With his coat still on, he pulled up the closest chair and sat down, his eyes on me. “I’m good. You go take care of whatever you need to take care of.”
I gave him another overly bright smile and disappeared through the doorway. Grabbing the brownie plate from the counter, I raised my voice so he could hear me.
“Did you have a good day?”
I stopped transferring the brownies and waited for his answer.
“It was fine,” he said finally. “Busy and long, as usual. Fred wanted me to congratulate you on his behalf.”
“Oh? That’s so nice of him.”
I waited another few seconds and when the follow-up question didn’t come, I answered it for myself. “Mine was good. Thank you so much for asking. It was just like yours, actually—busy and long.” I paused for a second. “Ah, thank you so much, Jack. I hope it becomes a usual thing, too. You’re so right.”
Another quiet few seconds, and then his delicious voice came from very close.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
No, not delicious—it wasn’t delicious as in delicious, but it felt like it was delicious as it touched my skin. It was just a normal male voice, nothing to get excited about, just a little thick and rumbly and smooth at the same time.
I knew exactly where he was, but I still looked to where he was leaning against the doorframe. His coat was off, but he was wearing his suit jacket, hands in the pockets of his pants. Maybe it was for the better that there would be no forearm porn today, because if that had happened, I wasn’t sure how I would react anymore.
“Just talking to you.”
“You mean to yourself.”
“No, I mean to you. I really enjoy talking to you.”
He stared at me boldly and I fell into the blue trap.
“Can I help you in here?” he asked.
For some reason, I flushed. It was a pretty small space for two people. Sure, I worked with Owen just fine, but we baked across from each other and I wasn’t attracted to him at all. I couldn’t exactly keep Jack at arm’s length when we were carrying pastries to the fridge.
“Nope. I’m good.” I mean, it wasn’t the first time he had offered his help, and if he did help, he would actually…but…no. No, skipping the forearm porn was the smart choice here. Definitely. “Just a few more things I need to…ah…do, then I’m ready. If you have somewhere else to be, I don’t want to make you wait. I’ll be done in—”
He crossed his arms, his shoulder still holding him up against the doorframe. “No. I’m good right here, too.”
I didn’t even attempt to stop the smile growing on my face, and to be honest, that weird sense of pleasure his words had caused was completely uncalled for. I bit my lower lip just to stop my mouth from curving up. Considering I hadn’t even stolen one genuine smile from him, I was giving mine away too easily for my liking. When the brownies were done, I grabbed my cheeks and pushed them in. “I’ve been smiling so much today, my cheeks are hurting.”
“How good was it?”
“Hmm?” I mumbled distractedly, keeping my eyes on the last few brownies.
“How good was your day? Still happy?”
He was making small talk. Granted, I’d already answered the question, but he was making small talk without me having to prompt him. The itch to grin and lose my cool was growing with every freely offered word out of his mouth.
On my way to the fridge, my eyes cut to him and I brushed my bangs away from my forehead with the back of my arm. “I’m exhausted, as you can probably tell from how I look, but it’s the good kind of exhaustion. I’m still over the moon, still a little high on it.” I reached for the remaining two chocolate chip cookies and put them in another container.
“I was going to ask if you would like to go out for dinner tonight, but I don’t think you’d make it through, especially if you still feel like you’re high on it.”
“That actually would’ve been nice, but I agree with you.” I held my arms out and looked down at myself. “Probably not the best night to be out in public anyway.”
“What are you talking about? You still look just as you did this morning.”
I tried to hide my wince, but I wasn’t sure how successful I was. “Welllll, that’s not saying much.”
“Actually, it is,” he muttered, but before I could ask what he meant, he straightened from the doorway and started walking toward me. I focused on my hands, which were reaching for the last two lemon bars with the tongs. I grabbed one of them, put it in a small container, and was in the process of grabbing the other one when Jack’s chest brushed my shoulder.
I stopped breathing. My body pretty much stayed still, but my eyes were moving. He wasn’t so much pushing me, but he was leaning on me enough that his chest was brushing my shoulder—his broad and warm and inviting chest.
“Can I have that?” he murmured in the vicinity of my ear, not too close, but closer than I expected him to stand.
I cleared my throat so I would be able to sound serious and normal like him. “Can you have what?”
“The last lemon bar.”
That had me looking over my shoulder and…what a bad, bad idea. Our eyes met and I kinda got stuck on his steady and expectant ocean blues. Then I looked at his lips because they were right there, so full. In my defense, I was looking so I could catch his next words, but they didn’t come.
“Hmm? Oh? You liked it then?” I forced my eyes back to his and extended the tongs toward him. He took it. “Would you like a plate?” He met my eyes again and just shook his head. I faced forward. What is happening? “I didn’t think they would almost completely disappear by the end of the day, even though they were free.”
“They are good enough to come back for every day, Rose.” Before I could process those words and at the same time try not to analyze them to bits too much, he continued, “Will you bake more tomorrow?”
“I can make you a batch at the apartment, if you want,” I offered as I started to just push things around randomly, hoping to keep the conversation going.
“I don’t mind coming here.”
Finally, I turned to face him, leaning my hip against the counter. If I just leaned a little forward, I could fall into him, so easily.
“Just for the flowers you brought this morning, you earned free lemon bars for an entire week.”
He bit into his treat, already halfway done with it, and nodded.
Forcing myself to look away from him because I had no idea what was wrong with me that suddenly I was having trouble just looking away, I started to put everything in the fridge.
I came back for the last container. “We can leave in a minute.”
My right hand was gripping the edge of the island when his fingertip touched my ring finger. I froze.
“You’re finally wearing your ring,” he murmured, and my eyes closed on their own.
Is he getting closer?
I focused on my breathing as he picked up my hand and played with the ring, moving it right to left, right to left, just as he had done on our wedding day. I might have swayed, I might have bit my lip, I might have shivered. I have no recollection of what I did, but I knew I was teetering on the edge of something.