Chapter 17
Cravings
By the time I walk back into the house, my spine is wrecked. My nails are jet black. There’s a twig sticking out of my braid like it grew there.
The breeze that started as a whisper mid-afternoon is now pushing at the trees, tapping branches against the windows. There’s a storm coming, maybe. But inside, for once, I feel calm. And I realize that for the first time in longer than I can remember, I didn’t think of Jared once. Not while planting. Not while pruning. Not while talking to a cute guy who may or may not have been flirting with me.
Gavin looks up from his laptop and takes in my dirt-smudged face, the state of my overalls, and whatever mess is happening in my hair.
“What happened to you?”
“Your garden happened to me.”
He arches a brow. “Uh-huh. By the way, Olivia’s plans changed. She’s coming in tomorrow instead of tonight.”
“Perfect,” I say, as I search the fridge. “Have you had dessert yet?”
“Not one that would keep me from eating another.”
“Then sit tight. I have just the thing.”
Fifteen minutes later, I reappear, clean and damp-haired in a soft cotton tee and loose drawstring shorts—what I’d normally wear after a shower and no plans to see anyone. But the way Gavin’s gaze catches, flickers down my legs and back up again, feels like a touch I can feel. My skin prickles where his gaze lands. I grab two ramekins from the fridge to hide the heat blooming across my face.
“Is that... crème br?lée?” he asks.
“Vanilla cardamom,” I nod, setting the dishes and a torch on the counter. “Our little secret. Olivia texted her list of foods to avoid this week, and sugar was at the top.”
“Can I use the torch?”
“Men and fire,” I laugh as I hand it to him. I sprinkle fine sugar over the custards with slow precision as a gust of wind whistles through the chimney flue. “Go for it.”
The second he flicks the torch on, the kitchen lights flicker. Once. Then again. And then—poof.
Darkness folds over us, thick and immediate. Outside, the wind groans through the trees, sending a rhythmic creak down the old porch beams.
I freeze. “Did we do that?”
“Nope,” Gavin says, unbothered, his focus still on torching the sugar that’s beginning to bubble. “Power’s probably out on half the island. Happens every time a tree sneezes near a power line.”
“You’re joking.”
“Dead serious. Welcome to Orcas Island. Where power outages are part of the charm.”
The only light left is the small blue flame licking at the sugar and its faint halo cast across his face. The sugar begins to melt and sizzle, blistering into amber.
There’s something oddly mesmerizing about it. About him. The way he leans in, steady and assured, sleeves pushed up, forearms flexed just enough to be distracting. Not that I’m paying attention to that. It’s just ... scientifically observable.
And then there’s the light. The flame flickers gold across his face, catching in the arch of his cheekbone, shadowing the curve of his mouth in a way that makes it feel illegal to look directly at him, which I am not doing. Obviously.
God. I need to get a grip.
It’s the lighting. And the sugar. And probably the power outage. This is just one of those strange, cozy apocalypse moments when your body forgets to follow the rules because everything feels like a movie, and your brain is the last to get the memo.
“And this is... frequent?” I ask to keep from staring.
“Frequent enough that I keep candles in every drawer.”
“And Olivia’s okay with that?”
He reaches down, opens a drawer with his free hand, and produces a handful of squat beeswax candles. Without missing a beat, he tilts the torch and lights them one by one. The flames dance along the wicks, then settle into a gentle pulse, and I become aware of the quiet between us.
“She tolerates it,” he says after a pause, eyes back on the br?lées. “Not exactly her idea of luxury living.”
Something in his voice is easy, but there’s a small shift. I notice it because I’m watching and listening to him too closely.
“She likes things predictable,” he adds. “Controllable. The island ... doesn’t always cooperate with her.”
The flickering light makes the room feel warm and drowsy and oddly intimate.
“I guess this means no Netflix?” I ask, trying to change the mood.
“Afraid not. But you’ve got crème br?lée, candlelight, and my undivided attention.”
He says it casually, but something in me stirs at the words.
He finishes torching the dessert, then lifts one ramekin, tilts his head to inspect the glassy top, like a jeweler studying a gem.
“You’re actually good at that,” I say.
“Mom taught me a lot in the kitchen,” he replies, setting the ramekin down with care. “Including the birds and the bees.”
“Wait. That talk happened over cooking?”
He nods. “Cupcakes. I was fourteen. She said some girls—especially cheerleaders I couldn’t stop staring at during rugby games—might look sweet on the outside, but underneath all the frosting and sprinkles, they were mostly preservatives and artificial flavoring.”
I burst out laughing. “That’s... disturbingly accurate.”
“She had a metaphor for everything. And she always knew when something was on my mind. Cooking made it easier for me to talk. Less eye contact, more stirring.”
He trails off for a moment, then says, “I always thought I’d marry someone like her.”
Something about the way he says it makes me still. I try to picture Olivia baking cupcakes, and I fail.
“What about your mom?” he asks gently. “Did you two ever... have the talk?”
“She died when I was twelve,” I say. “We never got there.”
His gaze softens. “I’m sorry.”
“I still miss her, but having your family around, especially your mom, has helped me over the years. I really don’t know what I’ll do without them.”
Gavin studies me, and his voice drops. “If it came down to it, I’m certain everyone in my family would pick you over me.”
I huff a small laugh. “That’s a very nice thing to say.”
He doesn’t look away. The air stretches between us. His knee brushes against mine under the table. The contact is small but seismic. I could shift. But I don’t.
Gavin doesn’t move either. He keeps his knee in place. Solid. Warm. Unapologetic. It’s the kind of contact that, in daylight, might feel loaded, but in the candlelit hush of the kitchen, it’s something else entirely. Something we can pretend isn’t happening, as long as we don’t acknowledge it.
I turn to my crème br?lée and crack the shell with the back of my spoon. I glance up to hand Gavin a spoon to do the same and realize he’s been watching me.
The tiny sound of sugar cracking feels indecently loud.
I take a bite. Creamy, warm, familiar. He leans in slightly, tapping his spoon against his ramekin like he’s winding up to say something, but still deciding if he should.
His shell-like top splinters like glass, and he takes a bite, moaning his pleasure.
“Wow. Decadent.”
And even though I know better, I lean toward the glow. I want to see that look again—the one people make when something is so much better than they expected.
“What’s Olivia working on this week?” I ask.
His mouth twitches, as if he knows I’m trying to distract myself. “She’s interviewing the founders of The Love Lab who live on the island.”
“Oh?” I arch a brow, picturing Olivia in one of her perfectly tailored pantsuits, interrogating the relationship power couple, Julie and John Gottman. We once did a feature on them at Pulse.
“Let me guess. Something thought-provoking, like ‘Are situationships ruining our moral fabric or just our group chats?’”
He laughs. “Close. One-night stands.”
“Classic Olivia.” I swirl my spoon in the custard. “The Gottmans say lasting love is built on emotional safety, shared meaning, the deep stuff. Like, fight fair, stay curious about each other, make each other feel seen.”
He tilts his head. “Isn’t that... kind of the point?”
“Totally,” I say. “But Esther Perel, whom your fiancée has had on her show multiple times, would argue that desire thrives on space, mystery, tension. She might say you can’t eroticize someone who’s also reminding you to buy oat milk.”
“Can’t you have both?” he asks, watching me now.
“That’s what the Gottmans think. And they’ve got four decades of research and a marital batting average that rivals baseball legends.”
“So you’re team Gottman?”
“If I ever get back in the game? Yeah. I want the good fight. The deep knowing. Not just a sexy stranger I don’t have to do taxes with.”
“She asked me how many one-night stands I’ve had,” he says, almost sheepish.
“Did you answer?”
He taps his spoon again. “Nope. Dodged like a pro. Have you ever had one?”
“Wow. Just... going for it, huh?”
He shrugs.
I hesitate, then: “No. I haven’t.”
He tilts his head, like I just said I’d never eaten pizza. “Never?”
“I met your brother when I was twenty, and we were together for eight years. I’d only had one boyfriend before that.”
His expression shifts, as if he’s a little surprised. “That’s kind of amazing.”
“Is it?” I ask. “Or just na?ve?”
“It’s rare,” he says. “And no, not na?ve.”
I give him a look. “I bet you can’t count your one-night stands on two hands.”
“Ouch.” He presses a hand to his chest, mock-wounded.
I narrow my eyes at him. “Are you going to tell me you’ve never had one?”
He raises both hands. “Totally serious. I’ve dated everyone I’ve slept with. For at least a few weeks. Sometimes a few tragic months.”
I take another bite, letting the sweetness give me courage.
“Is Olivia the first person you’ve been in love with?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Then, softer, “There was someone I was hung up on for a very long time. She wasn’t available.”
“Did she know how you felt?”
“Definitely not. It was complicated, and I couldn’t tell her. Kind of made it impossible to even think of anyone else for years.”
There’s a current between us now. It’s invisible, but electric, and unacknowledged.
I’m not sure I can take hearing more of his heartbreak. Instead, I lighten the mood. “You know, crème br?lée is technically healthy. Eggs are protein.”
He smiles, just barely. “Always with the facts.”
“I’m a wealth of semi-useless knowledge,” I reply. “You should see me at parties.”
“I’d like to,” he says.
We eat a few more spoonfuls of crème br?lée before I break the silence again.
“How does it feel to be living the fairytale?” I ask.
“Fairytale?”
“You know, falling in love and living happily ever after.”
He takes a moment before responding. “I used to love fairytales when I was a kid. They teach us to take risks, put ourselves out there.”
“You don’t think we’re all really just driven by the biological urge to perpetuate the species?” I ask.
“No, Darwin, I don’t.”
“Come on, you can’t tell me you haven’t noticed that people who look like Olivia have an easier time at love than the rest of us?”
“You believe finding love is easier for people who look like Olivia? If you could trade places with Olivia, would you?” he asks.
I pause. “Well, that would mean I’d be dating you.”
He says nothing.
“And we both know that would be impossible,” I scoff.
“Do we?” he asks.
“Well, yeah. First of all, I’m not nearly perfect enough for you.”
“You think I need perfect?”
“You’ve got perfect.”
In the flickering dark, his hand shifts on the table and our fingers touch. Neither of us breathes. He flinches almost imperceptibly, then looks down at his spoon. One of the candles gutters, casting a jagged shadow across his jaw.
The moment hangs between us, tender and terrifying.
I want to rewind the last three seconds. Instead, I focus on my dessert and pretend like my cheeks aren’t on fire. I don’t know what I meant. I don’t even know if I believe it.
Before I can say anything else, his phone buzzes. He glances at the screen.
“I should take this,” he says, and heads out to the terrace.
I watch him through the glass as he lifts the phone to his ear. His back is straight, shoulders squared, voice quiet.
The dessert tastes different now. Richer. Sharper. And, I think, Gavin is a lot like crème br?lée. Once cracked, his hard exterior reveals a comforting, sweet, but complex inside.
And I am dangerously close to craving more.