Page 70 of A Taste of Vanilla

Alive.

I smile down at the screen before locking my phone.

“Good?” mystery man—Roman—asks.

“Yes.”

“You have really good friends.”

“The best.”

It comes out softer than I mean it to.

He looks around my room again, and his gaze stops on my sketchbook, open to a map. He stops there. “What is that?”

I glance over. My fictional kingdom stares back at me in blue ink and golden paint. A spoon-shaped river, crooked mountains, and a tiny bakery in the capital with a ridiculous flag and an even more ridiculous name.

“My map.”

“You drew it?”

“Yeah.”

He steps closer, his eyes narrowing as I brace myself. For a question or maybe even the word adorable.

Instead, Roman says, “Your eastern road should curve further inland.”

I stare at him.

He points, not touching the paper. “If the coast floods, this trade route is useless. Unless the city has elevated roads.”

My mouth parts. “Are you criticizing the infrastructure of my imaginary kingdom?”

“Yes.”

I stare at him for another second, and then laugh so hard I have to slap my hand over my mouth.

Roman turns from the map, expression serious. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“That wasn’t nothing.”

“No, it’s just…” I shake my head. “Most people ask if I’m twelve when they find out I draw these.”

His face changes. “Most people lack imagination.”

I have been kissed before. Kissed well, even. I have been touched, wanted, and proposed to under restaurant lights with a ring I did not pick, but I smiled anyway because that was what sweet women do.

And still, that sentence nearly knocks my knees out from under me.

Most people lack imagination.

He doesn’t say I’m cute or silly or childish at all.

I look away first because the tenderness that blooms in my chest has absolutely no business being here. I did not invite tenderness. Tenderness needs to wait outside with hazards on.

He steps toward me, and the floor creaks.