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six
MARCUS
As Marcus plated a pepper-stuffed pork tenderloin, he thought again about how working with Joselyn was very much a colossally bad idea. It had been two weeks since she had agreed to help him, and he was blown away at the progress they had made, especially since both of them had full-time jobs with very different schedules. In trying to compensate for that, he was getting less sleep than normal, but he wasn’t feeling sleep deprived. Exhausted, yes. Sleepy, no. He was being fueled by pure excitement.
Excitement, and the nearness of Joselyn. The more he worked with her, the more he experienced her passion for running a business. He had practiced for years to keep the feelings he had for her buried deep, but the more time he spent near her, the more difficult it became.
He had to keep reminding himself how important the entire Zimmerman family was to him. When people asked him questions about his family, he usually included the Zimmermans in his answer. He started counting them as family when his mom stuck him on a plane in Hawaii bound for Nestled Hollow to live with his grandparents and he met Everett and Kennon and was embraced by their family.
He continued counting them as family when his mom and his aunt got in a deadly car wreck six months later, leaving him parentless and his grandma with two more kids living with her. He included the Zimmermans in his list of family when his grandpa died a year later. When his grandma died when he was nineteen. When he moved away to college and his cousins moved away, too.
Of course, whenever anyone asked anything even remotely about what his version of a perfect date, girlfriend, woman, or wife would be, all he could think of was Joselyn. But if he pursued a relationship with Joselyn and anything went wrong, he would lose herandthe entire Zimmerman family. He had spent ten years keeping just enough distance between them to keep himself from falling for her any more than he already had. What had he been thinking, asking her to spend so much time with him?
Colossally bad idea, indeed.
He heard the unique buzz he had set for Joselyn’s texts from his phone on the counter behind him. Once he put the current order up, he wiped his hands on a towel and went to his phone.
Joselyn:You close the restaurant tonight, right? Want to work on anything after?
Over the past two weeks, he had made more decisions than he normally made in a year. He had worked with Joselyn to come up with a business plan, which had more details on it than he ever would’ve been able to guess. They had set goals for the business. He had researched costs on his own, since he was the one with all the restaurant supply contacts, and Joselyn had helped him to turn those numbers into pricing strategies. They had brainstormed business names quite a bit but still hadn’t come up with one. And they had started looking at other ice cream shops and brainstorming what his should look like.
It was all exhausting, and he couldn’t look at numbers or plans or strategies tonight. His brain needed a break. He needed to fill his creative well in a way that worked for him. He paused a moment before texting back.
Marcus:I do. Product development.
He smiled, knowing that the phrasing probably would speak to Joselyn’s business-loving soul.
Marcus:How about we play around with some flavors after I get things finished here? You can be my taste tester.
Joselyn:My taste buds and I will be at the restaurant at 11:00. :)
Marcus spent the rest of his shift dreaming about ice cream flavor combinations and trying not to dream about Joselyn.
* * *
Dustin was chattier than normal tonight, and doing all the closing tasks was taking them so long. His bosses never minded Marcus staying after to experiment with making ice cream or appetizers or entrees— they had benefitted from his new creations quite a bit over the years. But just because they were okay with him staying after to make ice cream with Joselyn didn’t mean he was ready to tell them that he would be quitting yet. Not until he signed the lease papers and they started construction on the building— and that wouldn’t happen for another five weeks.
But if he was being honest, keeping his quitting a secret wasn’t the only reason why he wanted Dustin to leave. Marcus shouldn’twantto be alone with Joselyn. Nothing could ever happen between them, so spending so much time with her was setting his heart up to be more wrecked than it had been as a teen. His sense of self-preservation was begging him to get distance from her constantly. But his desire to be with her always won out.
Definitely colossally bad.
The rest of the staff seemed to be in a hurry to get off work, so as soon as they left, Marcus got Dustin out the door, too. It was less than a minute after his sous chef pulled out of the parking lot before he spotted Joselyn’s headlights as she pulled in. As soon as she pulled into a parking spot behind the building, he held the back door open for her, trying to ignore the fact that his heart rate picked up at just seeing her.
She’s just your business consultant.
“Good evening, Sunshine,” he said as she neared.
As she walked through the doorway, the smile she gave him seemed to be filled with joy at seeing him. He drank in the smile like a man dying of thirst when he was finally given a glass of water and instantly knew that her expression had been burned into his memory so fully that he’d be able to pull it up again for the rest of his life.
This wasn’t the first time they’d had a planning session this late at night, but it was the first time they’d had it at the restaurant, so he gave her a quick tour of the kitchen before getting started. Then he grabbed an armful of ingredients and started putting them on the counter near one of the cooktops, and noticed Joselyn shiver and wrap her arms around herself.
“Oh, sorry. We keep the temperature pretty cool back here because with all the cooking going on, it would get too hot if we didn’t.” He was plenty warm. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and share all his warmth with her. But that didn’t exactly take him further from the colossally bad idea. “Do you want me to grab your jacket?”
“I’m totally fine,” Joselyn said as she jumped up to sit on the counter next to him as he worked.
A thrill, unlike his normal making-something-new thrill, raced through him. “Will you hand me the maple syrup? It’s by the sea salt and honey, darlin’.”
Joselyn chuckled. “Honey darlin’. Can’t say I’ve ever been called that before.” She smiled, twisting to the side and picking up the container, turning it over in her hand. “Grade B maple syrup.” She took the lid off and brought it to her nose. “Oh wow—that smells divine.”
