Chapter 32

32

Annika

My limbs are so heavy, I think someone must've put lead weights in my fingers and toes while I was sleeping. But I manage to pull myself out of the massage chair—I am so getting one of those if I ever win the lottery, which I won't, since I don't play, but a girl can still dream—and I make my creaky bones move to the kitchen area to dig for forks and knives and plates while Grady steps outside and fires up the gas grill.

Sue comes back inside with him, and I swear the goat is panting like a dog.

I scratch him behind his ear, and he circles the two of us until I'm somehow getting a Grady hug again.

"Why is there a box of cake mix on the counter?"

"Annika-proof cookies."

I snort.

Sue snorts.

Grady rubs my neck, and oh .

How long has his cannoli been back?

Inspecting the baked goods in his pants seems a much better use of a free evening than baking.

Except it's not. Because I need to be able to keep the bakery going until we can find a more permanent solution.

The bakery is the only thing Mama gets excited about.

Well, that and Roger.

"You do any of the decorating?" Grady asks.

"I tried. Bailey told me it looked like a small dog pooped on her perfect peanut butter cupcakes, and to please just stand back and look pretty and let her do the heavy lifting."

He doesn't answer, but he does trail his hand up my neck until he's teasing my roots, and this isn't how Mama told me babies were made, but he's turning my scalp on and making me want to rip all my clothes off and offer him my whole body for physical inspection.

I wonder if he feels this good when I touch him.

I assume so.

And that cannoli poking my stomach would suggest so.

But I let my hands take a little field trip to the land of Grady's rock-hard ass and give it a stroke over the denim covering his skin.

His cannoli pushes harder into my belly and his breath catches in his chest.

Pulse is definitely picking up. I can feel it under my ear.

I give his cheeks another test squeeze.

"Annika," he warns.

"You didn't invite me just for baking lessons," I whisper.

"You're tired and stressed and I'm not going to take advantage of that."

"But you want to?"

" No . I want you to be happy with everything settled, and for you to still want me to strip you naked and make love to you until the sun comes up. I don't mind being your stress relief, but I want to be more . I want us to be more."

"You're already more."

I could do without the lying part, and the sneaking out here when my family thinks I'm with Liliana part, and even the part where he wants to talk about what my dream career is, because I don't know.

And I don't like that I don't know.

I've been out in the world for a decade.

Shouldn't I know what I want to do with my life by now?

Not that I currently have much of an option, but if I did…what would I do?

The timer goes off on his phone, and he squeezes me tight for a second before he lets me go. "Time to flip the steaks."

I finish setting the table while Sue watches.

He's a friendly goat.

Doesn't seem prone to leaving messes inside.

I wonder if Grady trained him, or if goats are more domesticated than I thought.

Wait.

Have I ever thought about goats being domesticated?

"Annika? Can you set the oven to three-fifty?" Grady asks through the sliding screen door.

"Afraid to come in and do it yourself?"

"Yep. Also, it's step one in baking no-fail brownies."

"You realize you just cursed us by calling them no-fail brownies?"

His dimples pop out—both of them—and why didn't I let him kiss me on graduation night?

Why didn't I tell him how much I was going to miss him?

That when I was ready, he'd be the one I wanted?

That I'd be home in four years, that I'd go to college in Copper Valley, that there was no one else I'd want by my side as a partner to deal with anything horrible that ever happened?

"Annika?"

I leap toward the double wall ovens. "Three-fifty. Right."

Sue trots beside me and maaa s at me when I stare dumbly at the controller. "Upper or lower oven?"

"Your choice."

I don't want to pick.

If I pick wrong, I'll ruin his no-fail brownies.

If I'd let him kiss me, I wouldn't have been able to get on that bus to head off for basic training.

"I'm really mad at you for being a dick when I got home," I call to him.

"I'm mad at me too."

It's not flippant or sarcastic.

It's quiet and regretful.

"I'm mad at me for being afraid of leaping and trusting you," I add quietly.

"Leaving took more courage than staying stuck in high school. You needed to go. I needed to go. We needed each other to go."

"If I was home just to help my mama open a bakery, and she hadn't gone blind, would you still be helping me?"

He doesn't answer right away, but instead watches me through the screen door while I watch him right back.

"I missed you," he finally says, "and I'd like to think I would've pulled my head out of my ass, but I don't know. I'm glad you're here though. And I appreciate the second chance."

"I never had another best friend."

"I never wanted another best friend."

His alarm goes off again.

"Three-fifty. Just pick an oven."

I pick the top one, but I think I accidentally hit the buttons to turn on the bottom one.

That's basically how I roll in kitchens.

But Grady's going to help me.

He's not the enemy.

He's my friend. He cares. And he knows how to fix this.

He knows how to fix me .

"I shouldn't make relationship decisions when I'm tired and hungry and worn down," I tell Sue.

He rolls his eyes like duh, lady, stick with the people who love you when you're at your lowest, because they won't let you down .

"You're very wise for a goat."

He snorts and licks up his own nose again.

"And also a little gross. But I'll forgive you, because you're a goat. Like the GOAT of goats."

He tilts his head.

"That's the Greatest Of All Time of goats," I explain. "It's an acronym—and you're a goat. And probably don't care. If I don't like my steak, do you get to eat it?"

"He'd eat toilet paper and think it was foie gras," Grady tells me as he slides open the screen door and steps inside with two perfectly grilled steaks and two aluminum foil packets in the shape of corn on the cob.

My belly suddenly gives a rumble, and I realize I haven't eaten since breakfast.

That was probably a mistake.

"C'mon," Grady says with a grin. "It's time to eat."