Not that Iwantedhim to flirt with me.
But he was watching me expectantly, so I said the first thing that popped into my head—because that had worked so well for me so far today, right? “I don’t wear flannel.”
Finn blinked, and I was saved from embarrassing myself further when Sherri came bustling back out. Her gaze flicked between us and she got a gleam in her eye that I was all too familiar with, right before she said, “Finn, are you single?”
Finn blinked again. “Yes?”
“No little lady waiting back in the city?” she persisted, and oh no. I knew where this was going. Sherri had made it her mission to find me a boyfriend, no matter how many times I’d told her I wasn’t interested, and Finn was obviously her latest candidate. This was her way of finding out if he was gay and single, which were literally her only criteria for shoving someone in my direction.
But Finn didn’t know that. “No lady at all,” he said with a rueful smile, “little or otherwise. No lovely lad either, more’s the pity.”
Sherri’s eyes lit up. “Well, fancy that, both of you are single,” she said, looking expectantly between us. Theand gaywent without saying.
Finn’s eyebrow rose and he shot me a panicked look.
“Sherri,” I said with a sigh, “you have to stop trying to find me a boyfriend, okay? Just because Finn and I are gay, that doesn’t mean we’re automatically interested in each other. This isn’t some cheesy Hallmark Christmas rom-com.”
“But if it was,” Finn said, “I’d be the discontented big city guy looking for meaning in his life, and you’d be the handsome local who melts my stony heart with a single kiss.”
The corners of my mouth quirked up despite myself because yeah, Finn was funny.
He returned my smile, and we exchanged an amused look. I took the chance to wrap my scarf around my neck and duck out into the street before Sherri could launch another matchmaking attempt.
Because no matter what Sherri thought, Finn Kelly was my rival. This wasn’t a rom-com, I was no handsome local, and there would be no kissing happening between us.
None.
Chapter 4
FINN
Rows of gleaming, freshly iced Christmas trees stretched out in front of me, filling my countertop from edge to edge, and I let out a sigh of satisfaction. I’d spent the last hour decorating cookies in preparation for the bake sale this weekend, and I twisted from side to side and stretched my arms above my head in an effort to untie the knots in my spine that had formed as I was hunched over with my piping bag.
The aching muscles were familiar, a part of the job, but tonight I didn’t mind them. They meant that I was slowly reclaiming something I’d loved but thought I’d lost. I’d been worried that committing to the bake sale might be putting pressure on myself, but instead it had inspired me. I’d spent the last two evenings baking up a storm, and it was like I’d never stepped away from my KitchenAid. My refrigerator and kitchen table were loaded up with neatly packaged baked goods with their ingredients listed on the label, because apparently it was true what they said—you could take the boy out of the bakery, but you couldn’t take the bakery out of the boy.
It hadn’t hurt that, as I worked, I’d been picturing Cameron’s face when he bit into one of my sugar cookies. He was sweet and hot all at once, and I was drawn to him like a bee to honey.
Which was a shame because he wasn’t interested in me at all. Like, atall. He’d made that clear the last time I saw him. And whenever I’d flirted with him, he’d looked at me like he wasn’t sure what to do.
Then again, maybe he wasn’t.
I was naturally outgoing. It was second nature to me to start a conversation with everyone and throw in a joke or two. It was why I’d been the one who was able to talk down the stressed-out brides at the bakery. Hell, when I was a little kid, my uncle once said I could talk the leg off a chair, and before my dad explained what that saying meant, I’d spent three days in fear of my mom’s dining suite falling apart whenever I opened my mouth. So yeah, I was a people person, okay? And I liked that about myself.
But I was aware not everyone was like that. Some people took a little longer to thaw when they met someone new, and I was guessing Cameron fell into that group. Hell, he took so long to thaw he was practically a glacier. He seemed pleasant enough when he was talking to people he already knew, though.
So maybe the trick was getting to know him better—andthenflirting with him.
Because I really did want to get to know him. I was fascinated by the way he was so shy and self-contained—except when it came to this dumb baking competition. Like, when he’d found out I was a baker, he’d reacted with a passion that had surprised me. Granted, he’d reacted like a passionatejerk, but it had shown me that he had a fiery side that he kept buried deep, and I wanted to see more of that.
I was still going to own his ass in the contest, though.
“Mind if I sit here?”
Cameron’s head jerked up from where he’d been reading his Kindle. Then he looked around the diner, and I could see the moment he realized every other table and booth was packed. His nostrils flared, but he gave me a slight nod and I slid into the booth across from him. “Thanks. Town’s crazy right now.”
He flipped his kindle face down as if resigning himself to a conversation. “It’s the craft market tonight down at the community center. People come from all over to get their hand-knitted scarves and beanies and decorations and whatnot.”
“Yeah? That sounds kind of neat. I love seeing people’s art, and some of those handcrafts are next level.”
