“And you’d look great in a kilt, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to wear one while you play soccer.”
I bob a shoulder. “Why not?”
“Seriously?” She arches a brow. “You’d really wear a kilt on a soccer field?”
“If I knew you had a thing for guys in skirts and were watching from the stands I would. I wouldn’t even wear boxers underneath.” She laughs and my smile stretches wider.
I love her laugh. It makes my chest feel as warm as the first sip of Maddie’s salted-caramel hot chocolate.
“I honestly think you’re serious,” she says.
“I am,” I confirm.
She shakes her head. “You’re a strange one, Whitehouse.”
“Probably.”
“But…I like strange,” she says, her voice a little wistful, a little sweet.
“I like you, too,” I say, reaching out to give her thigh a light squeeze.
At first, she stiffens, but then she sighs, and her thighs ease apart the slightest bit—enough to make my heart stutter and things low in my body ache and memories of how nice it was to kiss her on that futon on New Year’s Day dance in my head.
God, I’m dying to touch her, to pull over to the side of the abandoned highway and kiss her until she moans. To slip my hand up her shirt and down the front of her jeans and wake us both up with something a lot more fun than singing along with the radio.
“Mick?” she says after a moment, a hitch in her voice that makes me think she feels it too, the potential energy building between us, filling the truck cab with enough electricity to set off sparks.
“Yeah?” I curl my fingers, pressing them into her skin.
“I’m—”
She’s cut off by a frantic honking sound as my thigh begins to vibrate.
“Shit, sorry,” I say, digging into my front pocket.
“Is that your phone?” She laughs. “What is that? A goose?”
“Yeah, it’s Maddie’s ring tone,” I say, pulling out my cell. “It’s an old family joke, tell you in a sec.” I answer the call. “Hey, Maddie, what’s—”
“Where are you?” she demands, her anxiety clear in her pinched tone. “I got to the bakery five minutes ago and the door to your apartment was wide open, and your truck was out front, but I couldn’t find you anywhere. I thought you’d been kidnapped!”
“I haven’t been kidnapped,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Sorry, I probably forgot to lock the door when I ran up to grab my toothbrush and stuff. It won’t stay closed unless you lock it with the key.”
“Then you should fix it,” she says, her voice still thin and half an octave higher than usual. “You’re a handyman, for God’s sake. And you almost gave me a heart attack thinking something horrible had happened to you. I was imagining murder most foul.”
“You watch too many true crime shows.”
“I absolutely do,” she agrees, “but that’s no excuse to give me a heart attack.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. Thanks for calling to make sure I’m not buried in a shallow grave somewhere,” I say. “And I’ll fix the door as soon as I get home.”
“And when will that be?” Maddie asks, her worried voice giving way to her “in search of gossip” voice. “And why do you sound so wide awake at four in the morning, hmm?”
Knowing better than to even try to keep my personal life to myself, I fill her in on the situation as Faith takes the exit to stay on the I-10 West down to New Orleans.
“What’s the plan after you get there?” Maddie asks, the clanking of pots and pans in the background signaling that she’s starting a batch of something while we talk.
Maddie opens the bakery four out of six days a week, arriving at four in the morning and staying until Naomi relieves her sometime between ten and noon. In four hours, she somehow manages to make enough bread, cookies, and cakes to replenish Icing’s shelves for an entire day. Maddie says it’s simply a matter of being organized, but I suspect there’s some sort of magic involved.
I can’t make a single batch of edible cookies in four hours, let alone a few dozen.
“We’re going to pick up Faith’s mom and then head back home, I guess,” I say, meeting Faith’s eyes and mirroring her shrug. We haven’t discussed the plan in depth, but it seems like we’re both on the same page.
“Oh, no, you’re not,” Maddie says. “You can’t drive that many hours all in a row! You have to get some sleep first.”
“Maddie, it’s fine,” I say with a sigh. “We’ll figure it out. Maybe her mom can help drive while we sleep or—”
“No way,” she cuts in as Faith gives an exaggerated shake of her head that makes it clear having her mom drive would mean taking our lives into our own hands. “I’m going to book you a hotel room.”