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Right. Time to get a grip.
“Looks like you’ve been busy,” she said, turning to face him.
Zach. The right-here, right-now Zach, who looked so damn good despite all her intentions not to notice. His inky blue T-shirt somehow made his eyes look extra green.
She took a breath.
“Well, I’ve been working,” he said. “Not much to show for it yet.” His mouth twisted. She knew that expression. The face of a musician wrestling with a cranky song.
“It’s only been a couple of days.” She did soothing-the-musician voice on autopilot. It was part of her job, talking nervous artists off the ledge, getting them to take the leap of faith necessary to make something magical out of nothing.
He hitched a shoulder. “I know.”
“So what did you want to talk to me about?” Her voice sounded overly cheery, but hopefully he wouldn’t notice.
“I wanted to say, um … crap, wait here.” He disappeared into the back room where there was a tiny kitchen beyond the recording booth.
He reappeared fairly quickly, before she had time to wonder what the hell he was doing.
In his hands he had a familiar pink-and-white striped bakery box.
He held it out toward her. “Here.”
She took it. The familiar yeasty smell of fried dough wafted up to her. “Doughnuts? From The Last Crumb?” Why was he buying her doughnuts?
“Faith said they’re your favorite.”
And why, exactly, was Faith discussing Leah’s pastry preferences with Zach? She frowned at the box, trying to ignore how good the doughnuts smelled.
“I wanted to apologize for the other day,” Zach continued. “I was a jerk.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “You were.” He was apologizing? What was going on?
“So, um, sorry. I shouldn’t have been rude. I could say I’ve had a bad couple of weeks, but that’s not an excuse.”
“No, it’s not.” She took a breath. Which only gave her another lungful of doughnut-scented air. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that lunch had been six hours ago.
“So I hoped you’d accept the doughnuts and my apology,” he said.
“Well, the doughnuts are a no-brainer,” she said, keeping her face straight. He’d said “sorry.” She was mostly willing to take that in the spirit intended. Especially when he’d had the sense to sweeten the deal with pastry. But it wouldn’t hurt to tease him a little first. “I love Stella’s doughnuts.”
His expression turned worried. “And the apology?”
“Why’s it so important that I accept?” she said. “All your big-shot producers turn you down?” She grinned at him, hoping he’d find the joke funny.
His expression didn’t change.
Did that mean …
“Actually”—Zach took a breath, blew it out—“the answer to that is yes.”
That shouldn’t make her happy. But it kind of did. Did that make her a terrible person?
“Go ahead,” Zach said. “You can gloat if you want to.”
Dammit. She’d forgotten that her knowing him well meant that he had a pretty good handle on how her mind worked too. “Who said I wanted to gloat?”
“Human nature,” he said. “Pride goeth before a fall and all that crap.”
