"Fine," I say. "But I'm bringing the blondies too. As a decoy. So it doesn't look like I made seventy cupcakes specifically for one man."
"Brilliant strategy." Toby starts boxing cupcakes. "Go shower. You have flour in your eyebrows."
"That's a look. It's very artisanal."
"Go."
I go upstairs, strip off my baking-destroyed clothes, and stand under the hot water for a long time. The steam smells like vanilla. Everything in my life smells like vanilla because I've been baking Vaughn's favorites since dawn like a lovesick idiot.
I'm in love with Vaughn.
Not the flirty, surface-level attraction I've been calling it. Not the casual interest I perform with every attractive man who crosses my path. Real, stupid, terrifying love — the kind where I made him a cookie with hazel eyes and extra detail and told him not to read into it while desperately hoping he would.
I get dressed. Dark jeans. A soft grey sweater that Toby once said made me look "touchable," which is either a compliment or a diagnosis. I fix my hair.
Downstairs, Toby has boxed the cupcakes and the blondies and is waiting by the door with the patient expression of a man herding a disaster toward salvation.
"Ready?" he asks.
"Absolutely not."
"Perfect. Let's go."
Chapter 8
Vaughn
Something's wrong with Robin.
Or something's right with Robin. I can't tell. He's been at the bar for an hour and he hasn't flirted with a single person.
Not Jason, who's serving drinks tonight while Ezra does inventory. Not Silas, who complimented the cupcakes Robin brought — seventy of them, vanilla bean with brown butter frosting, which is a suspicious quantity for "recipe testing."
Robin is sitting ramrod straight on a barstool, clutching his beer like it's the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth, and he keeps looking at me.
Quick glances. Darting, nervous things, completely unlike the long, deliberate eye contact he usually deploys like a weapon. Every time I catch him, he looks away so fast it's almost violent. Then thirty seconds later, he does it again.
"What's wrong with Robin?" Silas appears at my elbow, quiet as always.
"No idea."
"He's being weird." Silas tilts his head, studying Robin the way he studies his books — carefully, completely. "He's not sitting on anyone."
True. Usually by this point in the evening, Robin would be draped across someone's lap, playing with someone's hair, leaning against the nearest warm body. It's his default state — tactile, casual, designed to look like he's comfortable with everyone and therefore committed to no one.
Tonight he's maintaining a careful foot of distance from every person in the room. His hands are in his lap. He hasn't touched anyone. The performance is running on fumes.
"He brought seventy cupcakes," Silas adds.
"I noticed."
"All the same flavor. Your favorite flavor."
"Silas."
"I'm just observing." He drifts back to his corner with the smallest ghost of a smile.
I can't take it anymore. I cross the room and lean against the bar next to Robin. Close, but not touching. Leaving him an out.