Chapter 23
SHIRT SWAP
MABEL
On the eve of opening day, with a digital sign in the window boasting “Grand opening tomorrow!” I bake alone.
This is normal for me, and Corbin’s at the rink for morning skate anyway.
We’ve spent the last two weeks on the final details: painting the exterior brick, printing menus, finalizing recipes, and creating hype on our new socials accounts, and now we’re ready. On time, as planned, in early December.
Right now, though, I’m not baking goodies to sell at Afternoon Delight.
I’m baking dozens upon dozens to give away to townspeople.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner, but maybe I can win them over with food.
Studies show that sharing food releases oxytocin.
And firefighters who cooked and ate meals together had better team performance and cooperative behavior.
I might have gone down a rabbit hole. But it was a useful one, since I’d like to have the town on my side—especially if I’m going to make this place work.
The last thing I need is the locals thinking I’m the scatterbrained, careless girl who left Cozy Valley after the original firehouse fiasco and then swooped in and ruined their beloved firehouse.
I make my signature orange habanero cookies, but not everybody likes spice, so I whip up some pistachio chocolate chip ones, along with normal chocolate chip, because the classics are the classics for a reason.
I make mini cupcakes—chocolate with caramel buttercream and sea salt, vanilla with raspberry, and coconut cake, too—and I include the sweet and salty bars that Corbin made for me, baking both a regular and a gluten-free version.
Finally, I whip up some cinnamon rolls, just because the icing is divine.
By mid-afternoon, I’m sweating and half-exhausted as I swipe pieces of hair from my face and back into my bun.
With the scent of warm treats in the air, I fill box after blush-pink box and put stickers on each one: “A little Afternoon Delight for you.”
When I’m done baking and ready to deliver them to the shop owners around town, I stop, catching a glimpse of myself in one of the dressing room mirrors—because of course we kept them.
But mirrors don’t lie, and this one is a billboard telling me I’m a little too hot and sweaty to be my own welcome wagon. “Dammit,” I mutter. Why didn’t I think of that?
Wait. Wait a hot second. This place has a shower on the second floor. The perks of converted firehouses.
On the flip side, I don’t have any shower supplies. I hustle out to a home decor gift shop on Main Street and grab some soap, then a towel for good measure, even though it’s barely bigger than a kitchen towel. Actually, I think it is a kitchen towel.
I thank the proprietor, a folksy woman with gray hair and a name tag that says Mariah.
“Thanks, sweetie. You come back if you need anything else,” she says.
“Do you like cookies?”
“Am I alive?”
“I hear you,” I say. Back at the bakery, I shut the door behind me and lock it, then grab one of our T-shirts—that’s a good thing about offering merch; I’ve always got a change of shirt when I need it—and head upstairs.
The pipes groan from disuse, and the water takes more than a hot minute to heat up, but once it does, I jump in and wash off the major stink zones with the soap that smells like sweet pea.
After a satisfying inhale, I turn off the shower.
Stepping out of the steam, I wrap the towel around myself.
Well, mostly.
It reaches the edge of my boobs and leaves a long strip of skin exposed down my side.
I leave the shower, turn into the former sleeping quarters, and step smack-bang right into Corbin.
My towel pulls a Houdini.
For a few seconds, I stand there naked in front of my business partner.
He doesn’t move either. He just swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing, eyes locked on me. All of me. Every inch of me. Just…me. Flames flicker in his green eyes, turning them molten. His lips part. His fists clench.
I should grab the towel and be all demure.
But when he stares like I’m a dessert he wants to devour, it’s hard not to bask in the eye-fucking.
And this man gives good eye-fuck. My skin tingles everywhere his gaze lands.
I ache between my thighs from the evidence of how much he likes what he sees—the outline of his hard-on.
I’ve never felt so…deliciously ogled. So sexy. So wanted. It’s more addictive than awkward. But I’m also pretty sure he’s not about to toss me over his shoulder, drop me on the firefighter’s bunk, and fuck me to pieces.
“I was…showering,” I say, recovering from the hot stare-off as I bend to grab the fallen towel. When I rise, Corbin’s already stripped off his T-shirt and thrusts it at me while looking away. Like he had to jerk his head so as not to look.
“Here. Just in case,” he says, his voice strained.
I tug it on, laughing. “I mean, what exactly is this in case of?”
“Um,” he says, still staring at the concrete wall. “In case you don’t have…clothes. Yeah. Clothes.”
“I could have worn just an apron,” I tease.
“Mabel,” he says, a gravelly warning. Does Corbin have apron fantasies of me?
“Do you like aprons?”
He breathes out hard through his nostrils. If I peeked, I’d bet his eyes would be closed.
“Yes,” he bites out.
I’m tempted to say You, me, same page. I’m so tempted to shed this T-shirt and put my apron back on. But I don’t. I’m a good girl.
For now.
With his shirt falling to mid-thigh, it’s probably safe for him to turn around. “I’m decent,” I say, and when he pivots around, shirtless now, I notice he’s holding a gift-wrapped box and offering it to me.
“You got me a present?”
“For opening day,” he says, and every word still sounds rough.
I take it, but the tables are turned, and I’m distracted by his shirtlessness and, it turns out, by his scent. I dip my nose so I can inhale the lake-and-campfire aroma of his shirt.
“Corbin,” I say, “I think…I should get dressed, and you should put this back on. We seem to have traded one problem for another.”
He breathes out hard, his gaze swinging down to my bare thighs, then back up my frame, like he’s taking in the full impact of me in his T-shirt and nothing else. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess the shirt swap didn’t help.”
He exits, and I quickly strip off his shirt, then get dressed again in my skort and the T-shirt from the shop with the bakery’s name across the front. I call out, “It’s safe now. I promise.”
Footsteps echo across the concrete floor, and Corbin strides back into the dorm area, still, of course, shirtless.
“Not safe for me yet,” I joke, as breezy as I can be to try to douse the heat shimmering between us. I toss him his shirt. He catches it with one hand and tugs it on.
Shame about the loss of the view. But it’s for the best.
“Let’s try this again,” he says, then picks up the gift box from where I left it on one of the bunks. He hands it to me.
“What is this?” I ask, a little wonder in my voice.
“It’s a gift. Also called a present. You open it and you pretend to like it.”
I roll my eyes, but even so, my heart feels squishy. “I don’t have to pretend to like it.”
Something flashes in his eyes. Fondness maybe? I’m not sure, but it seems heartfelt. Dangerously so. He clenches his fists as if fighting the impulse to stride over and take me in his arms.
I run a finger along the pretty purple ribbon with white polka dots. “It’s almost too pretty to open. I don’t even care what’s in here. I just love the way it looks,” I say.
“Open it, Mabel,” he says, a clear command that sends a shiver down my spine.
“Yes, sir.”
“Troublemaker,” he mutters.
I bat my eyes. “But I thought I was ‘Firecracker’?”
“Troublemaker, firecracker, sweet and salty. It’s all you,” he says, then nods again to the gift, urging me on. The air between us is all kinds of crackly as I undo the ribbon, then unwrap the paper and open the box.
My jaw falls open. “You didn’t.”
He gives a casual shrug. “You said you needed a new one for opening day.”
“It’s perfect.” I take out the gift, set down the box on the floor, then hold up the pretty pink-and-white pickleball dress with the pleated skirt and the polo collar. “It’s preppy and sporty, and I love it.”
I squeeze the dress against me, hugging it in thanks, even though I want to be tossing my arms around him. But I’m not sure I wouldn’t wrap my legs around him too, then suggest he perform The Wallbanger on me.
Corbin’s smile is pleased, but a little boyish at the same time. “Will you wear it tomorrow?”
It’s asked like it would mean the world to him.
I give the easiest answer ever. “I will.” I finger the soft material of the pink skirt. “It’s—”
“Blush,” he finishes, then adds, “The color of our bakery.”
“Corbin,” I whisper. “How did you do this?”
But of course, there are so many ways he could have matched this color without really seeing it. He could have brought a bakery box along to the store. Except he doesn’t like to ask for help.
Rubbing a hand across his jawline, he blows out a breath. “I memorized the shade.”
His eyes are etched with raw vulnerability.
“For me?” But the second the question comes out, I walk it back. “I mean, for us. For the bakery, of course.”
“Sure. For the bakery,” he says, shoving his hands into his pockets.
I really need to keep my hands busy.
As I’m folding the dress carefully and putting it back in the box, he adds, “It’s the color of your cheeks when you’re a little…hot.”
I’m on fire right now. As I close the box, I look over at him. “And my chest,” I say, and then lift my hand to drag my fingers along the neckline of my shirt.
His eyes darken. “Yes.”
I roam my fingertips along my throat. “And here?”
He gives a rough staggered breath as he stands in the doorway, gripping the frame. He nods again.
I set a hand on my cheek, softly running my fingers to my jawline.
His grip intensifies as he nods. “Yes,” he grunts, then rasps out, “I happen to think blush is very, very pretty.”
The fire engulfs me.
And I’m the one clenching my fists now. It takes everything in me not to throw myself at him.
Must stop flirting.
Well, you paraded naked in front of him moments ago.
Rude, I tell the voice in my head.
I force myself to focus on manners with Corbin. “Thank you. I feel bad I didn’t get you anything.”
“Don’t worry. You can owe me,” he says with a wink. “Now, what’s up with all the boxes I saw downstairs? Do we have a huge pre-order?”
Bakery business. This is perfect. “Actually, I planned to give them out to all the townspeople in the shops today.”
His lips quirk up in question. “Can I go with you? We are business partners after all.”
And I’d do well to remember that.