“Is that a thing friends do?”
Brad tried to read between the lines of her question. “Sure. It’s a thing people who are dating do, too.”
“Brad, I—”
“So, okay, I brought you the cupcakes as a grand gesture. I thought it would go over well in your office. I’ve been racking my brain about what I can do to impress you, and the truth is, most of what I have is food. I can make really good food. Specifically, good pastry and desserts.”
Lindsay let out a sigh. “That’s true, you can. And you’re surprisingly persistent for a guy I keep turning down.”
“You haven’t done that.”
Lindsay lowered her eyelids. “Haven’t I? I’d remember saying yes.”
Brad shook his head. “Nope. You keep saying maybe, and you’ve slept with me twice. This is going to come out sounding creepier than I mean it, but if you really didn’t want to ever see me again, you wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”
Lindsay just pursed her lips and nodded slightly as if to acknowledge that this was a good point.
“You’re beautiful and smart and sexy and can talk to me all day about food, which is basically the only thing I know how to talk about. We had fun together once upon a time. I don’t know about you, but I’m having fun right now just sipping a latte and talking to you.”
“I know, but…”
“So I’ve put it all out on the table. I have feelings for you. I baked you cupcakes with bacon. I gave you space to think. So what do you think?”
She shook her head, “I don’t—”
“What doyouwant, Linds? Do you still want to open that restaurant? I’m game. Let’s talk about it. Do you want to keep your current job while I bounce around various pastry jobs until I have enough of a nest egg to open my own bakery? That’s cool. Doyouwant to be withme? Because I definitely want to be with you. So stop questioning it, believe me when I tell you I’m being sincere, and decide what you want.”
Lindsay stared at him. “Oh.”
***
Lindsay hated being vulnerable. It was one thing she knew for sure about herself. But accepting Brad back into her life would require making herself vulnerable.
“I’m glad for all that,” she said, folding her hands around her coffee cup. “I want to trust you.”
He reached over and peeled one of her hands off her cup and wrapped his around it. “The happiest year of my life was that year we were together in culinary school. I’ve done some great things since then and had some good times and had some jobs I really liked and some I really didn’t. But I was never as happy as I was when I was with you. And I kinda suspect the same is true for you. And if that’s the case, I think we should try to see if we can be happy together again, is all. Maybe it won’t work out. But maybe it will this time because we have a better handle on the people we’re supposed to be.”
Lindsay let out a breath. She had been happy that year. It had been one of the best years of her life, too.
They’d sometimes worked together inventing new recipes in one of the school’s test kitchens late at night. There’d been a night when her friend Ashley and Brad’s friend Sam had been working out the best way to make a particular French dessert—some fancy pâtisserie that was beyond Lindsay’s comprehension—and it ended with them all throwing flour at each other like a bunch of kids. It had been a bitch to clean up after the fact, but Lindsay couldn’t remember ever laughing so hard.
Or there was the time Brad had taken her to meet his parents in Philadelphia, and he’d insisted on taking her to the best cheesesteak place in the city, but they’d gotten lost on the way because Brad had decided to drive there in his parents’ car and had taken a “short cut.” A fight had ensued in which Lindsay had called Brad a typical male for not wanting to ask for directions. Lindsay had used the GPS on her phone to get them there, and by the time they finally got their cheesesteaks, they were both starving. It was a damned good cheesesteak, though, and the matter-of-fact way Brad had said, “Worth it,” once they were eating had made Lindsay smile despite herself.
Or there was the time Aaron had organized a cookout in Prospect Park, and asking a bunch of culinary students to prepare simple burgers and hot dogs on the portable grills someone had brought was somehow too simple. Lindsay and Brad had just sat on a blanket and watched their friends argue over the intricacies of this particular challenge. Lindsay had her head on Brad’s lap and was content to let the breeze waft over her, and… Yeah. She’d been happy.
And her life hadn’t been the same since leaving him.
If she could find it in herself to trust him, if they both went all in on this, they could have that again.
“I’ll go on a real date with you,” she said.
He stared at her like he couldn’t believe what she’d said. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You’re right, we did have fun. But I don’t want to just accept on faith that we will have fun now. I want to get to know the new you. I want to trust you. I’m willing to give us a chance to see if we still have something between us. How’s that?”
Brad’s face broke into a wide grin. “Sounds great to me! I’m working the rest of the week, but I have Monday off. Maybe I can come up with something to do. You want to eat at that new restaurant Pepper?”
“Youthinkyou’re funny.”
