Page 60 of Back for Seconds

His frown deepened. “Yeah, I do. I want your perspective.”

“I have a tray of vegan blondies I technically made for tomorrow night. But I think…I think we should talk about all of this while we stuff our faces.”

Joey’s gaze slid to meet mine. “You made vegan blondies?”

I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. “And they came out really good.”

***

The blondies were still hot as I drug a butter knife through the tray, slicing the batch into neat squares.

“Wow.”

I looked up from my handiwork, tongue poking out between my lips, to find Joey’s wide and glassy gaze staring down at the baking tray with a look of pure lust not completely dissimilar to the look he’d given me last night. “Is this a top-secret family recipe or…?”

“The original recipe, those are the blondies my dad made every Friday night for the pizzeria. They would sell out almost immediately. I had to do some research to figure out how to replace the butter, the eggs, all the animal parts.” I flashed him a smile, handing him a fork. “I felt like you.”

“Well.” His fingertips grazed mine as he took the fork, his warmth traveling through me with the speed of a bullet train. “I’m thoroughly impressed.”

“Try them first. They could be horrible—totally inedible.” But I knew they tasted good. I’d had to stop myself from eating the entire bowl of raw batter.

Joey sank his fork down through the caramelized top layer, down into the gooey center, pulling up an enormous forkful of melted chocolate, perfectly cooked batter, and a few threads of caramel. Then he took a bite.

“Holy shit.” If it didn’t seem so ridiculous, I would have sworn his pupils had dilated with pleasure. Joey ran his tongue over his bottom lip, chasing the last tendrils of soft, sweet goodness. “June Rose, will you marry me?”

“Shut up.” I laughed, pulling up my own stool to the little island. My kitchen was small, and the butcher block island wasn’t really meant to be a table. My knees grazed against his as I settled in. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“No, forget marriage. I want to employ you full-time to make me a fresh tray of these every day.” His voice was a deep, throaty growl. He lifted another forkful to his lips, eyes fluttering in a very…orgasmic spasm that momentarily slingshot me back to the last time he’d been over. “Fuck me,” he groaned.

Would absolutely love to, I thought, eyes downcast. Would absolutely be the pleasure of my lifetime.

“Not to pour ice-cold water on this moment”—I waved my fork at him—“but remember you are here to talk about your ex-girlfriend.”

“Right.” Joey sucked down a breath and straightened to his full height. “I should start from the beginning. Before I started posting videos, I had no money. I mean, I had enough money to pay rent and enough money to do all the boyfriend stuff. But I did not have what it took to start a life. Or be a provider. Or anything close. I was a broke twentysomething from a pretty broke family.”

I nodded. “You were just starting out. In life.”

“That’s how I saw it. I was building up my clients and…and making a name for myself. I always thought it would be temporary. I just needed Amber to…hold on with me.”

“You needed her to believe in you.” This, to me, felt like a casual and obvious observation, but the wince that passed over Joey’s eyes told me that maybe he’d never quite thought of it that way before.

“Fair enough, yeah.” Joey bit back a sigh. He shook his head and took another bite of blondie. “So, on a whim, I start this food account. One year in, I’m still getting a hundred views here, a thousand views there. Nothing big, but I keep going. My second year, things pick up, and I start to make some money off my content. A couple hundred bucks here and there. But now Amber and I have been together for four years. That’s…a lot of years. And I’m still broke.”

“You were what, twenty-six?” I scoffed. “Who isn’t broke at twenty-six?”

“Finance bros. Software engineers. Kids with rich parents.”

“And let me guess, Amber is all three?”

“Just a kid with rich parents.” Joey set down his fork and looked at me up through his eyebrows. “All of a sudden, things start to pick up with my videos and I have a following. Then I start making a lot of money from sponsored content and brand deals. Good money. More people learn who I am, and I pick up some big-name clients. Then that celebrity guy—Marco Antoniou—hires me as his personal trainer; he tells some of his friends; they tell some of their friends. This is the part where I might lose you, Jaybuggy.”

“Oh, no,” I groaned.

“People come into the gym because they like my content, so the owner offers me a promotion and a raise. Finally, all the pieces are coming together…”

“Oh, no. You’re making me so nervous.”

Joey sighed. “So, yeah. I finally have some money. Amber knew that—she knew my business was growing, that I had more clients. I never hid anything from her. This summer I had about thirty thousand dollars in the bank. Cash.”