Page 50 of Mixed Signals
She shakes her head. “Not yet, no. I think my dad is still hoping it’s a phase. The baking thing.”
What Layla does is so much more than baking. I hate for her to refer to the business she’s created for herself as athing.“The baking thing?”
She hums and collects a half empty jam jar from another side table. “Stole it from Beckett,” she explains quietly. She blows out a puff of air, fortifying herself. “I went to school for mathematics and engineering. I don’t know if you know that. I was always very good with numbers but, I don’t know, I was never excited about it. I was feeling a little lost my senior year, a little alone, and Stella—Stella was my best friend. So I declined some of the job offers I had waiting and decided to follow her here instead. I don’t think my dad has quite forgiven me for that.”
“He wanted you to be an engineer?”
She nods. “I think he was holding out hope that I’d join the Navy just like he did. My sisters are all involved in military life in some way, either with jobs themselves, supporting the base, or marrying military men. I think I’m a disappointment over here with my coffee and croissants.”
I frown. “I’m never disappointed by your coffee and croissants.”
She gives me a small, timid smile. “I know you’re not.”
“No, but Layla.” It’s important that she hears me. That she understands. “You know it’s more than a bakery, right? What you do?”
She shrugs and I swallow down the rest of my burning curiosity. I have so many questions resting on the tip of my tongue. Why did she study engineering if she never enjoyed it? What did she want to do? Why did she feel like a small town on the coastal edge of Maryland was the only place she could go to? Is this why she feels like she only deserves the bare minimum from men?
It’s reassuring, at least, that she seems happy here now. That she’s found a home for herself in Inglewild. I glance at the picture of her and her sisters one more time and nudge it with my thumb until it’s centered on her little table. Of course Layla would keep a picture of them in her home, despite the disappointments.
“Their loss,” I whisper quietly. Too quiet for her to hear.
I watch her as she wanders into her kitchen, her white dress taunting me as it whispers against her thighs. It’s so easy to picture her here, tucked in the couch with a mug of coffee. Working in the kitchen with her hair loose and one of her scarves fluttering down the bare skin of her back. Humming as she rolls out a pie crust, flour over every square inch of countertop.
“What’s got that look on your face?”
You keep showing me pieces of yourself that I want to collect like seashells. I can’t stop thinking about kissing you and I have no idea how you’d feel about blurring those lines. I don’t want to scare you. I don’t want to get myself in too deep.
Though I think it might be a little too late for that last one.
I shrug and slip onto a pale pink stool that looks like it came straight out of Candyland. I glance at the crossword puzzle she’s left half-finished on the countertop. The answer for 7 across is HOPELESS, I’m pretty sure. That feels appropriate.
She pauses in her rearrangement of the vases on her countertop. Six of them, all filled with different sorts of flowers. It makes me smile. “Our arrangement means you can ask me things, Caleb. That’s the whole point.”
Our arrangement. I’m grateful for the reminder. I have nothing to lose by talking to Layla, except maybe some semblance of my sanity. I clear my throat and place the lavender down on the edge of the counter. “Did you want me to kiss you the other day?”
She fumbles the jam jar she just set to the side, sending it tumbling into her kitchen sink in a cacophony of sound. As soon as she rights it, she peeks at me over her shoulder.
“What?”
I rest my forearms on the counter and hold her eyes. “Did you want me to kiss you? In your bakehouse?”
“Well …” She turns fully to face me, her hands busy with a dishrag. She hesitates and I watch her weigh her words. “I thought you might.”
That doesn’t exactly answer my question. Thinking someone might do something and wanting them to do it are two very different things. “Do you want me to kiss you, Layla?”
A low pulse begins somewhere near the base of my spine. I know my answer to that question. I want to kiss her. I want to kiss her more than I want another one of those cinnamon and sea salt bear claws, and that’s saying something.
“People who date kiss each other, don’t they?” Her voice is light, teasing. But her eyes hold a heat I’ve only seen in flashes before. I clench my hands on the edge of the countertop.
“They do.”
“Then perhaps—” She reaches for the lavender I brought and her fingers graze the top of my hand. She dances them up to my wrist and taps there twice, continuing. Her voice drops to a husky rasp and goosebumps erupt along my skin. “—perhaps we should revisit the details of our arrangement.”
Something in my chest unlocks, unravels, unspools. I flip my hand and catch hers with mine. I wrap my fingers around hers and squeeze. “Perhaps we should.”
ELEVEN
LAYLA
