"Great." I pointed behind the counter. "Should we?"
"Oh, gracious, yes! Listen to me chattering away." Motioning me to follow her, we went behind the glass case, and I smiled at the crisply lined display of confections and squinted at the beautifully done chalkboard sign with the menu as we passed it.
"Joy, does that say dill pickle cupcakes?"
She giggled, glancing over her shoulder at me. "Sure does. We made them a couple of months back as a special request for someone's baby shower, and they were so good, we couldn't believe it. We only make them about once a month, but we usually sell out before noon on the days we have them in stock. I'm surprised there are any left."
My eyebrows popped up in surprise. "Okay then."
"They're delicious," she assured me. "The secret is the bourbon in the frosting."
"Huh." The opening into the kitchen was, indeed, wide enough for me, and I watched as a couple of apron-clad bakers worked efficiently around the long stainless island. They both sent me friendly smiles when Joy introduced me, no violent hand shaking this time as they were elbow deep in cupcake batter, which suited me just fine. "Will I get to do some baking today?"
Joy grinned. "Course you will. But we know you already know how to do that. We heard all about those cupcakes you brought in. We'll start you on the register for a bit, then we'll rotate back here to make one of our recipes."
My face must have been frozen into some horrible expression because Joy bent closer, concern practically oozing from her pores. "Are you okay?"
The words felt like acid coming out of my mouth. "I just … I hope I do okay working at the register." My face flushed hot. "I'm not, I'm not always great with strangers."
Joy waved away my admission. "Hush, you'll do just fine. Most of them are only strangers once or twice. Soon, you'll know everyone who comes in here."
In her mind, that was that, and we started around the kitchen. She showed me where the staff kept their things, and the bins of flour, sugar, and brown sugar underneath the main island. I saw the stainless racks where all the finished items went to wait on trays, and the ovens that were pumping out lots of heat and even more delicious smells.
I smiled when she showed me the design elements and sent up a prayer to the bakery gods that I'd be able to get my hands on them soon.
The first hour flew by with little necessary from me other than to listen to Joy's happy chattering and overwhelming overshare of every square inch of the kitchen.
And this is the mixer, we got that one about two years ago. It's a lot nicer than the one we had before.
Oh, this here is the counter you can pull right out for your own workstation. Jennifer used it all the time. Isn't it amazing that Cletus made it for her? So romantic.
We store the bags of flour and sugar here. You can lift a fifty-pound bag, right? Of course, you can; just don't pay attention to a word I'm saying.
By the time we made our way back to the register, I was ready for a nap. Of course, about half of that could've been because I really, really didn't feel ready to put on my happy, friendly, non-Jocelyn customer service face. Maybe I could leach some of Joy's joy by osmosis. I kept my chair just behind her so she could show me how to work the register, and that was when her curiosity finally got the best of her.
I'd learned pretty quickly when someone was trying to figure out how to ask me about my chair, or whether the thing about to come out of their mouth was going to be completely inappropriate.
"So, how did you …" Her voice trailed off, and she glanced quickly, guiltily down at my legs. "How did it happen?"
If Joy had been anything but sweet and sincere with me, I might have considered messing with her a little bit.
Instead, I gave her a quick smile. "I had an infection that caused inflammation in my spinal cord. The paralysis used to go higher up, past my waist, when I first got sick, but it settled lower with some steroids."
She placed a hand on her chest and gave me a sad smile. Then her eyes glossed over, and panic made my whole body freeze up like a popsicle. If she cried, right here in the middle of the bakery, I might wheel my ass out and not come back.
"And you can't feel anything at all? Like if I dropped something on your poor little feet, you wouldn't even know?" she asked, voice all whispery and trembling with emotion.
I bit down on my lip so I didn't laugh. "I'd be able to tell. Mainly because my eyes work just fine."
She blinked a few times.
"Right, sorry, I'll pull back on the inappropriate humor." I cleared my throat awkwardly.
Houston, we're losing her.
Joy sniffed, and I gave her a look.
"Joy, you promised not to make a fuss."
She blinked again, but this time, I saw her visibly pull herself together. "Right, okay. Sorry."
"You don't have to apologize." I sighed.
She nodded in answer, then waved her hands in front of her to stem the emotions literally spilling over her face. "Okay. Sorry."
I smiled. So did she.
Joy stepped back and motioned to the register. "Why don't you try the next one?"
I groaned, wheeling myself closer. "Okay, fine."
The sound of someone clearing their throat had Joy and me glancing up in tandem.
And I don't know about her, but I felt my mouth drop open a little bit.
In front of the counter, with his hands tucked into dark jeans and ridiculous ropey-muscled forearms on full display—I would've sworn it on a stack of Bibles—was the love child of Brad Pitt from Legends of the Fall and Chris Pratt from Jurassic World. And he was smiling at us like we weren't staring awkwardly.
"Afternoon," he said, voice deep and warm and caramel chocolate lava cake gooey delicious.
A sound came out of my mouth that might have been hi, but all he did was widen his smile a little bit.
Joy snapped out of her stupor first. "Afternoon. What can we get for you today?"
"You're new," he said to me.
Like directly to me. While holding eye contact and aiming words in my direction.
Joy elbowed me in my shoulder, and I swallowed. "First day, actually."
He nodded, glancing at the menu and studying it carefully. "So you won't be able to help me much with what your top recommendation is, huh?"
Joy's eyes widened at me, and I wanted to smack her. "Umm, I haven't been able to try everything just yet, no." I lifted my chin and felt really frickin’ proud of myself for holding his piercing—piercing!—gaze. Why were his eyes so green? Why was I noticing? I never noticed this stuff. "But I hear the dill pickle cupcakes are out of this world."
He laughed, and Joy sighed dreamily.
Brad/Chris scratched the side of his face, which drew my eyes to the hard cut of his jaw. "If that's what the lady recommends, then I'll take two of those, please."
Joy nudged me again, and I clumsily punched the required buttons on the register while she pulled the cupcakes from the top shelf of the case and boxed them up for him.
"Five dollars is your total," I told him.
He handed me a ten, our fingers brushing as I reached over the counter to take it from him.
When Joy slid the box toward him, he opened it instead of taking the change I pulled out of the drawer.
"Is that a potato chip garnish?" he asked.
Joy nodded. "It is."
Brad/Chris took one cupcake out and held it up, examining it seriously. His change sat on the counter unnoticed. Then he pushed the pink box back toward me.
I stared at it, then back up at him. "You're supposed to take that with you."
Smooth, Abernathy. So very, very smooth.
He grinned, holding up his cupcake. "No, this is mine. That one is for you. I'd hate to be the only one trying this for the first time today." Then he dipped his chin. "Good luck on the rest of your first day."
My mouth dropped open as he swiped the five-dollar bill off the counter. Joy's mouth did the same thing as he tucked it into the tip jar next to the register.<
br />
"Ladies," he said and walked away whistling.
"What the f—" I said, only catching myself when I remembered that I was supposed to be a professional now. "What was that?"
Joy squealed quietly, doing a little shimmy. "He was flirting with you!"
"He was not."
Holy shit, he was. What the hell else would you call it when a man bought you a pickle cupcake?
She laughed when I pressed my hands to my hot, hot cheeks.
Men didn't flirt with me. Basically ever. Like at all. And trying to explain that to Joy felt too much like stripping back my skin so she could see what was underneath.
"Come on," she cajoled. "Aren't you at least going to eat the cupcake?"
Since we had no customers at the moment, thank the Lord, I pulled the box toward me and considered it carefully before I lifted the lid. "Maybe later."
She sighed again but didn't push me.
"That was so romantic."
I rolled my eyes. "Okay, let's just … go bake some cookies or something."
When she let me change the subject, I decided she wasn't all that bad.
Chapter 3
Levi
From the moment I met Joss outside of Donner Bakery at the end of her shift, her dog in the truck with his scary-ass head hanging out the window, she hadn't stopped talking.
Her arms waved around and her face scrunched up as she mimicked her trainer for the day, which was all fine and good. But as she transferred herself into the passenger seat so I could put her wheelchair in the back of my truck, it was the look in her eyes that had me staring unabashedly. It was something I didn't let myself do often.
Those eyes were happy. They were excited.
Feathers on an Indigo Bunting blue.
I saw one feeding from the large feeder in the backyard at my parents' house, and the first thing the color of that little bird made me think of was Jocelyn's eyes.
"Joy sounds like a real character," I said when she finally took a breath.
Joss leaned her head back on the seat and grinned. "She is. Even sitting in my chair, she's barely four inches taller than me."
As I turned onto the road that would take us back to my place, I glanced over at her so I could drink in that grin.
That was when I noticed her clutching a pink bakery box in her lap.
"What's that?"
Her fingers tightened around the edges, and she stared down at it. "A cupcake."
"Well, what the frick, Abernathy. Be nice and share." Nero shoved his big old head between us and sniffed at the curve of her neck. She smiled and scratched under his chin. He groaned, and I had a moment of trust me, buddy, I'd groan too if she scratched my neck. "Besides, this is my best friend perk. Shouldn't I get perks in baked goods?"
She cut me a look. "You've been getting those perks for two years, Buchanan. Don't even pretend you didn't put on a solid ten pounds that first year I started baking." Quite pointedly, she looked at my stomach, which we both knew was covered in muscle.
"That's rude," I mumbled under my breath. I flexed my bicep. Nero licked my elbow since it was right in front of him. "Yeah, ten pounds in my left arm maybe."
The noise she made roughly translated to you are ridiculous. She made that sound at me a lot.
Of course, the sad truth of the matter was that I was ridiculous.
Not once in the past five years had my feelings lessened for her. I had just learned to live with them. In my junior year of undergrad, I was taking a class on brain pathology in injuries, and a man came to talk to us about how he learned to live without his right arm after it was amputated.
He told us about how, even years after he lost his arm, his brain still triggered sensations to the limb that was no longer there. The adult brain, in particular, struggled to reorganize after the loss of a limb, and given that four out of five amputees suffer from phantom pain symptoms, some of which were incredibly debilitating, it was a lesson that stuck with me.
I wasn't fool enough to think that me loving Jocelyn was on par with a man who’d lost his arm, but something about the way he talked plucked at a chord inside me. Sometimes my brain struggled to remember that we were just friends. She'd never dated, never even hinted that she wanted to. She'd never given me a longing glance. Never stared at my mouth like she wondered what it tasted like.
But my hands never, not once, stopped wanting to reach for hers.
My fingers always, always itched to dig into her crazy hair and see what the curve of her scalp felt like.
My brain knew what this relationship was, but sometimes, the signals it sent to the rest of my body didn't always match up with the truth of our situation.
We worked out together a lot, Joss and I, and when she got frustrated with the limitations of her body, I always wanted to wrap my arms around her. I wanted to pull her into the curve of my body, absorb her dissatisfaction into my skin, and carry it for her.
That was the irony when she made noises like that. She had absolutely no clue how ridiculous I really was.
The driveway at my parents' house was empty, and I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. I didn't really feel like sharing her, and my entire family was as in love with Joss as I was.
Well, not really, but it felt like it sometimes.
There was no other explanation as to why my mom and dad didn't blink when I asked them to renovate the single stall garage at the back curve of the driveway into an apartment for me. It was hard for Joss to hang out in my old bedroom because it was upstairs, and she hated for me to carry her.
Now I had a freestanding living space with absolutely nothing to impede her coming and going because, in true Buchanan-curse fashion, I'd done all the research on making it fully accessible for her.
After parking my truck, I held the door open so Nero could hop out and run into the woods lining the property while I got Joss's chair out of the back.
"Want me to take that?" I asked as I watched her struggle a little to grip the box while transferring into her chair.
"No way, you'll eat it before I'm even fully seated."
I considered that. "Depends on what's in there."
That was when her face did something weird. She blushed. All along the tops of her high, perfect cheekbones, her skin turned a delicate color I'd never witnessed.
The peonies in my mom's garden pink.
As soon as she'd settled her feet, she pivoted and wheeled toward my place. "It's a dill pickle cupcake, and it's mine."
"Gross," I breathed, jogging to catch up to her so I could open the door.
"Right?" she said on a laugh. "But I can't not try it."
"Sure, you can. You can realize it's a dill pickle cupcake and that you like your taste buds better than to subject them to that."
Joss was still laughing when she wheeled inside. Over her shoulder, she gave a short whistle. Nero came bounding toward us, his pink tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth. All ninety pounds of him skirted around us so he could hop up on the edge of the couch he always claimed as his.
My apartment had a small kitchenette lining one wall, which I pretty much only used to make coffee in the mornings, a light gray L-shaped couch facing the TV I'd mounted on the far wall, and my king-size bed hidden behind a half wall partition that gave me the illusion of privacy. Past that was the bathroom.
I'd chosen to forgo a table in the kitchenette because it was one more obstacle for Joss to get around, and we always ate on the couch anyway.
"You're the cleanest twenty-three-year-old man I've ever met," she said as she lifted herself out of the chair and onto the couch. Bracing her weight on her arms, she scooted back until she could pull the handle that lifted the reclining footrest. Nero stretched out, shoving his head against her thigh.
It wasn't necessary for me to look around because I knew nothing was on the floor. No piles of clothes and no shoes tossed in the general area of where I slept.
I opened my mouth to make a flippant comment, but I took a second t
o watch her face first. Joss probably said it without expecting a reply, so she wasn't even really looking at me. I must have been quiet long enough that she noticed. Her eyes lifted to my face.
"I'd never do anything that makes it hard for you to be here," I said.
Joss blinked in surprise.
My face felt like it was heating, so I cleared my throat and walked to the fridge. "Need anything to drink?"
"Uhh, sure. What do you have?"
Surveying the contents of the fridge, I grimaced. "Water, purple Gatorade, and a beer."
Before she could answer, her phone rang. "It's Sylvia," she said before picking it up.
Mentally, I waved goodbye to my time alone with her. If Sylvia was calling, she and my brother were probably at the house, saw my car, and my brother was kind enough to not barge in on us, allowing his fiancée to call and give us a heads-up.
He knew what Joss was to me. So did my parents. I finally admitted it after I turned twenty, and they were giving me shit about how, without my cousin Grady from California still holding out as well, I'd be the first to prove five generations of Buchanan men wrong. Grady's twin, Grace, was single too, but considering she was the first Buchanan woman born in those five generations, none of us were quite sure if it worked the same.
"Hey," Joss said into the phone. She smiled and jerked her head toward the main house. I rolled my eyes, which made her smile even more. "Yeah, we're out here. I just got done at work."
On the other end of the line, Sylvia said something, then Joss hung up and tossed the phone onto the empty cushion next to her. "They're coming out."
"Of course they are," I mumbled.
"Don't be an ass. I like Sylvia." She pointed a finger at me when I flopped onto the couch on the other side of Nero. He lifted his head and looked over at me before stretching his back legs out into my space.
"I like Sylvia too," I told her, smoothing my hand over his sleekly muscled flank. He pushed his paw into my leg, his way of asking for more.
"Good, as she's about to become your sister-in-law."
"You never know. Connor has six weeks to change his mind. Maybe he'll back out."
Carpentry and Cocktails Page 3
