Page 37 of New Roots
TEN
STELLA
I was so nervous. I had already changed my outfit once. Not because I didn’t like how it looked, but because I had sweat stains that most definitely would not give the romantic signals I was hoping to project this evening.
I changed into my backup outfit, which was a long-sleeved navy dress that came down to just above my knees. It had puffy sleeves to hopefully help limit sweat stains since the fabric wouldn’t be tight across my underarms. Plus, the dark navy color would hopefully do a better job at hiding them compared to the red dress I’d had on earlier.
My favorite part of this dress was the triangle cut-out on my lower back. It was a very simple dress from the front, but the back was where the cute factor bumped up. All around the triangle cut-out was a frill of lace that gave it a more feminine touch. This fit my style perfectly—simple, muted, but with small cute features.
I was more excited about this date than I had ever been for anyone else. I hadn’t dated much, especially in the last five years, with moving back home and starting my own business, but even before that, no guy had ever sparked the level of interest in me like Axel did.
The last few weeks of getting to know Axel—mostly through our conversations at the bar—had been so much fun. I had visited him at the Watering Hole several times, and ever since he asked me out earlier this week, we had texted or talked on the phone every night. He spoke wonderful English, sometimes almost too proper, but he was getting much better at learning all the colloquial phrases.
I was also learning new terms. He’d informed me that last night, he was staying in to have a quiet meal by himself and read a book on his couch—something very common for Swedes to do.
“It’s calledfredagsmys,” Axel had explained over the phone. “It means cozy Fridays with friends or family. So I had a solofredagsmys.”
“Oh, kind of likehygge?” I asked him.
“Sort of. The cozy part is similar, but that is a Danish word, and Swedes are cooler and awesomer, so we usefredagsmys.” He ended that in a way that, even though I couldn’t see him through the phone, I could hear the humor in his voice.
I told myself the tutoring and visits to the bar were because I was paying him back for digging into my stalker, but it was more than that. I enjoyed spending time with him, and he was definitely pleasant to look at.
I chuckled to myself as I put on some mascara. He was more than pleasant to look at. He was rugged and dreamy and carried a very suave presence. The man wasfine. Which was why I decided to wear a dress tonight. I wasn’t really a dress person. In fact, I only owned three, but all Axel had ever really seen me in was jeans and tees or my flour-covered apron. I wanted to show him what I could look like when I actually put in some effort.
I was wiggling my feet into wedge booties when a buzzer sounded.
I hurried through my kitchen, turning off the light and grabbing my purse off the kitchen counter.
Scandinavian Sweets was in an older part of town, and the main town square had a bunch of old one and two-story homes that had been converted to businesses. I loved this location, and there were no other bakeries nearby, which was great, but I’d also picked this spot because of the building itself. Not only was it the perfect size for my bakery, but the second floor had been converted into a one-bedroom apartment. It wasn’t big, but I loved being able to just walk down the stairs to get to work.
You could enter through a separate door in the kitchen, or there was an external door on the side of the building.
Even though I’d told Axel I could just meet him in the bakery, he’d insisted on picking me up at my door, so I’d given him instructions to find the side door, where I had one of those doorbell cameras.
My apartment kitchen was small, but just off to the side was the stairwell. It split into two—one going down to the first-floor kitchen, and the other going to the main door outside.
I jogged down the stairs in excitement and looked through the peephole to find Axel on the other side. He had on a light-blue dress shirt the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and navy blue pants. His hair was pulled up into his signature bun on the top of his head, and I once again yearned to run my fingers through his hair and see if it was as soft as it looked.
I opened the door and gave him a big smile. “Hi. You look nice.”
He smiled back at me, but slowly, his gaze raked over my body inch by inch until he was looking back into my eyes.
“You look fucking beautiful,” he said with so much sincerity and intensity that I almost forgot how to breathe.
I stepped out of the doorway and closer to him. “Thank you.”
“Do you need to lock it?” he asked, still not breaking his gaze from me.
“No, it, um…auto-locks,” I said, finding it hard to focus with his eyes boring into me.
His intense stare had me biting down on my lip, causing his eyes to travel south to look at them.
“I really want to kiss you, but I’m going to wait,” he said, his voice low, as though he was just saying his thoughts out loud.
“What if I want you to kiss me?” I said, gazing back at him, and I leaned forward, hoping he’d take the hint.
I may not date often, but I also wasn’t shy about dating. If I were interested in a guy, I would go for it.
