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"About us? I think we're going somewhere good."
To that, she shot me a giant smile.
"Well, that is good to hear. But I actually meant the cupcake," she said, waving toward the platter.
"They're the best I've ever had. I've actually never had homemade ones."
"Your mom doesn't bake?"
"My mom isn't trusted near the stove," I told her, smiling. "Got more than a handful of memories of us eating pizza on the front porch while the house aired out the smoke smell from her attempting to make dinner."
"Is it an inherited trait?"
"Nah, my old man taught me some basic cooking. I can feed myself. Nothing fancy, but I won't starve. Especially now," I added, reaching for another cupcake. "You cook, or only bake?"
"Jack of all trades here," she said, shrugging.
"You gonna cook for me sometime?"
"As soon as I figure out your favorite meal," she promised.
I was looking forward to it.
Hell, I was looking forward to a lot of things with Holly.
Except the frantic call she made to me just two days later...
Chapter Sixteen
Holly
I was officially a little obsessed with Malcolm.
I couldn't admit that out loud, of course, but all the signs were there.
I couldn't stop thinking about him. Every time I thought about some little, random event in the future—making dinner, going shopping, even just curling up on the couch to watch television—I envisioned doing it with Malcolm by my side.
I studied the pictures he showed me and ate up the stories he and the girls shared with me about their family.
I stole every spare minute with him that I could. I leaned into every stolen touch.
And I actively ached for my next day off, to get to lounge in bed with him, to take our sweet time enjoying each other's bodies.
I wanted to cook him his favorite meal.
I wanted one day in my life that didn't revolve around work or running errands or paying bills.
We would likely need to spend most of our time together at my place because Shep still needed me, but I was looking forward to a day when I could share his cabin with him. He talked about the trails around it, the creek that led to a small pond where he had built a treehouse to sit and watch the wildlife come and go.
I couldn't claim to be as outdoorsy as he was, but that was most likely due to the way I was raised. My mom was decidedly indoorsy. I was excited to see if I enjoyed the little things as much as Malcolm did.
"Hey, get your heads out of the clouds, girl," Don snapped, ringing his little bell six times in a row. "Food is dying here," he added, waving with a greasy spatula.
Alright, admittedly, I was lost in my own head a lot, but I was getting my job done. He'd put the food up in the window only a moment or two before. I'd been working on cleaning up the grounds that had spilled outside of the filter in the coffee machine. I needed a second.
Don was just being his miserable self.
"Is that a new hat?" I asked, nodding up to his blue baseball cap he was wearing backward. "It's a good color for you," I added as I grabbed the food, enjoying the stricken look on his face before I turned away.
I didn't want to be one of those women who could only be happy inside of a relationship, but there was no denying that my mood had taken a general uptick ever since Malcolm came back into my life.
I owed Hope and the girls some sweet treats for going out of their way to arrange a reunion.
"Girl, you shouldn't be taking that shit from him," Zara said, pulling off her purse to shove it under the counter. "I'd box Dean's ears if he spoke to me like that."
I wished Zara had the morning shift every day, so I could see her more. But she was just covering for the day server who had some sort of medical thing.
Aside from being much more pleasant, she also showed up a little earlier, giving me a chance to sneak out early if I wanted to.
And, God, I did.
Between work and Shep and Malcolm and baking, I was burning it at both ends lately. Catching a couple winks before the sun actually came up would be so welcome for a change.
"Dean would never," I said, shaking my head, not able to even imagine it.
"True. He wasn't raised by wolves," she said, shooting daggers at Don through the window. He promptly ignored them. "He's a dick, but he's not wrong, is he?" she asked. "That's the look of a woman with a man in her life. Tell me it's true," she demanded, taking over making a fresh pot of coffee.
"Well, yeah," I said, smiling at her.
"Tell me it's the biker who found you that night you were attacked."
