Page 103 of Mixed Signals
“Why?”
The question slips through my lips without permission. His hand flexes on the countertop.
“Because different is good sometimes,” he says with one stern brow slightly arched, the faintest brush of pink lighting on his cheeks. This man. Always a contradiction.
I give him another lingering look and fish a takeout cup out from beneath the counter. I make him his toast, fetch his tea, and place both neatly in front of him. I even straighten the edge of the toast so they’re completely parallel, just the way he likes. But he doesn’t glance down at his order. He keeps staring at me. I don’t think he’s looked away from me once since he walked in here.
I don’t think I’ve taken a full breath, either.
He reaches for his food on the counter, but his hand finds mine instead. My whole body jolts in surprise. His big hand circles my wrist and he brushes his thumb across my pulse point, slow and deliberate. His touch drifts and he traces each of my knuckles, the valleys in between. Goosebumps erupt all the way up to my shoulders, even though it’s close to twelve hundred degrees outside and I’ve had my body halfway in an oven all morning.
“Do you remember what I told you?” he asks me, his voice low. His thumb presses into the middle of my hand. “That day you were making all of those baked goods?”
I shake my head. To be fair, he’s told me a lot of things, most of them while I’m making some form of baked good. Smile lines appear by his eyes like he knows just what I’m thinking, even though that smile doesn’t quite reach his mouth.
I’ll take it—a step in the right direction.
“I told you that you deserve good things,” he says quietly. “And I think I could be one of those good things for you. I’m pretty sure of it, actually. You deserve to have someone try and you deserve to have someone care. I—” He sighs, slow and deep, the look in his eyes so tender I have to curl my hand around the ratty old washcloth looped through my apron strings. I want to press my face into the hollow of his throat and breathe him in. I want his fingers tangled through my hair. I miss himso much—and isn’t that terrifying, in all of its breathtaking agony? To miss the person standing right in front of you.
“I know I can be too much, but I think I’m just enough for you. I have no interest in forcing you into anything,” he continues. “But I want you to know that this past month with you has been the very best I’ve ever had. I should have told you that last night, but I was overwhelmed and nervous and everything came out wrong. Arrangement or no, everything I’ve felt with you, everything I’ve said to you—” He shakes his head slightly, that smile finally tripping from his eyes to the curve of his cheeks. I get the barest hint of a dimple before it’s gone again. “It’s been the most honest—the most real thing I’ve ever felt.” He glances over his shoulder at the half-full bakehouse and then back to me, tipping his head forward and lowering his voice. Probably because Cindy Croswell is standing immobile at the condiments counter with her devious little ears pointed right in our direction.
I lean into him, his nose grazing my ear. I trade in my goosebumps for a full body shiver. If he notices, he has the decency to not comment on it.
“I know you’re not ready right now, and that’s okay. I’ll be—I’ll keep coming here. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You let me know when.”
He releases my hand without another word and snatches up his bag. He turns and strides across the small dining space and straight out the front door without a single glance back. My wreath of peonies swings lightly back and forth with his exit. I stare at it for a long time, the flutter of the petals and the scratch of the ribbon against the window. I stare and I stare and I stare, my throat tight.
Gus coughs. I guess he didn’t move that entire time.
“Can I have a butter croissant now?”
I blink away from the door and turn back to my list. “The answer is still no.”
Stella findsme in the back storage closet, sitting cross legged on top of a sack of flour. If I had a smoking habit, I’d probably have a cigarette hanging out of my mouth right now. As it is, I could only find a pack of stale licorice and I’m hoovering them into the mouth like the hot mess express that I am.
Stella stands in the doorway, a halo of light behind all her curly hair. She looks like the patron saint of judgment. “Oh, wow. This is—Layla. This is something.”
I can only assume she is talking about the baking tray littered with crumbs at my feet. The one that was definitely lined with shortbread cookies when I came in here. I’ve decided the best way forward is to eat my feelings, and I started with whatever was in sight.
Cookies. Candy. Who knows what’s next.
The world is my oyster.
“Caleb visited,” I offer without any context whatsoever. Stella closes the door carefully behind her, cloaking us in darkness and the glow of the string lights I wrapped around the edges of the shelves about six months ago. It’s my favorite place for a mid-afternoon nap.
Or emotional breakdown.
Take your pick.
“He … often visits the bakehouse.”
I nod.
Stella waits with her shoulder propped up against a shelf full of flour sacks. The girl pined after the same man for close to a decade. No one does patience like Stella Bloom.
“Our arrangement ended yesterday.”
“So soon?”
