Page 217 of A Taste of Vanilla

Oliver studies me for a second. “That’s unfortunate, because you look exactly like a man holding a boarding pass.”

The words land clean, and I look away first.

Because he’s right.

I’m a man with a boarding pass even when I don’t have an actual ticket. I’ve built my life around exit points and temporary rooms. Jobs with end dates. Cities I can leave before they make me ask whether I belong.

I know how to arrive. I know how to help. I know how to become useful enough to be missed but not honest enough to be needed.

Finally, I say, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

His brows lift slightly at the confession. “Clearly.”

I look back at him.

He shrugs. “What? Did you expect me to reassure you? I’m not Marley.”

“No.”

“Good. I’d be bad at it.”

“You’re not bad at it?—”

His hand comes up. “Please don’t compliment me. We have a stable dynamic right now.”

I almost smile.

“She loves big,” he says, and my heart stops at the wordlove.“She loves this bakery like it has a pulse. She loves Marley like blood. She loves Dev and Lisa and the old woman who comes in to gossip and that weird diseased squirrel outside her apartment.”

I nod. “That thing should really see a vet.”

He stares at me for a second before continuing as if I never said a word. “She loved Grant big too. That’s the part that makes me want to commit felonies. He didn’t deserve it, but she gave it away because Halston has never learned how to half-love anything in her life.”

His words settle uncomfortably within me as I think about her defending my tattoos. Her anger on my behalf and the way she said, “I would have hired you.”

Oliver’s voice lowers. “If she starts loving you, it won’t be neat.”

I say nothing.

“It won’t be convenient; it won’t fit your lists; and it won’t stay in Maryland just because that’s where you temporarily put it. It will be everywhere, because that’s how she is.”

My hand tightens around the towel.

“You need to decide whether you’re built for that before she decides you might be.”

“I’m not trying to hurt her,” I assure him.

His expression hardens. “Men who hurt women rarely start with that as a goal. That’s not impressive.”

His bluntness cuts.

“I’m trying to be honest.”

“Are you?”

Am I?

I told her I want her. Told her I’m supposed to leave. I told her I don’t know how to stay.