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They were both thinking about last night, and the things they did to each other, and that made his dick harden and his gut tighten. It took all of his control not to grab her and kiss her. It would be so easy to remind her what exactly it was she was trying so damn hard to forget. “What can I say? I’m a talker,” he said, shrugging.
“I noticed,” she said drily. “I was there, too.”
He grinned. “I also noticed.”
A small laugh escaped her. “Okay, well, I’m going to shower and head into the bakery.” She walked backward toward the bathroom, her gaze still locked on his. “You can hang out here, if you want, and wait for me to get—”
“Nah.” He buttoned his pants. “I’ll go back to my place, grab some clothes for the next few days, then meet you at your shop so I can help you out. It’ll go quicker that way, and when we’re finished, we can go together to meet up with everyone for drinks at five.”
She froze, half bent over, pert little ass in the air, and dropped the shirt she’d pulled out of her drawer. Turning slowly, she eyed Steven like he was this unrecognizable thing. “You want to bake with me? In my shop? All day long?”
“Yeah,” he said, pulling the zipper up. “Sure. Why not?”
“You’ve never asked to go to work with me before.” She stood up straight. “You don’t like baking. And you don’t like how hot the kitchen gets when the oven is on. So why now?”
Last night she’d made him travel through space and time with her mouth and her soft touches, and he’d be damned if he was going to walk away after that.
“Why not?” he asked, shrugging into his dress shirt from last night. He didn’t bother to button it. “Besides, you said you didn’t want to be alone, right?”
“I did say that, didn’t I?” she muttered, blowing her hair out of her face with a breath. “All right. Hey, I might have some clothes here, if you don’t feel like going home on a walk of shame.”
He frowned. “I left clothes here? When?”
“No, they’re from Max—the guy before Brian. With the beard.” She quirked her lips. “He was about your size, and he never came back to get them after we broke up.”
Wear her ex’s clothes? Yeah, he would rather walk down the street in a pink fucking tutu. He scowled at her, gripping his bow tie with his left hand, while he mentally imagined strangling Max with it. He’d hated that prick even more than he’d hated Brian. “Hell no. I’m not wearing his shit.”
“Okaaaaay,” she said slowly, eyeing him weirdly. “Suit yourself.”
He forced a tight smile, trying to hide his irritation. “I’ll just run home, change, and meet up with you at the bakery. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said, picking her gray shirt up again.
As he walked past her, he stopped by her side, hesitating.
He almost leaned in and kissed her, but nothing had changed between yesterday and today, so he settled for a shoulder squeeze. “See ya soon, cupcake.”
> “Yep,” she said, her voice soft. “Bye.”
He grabbed the rest of his shit, stepped into his dress shoes, and went out the door. The second he rounded the corner, and started down his own street—he lived three blocks away from her, because they planned it that way—he pulled his almost dead phone out of his pocket and dialed number two on his speed dial.
It rang three times, then, “Hello?”
“Holt, I’m going to fucking kill you,” he growled.
A shuffling sound. “What did I do this time?”
“You were right.” Steven glared up at the sunny sky. “That’s what you did.”
“I usually am, but you’ll have to be more specific.” Holt cleared his throat. “I was right about…?”
Steven gritted his teeth and waited to cross the road, saying the one word that would tell his buddy everything he needed to comprehend the situation at hand. “Lauren.”
Chapter Ten
Lauren paced back and forth, nibbling on her thumbnail until there wasn’t much of it left to chew on. When a knock sounded on the front door, she sprinted to it, peeking out before opening it all the way. After her Brian “scare” last night…she was still a little on edge. “Oh, thank God you’re here.”
Her friend Daisy blinked at her. She held two to-go cups of coffee, and appeared to be still half asleep. Her red hair stuck up in the back, as if she’d forgotten to brush it, and she had bags under her eyes. But she was there, and that’s all that mattered. “What’s so important that you called me at eight o’clock with an SOS message on a Sunday morning to—”
