I groan. “I don’t want to marry Annie! This is one big misunderstanding.” A ridiculous one that’s quickly getting out of hand.
He looks back down at his eggs with a smile. “Sure you don’t.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Annie
I get home after work to the smell of fancy baked chicken. The moment I open the door, the beautiful aroma smacks me right in the face and I make a beeline to the kitchen. I love summer because it means Maddie and Emily are out of school. That’s wonderful for two reasons: one, I get to see more of them, and two, Maddie has more time to cook.
I groan as I walk into the kitchen and find Maddie in front of a pot of simmering something. “What is that amazing smell?”
Maddie turns to me, oversize messy bun bouncing as she does. “It’s a new recipe I’m working on: Spicy Honey Butter Chicken. Here, try the glaze and tell me if it’s good.”
She raises the wooden spoon to my lips, and the moment the glaze hits my tongue I decide no other food will ever live up to it. “This is it for me,” I say solemnly. “My peak food experience ends with this recipe.”
Maddie laughs and hip checks me. “You’re too nice, though. You would never tell me if it was bad anyway.”
“Not true. I would just get really quiet and compliment the initiative you put into it. Either way, I really do love it.”
I take a seat at the bar and graze on the appetizer Maddie whipped up. Spinach-artichoke dip. It’s glorious. Heavenly. I am undeserving.
“How was your day?” she asks, coming over to dunk a chip in the dip too. Her eyes squint up slightly after she takes a bite—trying to figure out what it’s lacking. It’s lacking nothing. She’s just a perfectionist when it comes to her food.
Her question sparks a series of memories. Will climbing into my room. The devastating press of his mouth against mine. And then waking up in his arms.
All day my mind has been playing that kissing session over and over again but adding new fantastical details with every pass. Like instead of being in my room, Will enters the shop after fighting off several henchmen. A drop of blood drips down his cheek from a small cut across his face left by a sword. Naturally, I rush to his side and pull him into the shop, where I tend to his wound. He stares down into my eyes, I stare up into his, and then our kiss explodes like a cannon. Not sweet or timid but hot and frantic.
I clear my throat. “It was good. How about you?”
“Good too. Just spent the day online shopping for our trip next week. Hey—in unrelated news, how long is it morally acceptable to wear an outfit with the tags still attached before returning it because you’re too broke to actually afford it? Wait! Don’t answer that. You’ll tell me to return it immediately, but I don’t want to.”
Maddie and Emily are finally going on their Mexico trip with their teacher friends. I keep telling myself that’s the only reason they didn’t invite me—it’s a teachers-only trip. But somehow, instinctively, I know it’s because they’re assuming I wouldn’t want to go. They think I’m superglued to this town like Noah. And probably assume I’d be a buzzkill too.
It’s fine, though. I couldn’t go even if I wanted to, what with how much flower prep I’m doing for Amelia’s wedding and how busy the shop has been lately. Not to mention these lessons with Will.
My stomach swoops as it has every time I think of him. It’s like I’m on a constant roller coaster. I need my body to hurry up and get used to his presence because I can’t take much more of these butterflies.
Mid chip to mouth, our front door opens and Emily storms in. “You!” she yells, pointing at me. “You and Will Griffin have a thing going on and he slept in your room last night and you didn’t tell us!”
“What?!” Maddie squeals, hopping down from the bar into an immediate battle stance. “We’ve been in here talking for five whole minutes! I asked how your day was, and you said, ‘It was good.’ Good! When the first thing out of your mouth should have been, ‘Oh, hey, sis, I got laid by the hottest bodyguard to ever grace People magazine, and I’m no longer a virgin!’？”
“First of all, I’d never say ‘laid.’？”
Emily throws her purse on the kitchen counter. It makes a loud thud, and I know it’s because she has the thing so loaded down with everything she could ever possibly need （including a first aid kit and emergency water bottle）。 “That man was under our roof last night in your bed deflowering you, and you never thought we should know? I’m disowning you! I can’t believe I had to hear it from Holden Jones that Will was sneaking out of your window at sunrise!”