Brody lifts him with one arm, settles him on the counter, and pushes the remaining pull-apart out of paw range. Damien sits upright and stares at us, golden eyes unblinking, paws together, a tiny fluffy chaperone.
“Okay,” Brody says, turning back to me. “If anyone asks how we met, we need a story.”
“You moved in next door.”
“Boring. We need a meet-cute.”
“Did you really just say that?”
“I read romance novels. Don’t look so surprised.” He leans against the counter, eyes wide, his knees bracketing mine more tightly. We’re not exactly touching but close enough that every tiny movement feels like the real thing.
“Picture this,” he says. “Farmers’ market. I’m carrying too many bags. A rogue avocado escapes and rolls across the pavement. You step on it and go down. I drop everything to catch you, and in the craziness, my sourdough starter in my jar falls, crashes, and explodes all over both of us.”
“That’s super dramatic and not how sourdough works.”
He winks at me, and that small gesture has me missing a breath. “It does in romance.”
“Sounds sticky.”
His gaze flicks to my mouth, just for a second, and my body responds like it has been waiting for permission all night. “Most good things are.”
My brain forgets how to be a brain.
He grins as if he knows exactly what he’s doing. “We’re standing there covered in fermented dough and smashed avocado, and our eyes meet. Then I say, ‘I think my starter likes you.’ And you say?—”
“I’m not sure this sounds real and?—”
“You say, ‘That’s the most aggressive avocado I’ve ever met,’ and I fall in love on the spot.”
I laugh, loosening every tension in my body, which makes Damien’s ears flatten with concern. My knees bump Brody’s.
“That’s the most absurd and cheesy thing I’ve ever heard,” I say, though I can’t stop laughing.
“Nobody questions a story that specific. The weirder the details, the more real it sounds.” He taps the counter, his knuckles close enough to brush mine. “Okay, that’s established. Now, the basics. Star sign?”
“Virgo.”
“Scorpio.”
“Oh.” I sit up, and my knee slides against the inside of his. Heat flashes straight through me. “That’s actually anintense combination. Virgo overthinks everything. Scorpio feels everything. It’s either incredible or catastrophic.”
His shoulders square, and he leans in closer just as Damien places a fluffy paw on his shoulder. “Which one are we?”
“Ask me after Saturday.”
His eyes darken, and the charged little silence that follows isn’t innocent. It hums between us until I become aware of how far forward I’ve leaned as well.
“So,” he says, stretching his back, Damien’s protective paw returning, while I’m gawking at Brody’s T-shirt across his chest, across all those broad, angled muscles. “Tell me about the love for food. Where did it start?”
“My grandmother.” I grab onto the question like a lifeline, even though his knees are still on either side of mine and I’m struggling to think about anything else. “She ran a bed-and-breakfast on the coast, and I spent every summer in her kitchen learning to cook by instinct.”
His expression softens, and he’s reaching for his tea, sipping on it, watching me. “She never used recipes. She’d taste and adjust and taste again, and when I asked how she knew it was right, she’d say, ‘Your tongue knows before your brain does. Just trust it.’?”
Brody’s gaze holds on mine, then his attention tumbles to my mouth again. “That’s exactly how I cook.” His voice has gone rough around the edges, sending shivers of excitement down my spine.
My fingers curl against the edge of the stool. “Is that how you ended up doing ManBaker?”
“Yep.” He reaches for another piece of pull-apart, tears it in half, and offers me the bigger piece. I take it, and our fingers brush during the handoff, only a second of contact, but my stomach flutters hard.