Mia frowns thoughtfully. Then she turns toward me, sliding her sunglasses down her nose. “Why are you perturbed?”
“Because I asked someone not to do something and they did it anyway.”
Mia turns toward Alex. “Dad, when you make me go to bed at seven, I amperturbed.”
“Which,” Alex says, “leaves you well sleptandwell spoken. An all-around win.”
Mia rolls her eyes as she sticks the cake pop in her mouth and slides her sunglasses back up her nose.
I say to Alex, “I’m serious. I am perturbed. I told Fern you were on deadline for your next cookbook and didn’t need anything else on your plate.”
Alex has even more than a cookbook deadline on his plate, but that’s something he’s asked me to keep private, so I couldn’t tell Fern. Had I told her everything—that Alex has been testing recipes both for his cookbook and a menu revamp at his restaurant, whilegradually easing into cooking again at the restaurant after stepping back four years ago to prioritize his mental health and his family; that he’s not just juggling work-life balance in single-parenting and restaurant hours but also with the fear that he’ll be unable to maintain that balance—she probably would have listened to me. I wish that my asking her to leave him be after he gave us the cake pop idea would have been reason enough.
Alex shrugs. “I can make cake pops in my sleep. It wasn’t a big deal. Plus, Mia had a blast dying the icing.”
I glare darkly at the cake pop. “I’m going to go throttle my boss.”
Alex tips his head. “Throttle, huh?”
“Well.” I wave the cake pop around. “Figuratively. And politely.”
Fern, The Bookshop’s owner, is the sweetest, gentlest woman on the planet on the surface, and beneath that a deeply stubborn, doggedly independent, set-in-her-ways business owner. That, paired with my still-in-recovery people-pleasing tendencies, means pushing back, holding my ground, and telling it to her straight are Herculean challenges for me.
“You haven’t talked to her about your proposal yet, have you?” he asks.
I devote my attention to my cake pop, its sprinkles sparkling in the sun. “I’m still strategizing. These topics have to be approached tactfully.”
Alex scrapes the last bite of his cake pop off its stick into his mouth and sighs.
“I did bring up vacation days, though!” I tell him.
He leans in and takes my empty plate resting in the grass beside me.
I’m washed in his familiar spicy scent, riveted by his profile—strong nose, dark lashes, lush mouth parted. He glances at me, and it’s even worse now, as I’m pinned by his piercing gaze, the striking contrast of his deep-blue eyes, his suntanned skin, his soft white tee and threadbare jeans draped over his hard, warm body.
I wedge my hands beneath my thighs. The urge to touch him, to rake my fingers through his dark messy hair, to grip his shoulders, draw him close, taste and touch and take what I want, is nearly unbearable.
“And?” Alex says.
I blink, dazed. “And… what?”
He arches back to dodge an incoming bee, revealing a sliver of his stomach. Tan, taut skin. Dark hair arrowing down to the waistline of his jeans, the muscles that form a V at his hips. My thighs clench against a sharp, pounding ache. My brain wipes clean.
Alex, thankfully, is too distracted by the bee to register my lustful crisis. As it zooms away, he straightens and his shirt mercifully drops. “You were saying you brought up vacation days to Fern?”
“Oh. Right!” I smile. “You’re looking at someone who requested and was approved for seven straight days of vacation, starting August second. What do you think ofthat?”
Alex lifts the plate up to the sun, clearly noticing I licked it clean. He throws me a knowing grin. “I think it’s a start.”
I scowl as I watch him walk away from me. “I think it’s asuperbstart!” I call.
Alex leans over the pool and tickles Mia’s armpit, wiser than I was, positioned so he isn’t splashed with water as she kicks her legs.
“Gotta clean up inside,” he says to us. “I’ll be back out soon.”
“Let me?” I ask.
That’s our routine—when Alex cooks, I clean up. I’m one of those weirdos who finds doing the dishes therapeutic.