“After Paige, yes. Sorry, but nobody’s as cheerful as she is.” Madison shrugged.
Regan gave one nod. “Gotta agree with that. I mean, she hums, for Christ’s sake.” With that, everybody laughed, Regan having not been in the room when that comment was initially made about Paige.
During the laughter, Regan met Ava’s eyes across the table and gave her a soft smile, then glanced back down at her coffee.
Ava pretended not to notice the warmth that rushed through her.
* * *
I fell asleep on her.She followed the text to Kiki with a wide-eyed emoji. She watched as Kiki’s dots bounced and then her text came through.
So? You were tired. Big whoop.
Regan blew out a breath and typed,No, you don’t understand. I fell asleep ON her. Like, all night. I woke up this morning with my head on her chest.
What followed was a string of laughing emoji. A seemingly endless string that went on for rows and rows.
This is not funny!she sent back.
Kiki typed,Kinda is, tho.
Shut up.It was all she could think of to say in the moment, and the dots kept on bouncing, so apparently, Kiki was having better luck with words. Finally, the text arrived.
Babe. Chill out. Just chill, okay? You worry about stupid things. If you fell asleep on this woman ALL NIGHT, you must be at least a little bit comfortable with her.Regan was rolling that around in her head when Kiki’s next line came.She didn’t fire you from the bed, did she?And then more laughing emoji.
Oh, ur hilarious.But she found herself grinning and couldn’t help it.She did not. In fact, she apologized for getting me fired in the first place. Seemed to actually feel bad about it. I was surprised, to put it mildly.
The door of the room opened and Ava came in, having gone for a quick walk before they had to head down to the kitchen. Regan tried not to stare, but last night had opened something. Had cracked a seal or loosened a lid or something like that because now she found herself wanting to look. She’d hated Ava for a long time, but the combination of her apology and having let Regan sleep on her the night before had recalibrated some things in Regan’s head. She could almost feel them moving around in her brain, opinions shifting and changing.
Ava was gorgeous. There was no denying it. Even in the deepest midst of her hatred for the woman, Regan would never say she wasn’t. That would be an enormous lie. Even now, as she sat on her bed and slid her glasses onto her face, she was beautiful. Her dark hair wasdown and wavy—and Regan knew from experience that it would go up into either a clip or a ponytail before they headed down to work. She had great skin, smooth and creamy-looking. And after last night, Regan now knew that Ava’s breasts were a bit larger than she’d expected, and very, very comfortable to sleep on.
A small sound escaped her, and she gave her head a quick shake. When Ava looked up at her in question, she recovered with “How was the walk?”
“Humid,” Ava said. “Can’t you tell?” She indicated her hair. “I become all frizzy at the first sign of humidity.”
“Your hair looks perfect,” Regan said before she could catch herself.
Ava glanced up and met her gaze, and they held for a beat or two before Ava said a very soft thank-you. “Ready to head down? I wonder what Liza has us making today. Any bets?”
Grateful for the subject change, Regan said, “I’m gonna go with…” She tapped her forefinger against her chin, making a show of thinking. “Tarts.”
“Oh, good one,” Ava said, crossing to her desk. Using the mirror above it, she twisted her hair up and clipped it at the back of her head. “I’m gonna say turnovers. Or popovers. Something with over.”
Regan laughed. “Fair enough.” She opened the door to their room. “Shall we?”
With a nod, Ava went through, and they headed down to the kitchen.
Turned out, they were both right and wrong. Liza was at her kitchen when the group arrived, the first time she’d been there before them. Already in her apron, with ingredients and equipment spread out on her workstation, she was in the midst of baking something when they got there. Their assistants were already standing at their individual stations waiting for them.
“Good morning, chefs,” she said to their surprised faces. Regan moved behind her own station, stood next to Hadley, and shot a look across to Ava, who gave a subtle shrug back. “Today, we are going to work on our puff pastry.” A very subtle groan went around the room, and Liza chuckled. “I see by the sounds you’re making that you’re not thrilled. And that is exactly why we’re focusing on it today. And tomorrow, if we have to. It is one of the most important elements abaker can master, and too many give up and simply avoid making things that require it.”
Regan glanced down at her hands, feeling guilty, as if Liza had singled her out. She did not enjoy making puff pastry because she struggled to get it right. The layering of the dough and the butter, the folding, the rolling, it just never came out the way it should. Puff pastry was her kryptonite. “Shit,” she muttered.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hadley glance at her with a grin, and behind her, she heard Madison murmur, “Same.”
She clenched her teeth and shot a quick look across to Ava, who nibbled on her bottom lip. She didn’t seem quite as worried, but she also didn’t look super confident. She gave Regan a thumbs-up and then mouthedyou got thisand smiled. Next to her, Becca watched.
Regan’s heart gave a happy skip, and that was the first moment the thought crossed her mind.I like her.
