My phone buzzed beside me.
JULES: Great game. Sorry if you’re already asleep or out partying or something.
Her sweetness distilled into a single text. I called her back before I finished reading the message.
“Are you out partying?” she asked.
“Only if you consider a batch of caramel crunch cookies and my textbooks a party.”
“With you, that’s definitely a party.”
“Studying hard?”
“Not as hard as I should. I’m going to work out a little bit to get the knots out of my shoulders.”
“We can work out together when I get back. I’m sure you’re a much better gym buddy than Keyton.” Jules being all hot and sweaty before we got hot and sweaty made my roomy sweatpants feel like a damn speedo.
“I don’t usually go to the gym. It’s strictly the pole.”
“Why would you say that to me when I’m a couple hundred miles away? Now all I’m thinking of is you in those boy shorts with your thighs wrapped around that pole, spinning around.”
“I never should’ve told you.”
“No, you should’ve told me earlier. All this time you were keeping secrets from me. Promise me there aren’t any more.”
Her side of the line went so quiet, I checked to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.
“No more.”
“Good. If you’d told me you were also moonlighting as a go-go dancer, I’d be in a taxi back home right now.”
She half-laughed and half-yawned.
“Long day?”
“B&B was crazy. People love watching other people bake. And now I’m the new recipe writer. Apparently, people also like watching me write out the ingredients lists and they turn that into a graphic that flashes up on the screen, so that’s been added to my list of duties.”
“I’m sure you’ve got perfect swirly girl penmanship.”
“It’s nothing special.” The words came out stilted. Of course she wouldn’t think it was anything special. It was probably the most perfect handwriting known to man. Like TLG. Her handwriting had always been so neat. Never a crooked line or crossed-out misspelling.
“We’re recording again tomorrow at three.”
“The bus is back on campus at two. I can meet you there.”
“You don’t have to do that.” She powered through another yawn. “It’s a long bus ride back.”
“Once again, Frenchie, I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. And I want to see you.”
“Okay. I want to see you too.” The sleepy droop to her words made me want to pull the covers up and over her, running my fingers through her hair as she slept.
“I won’t keep you up. Rest up and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.”
I peeled out of the stadium parking lot, barely giving LJ and Keyton enough time to close their doors.
“Have you placed bets against our team or something this season? You trying to take me out?” Keyton clicked his seatbelt in.
“I’m in a hurry.”
“Why? Did Alexis do something to the house? Is Marisa okay?” LJ leaned forward, grabbing onto the headrest of my seat.
I turned, glaring at him. “Jules is filming another one of her videos at B&B and I want to be there to support her.”
“Oh.” LJ sat back.
I barely came to a complete stop before I ejected both of them.
With seconds to spare, I jumped out at B&B and popped back to where they were filming.
Jules’ face lit up. Every light in the place was trained on her, and her eyes glittered with a happiness that made me want to drag her across the table, swipe the baking supplies to the side, and kiss her like she deserved to be kissed.
“Everyone in the comments wants to know why Jules looks like Santa just showed up with a huge sack full of presents.” Max manned her station at her laptop behind the scenes. “And now they want to see the hottie.”
“How’d they know he’s hot?” Jules called out.
“I might’ve been a bit overly descriptive in my appreciation of his male form.” An incoming kitchen towel shower rained down over her.
“Max!”
“We’re going for more views, right?” She shrugged and licked the icing off her fingers.
“You might as well go up there before they beat down the door.”
“Seriously?” I stared at the lights and cameras. Without my uniform and helmet it wasn’t my normal comfort zone.
“Come on up, Berk. You can do some heavy whipping for us and get those view spikes.” Avery waved me over.
Jules lifted her chin and smiled and I took the invitation.
“And we’ve got one of the Fulton U Trojans here.” Avery held out her hands in her best showcase model pose.
“Off a big win.” Jules grinned up at me and I couldn’t help myself. Keeping things as PG as possible, I stole a kiss like a robber in the night, even though I really wanted to throw her over my shoulder and carry her into the closest dark room to sample everything I’d missed over the past two days.
“They’re definitely loving you, Big Man.” Max rubbed it in from her safe spot behind the camera.
Jules covered my hand with hers.
There was a tightness in my chest. One that wasn’t from pain or hurt, but from how hard it was to contain all the feelings she brought out in me. There was the hungry side of me that couldn’t wait to get her alone, the proud side of me that wanted nothing more than for her to be in front of these cameras and under the spotlights just like she deserved, and another part of me that couldn’t believe she was mine. Even if this didn’t last, even if she kicked me to the curb tomorrow, at least I had today. And I wanted to live in this perfect, vanilla-scented moment forever.
“Earth to you two.” Avery snapped in front of our grinning faces, breaking the cheek-achingly sweet moment we’d been stuck in. “Let’s get baking.”
I was tasked with jar opening and heavy mixing. Apparently, there was something going on in the comments section about my gray sweatpants and arm veins. Max chimed in from time to time with the comments coming in until she stopped all together. It seemed my appearance hadn’t been the ratings boost she’d been banking on. She closed the laptop and stuck it on the shelf under the counter.
We wrapped everything up and I got to take my girl home with some warm, old-fashioned sour cream donuts. I didn’t know they could get any more delicious, but I’d been wrong. Dead freaking wrong.
“You’re seriously not going to eat one?”
Jules had the box balanced on her lap.
My mouth watered for two different reasons.
She shook her head. “I’m good. I’ll split one with you.”
“Split one? Are you insane? I could inhale that entire box on my own.”
She rubbed her chin and tapped a finger against her lips. “I made a few of them with extra large holes in the center. How would you feel about a donut blow job?”
I swerved into the other lane.
Jules’ arm whipped out and grabbed onto my arm to pull us back.
A horn blared and I held up my hand in a wave of apology. “Are you trying to kill us both?”