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Had been half my life, if I was being honest. “Yup,” I said with a nod. “And I’m pretty sure she is, too, but she’s too stubborn, or scared, to admit it.”
He nodded, moving smoothly around the kitchen. French toast here. Bacon there. Soon enough there were two loaded plates on the counter along with fresh coffee.
“Gotta be honest, I’m surprised she agreed to the date in the first place.” He poured a healthy swig of maple syrup over his plate before taking a bite.
“I may have misled her.”
His eyebrows told me to continue as he chewed.
“One of her stipulations to the date was that we could go back to being friends. I said yes, knowing she wouldn’t agree to it otherwise. And then when she wanted to go back to being friends—even though we’d been so good together—I couldn’t fucking do it. How the hell do I go back to ‘just friends’ after everything we did?”
He held up a hand to stop me. “She’s like my sister, please do not elaborate on that.”
I shook my head. “Not elaborating.”
We ate in silence for a few minutes. “I love you both, so I’m not going to take sides. Although, if I was, I might take hers because lying was kind of a dick move. However, I want you both to be happy, and I know you’d be good together. You love her, Mack, you need to fight for her.”
“Like you fought for Jemma?”
For a second I wondered if he was going to punch me. “Low blow. But just because you don’t see the fight doesn’t mean it’s not happening.” He pinned me with a hard look. “You need to decide whether you bury your feelings and go back to friends, or you get her back for everything. They’re your only two choices.”
“I can’t just be friends.”
He nodded. “Then you go for broke.”
We didn’t speak about it again.
I proppedmy borrowed board against the back of the house, peeled down my wetsuit and snatched one of the towels from the laundry to dry off. And, as I had been doing at various points, I wondered what Chase was doing. Was she at home? At Rudi? Did she miss me like I missed her?
There had been a lot of thinking over the last few days, and I was still no closer to knowing what to do. Half of me thought I should fight for Chase until the end of fucking time. She deserved to know I wouldn’t give up on her, on us. But what if I was wrong, and she really didn’t want that? Would I just be driving her further away?
I wanted to be happy with her friendship. If she never changed her mind I’d just have to learn to stop thinking about the way she felt curled up beside me, or the soft press of her lips. That sounded fucking impossible right at the moment, but I’d try, if it meant keeping her. I wasn’t sure I believed in soul mates or anything like that, but I knew that she was my person. And I‘d do whatever was necessary to keep her in my life.
“I’ve been thinking some more about your pies,” Nash said as I stepped inside.
“Oh yeah?” Pies had been taking up quite a lot of conversation. I set up an Instagram account before coming to LA, which, despite only having a single post—of one of Chase’s sweet potato pies from Thanksgiving—already had over five thousand followers. I had Harley to thank. Apparently, her ruse to pass off my pie as her own hadn’t quite worked out and she’d tagged me in a reel of her eating said pie. I didn’t know how viral was classed, but a lot of people saw it.
“I don’t think you need to rely on the food truck.”
“I’m listening.” I’d been trying to understand how my day-to-day could look asThe Pie Guy, but my mind was stuck on the idea of the food truck.
“The truck is perfect for markets and shit like that, but I don’t think it needs to be your only sales avenue. You could wholesale them around Brooklyn. Cafes. Coffee shops. You could also sell them to order from wherever, Rudi would make the most sense, seeing as you have a fully functioning kitchen that you’re not currently utilizing.”
“How far in advance would people order?”
He scratched his cheek. “However far in advance you wanted them to. I’d give them a menu for each day. Tuesday is chocolate-espresso. Wednesday is salted honey. And so on. Then, you’d have a cut off for orders, say two or three days before. You could bake them the day before, give them time to set and develop flavors. Then people collect by whatever time you want.”
“You’ve given this some thought.”
“It’s a great idea, and you’re fucking talented. If you want to do this, you know that I will support you in whatever way I can. Right now, that’s ideas.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he said with a tip of his head.
I chewed over the ideas as I showered and dressed, nervous anticipation bubbling. This could actually happen. It would be a shit load of work, but it was work I wanted to do, work I was excited to do. I picked up my phone to make some notes and noticed a text from Chase. My heart leapt into my throat.
Chase:Are you home for New Year’s Eve?
