Page 8 of Serving Bunt

Then again, who was I to judge? I was the proud owner of a Peter Diaz candle. The jumbo-sized, three-wick edition that had sold out in under three minutes during the preorder campaign.

That hadn’t stopped me.

It took nearly two weeks of scouring blogs, fan sites, and subreddits before I finally found one listed on eBay . . . with a starting bid nearly six times the retail price.

The cost didn’t matter. Not really. I was a professional baseball player who’d spent the first twenty years of his life scrimping and saving, another takeaway from growing up on the farm.

“Money doesn’t come easy, Matthias,” my dad would say. “And waste isn’t an option.”

He still balked anytime I mentioned spending money on anything that wasn’t strictly “necessary,” like the tile warmers I’d had installed in my en suite or the custom-built, tufted throne Mo had picked out during our last trip to her favorite pet store. I knew for a fact he’d lose his shit if he ever found out I’d dropped six-hundred bucks on a goddamn candle.

When it had finally arrived, I’d shoved it straight into the back of my closet like contraband, burying it behind my winter clothes and beneath the box of vintage tools I had been collecting for years. Every now and then, I’d catch the faintest whiff of coconut and sea salt, and just like that—

Hard-on.

That was all it took to turn me on these days—a fucking candle.

One I had never even lit. I did, however, crack open the lid every now and then to breathe him in. Mm, Peter. And every single time, the scent alone was enough to make me remember his lips on mine the night of Clarke and Soren’s wedding.

It didn’t matter how many layers of coats stood between that candle and me. There was no escaping him.

Not in the closet—the irony of which hadn’t escaped me—and definitely not in my head.

Or heart.

I pushed the media room doors open and came to an immediate stop. The usual drab space had been transformed into a full-fledged studio overnight. White seamless backdrops curved across one end, and softboxes on stands flooded the area with warm, even light. A large playpen took up one corner, filled with a wriggling sea of puppies. Mutts of every size and color tumbled over each other while a couple volunteers tossed toys and treats to keep them occupied.

Talk about a dream job—herding puppies. You know, if the whole pro-baseball player thing didn’t work out.

“Matty!” Clarke waved me over with one hand while the other rested protectively on her growing baby bump. “Bring that queen over here for some kisses.”

The second I set her royal highness—more like her royal harness—down, she made a beeline straight for Clarke. Mo didn’t usually take to women. Not because she was mean or evil or “possessed by demonic forces,” as some of my teammates half-joked, but because she was territorial as hell about her daddy.

Most women just got a side-eye or low, rumbling growl.

But not Clarke.

No, Clarke spoiled my girl worse than I did.

A few months back, she had offered to watch Mo while I attended my oldest sister’s wedding. Three days later, I’d come home to a dog dressed in designer labels who, somehow, had lost her taste for regular kibble. According to Soren, Clarke had spent the entire weekend slipping Mo table scraps while dressing her up like a canine fashion influencer.

Mo wouldn’t accept plain kibble for weeks afterward.

“There’s my favorite, little monster,” Clarke cooed.

Mo practically launched herself at Clarke’s legs, tail whipping like a propeller. She just laughed and crouched down carefully, one hand steadying herself on the edge of the playpen while the other reached into her dress pocket for the inevitable treat.

A flash of orange caught me by surprise.

“Is that a pregnancy craving kind of thing?” I nodded toward the cube of cheese in her hand.

Clarke grinned. “More like a cheese-is-a-freaking-delicious kind of thing.”

Her blonde waves had been pulled back with a pink headband that matched the soft flush in her cheeks. How this pastel pixie had ended up with Soren Sinclair, our gruff and grumpy team captain, was beyond me. Talk about an unlikely pair. The two of them were like a walking, talking advertisement for the opposites attract trope.

Fuck, I need to cut back on the romance novels.

Pink had suckered a few of us into joining his girlfriend’s romance book club last year, and much like Alice, I had fallen down the rabbit hole and landed in Wonderland.