The Gingerbread Bakery (Dream Harbor, #5)(39)

Annie shrugged. ‘I was just taking in the crowd.’

Mac chuckled as she made her snack purchase. ‘Come on,’ he said, grabbing her hand. ‘Let's take a break from this concert.’

He led her through the empty halls of the high school, stopping alongside a row of lockers.

He pulled her closer, not wasting any time now that they were alone. ‘Can I kiss you?’

Annie's breath caught in her throat. Kissing Mac was all she had thought about for the past five days.

She nodded. Mac seemed to be the only person on the planet that was able to leave her speechless.

He grinned and cupped her face with his hands, kissing her gently on the lips.

His smile grew and Annie couldn’t believe that the cutest boy in school was kissing her. For a minute, standing in the dark hallway of their high school, she forgot that they weren’t students here anymore, that they were technically adults. All she felt was the giddy joy of her crush liking her back.

‘What d’you get?’ Mac asked, pulling away and gesturing to the candy she still had clutched in her fist.

‘Peanut M&Ms,’ she said, sliding down to the floor. Mac joined her, their backs pressed against the lockers.

He put out his hand and she poured some candy into his palm. He tossed them all into his mouth at once, crunching happily.

‘So,’ he said. ‘What have you been up to this week?’

Besides thinking about you?

Nope, don’t say that. ‘I helped my mom decorate the house and I took Charlotte to her basketball practice and I did a lot of baking. I actually had a few people place orders for Christmas.’

‘That's awesome. You’re like a real business.’

Annie beamed. She was like a real business.

‘What about you? What have you been up to?’

‘Mostly spent a lot of time thinking about wanting to kiss you some more,’ he said with a grin.

Giddiness raced through her. She felt like she might float away. Mac was thinking about her while she was thinking about him!

‘You can,’ she said. ‘I mean you can kiss me some more if you want.’

Mac leaned toward her and this time the kiss was less gentle. By the time they pulled apart again, Annie was breathless.

‘Pretty fun doing that here and not having teachers split us up,’ Mac said with a laugh, and Annie could not imagine any version of herself that would have done this during school hours.

‘Yeah, that never happened to me,’ she said.

Mac looked at her, studying her like he was trying to figure her out.

‘Never got detention, either, I guess.’

‘Nope.’

‘Skipped class?’

‘Never.’

‘Faked sick so you could stay home?’

Annie thought about that one for a minute. Had she? ‘No, not that either. I didn’t want to get behind.’

Mac tipped his head, considering her. ‘What would have happened if you did get a little bit behind? Like what’s the worst outcome?’

Annie shrugged. ‘I would have ruined my perfect GPA.’

‘Right. Failure.’

‘Exactly.’

He looked at her for another minute and nerves fluttered in her belly. Maybe now was when he remembered that they didn't really make sense together. There were reasons they had spent the first thirteen years of knowing each other not hanging out.

‘Just so you know…’ he said, and Annie braced herself for what came next.

Just so you know, I'm tired of hanging out with you.

Just so you know, this has gotten weird.

Just so you know, I remembered I have other people I’d rather be friends with—people that aren’t so … intense.

But he didn't say any of those things. He smiled at her and said, ‘Just so you know … I would still like you even if your GPA had dipped a little.’

Annie laughed, the sound echoing through the deserted hallway.

‘That’s good to know,’ she said.

‘I’m having a lot of fun with you.’ He leaned closer again, running the tip of his nose along her cheek.

‘Me too,’ she whispered.

‘Want to hang out tomorrow?’

‘Definitely,’ she breathed as his lips brushed against hers.

‘Cool.’

Very cool.

He kissed her and he tasted like chocolate and crushes and like the best December of her life.











Chapter Eighteen





Now


They were making the treacherous drive through the snow up to Kira’s farm in silence. The gingerbread house was safely in the back of his Bronco and Annie in the passenger seat beside him, but Mac might as well have been alone with his thoughts. And his thoughts were mainly consumed with the fact that everything he’d thought about his time with Annie had been a lie.

If their experiences of that month had been so different, then maybe it really was time to let the whole thing go. Maybe that month hadn’t been some magical Christmas moment between them. Maybe he had been the only one who had fallen in love.

Or maybe it was all just about an orgasm. And if it was just about an orgasm, that he could remedy. In fact, that he would love to remedy. And maybe that would help everything. Maybe one more time with Annie and he could finally put her in the correct category. In his mind, she could go from being the girl he never got over to being just another ex. An ex that he could move on from, a woman that he slept with; and then maybe they could actually be friends, or at least civil to each other. Maybe a decade was way too long to replay a memory and the whole thing had become distorted over the years. Maybe it hadn’t all been as magical as he originally thought. What he and Annie needed was a night together to have closure once and for all.