Page 9 of A Taste of Vanilla
“It’s important for me to know that you understand Ellicott City is still Maryland. Twenty minutes from here is still Maryland. You know that, right?”
I look back down at the basket. “Maybe I’m not wife material.”
“You’re certainly not neat,” he says, wiping marinara sauce from my arm.
I pout.
“You own a bakery, Halston. You make half this city’s birthday cakes, emergency muffins, breakup cookies, apologycroissants, and whatever that latte was last month with the blue whipped cream.”
“Cloud foam.”
“It looked radioactive.”
“It sold out.”
“That’s not the point. The point is that people don’t come to you because you’re a wife-shaped object. They come to you because you make things feel better.” He actually looks like he’s being serious.
I freeze.
He seems to regret saying something sincere, his shoulders tensing as if waiting for impact.
My eyes start to water.
“No, no,” he moans.
“That was nice.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“It was very nice.”
“I take it back.”
“You can’t.”
“I can, and I have.”
“Oliver.”
“No.”
“You love me.”
“I tolerate you for tax purposes.”
“We are not legally connected,” I remind him, a tear slipping out.
“Emotionally then, which is far worse.”
My laugh comes out wet, but it’s real. Oliver turns away quickly, as if my gratitude has become airborne and he’s desperate to avoid inhaling it.
My phone buzzes again, and this time, I don’t reach for it. Progress.
Oliver checks it anyway. “Marley says,I swear to God, if she cries into cheese again, take a picture.”
“Wow,” I mutter, biting my cheese stick.
“She also says she loves you.”
