7 Cora #2
at faking her emotion. And since she wasn’t allowed to sabotage the date, she took another stab at pleasant conversation.
“Do you come here often?”
As soon as she heard how it sounded, she wanted to take it back. If she could’ve face-palmed herself, she would have. What
was it about this guy that threw her off her game?
Half of his mouth pulled up into an amused grin, and he propped one elbow on the vacant front desk. “Did you just use a pickup
line on me?”
She straightened, owning it. “Where I’m from it’s called a conversation starter.”
“Huh. ’Cause it sounded like a pickup line.” Laughter sparkled in his eyes.
“What I meant was, do you take cooking classes often? I wasn’t just trying to get to know you. I’m also trying to figure out
if I need to locate the nearest fire extinguisher before we get started.” Okay, so maybe she needed to work on the pleasant
conversation part.
“I never make guarantees, but I can say that you can trust me.” He flashed her a flirty look that didn’t need any practice
at all. Before she could respond, something behind her caught his attention and he straightened. “Gracie Blakeley. I didn’t
know you were working here.”
Cora turned to see a woman about their age in chef whites walking up to the counter. The name Gracie was monogrammed under the words Head Chef on the left side of her chef coat.
“I got this role when I took the head chef position at Coastal Kitchen.” She shot him an accusatory look. “Which you would’ve
known, if you were around.”
“Can’t be helped.” Jax gave a faux-innocent shrug that was full of his signature swagger.
“Never can be.” Gracie’s tone said that she didn’t believe her answer any more than she believed his. Then she shifted her
gaze to Cora. “Where are my manners? Welcome to Kiss the Cook.”
“Gracie, I’d like to introduce you to my friend Cora,” Jax said.
Gracie extended her hand. “Nice to meet you, Cora. Let me get you checked in.” She turned her attention to the computer in
front of her and clicked several things before looking up again. “You two will be at station six. Come on in and get settled.
We’ll get started in a few minutes.”
“Thanks.” Jax gave Gracie one last smolder, then held his hand out toward the door for Cora.
“Nice to meet you,” Cora said to Gracie.
In return, Gracie leaned in and lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “Careful with that one.” She gave a slight nod in Jax’s
direction. “He’s a heartbreaker.”
She fixed Jax with one last accusatory, side-eyed stare before she disappeared to the left while Cora and Jax made their way
through the door and into the kitchen.
For the record, Cora liked this Gracie already.
“Ex-girlfriend?” she asked as they wove their way through the cooking stations to the one with the giant number 6 on the front.
“Old friend.”
“Do all your old friends warn your dates?”
“It’s a small town. People talk a lot.” He picked up one of the aprons that was folded neatly on the counter and handed it
to her.
“And let me guess, they have a lot to say about you?”
“You can’t believe everything you hear.” Again with the smolder.
Only this time Cora felt a slight reawakening of the mini butterflies, which was annoying.
She wasn’t supposed to find this man attractive.
He was arrogant and apparently a heartbreaker, and she was immune to his charming smile. She’d already said so.
“How about you?” he asked. “Any old friends with words of wisdom I need to know about?”
“The first date is a little early to dive into past relationships, don’t you think?” She kept her gaze locked with his as
she slipped the apron over her head and wrapped the strings around her waist.
He pulled on his own apron. “You think we should wait until, what, the fourth date for that kind of thing? It seems more appropriate,
doesn’t it?”
“You’re already planning on us having a fourth date? Bold.”
He shrugged. “I like to dream big.”
“I hope your piecrust can measure up.”
She let the challenge hang in the air between them as Chef Gracie stepped in front of the kitchen. “Welcome, everyone. It’s
so good to have you here. Tonight, we are making a summer classic: blueberry pie. I’m going to walk you through every step
of the process, but our goal is not perfection. This is a judgment-free zone. We’re here to have some fun and learn a new
skill or two. At any point if you need me to slow down or explain something again, don’t hesitate to ask.”
Cora leaned in toward Jax. “I don’t care what she says. Station six is still a judgment zone.”
“Trust me, my pie will be nothing less than impressive.” There was just the right amount of confidence in his whisper to make
her lean in, which she also found annoying.
“Those are strong words coming from a guy who’s never made a crust before.”
“Then it’s a good thing you don’t have to take my word for it. The proof is in the pudding.”
“The only problem is we’re making pie. Not pudding.”
Her wit earned her a grin.
Well, technically speaking, he was grinning at his bowl, and it was different from his other grins. More authentic, like he
couldn’t help it.
And while all his expressions had a certain undeniable charm to them, this grin was in a class of its own. It hit her in a way the others didn’t.
She immediately turned her attention to rearranging the supplies on her part of the workstation and did her best to push the
grin out of her mind. After all, she didn’t need one of his smiles to make her do something stupid, like drop her own defenses.
For the record, if she was looking for someone to date—which she wasn’t—Jax would be the anti-example. She knew his type;
he was a macho tough guy with a bit of a hero complex. If she wasn’t here to prove Bianca’s AI matchmaker was bogus, she would’ve
noped this situation already, so she certainly wasn’t going to let herself fall victim to his charm act.
Chef Gracie continued with her instructions. “We’re going to start with the piecrust. And the secret to a nice flaky crust
is the butter. The colder, the better. If your butter gets too warm, there’s no way to recover, and you’ll be left with a
soggy mess. Which means we need a few ground rules.”
Ground rules. Cora could solidly get behind those.
“I want everyone to put your hands against your cheeks. Go ahead, do it.” Chef Gracie paused, waiting for the class to follow
her instructions. Cora lightly placed her fingers on either side of her cheeks and turned to see if Jax was doing it, too.
Jax’s gaze met hers at the exact same time as she turned to him. Only instead of just his fingertips, he had his palms pressed
against either side of his face. Which was accompanied by Macaulay Culkin’s wide-eyed, gaping expression he’d made famous
in Home Alone .
Cora shook her head at the ridiculous sight and couldn’t help it when a chuckle slipped out of her mouth.
Fine, she was willing to admit he could be entertaining.
Gracie continued, “If your response was anything other than, Wow, that’s cold, your job is to never touch your dough with your hands.”
“Warm hands, warm heart.” He held her gaze with a sizzling look that threatened to heat up all the butter in the room. “Utensils
only for me.”
Oh, this guy was good. She had the feeling this wasn’t his first cooking class date.
Cora smirked. “Now, if only there were something we could do about your confidence problem.”
He waggled his eyebrows and shifted his attention back to the front as Gracie went through the directions for combining the
dry ingredients.
By the time Gracie finished her instructions, the entire room was working on cutting the cold butter into the flour. Each
cook rocked their chilled pastry cutters along the bottom of their chilled mixing bowls, chopping the butter into pea-sized
pieces.
As she and Jax got to work on their piecrusts, there was a slight lull in their conversation. Since she was trying to be nice
and attentive and all those other things, she decided to take it upon herself to keep the conversation rolling.
“So, your first time with online dating, huh?” Cora said. “What made you decide to take the plunge?”
Jax seemed to consider the question for a second. “I guess I was ready for a change.”
“Is that code for ‘I broke too many hearts in my current circle, so I had to widen my search’?” Yes, she knew she was supposed
to be flirty, but some habits were hard to kick.
Luckily, he seemed to find her line of questioning amusing. “Something like that.”
Then he did something that surprised her. He got quiet while he concentrated on the process of mixing the butter into the
flour. She would’ve dismissed the action, contributing it to him focusing on the task at hand since cold butter had the same
consistency as a rock. But there was something about the look in his eyes that made her wonder if his thoughts were actually
on piecrusts. She couldn’t quite describe that look, and it was only there for a second, but it told her that maybe there
was more to the story of how he ended up on this date. It intrigued her, like maybe there was something more to him altogether.
After a couple seconds, the look vanished and his casual charmer persona returned.
“The truth is, I’ve done the casual thing for a long time, but I’m ready for something more.
Something deeper. I know enough to know that if I want something different, I’m not going to find it in the same place.
” He shrugged. “Since I was broadening my horizons, I thought I might as well bring in the experts to streamline the process.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “And a computer is the expert in this scenario?”
“Not just any computer. ‘A revolutionary new way of connecting soulmates.’” He repeated the company’s tagline with the sort
of playful, mocking look that made her laugh.
“What about you?” he asked, smiling at her in a way that made her feel almost... comfortable. “What inspired you to fill