“Yeah, I never even saw it. My w—Macie read it. She always handled this shit.”
He exhales a puff of smoke, his dark eyes watching it spin thin as cotton candy before it dissolves into the sky, into nothing, and I wonder why the hell he came here today. If anyone has a pass to not be here, it’s him.
Babies are nothing to celebrate for Andreas. They were for about six months. Right up until he found out his wife, Macie, had cheated with another guy and it was his baby she was carrying, not Dre’s. All of his excitement over that kid turned sour in a heartbeat leaving him bitter and battling his way through an ugly divorce. The team has rallied around him, trying to help him out, but a blow like that takes a lot out of a guy. As much as I want to tell him that the best way to get over a girl is to get under a new one, I know it’s not true. Not for him, because he’s not getting over her. He’s getting over a kid that never existed. The ghost of a baby he was never going to have.
That’s some fucked up shit for a guy to deal with.
“What’d you get them?” he asks me numbly.
“A Bumbo chair.”
“What the hell is that?”
I shrug helplessly. “No clue. It’s to park the kid in, I guess.”
He nods his head slowly, his eyes tracing the wide, white ribbon wrapped around the package. “You better put it back in your car.”
“Yeah, alright. Meet you inside?”
He leans down to snub his butt out between the brick steps of the patio. “Sure. I’ll tell ‘em you’re here.”
I head back to my car, popping the trunk to put the box inside. Just as I’m closing it another catering van comes rolling up the road. It’s white with a massive cupcake on the side.
This is the baker.
This is the only person at the party who knows the sex of that baby.
I idle by my car, letting the van pass by. When it comes to a stop behind the other vans and the driver’s side door pops open, I stroll casually down the alley toward it. I smile when I see a woman drop down to the pavement.
Women like me more than men. A lot more.
She’s dressed differently than the waiter I saw earlier, wearing a thin, purple sweater that’s the same color as the purple writing on the side of her van. Her white linen pants hug her hips like they’re painted on and her long, brown hair rolls down her back in glossy waves. She’s small, at least compared to me, but her body language makes her seem larger. It speaks volumes in the way she snaps the door shut and strides confidently toward the back of the vehicle.
I hurry around the other side, meeting her at the back just as she pops the doors open, the sugary scent of baked goods exploding around us.
“Nice racks,” I comment.
She jolts, surprised to find me there. Her eyes are a cool blue, fixed in an open stare that devours my face and leaves me hungry.
“What did you say?” she asks, her voice husky and unhurried.
I point to the trays of cupcakes filling the back of the van. “Your racks. They look delicious.”
Her expression grows wary. “Can I help you with something?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“Are you— Do you work here? For Lexi?”
“More for Coach Bailey.”
“You’re a football player?”
I offer her my hand. “Colt Avery. Running back.”
“Lilly Hendricks,” she shakes my hand with surprising strength. “Baker.”
I wrap her hand in both of mine, taking a step closer. “Lilly Hendricks, baker, I have a proposition for you.”
“No,” she answers immediately. Definitively.
“I haven’t told you what it is yet.”
“I have an idea of what it might be.”
“You’d be wrong.”
“Man, I hope so. I’d hate to have to mace you.”
I smile indolently. “I believe you’d do it.”
“I would,” she promises seriously. “I will.”
“Don’t worry. I hear you. You’re working. You don’t want to be hit on, so I won’t. I’m not that guy.”
She snorts lightly. “You know the problem with that guy? He doesn’t know he’s that guy. So saying that you’re not that guy is meaningless because if you are in fact that guy, you’re not self-aware enough to realize you’re that guy and you immediately become that guy simply by insisting that you’re not.”
“Okay, that—” I blink twice, frowning slightly, “—it was hard to follow, but I think you’re saying you think I’m an asshole.”
Lilly shakes her head sharply. “I’m not saying that.”
“No?”
“No. I would never call a guest at a client’s party an asshole.”
“It’d be unprofessional.”
“Right. No, I’m saying that if you were an asshole, you wouldn’t know it.”
“So, like an ignorance is bliss kind of situation?”
“Blissful for you. Torture for those who have to suffer you.”
“If I were an asshole,” I remind her.
“Yeah, sure. If.”