27. Arnaz
ARNAZ
“Fervent Prayer”
When I dream of his face
My soul gasps awake
M y palm’s sweaty as it hovers over my phone.
Just do it.
I hit twenty-seven points tonight, helped clutch a dub, yet getting up the nerve to hit the call button has me sweating.
Who calls anyone anymore?
My finger plummets, taking my stomach along with it.
“Hey!” Salem answers on the second ring.
“Hey. You, uh, picked up.”
“Of course I picked up.”
“Bad time?”
“Nah. Never. Hold on one sec.” He sounds like he’s smiling. “How are you?” The music in the background fades.
“Yeah, I’m good. Is it cool that I called?”
“I mean, I’ve been waiting over five years for a call like this, so it’s cool or whatever.”
My mouth twists, wrestling the over-the-top bubble in my throat.
“How was your day? You, uh, had off, right?”
“Yep. It was chill. Took Simba to a dog park. Ran errands. Now I’m working on this month’s bake-off challenge. Wanna see?”
“Uh”—I look down at my bare chest and light-gray sweats—“sure.”
A FaceTime call comes in, and I hit accept. “Whoa. There’s a bird sleeping on your cake?”
He chuckles. “The bird is the cake. Well, the nest and branch are also cake. It’s all cake.”
I scoff at the red beak and legs, jet-black neck, and indigo-blue feathers leading to a black-and-white striped tail. “I’m definitely staring at an exotic bird.”
“A-ha. If you bought it, that bodes well for me. I need to crush Dad.”
I laugh.
“It’s inspired by the Formosan blue magpie. I don’t know. I was about to dump it and restart. He beat me last month.” He blows out a breath. “I need to bring it this month.”
“If the challenge is to create a realistic-looking bird out of cake, I can’t see anything topping this.”
The camera flips around. “You know complimenting my baking isn’t gonna help last time being our last time.”
“That wasn’t our last time,” I tell him, then ask, “You dress like that when you bake?”
“Like what?”
I shake my head as my palm glides over my mouth. Who bakes in silk PJs? No, not PJs. I get catalogs with luxe loungewear shit like this.
I scoff. “You make no sense.”
His eyebrows bunch, then lift. “I think in Blue speak that means ‘you look hot. So hot, I think I’m gonna marry you.’”
“Blue speak?”
“Yeah. Sid gave me a primer. I’m competitive, though. I intend to be proficient in no time. No one will speak Blue better than me. Well, maybe your sister.”
“You’re not allowed to talk to Sid. Or my sister. And ignore her if she DMs you.”
“Hater. You can’t keep besties apart. She likes Exosphere ?”
I grin. “Obsessed.”
“Bam! Got my new watch buddy.”
“You can’t like my sister or Sid more than me.” I know it sounds…whatever, but I blurt it out anyway.
He snickers.
Asshole.
He stops tweezing some shit on the cake and looks at the phone. “I could never like anyone the way I like you.”
I try to minimize the self-view because the soft-boy face I’m making is bleh.
“What flavor’s the cake?”
“Earl Grey sponge, lemon-coconut curd, and honey Swiss meringue buttercream.”
“How are you single?” Apparently my filter has fucked off for the night.
He grins. “I got a date in a couple hours.”
“Fuck you.”
He bites his bottom lip. “Tilt the camera down—let me see what you’re wearing.”
I pick it up and angle it.
That shouldn’t be visible from up here.
“Shut up.” I groan, adjusting myself as soon as I see his dumb smile. “Cake makes me hard.”
“Uh-huh.” He picks up a can and mists the base of the cake with a muted gold dust. “And I make no sense? Seven seconds left to halftime, double-teamed by Boris and Allen, Nick wide open. What’d you do?”
“Launched that bitch.”
“From the logo at mid court. Then turned your back and raced down court while it was still twenty feet from the rim.”
I move to my couch and kick up my feet. “I knew it was clean.”
“Tuff.”
I nod at his look of awe. Mostly cause I’ve never known where to put genuine compliments.
I didn’t think anything could top the sexiness of The Silencer until now. Lines of concentration, delicate touch carving grooves into the bird to create feathers.
Baker Salem. Nah, that doesn’t sound right.
Baker Bae is hands down the hottest guy I’ve ever seen.
A few days later, I muster the courage again and shoot him a text.
Me
Next Tuesday? You have a break.
I paste the link to the rental cabin and then hit send.
Stowing my phone on my shelf, I’m halfway to the weight room when I turn back for my gloves and see my phone lit up.
Salem
Hell yes