I assumed it was Tom coming back to hit me with one more argument for why our relationship could still work. And because I was a glutton for punishment, I went back to open the door.
But the man I saw smiling under the streetlights wasn’t Tom.
It was Owen.
Chapter 5
Isla
Maybe it was the mentally draining day, but my brain couldn’t compute.
He looked like the same guy I was used to seeing at his corner table in the morning, but he was out of context now. It was almost like running into someone I only knew from the gym somewhere else in the city—hard to place in regular clothes without sweat—and I stared at him dumbfounded for a moment before opening the door.
“Hey,” I said. “Am I confused and it’s really six in the morning, not six at night?”
“Naw, it’s night, as evidenced by the darkness. Then again, I suppose it’s dark in the morning when you get here. Am I disturbing you?” he asked. Phrased it as a question—maybe he did that when he didn’t know the answer.
Seeing him was nice, but odd.
Owen and I didn’t have the kind of friendly relationship that encouraged stopping by in the evening. The conversation we’d had that morning had been the longest we’d talked in a year’s time.
He looked at me expectantly and I realized I hadn’t answered his question. His deep blue eyes searched mine for acknowledgement that it was okay that he’d come. “No. You’re not disturbing me. What’s up? Are you looking for an evening bread fix to go with your morning one? Is this about to become a habit?”
His mouth tipped up into a smile and I noticed how the corners of his eyes creased with laugh lines. I couldn’t stop staring at the color, which reminded me of a late summer sky and bordered on too blue to be real. I wanted to ask him if he wore contact lenses, but it didn’t seem like the most crucial order of business.
“Nah. I’m good on bread. I just . . . I kind of overheard your conversation this morning and I felt awkward about it. I’m intruding on your personal space by being at the bakery outside your normal opening hours. I wanted to apologize.”
Is he for real?
My actual boyfriend could barely bring himself to say he was sorry for openly cheating on me and getting caught doing it, and this man had made a special trip to the bakery to apologize for crowding my personal space.
“Wow,” I said, shaking my head.
He tipped his head to the side and considered my one-word response. Maybe he was waiting to see if I had more to say.
When the awkward silence became even more awkward by nature of us standing in the doorway, I backed up a few paces in case he wanted to come in. “I’m afraid we shipped everything that was left to a homeless shelter, or I’d offer you something to eat,” I said.
We didn’t sell day-old anything. It was a rule. I looked at the bakery cases as though some perfect ham and gruyere croissant would magically appear, but they remained bare.
Owen stepped into the shop. “I didn’t come for free snacks. I came to see if you were okay. And again, I apologize if I’m overstepping my bounds.”
I held up a hand. “Stop. Apologizing.”
“Okay. Is there . . . can I do anything to help you?”
“Help me?” I still wasn’t sure why he was here. Did he want to help close up the bakery for the night?
He blinked hard. “I’m not saying this right. I meant that from what I could see, it seemed like maybe you were set up to have a shitty day. And I came back because I thought maybe I could buy you dinner or something and maybe end it on a better note.”
I heard what he was saying, but I immediately felt suspicious. “Is that code for thinking you can get laid because I’m too distraught to say no?”
“Get laid? Seriously?” He folded his arms like he was waiting to see what other idiocy might spew forth.
“Yes. Is this a pity proposition?” I asked. I still couldn’t understand why he was here. We didn’t know each other outside of daily banter and I wasn’t used to people swooping in on my worst days and asking if they could help.
No. Worse than that, I was completely ill-equipped to handle such acts of kindness because I’d never experienced that from a man who didn’t want something.
He huffed a laugh and moved fully into the room, shaking his head. “What kind of an asshole do you think I am? You really think I’m here out of pity? No. Hardly. I just thought you might be hungry. Do you get hungry? Or do you just get by eating bread all day long?”
“I don’t eat bread all day long.”
“You should. Your bread is fucking awesome.”
I felt an unwilling smile creep across my face. “Thanks.”
I still didn’t know what to make of him.
He’d practically become a fixture at the bakery like the twin chandeliers. He’d spent so much time sitting at his table in the corner that I’d written him off as some odd bread nut who had an outsized appreciation for dough.
He ran a hand over his forehead as though he was trying not to get exasperated with me. “So . . . I’m going to hope the third ask is the charm here. Can I buy you some dinner? Or even a snack? There’s a CVS down the block. How about a Twix bar? Lays chips?”
It was like he was speaking a foreign language. After getting used to Tom’s big fancy dinner invitations to private tastings at Michelin-starred restaurants, I’d forgotten what it felt like when someone suggested grabbing food because it was dinnertime and I might be hungry.
“Yes,” I said, nodding at him, still a bit dazed. “Yes, okay. Except for Lays. I don’t like them. I need a thicker chip, like kettle baked or Ruffles.”
He nodded slowly. “Noted.”
“And I like sour gummy worms, not that you asked.”
I knew I sounded like a loon, but it felt important that he knew I wasn’t going to be satisfied with any old snack.
There were standards.
Plus, he’d thrown me off and I was having trouble recovering.
The one thing I knew for sure was I wanted to get out of the bakery and have dinner with him. It didn’t matter if he wanted to get KFC or make me a peanut butter sandwich on the hood of his car. I was hungry.
We were standing in the middle of the bakery floor and the only light came from the Edison bulbs hanging from two industrial chandeliers overhead. The night beyond him outside the shop was dusky and I could hear the occasional voices of people walking by on the sidewalk.
Watching me with his placid blue eyes, he waited for me to work out the questions that were still coursing through my brain. He seemed unhurried and I wasn’t used to people like that in my life. My sisters were all crazy and my best hires tended to sprint around like caffeinated bunnies.
I had so many questions, namely why he, of all people, had chosen to show up here.
“I’m just…” I didn’t know what.
He waited patiently to find out.
My bakers had watched my meltdown after seeing the pictures of Tom and none of them had asked me to dinner. They’d taken off as soon as their shifts were over, mostly without saying goodbye as though they didn’t want to disturb the crazy person who might bite their heads off or cry. For the record, I was planning to do neither.
I’d called my middle sister, Becca, and the next-youngest sister, Cherry, and vented at them for twenty minutes apiece, but they hadn’t shown up to make sure I remained well-fed.
So what’s with this guy?
Maybe it was gratitude mixed with curiosity or maybe it was that I’d just noticed his lips looked particularly pink and plush, but I reached for his face and ran my fingertips over his cheek and over to his lips, which were just as soft as they looked.
His eyes clouded a little when I touched him and he stood frozen, as if waiting to see what else the crazy baker lady planned to do.
What I planned to do was kiss him.
It surprised me as much as it clearly surprised him.
And before I could think too muc
h about the reason why or talk myself out of it, I erased the distance between us, looked up at him, and ran my tongue across my lips. I saw his eyes open a little wider in confusion, but he recovered when my lips touched his.
Or maybe I was too close to see his face anymore.
It felt good. My lips brushed across his, feeling them the way I’d done with my fingers.
I moved my hand around the back of his neck and pulled him toward me a little harder, still unsure of what I was doing or what he’d do in response. He’d seemed genial and willing to help me, and my body decided this was what I wanted from him.
I didn’t want a new boyfriend. I also didn’t feel particularly broken up over Tom—that relationship had been over for months. Kissing Owen wasn’t about anyone else.
I just wanted to kiss him.
After an initial hesitation where it seemed like Owen was waiting to follow my lead, he responded, his lips grazing mine with more intensity, his fingertips coming lightly to my jaw and guiding my face to the angle that allowed him to claim my mouth more fully.
He pressed his lips harder against mine and tangled his hand in my hair. I didn’t feel rushed or wild with abandon, but I also didn’t want to stop.
He swept his lips across my mouth and sucked gently on my bottom lip, which made me a little more bold and crazy. I ran my tongue across the seam of his lips, and he opened to find my tongue with his own.
As our lips melded like they were made for this, our tongues tangled and I took full leave of my senses. I didn’t need senses for this. It was all feeling and zero thinking, which was perfect.
I felt the rise of heat in my chest and the swirl of desire let loose in my belly. Kissing him was sweet, almost tender, which set off alarm bells in my head.
Warning, feelings in the house.
I wasn’t looking for that. That was too much, too soon. Or just too much entirely. I just wanted to know what his lips tasted like. I wanted to forget the pain of being humiliated by Tom.
I wasn’t ready for tender.
Or am I? I don’t know.
I jerked back and looked up to meet his gaze, which was calm and unreadable. He said nothing and he didn’t take his hand away from my face. His fingertips felt hot against my skin and after a moment, I took a step back, needing relief from his touch and an end to the folly I’d started.
“Okay,” I said, keeping my eyes locked on his.
He looked confused and maybe a little bit wary. “Okay?”
I nodded. I’d been reduced to the basic necessities—human contact, desire, food. “Yes. You mentioned dinner. Let’s do that.”
He smiled at me. “Okay. Dinner, it is.”
I grabbed my jacket and he held the door open for me. We walked through and I didn’t look back.
Chapter 6
Owen
It was a good thing we had nearly a mile-long walk to dinner because I needed the time to figure out what the hell had just happened.
When I’d returned to the bakery to check on Isla, I’d done so as a friendly human. Isla and I were friendly, I told myself, even though we’d barely had a chance to chat more than a few minutes a day in passing and most of those conversations were about bread.
I was a customer, and as such, she paid attention to me when I came around because that’s what a good business owner does for her customers. And despite what seemed like a sudden impulse to kiss me, I didn’t harbor any delusions that we were suddenly more than friends.
Hell, I wasn’t even sure we were friends. But I didn’t mind waiting around to find out.
It was a perfect San Francisco night, the light fog kissing our skin and adding a chilly coda to the unexpected heat of the spring day. Everywhere I looked, people were walking or biking or snaking through the streets in cars. The workday was done and the hour of errands and dinner had everyone in its grip.
As we walked down Market Street in the direction of the Castro, I snuck a look at Isla, whose honey brown hair was still pulled up into a high ponytail, although I’d messed it up a little by running my hands through it. Her cheeks were pink from the cool air and she’d reapplied a deep plum lipstick that only made me want to kiss her again.
Slow down.
I didn’t have a dinner destination in mind, but there were lots of places in the direction we were walking, so I figured we’d pick someplace on the fly.
Watching her walking next to me, I realized that even though I’d had my eye on her for over a year and exchanged pleasantries on a daily basis, I barely knew anything about her. What little I’d occasionally glimpsed in a splashy article in San Francisco Magazine was mostly about how many celebrated local restaurants exclusively carried her bread.
Never anything personal.
I knew she was a baseball fan because she’d mentioned that it was a point of contention in her family that she was a Giants fan when the rest of them followed the A’s. So she had a family of some sort, but we’d never gotten much beyond that.
“You mentioned you’re the only holdout in a family of Oakland A’s fans,” I said, hoping to remind her of the conversation.
“Yes,” she said, striding quickly as though on a compass point to some destination in The Mission.
“Your family lives locally, then, in the East Bay.” It was the logical conclusion.
She stopped walking and stared at me. “You seem like you’re asking me questions, but you’re really just stating facts. Do you know you do this?”
She sounded accusatory but she was smiling, her bright eyes searching mine for an answer. They were a pale hazel that seemed to change color with her mood rather than what she wore. I’d noticed it before and had always tried to avoid staring at them, but tonight I drank in every feature of her face.
“Humph,” I said. “I never thought too much about it.”
I did know this about myself but I didn’t really want to have a conversation about it.
“No one’s ever pointed it out before now?” She seemed incredulous, but it was true. Most people didn’t pay attention.
She did. I liked it.
I shrugged. “Okay,” she said and continued walking.
When I’d gone to the bakery, I hadn’t planned on asking her to dinner. I really did just want to make sure she was okay after how shocked and humiliated she seemed seeing the pictures of her asshole boyfriend kissing someone who was not her.
Then the words slipped from my mouth without permission, and before I could censor them, I got the pleasure of watching her stammer like it was a trick question. It was adorable, if not slightly alarming for the panic it seemed to provoke.
Had no one ever asked her to dinner before?
The idea seemed impossible, given that she was gorgeous, talented, and quietly brainy.
“We might as well get this out of the way so you’re not curious and I’m not forced to spend dinner talking about my ex,” she said, walking quickly. Again, not knowing her well, I wondered if she always walked so fast or if she set the pace to match the topic of conversation.
“Okay, but don’t feel obligated to talk about it.”
Are we going to talk about the kiss?
It almost seemed like she’d forgotten all about that. Her hands waved and gestured as we moved along, doing most of the explaining.
“I don’t. I just want you to know the nuts and bolts. Tom and I dated for a year or so, it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t awful. Don’t worry, I’m still busy judging myself for that choice. I know I deserve better than “not awful.” I’d been planning to end it, but I got lazy and kept chickening out. One more date, one more day. Eventually, I’d do it. Then . . . as you witnessed, he beat me to it through cheating and public humiliation. So there you have it. It’s over, it’s fine, and I don’t want to think about him anymore.”
“Okay, that’s a pretty short story.”
“Yes.”
I waited to see if there was more.
“O-kay…I’m not going to badger you, but if something
occurs to you later that you think you’d like to share, have at it,” I said.
She looked at me quizzically and I wondered if my response was as odd as her expression led me to believe. I thought I was being open and not too intrusive.
“Oh, and one more thing. He just swung by the bakery just now and wondered if we could patch things up and keep going like nothing had happened and I said no.”
“Oh. Okay, well it’s good that you know what you want,” I said.
I had no idea how to talk about this with her. Should I be asking for more details? Offering advice?
My sisters had always told me women didn’t want me to solve their problems. They just wanted me to listen. I’d done my best to adhere to that and it had served me well over the years. Most women I’d dated said they appreciated that I wasn’t telling them what to do.
“I know what I don’t want. And that’s Tom Stone. Like I said, it was fine, but I’m not interested in being with a guy just because it looks good on paper. Or because I seem fun at first.”
I had no idea what that meant. Did she not think she was fun anymore? I knew enough about her ex to imagine that he probably took her for granted. He definitely did if he was sleeping with someone on the side.
It also meant he was out of his fucking mind.
Isla seemed fun to me. Kissing her was definitely fun.
“Sure. That seems like the wrong reason,” I said.
Isla’s head swiveled to look at me, her eyes unreadable but her sarcasm obvious. “You think?”
She amused me. I liked the spitfire side of her that I hadn’t known existed before. She was always calm and focused in the morning when I hung out at the bakery.
I nodded and kept walking, trying to think of some trivia or clever getting to know you questions because I was starting to worry about how to keep her mind out of anger-provoking breakup territory over an entire dinner.
I was also still trying to read between the lines about her and Tom. “You’re way too accomplished to be someone’s arm candy. If that’s how he treated you, I’m sorry,” I said.
Falling for You Page 4