I have no choice but to stop when we reach our destination and fall into line at World’s Best Donuts, an old-school donutshop and an essential stop on any trip through Grand Marais per Midwest travel accounts.
“Is that supposed to impress me?” he asks.
“Is your endless supply of ratty band tees supposed to impressme?” I flick his shoulder, trying to get a rise out of him.
He eyes me up and down in a way we don’t eye each other up and down. At least not when the other’s looking. “But you look so cute in my ratty band tees.”
The compliment immediately disarms me. I’ve always derived a bit too much pleasure from trading barbs with Ethan, but this sweetness? Absolutely lethal.
“Can you even eat here?” I ask, tilting my head at the store behind us. It’s obvious I’m deflecting.
He shakes his head. “Nah. This is just for you.”
Deep-fried dough, a love language.
“I’m getting Lewellen flashbacks of you at the Donut Barn.” The memories flood my body with warmth. I suddenly feel too aware of my hands and take a step back.
Clearing my throat, I remind us both why we’re here in the first place. “We should try Laurel and Petey again, just to make sure they’re not legally bound to each other yet.”
“You’ve texted them both thirty times. They’ve seen your wall of texts and are punishing you accordingly.” He twists me around by my fingers to snatch the phone from my hand, and we collide with a delicious thud. “They’ll wait, Chuck,” he reassures me. “You don’t need to overthink everything.”
One second passes. Then two. We’re nose to nose, chest to chest, fingers entwined around my phone. The energy between us zings across my front and down my spine. Last night, I wanted more—part of me still wants more—but this has to be enough.Thisis what forever with a guy like Ethan looks like.Roasting each other in line for donuts. Close but not too close. Never close enough to hurt.
He removes a strand of hair from my mouth, and Ishouldbe laughing at this—the way it gently tugs at my lips is like something out of a movie—but the way his eyes are locked on mine is so open and intense. This doesn’t feel like a choreographed move. But maybethat’sthe move.
We move as one, stepping back so that I’m up against the barn-wood siding—alone in a crowd of hungry people. What must we look like? Should I care?
“I’ll always be your friend, Beekman. But I’m not going to pretend last night didn’t happen. I’m not going to pretend that I don’t want it to happen again.” Something about his words—the way he says my last name, the way his eyes darken and his mouth moves—they make me feel naked.
Maybe we can’t pretend we never crossed that line, but this, this new energy between us, is dangerous. Flammable. Explosive.
If I hadn’t already had my mulligan kiss, I’d take it now. No question.
But he’s not the one playing with fire here. What happens if we have another meaningless, messy make-out next to this family in matching tie-dye T-shirts waiting for a box of bear claws? By this time next week, Laurel and Petey will be having a relationship-ending fight over cabinet knobs in an Anthropologie, Ethan will be long gone, and I’ll be alone—in my big empty house—replaying the way my friend’s mouth felt on mine until I die. He’ll have no problem dropping out of my life for the next adventure, just as he had no problem skipping my wedding. I’ll be the only one left feeling the loss of him like a missing rib.
So instead of doing the thing my body craves like oxygen, I grab my phone from his hand and shove it between us, a sexual buffer. He instantly backs up.
“Do you think they’ll have…” My mouth further detaches from my brain with each syllable. “A maple log?”
Ethan looks back at me. Like he’s still deciding his next maneuver. Can he hear inside my brain? He seems all too aware of what he’s doing to me, but he’s been hiding so much of himself since the moment he showed up on my driveway. Again, I’m left wondering what he’s about to do next.
Never breaking eye contact, he replies in a low, gravelly voice, “Do you want me to check? On the maple log?” Donuts have never sounded so erotic.
I nod and direct my focus toward connecting to the Wi-Fi of the neighboring bookstore. “That’d be great. I’m gonna try Laurel again.”
Only once he’s out of sight do I realize I’d much rather have a Bavarian cream.
Chapter 13
Colorado Is the Breakup Bangs of States
Eight Years Ago
Owen Twombley stillhadn’t texted me since the “Pancakes and Personal Statements” Honors Lunch and Learn two days ago.
Owen Twombley was a fellow junior, an actuarial sciences major, and a possessor of cheekbones that made me weak. He wanted three kids, two dogs, and a second house in Door County by thirty. He was perfect and, prior to the Lunch and Learn, had zero interest in me romantically. That is, until I displayed a deep and expansive knowledge of fantasy baseball simply by agreeing with his opinions on the Astros’ batting order and nodding at all the right times.
I was on day three of implementing my texting strategy, in which every message I constructed was more maddeningly cryptic, mysterious, and noncommittal than the last. With any luck, he’d read my words like they were a horoscope, finding in them whatever he wanted to until he was certain I was his forever kind of woman.
