Chapter Forty
ADELE
Peanut butter & jelly
Tommy was beaming when I walked into the kitchen late the next afternoon. “You look like you had a good day at school,” I said, smiling.
“Do you want to see what I made?” he asked in a shout-whisper, his tone conspiratorial.
“Sure.”
“You can’t tell anyone.”
“No one?”
“Well, Grandma knows,” he allowed.
Just then, Maggie walked out of the pantry, grinning indulgently at him. “He is excited about this one. I have to say, it’s amazing.”
“What kind of cake?” I asked.
“Well,” she began. “Cole told us you liked the peanut butter and jelly cake you saw them make on a show, so…” My eyes went wide. “Tommy made his own version.”
Tommy swung the refrigerator door open and carefully lifted out a cake. It looked like a giant sandwich.
“Oh, wow! It looks like an actual sandwich,” I exclaimed.
“But it’s a cake,” Tommy said proudly.
He’d decorated it to look like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, down to the crust, with layers of what looked like peanut butter mousse and raspberry jam tucked between vanilla sponge. The ‘bread’ even had the little air bubbles and a browned crust effect.
“Tommy, I’ve been watching that show for years, and you could totally be a contestant.”
“I hope so,” he said matter-of-factly. “But I’m not British.”
I laughed. “Maybe not, but this is incredible.”
“It’s for you and Cole,” he added, his gaze so earnest as he looked up at me.
I melted a little inside. “That’s so sweet.”
“I was a little worried about Cole, to be honest,” Tommy commented as he returned the cake to the fridge.
Maggie pressed her lips together to hold back a laugh.
“You were?” I asked as Tommy turned around to face me.
“Well, yeah. Until you showed up. Then, I knew he was going to be okay.”
“What do you mean?”
Tommy tipped his head to the side like I’d missed something obvious.
“I mean, obviously, you’re awesome.” He gestured toward me with both hands.
“But Cole’s like, well, he jokes a lot. But he’s really serious.
He cares about people a lot, and I just worried sometimes that he might not get past the jokes with anyone. ”
Maggie studied him, her mouth falling open slightly before she pressed her hand to her chest. “You are older than your years, Tommy Silver.”
He shrugged. “Maybe so. Anyway, I just knew it was going to work out with you. So that’s why we had to celebrate.”
Maggie impulsively pulled him into a big hug and waved me over into a mini group hug. When I stepped back, my heart felt so full. I was in love with Cole, and I felt so lucky that his whole family came with him.
Later that evening, the entire family was gathered in the kitchen.
But with the Silvers, “family” extended to just about everyone.
Chloe was there, Kendall and Jude too, Rowan had stayed another night, and even the new firefighter, Ford, had stopped in, along with a neighbor I’d never met.
Everyone was buzzing about Tommy’s cake.
As dinner wound down and Tommy was preparing to serve, Haven tapped his water glass.
“Let’s raise a glass,” he said. “To Cole and Adele.”
“And wolverines,” Kendall chimed in.
Laughter rippled around the room, and my heart felt so full, it might burst. I hoped I saw another wolverine someday.
The peanut butter and jelly cake was as good as it looked.
Cole glanced over at me after his last bite, winked and mouthed, “I love you.”
Maybe we were in a room full of people, and maybe it shouldn’t have felt so intimate, but it did. Because I knew how much it meant for him to let down his guard. Just as much, I knew he understood how hard that that was for me.
All this to say, maybe our meeting by wolverine made sense. They’re mostly attitude and armor. We both understood that.
Thank you for reading Adele & Cole’s story!