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“Gina,” Starla barked. “Where have you been? Your timer went off, and we had no choice but to pull your bake.”
“The timer went off?” Gina hurried over to her station, where Starla stood with some very brown peanut butter cookies. She looked from them to her boss and best friend. “I forgot about the cookies.”
“Clearly,” Starla said with that line of disapproval between her eyes.
“We can use them on the ice cream bar,” Gina said.
Starla’s eyebrows went up. “What ice cream bar?”
“Oh, please,” Gina said with a giggle. “I know there’s going to be an ice cream bar at Blake’s house for my birthday lunch party.” She rolled her eyes and shook her head like duh. “I’ll crumble these up and you can pretend to sneak them out of the kitchen the way you have with everything else.”
She reached for a cookie and had crumbled it to bits before Starla said, “It’s confirmed, everyone. Gina has eyes in the back of her head.”
The kitchen staff laughed, including Gina, and Starla stood at her side and broke up the over-baked cookies. “Happy birthday, Gina,” she said.
“Thank you.” She beamed at Starla. “Anything with Nash?”
Her friend’s face turned a bit harder, and she shook her head.
“Want me to talk to him?”
“Only if you want to die.”
Gina laughed again, and Starla even smiled. She paused for a moment, and then said, “What if Nash and I aren’t going to be a thing?”
“What if?” Gina repeated, not following the question.
“Would I be terrible if I went out with someone else?”
“Why would that make you terrible?” Gina poured the mound of crumbs into a zipper bag. “You’re single. You’re allowed to date.”
“Yes,” Starla said. “I’m allowed to date.”
“He hasn’t asked at all?”
She shook her head. “I don’t even know if I’d say yes.”
“So asking him is out.”
“Totally out.”
“You don’t like him?”
Starla sighed, the sound of a thousand years of oppression and irritation in the air. “I mean, I did. Once. Before he acted all psycho.” She glanced over her shoulder. “He’s cute. He’s smart. I’ve always liked working with him.” She attacked another peanut butter cookie, and Gina could only guess at what she thought it represented. By the way she mashed it nearly to dust, Gina guessed Nash’s head.
“He just…I think he ruined it,” Starla said. “I don’t know how to get past that, and I miss Jesse.”
Gina didn’t know what advice to give her. Starla had been loyal and kind to her in the four or five days when she wasn’t talking to Blake. She’d encouraged her to get over herself and talk to him before the cornhole game. She’d stood at the upstairs window and watched the first match, trying to find her courage and the way past herself.
In the end, she’d had to take a deep breath and take the plunge.
She did the same now. “Okay, so maybe you do whatyouwant. You followyourheart, and if it’s saying Jesse, who cares what anyone else says?”
They finished the cookies, and Starla looked at her again. Pure vulnerability swam in her eyes, and Gina wrapped her in a hug. “Come to the birthday party, and Jesse will be there. Then you can just see.”
“Okay,” Starla whispered. She stepped back and said in a much louder voice, “Now, get these made again, because we need them for the grab-and-go lunches.”
“Yes, boss,” Gina yelled, and Starla marched away like she’d suddenly joined the military.
