The weight of those words hung between us. Family. Which meant I was family too. Which meantwewere family, in a roundabout, complicated way.
Which meant this, whatever this was, was even more impossible than before.
I looked away first, uncomfortable with how much I wanted to reach across the table and touch him.
Marie knocked and came back in, breaking the moment. “So? What do we think?”
“Chocolate with salted caramel,” we said in unison.
She clapped her hands together, delighted. “Excellent choice! That one’s my favorite too. Let me get the order form and we’ll get everything finalized.”
While she bustled off to her office, Dex and I stood, suddenly awkward again now that we had a task completed.
“That wasn’t so bad,” he said.
“No. It wasn’t.”
“We make a good team.” His voice was careful, like he was testing the words. Like he was talking about more than just cake.
“We do.”
Our eyes met and held, and I felt it again. That pull, that want, that absolute impossibility of this situation. Only this time, it made me sad. Because it felt magical and it also felt like something I’d never get to have.
Marie returned with paperwork and we spent the next twenty minutes going over all the details for delivery time, setup, and the display table for photos.
But I was hyperaware of Dex standing beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from him. Close enough that when he reached past me to point at something on the form, his arm brushed mine and electricity shot straight through me.
This should be so much easier at our age. We were teenagers anymore. I’d thought the whole unrequited infatuation years were behind me.
Finally, we were done. We thanked Marie, promised to pass along her regards to Trace and Delaney, and walked back out into the afternoon sunshine with a bag of cookies for Cade which were apparently his favourites.
“Well,” I said as we reached his truck. “That went well.”
“Yeah.” He unlocked the doors but didn’t open them yet. “Want to grab coffee? Or do you need to get back?”
The question hung in the air between us. We both knew what he was really asking: Do you want to spend more time together, even though we shouldn’t?
“Coffee sounds good,” I heard myself say. “Unless you have to get back to the garage?”
“No, I’m good.” His hand moved away from the truck door and a caught a look of relief on his face. “There’s a place a few blocks over. You haven’t been there yet.”
“Lead the way.”
We both knew we shouldn’t be doing this, and yet, it seemed so inevitable that fighting this thing between us seemed pointless really.
We ended up at a small café I’d never noticed when I was exploring the town. It was tucked away on a side street, the kind of place you’d only know about if you were a local. It was quiet inside, just a handful of people scattered at tables, soft music playing.
We both ordered black coffee, no sugar, which made us smile, and sat at a corner table by the window.
For a moment, we just drank in silence.
Then Dex said, “So. This is weird, right?”
I laughed, relieved he’d said it first. “So weird.”
“We’re trying really hard to pretend nothing happened. That first night at the bar.”
“We made a truce,” I objected, already realizing how ridiculous that sounded.
