Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
FINN
The current state of my friendship with Elliott mirrored Emily’s building. I stood in the middle of the space, my hands on my hips, and took in the disaster.
The place wasn’t a fixer-upper. Nope, this was a tearer-downer and start-overer.
It looked exactly like what it was. A former cupcake shop that had been stripped for parts.
Wires dangled from the ceiling like sad spaghetti. Patches of drywall were missing, revealing the skeletal studs beneath. The floor was a mess of scuff marks, dust bunnies the size of small rodents, and the ghost of a commercial kitchen.
Emily, however, saw something entirely different.
She spun in a slow circle, her arms outstretched, a grin on her face so wide and genuine it could have powered the whole block.
“Isn’t it perfect?” she breathed.
Perfect? That was definitely a word a person could use. But probably not in this instance.
Her eyes sparkled with that light I hadn’t seen in them in ages but now got a front row seat to on the regular. She was never this happy when she was at her job. Not at the firm, not at galas, not even when she was demolishing Elliott and me in trivia.
“It’s got potential,” I offered, which was the same thing you say about a rookie quarterback who can’t throw the ball for shit but can run really fast in the wrong direction.
She laughed, the sound echoing in the empty room.
“It’s more than potential, Finn. Look.” She pointed to a cluster of thick, capped-off pipes and a heavy-duty electrical panel on the far wall.
“These are the bones of a commercial kitchen. The plumbing and electrical are already rated for it. That saves me a fortune. The former owners may have gutted the place on the surface, but they left the most expensive parts behind.”
Personally, I saw a wall that needed to be rebuilt. But Emily? She saw a head start.
Her excitement was contagious, even if I couldn’t quite catch the vision yet.
She moved to the most damaged wall, the one that looked like a giant had taken a bite out of it, and pressed her palm against the rough, old red bricks visible through the hole.
“We’re not patching this, Finn. We’re exposing it. All of it.” She gestured wildly. “Imagine this whole wall, raw. A perfect backdrop.”
Backdrop for a prison movie?
Some thoughts are inside thoughts, bud.
She strode to the middle of the floor, mapping out an invisible world with her hands.
“The main case will go right here, a long glass case where people can agonize over which truffle to pick.” Her arms swept toward the front of the shop, where the large, grimy windows stared out onto the street.
“And by the window, shelving for merchandising that won’t melt.
Branded mugs and fun chocolate sayings on posters, maybe even some of those little whisks for extravagant hot chocolate. ”
I completely caught her vibe.
“Okay, Willy Wonka,” I said, stepping further into her invisible world. “What about the kitchen? You’ll need a place to melt all the chocolate and invent all the things.”
Her eyes lit up even more, if that was possible.
“Back here.” She strode toward the wall with the heavy-duty hookups, her steps certain. “We’ll build it out. Wall it off, a swinging door right here.” She framed the phantom door with her hands. “I do want a window there so guests can see the magic as it happens.”
I followed the lines she drew in the air.
“Marble slabs for tempering,” I offered, pulling the term from some baking show I’d watched while laid up on the couch. “Big cooling racks.”
“Exactly.” She beamed, and the force of it hit me square in the solar plexus. She crouched, pointing to a spot on the dusty concrete and brushed her hand over the spot, clearing the gunk. “The main tempering machine could go right here, the heart of the whole operation.”
I knelt beside her, my fingers tracing the spot on the floor. An imaginary, gleaming steel machine where there was only grit and a few stray cupcake sprinkles from a bygone era.
My hand brushed against hers, and that deep knowing I’d been avoiding sparked. Not the kind of spark from bad wiring, but something alive that moved straight up my arm.
Our fingers tangled for the barest second before my hand came to rest over her palm on the floor.
The sarcastic remark forming on my lips died. Everything else just… quit.
I lifted my gaze from our hands to her face. To where her smile had softened into something quieter and more vulnerable.
Don’t pull away. Whatever you do, don’t be the first to move.
The command echoed in the sudden, ringing silence of my own head.
The room was no longer a disaster. It was just the space surrounding us with the rough texture of the floor beneath our hands. We stayed like that for a beat, held together by nothing but contact and lots of questions.
Every rational thought in my head—this is Em, this is Elliott’s sister, this is a terrible idea—fizzled out, replaced by the single stupid fact that she was touching me and I liked it.
Her eyes, wide and soft, were locked on me and she curled her hand into my palm.
She wasn’t pulling away. She wasn’t laughing it off. She was right there with me.
I closed the final fraction of space between us, my lips brushing against hers. Testing to see what came next. Emily tasted like vanilla and cherries.
I never would’ve guessed that.
She parted her lips, and I went for more, tangling my tongue with hers. When she pulled me closer, I turned my head to take the kiss deeper.
A low moan vibrated in her throat even as her hands tangled in my hair to pull me even closer.
As if that was even possible.
I matched her sound with my own—the magic of the shop taking hold of us both.
And that’s when the shop’s front door flew open with a bang.
I jerked back. Or, rather, I tried to. My hip flexor seized and I caught myself on the nearest stud.
“Fuck,” I said, under my breath.
Emily scrambled to her feet, while I was still half-kneeling, one hand on the wall, looking exactly as smooth as a man with a pelvic injury trying to pretend he wasn’t just kissing his best friend’s sister on a dirty floor.
When I turned to the doorway, there stood Dallas, Sharon, and Pam. They were a fairy godmother tactical squad armed with cleaning supplies, paint rollers, and a box of donuts. Sharon had a large, flat box tucked under her arm.
Nobody said anything for a solid three seconds. Which, when a guy was sitting on a filthy floor with his best friend’s sister’s taste still on his lips, felt like hours.
Emily brushed dust from her jeans. “We were just—”
“Trying something,” I supplied, standing up and hooking my thumbs in my pockets like a man with nothing to hide and, also, everything to hide. “As friends.”
“I am your friend, Emily,” Dallas said, her expression impressively passive. “But I don’t want to try that.” She set the donut box on an overturned bucket.
Sharon snorted.
Pam pressed her lips together in that way people do when they’re trying very hard to be polite.
“It was a—we were testing the floor,” Emily tried again, which was oddly worse.
“With your mouths?” Dallas asked.
“You know what, let’s talk about what Sharon’s carrying.” Emily pointed to the wrapped rectangle.
Sharon grinned and held it up. “It came in yesterday. We tracked down the original fabricator who did all the hand-lettered pieces on the old sign. I picked it up on the way over.”
She peeled back the cardboard, and there it was. The Sweet Brief, in dark blue on cream. Hand-lettered. Simple. Clean.
Emily’s hand went to her chest.
“Oh,” she said quietly.
“It’s gorgeous,” Pam agreed.
“I’ll put it up,” I said, because Emily couldn’t reach the bracket without the step ladder.
“Absolutely not,” Emily countered. “You’re not falling off a ladder on my watch.”
“I got it,” Dallas assured, already two steps up.
“Left a little,” Emily said.
She moved it.
“Right a little,” I said, from the other side.
Dallas grumbled, but the sign was perfectly centered.
“Right there,” Emily said, beaming.
Dallas locked the bracket. Stepped down. All of us looked up at it. The Sweet Brief, catching the afternoon light, which turned out to be pretty much perfect given the angle of the building and the street below.
Emily was very quiet.
“Good?” I asked.
She put her hand over her mouth. Nodded once.
“We brought the good coffee,” Pam said after a beat, holding up a carafe like the room hadn’t just had two separate emotional events in the span of five minutes.
“Micah was going to grab it, but, you know.” Dallas waved a dismissive hand, a tiny crack visible. “Let’s just say his reliability is currently tracking lower than my interest in fantasy football.”
Since Emily and I couldn’t keep making out—and since three witnesses had now been added to those-who-must-never-say-a-word-about-it ever again—I grabbed a roller and started on a section of wall that was giving less building code violation vibes than the others.
Emily worked beside me, taping off the trim with pure focus. Not even a single side-eye my way.
We fell into a rhythm. The only sounds were the squish of rollers.
Emily waited until they were all on the far side of the room before she spoke.
“You tasted like tuna, by the way,” she said, still taping away.
I hadn’t had tuna. I’d had coffee. Black. Two hours ago. And she knew that because she’d been with me the whole time.
“Tuna?” I asked.
“Mmhm.” She pressed the blue tape against the baseboard with surgical precision. “The canned kind. Pungent.”
“You’re really committing to this.”
“I’m just giving you feedback.” She finally glanced up, her expression the picture of detachment. “Also, and I say this as your friend, you’re not the best kisser.”
Not the best kisser.
This from the woman who had, approximately twelve minutes ago, moaned into my mouth and fisted both hands in my hair like she was trying to climb inside me.
“Got it,” I said. “Tuna mouth. Bad kisser. Anything else?”
“Nope.” She popped the p. “That covers it.”