As if on cue, Dallas poked his head in the door. “We’ve got the goods.” He nodded in my direction. “Hey, McKenzie.”
“Tommy Lee,” I said. “Referring to yourself aswenow? Did your ego get too big for one person to handle?”
“No.” He came all the way into the kitchen, clutching a lilac pastry box, and the most beautiful man I’d ever seen followed behind him.
Luca. I’d met him briefly once before—at Cash and Ella’s wedding—right after Ella’s boob popped out of her dress like some sort of perverse Whac-A-Mole. He was a friend of Dallas and Katie, and he was on my shit list, regardless of how chiseled his jaw was or how blue his eyes were. His shaggy dark hair, alabaster skin, and all-black clothes made my inner emo-girl heart flutter. Nevertheless, he’d been an asshole to my friends—especially Katie. I’d seen how heartbroken she was at game night and even as far back as last spring when he was a no-show for the opening of the restaurant.
“Luca’s in town,” Dallas said, as though this jerk hadn’t been MIA formonths.“We’re going to hang out with Jo and Derek and see little Addison.”
The perfect specimen of a man standing at his side nodded at me in acknowledgment, but I ignored him.
“Oh, nice,” I said, returning my attention to the cake I’d been working on. “So, I can expect neither of you will have your hearing when you return.”
“Addie’s got a set of pipes on her,” Katie explained to Luca, snapping the binder shut.
Jo and Derek popped in often when they weren’t out of town for work, and of course, they brought their daughter with them. She was cute and all, but I much preferred the silent version that came via the hundreds of photos Katie carried on her phone of her goddaughter making ninety-nine variations of the same exact face.
“She’ll be fronting a Midnight in Dallas revival band one day with lungs like that,” Dallas said, while Luca shifted uncomfortably, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Can’t wait,” I said in a voice that let him know I most certainlycouldwait.
I got a kick out of teasing him because I didn’t know much about Midnight in Dallas before Katie. His celebrity status and the band as a whole didn’t mean much to me, but after getting to know Dallas, and after him pestering me to listen to his former band’s music, I decided to give them a try. I told Dallas it was cool knowing a guy in a boy band, which shut him up permanently. But truth be told, I liked what I heard.
The door opened, and Sydney, one of my coworkers, peeked her head in. “McKenzie, someone out front is interested in booking a catering gig. Can you come talk to them?”
“I can do it,” Katie offered. She knew the customer interactions were the part of this job I liked the least. I could fake it when I absolutely had to, but I was not what one would call a people person.
“Thanks, Katie,” I said as she exited through the door Sydney held open.
“And Dallas, would you mind changing the light bulb in the men’s room while you’re here?” Sydney asked, pressing her palms together in front of her chest. “It went out this morning, and I hate getting on that stepladder.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up. If Sydney and Dallas left the room, I’d be here with Luca. Alone.
“You don’t have to do that,” I spoke up. “I can take care of it.”
“No need,” Dallas said, placing the pastry box on the counter. “You’re busy, and well, you’re also kinda short. I don’t even need the stepladder. The hardest part will be remembering where we put the light bulbs. I’ll be right back.”
He left the room with Sydney on his heels, and suddenly the room was painfully quiet.
I tried to focus on the sound of my playlist and the swirl of my spatula as I worked the buttercream over the cake. It took every ounce of restraint I possessed not to steal a glance at Luca.
“Did we meet before?” he asked, his voice piercing through the silence. “We did, right? At Ella and Cash’s wedding?”
I shrugged, not meeting his eyes.I can’t believe he remembers me.
“That cake, uh, looks good.”
“Yep.”
“Sorry,” he said, and I looked up in time to see him push his hand through his perfect mess of hair. “It’s probably distracting to have someone talk to you while you’re trying to work.”
I snorted, returning my focus to the cake. “It’s not. I could do this in my sleep.”
“Oh,” he said. “Right.”
A beat of silence passed between us, and I felt his eyes on me, burning into the side of my face like a hot poker.
“You trying to stare a hole through my head?” I asked.
