The laughter that bubbled up inside me escaped at her words. “Do you think? I’ve been working here for a few weeks shy of seven years, and actively trying to get her to date me for six of those. The only reason I kissed her today was that the opportunity presented itself. If it hadn’t, I’d still be wondering if she was ever going to notice me standing here day after day.” My hand fell from my hair to my side with fatigue.
“Staring at her with so much devotion that’s so obvious to the rest of us, you mean?” Amber finished, but I shook my head.
“Not devotion, no. Yes, devotion,” I said on a sigh. “But not just devotion. Reverence, trust, belief in her and what she does for all of us. I don’t know.”
Amber pushed herself off the counter and walked toward me. “I think you do know. You know plenty. The person who doesn’t know is upstairs. Even after you stuck your tongue down her throat with more passion than she’s ever experienced, she still doesn’t believe the hot guy wants to be with the thick chick.”
The matching sigh we both let out was equally frustrated and sad. “Did Haylee say that? In that many words?”
“In those exact words. I’ve known Hay-Hay forever, and she hasn’t changed since the day she moved into my family’s home. She has always been the thick chick, and in my opinion, she’s drop-dead gorgeous. If you think anything different, don’t walk up those stairs. She’s never going to look any different than she does today.”
I strode to the back door and grasped the handle. “You’re wrong, Amber. One day she will look different. One day, she’ll look happy. One day, she’ll look stunning in a white gown instead of white bakery pants. One day, she’ll be glowing with the look of new life growing in her belly.”
I swung out the door on the laughter of a woman I had hopefully just won over. I was going to need her in my corner.
One down. One to go.
Twelve
I sucked in a breath and stretched my neck out before I climbed the stairs to Haylee’s apartment. I glanced down at the two boxes of food in my hands and prayed that she was still up. I planned to be here sooner but got caught up in the busyness of The Modern Goat. I had a couple of beers while I waited for the burgers, and suddenly, I regretted the mellow feeling they offered me. I had to be careful and consider this as important as anything I’d ever done in my life. No. This was the most important thing I’d ever done in my life.
At the top of the stairs, I knocked on the door and waited, bouncing slightly on my toes while I did so. I doubted Haylee was in bed already if she was as worked up about the kiss as I was, and I was still pretty damn worked up about it. Mostly because I wanted to do it again, all night and all over her.
“Coming,” I heard her call out, and I groaned because the first thought I had was that I wanted to make her.
I noticed the door handle start to turn, but then it hesitated, likely because she was looking through the peephole to see it was me standing there.
“It’s me, Haylee. I brought dinner.”
“I was just going to bed, Brady,” she said through the too-thin wooden door. I didn’t like that anyone could break this door down in a matter of seconds. At least we lived in a town where the likelihood of that was slim.
“Please, Haylee?” I asked. “I just want to talk.”
There was a beat of silence, and then the door swung open. “We don’t have anything to talk about.”
I walked through the open door and locked it behind me, setting the boxes of food down on the coffee table. “We do, but first, we eat.”
She eyed the boxes from The Modern Goat. “Maybe I already ate.”
“If you have, you can feel free to keep it until tomorrow, but something tells me you haven’t because you’re too worked up.”
“Now you’re a mind reader, too? Good to know.”
I popped the boxes open and sat across from her, biting into a burger. “Nope.”
She sighed with what could only be construed as frustration. Her eyes darted to the box of food. “Burgers and cheese curds. Looks like heaven.”
I held up my burger. “It is. I know you gave Amber yours yesterday. Thought you might want a mulligan.”
She shrugged before she disappeared into the kitchen, her tiny sleep shorts sending a zing of awareness straight to my groin. When she came back, she had a bottle of wine and two glasses. She poured us each a glass and then sat before she finally picked up her burger and took a bite. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she chewed. “I love their food. It’s always so fresh.”
“Including these thick, crusty rolls they use for buns. Wonder where they get them from?”
Her laughter filled my head, and my heart soared. That was precisely what I wanted. I wanted her to relax and enjoy a meal with me the way we used to. The way we did before the painful awareness of our mutual attraction stole that away. It had been years, but tonight was different. It felt to me like the kiss in the cooler took the edge off that electric charge zinging between us. Sure, it also supercharged it, but with that first kiss out of the way, we weren’t left to wonder if kissing each other was what we wanted. It was. Now we just had to figure out where to go from here.
For now, we’d eat burgers and cheese curds and sip the wine she had disappeared into the kitchen to get before she started on her meal. That helped, too. She was extending an olive branch to me in her home. It wasn’t about being a good hostess, though. It was about her knowing it would help us both with the conversation to come.
I leaned back on the couch and drank the wine while she finished her food. It was glorious to sit here and just observe her somewhere other than the bakery. Every inch of her ivory skin was glowing, and if I had to guess, also softer than a down pillow. I knew her ass was. When I had it in my hands earlier today, I was breathless. I had found heaven after six long years of searching, and I wanted to stay in that cooler forever. The memory alone made my dick harden without conscious thought. I wish she understood how incredible she was in all aspects of her life.
She didn’t.
She didn’t see that she could bake circles around me without even trying. She didn’t see that she was more than Darla ever could be simply because she was kind. She didn’t see that her beauty knocked the breath from me every time I saw her. One day she would. One day I would open her eyes and teach her to love the real Haylee Davis.
She leaned forward to grasp her wine glass, and her tiny sleep shorts pulled up another inch, leaving little to my imagination. I moaned and then cleared my throat, so I didn’t choke on the wine. “I don’t suppose I could convince you to cover yourself with a blanket?” I asked, my voice needy and thick with desire.
Her brow went up, and she tugged on her sleep shorts before she checked to make sure her tank top hadn’t dipped too low in the front. It didn’t matter. I could see the outline of her nipples through the fabric, and I wanted nothing more than to suck them between my lips and tease them until she came under me.
“What? Suddenly you can’t stand to look at the hips and ass you said you didn’t have a problem with just a day ago?”
She wanted the question to sound flippant and uncaring, but it didn’t work. I heard the hurt that filled those words. I set my wine glass down and stood slowly, my khaki shorts unable to hide the truth when I was standing. “Does this look like I can’t stand to look at them? No, just the opposite is true. I love looking at them, but if you don’t cover up, I won’t be able to form a coherent sentence in another two minutes.”