and kiss her again—still not tentative and nowhere near teasing. It’s deep, claiming, threaded with everything I’ve been holding back since the first time I saw her on TikTok.
Her hands slide into my hair, her body softening into mine like she belongs there, like this isn’t the first kiss but our hundredth, our thousandth, every missed chance finally caught up to the present.
When we finally break apart again, her eyes are still closed, her lips parted like she’s trying to catch her breath and not let go of the feeling.
And fuck if I don’t feel the exact same way.
This is how it starts.
Not with normal.
But with real.