Page 140 of A Taste of Vanilla

“Damn it,” she whispers under her breath as she looks at the cookies.

“What?”

“That’s good feedback.”

“I know.”

She turns a cookie over in her fingers, thinking. “Espresso powder maybe, and even darker chocolate. Maybe less salt in the dough, but some more flakes on top? Maybe, I’m not sure. Maybe a stout pairing?”

The ideas come so fast that I have a hard time keeping up.

“No pairings,” Oliver whines.

Halston looks at him. “You have a stout.”

“I have a lot of things. But we don’t do pairings.”

The Vipers players start chanting, “Pair it. Pair it. Pair it!”

Oliver glares at them murderously.

Halston laughs, and the sound hits me in the chest like a bomb. I just want to hear more of it.

I’m a simple man. Desire, to me, is simple, and it always has been. Bodies want, adults choose, and consequences follow.

But this isn’t simple. I don’t think it ever was.

Halston looks up at me, still smiling. “What?”

I shake my head. “Nothing.”

Her smile shifts. “That wasn’t nothing.”

“No.”

“What was it then?”

I should lie to her. The cookie, or the bar menu. Maybe the idea of producing cookies for a late-night menu at her friend’s bar when everything else needs to come together first.

Instead, I say, “You’re good at this.”

Her face stills. “At what?”

“This,” I say, looking around. “People.”

She swallows, glancing away quickly. I watch her gaze move from Oliver to Marley, then to the players. Anywhere but me.

“I’m just making snacks.”

“No.” If I were a braver man, I’d cup her chin and make her look at me so she knew I was telling the truth.

But her eyes return to mine anyway.

I keep my voice low. “You make people feel like they’re part of something.”

Halston blinks, and for a moment, I think she may cry.

But then she smiles. It’s too bright. Too defensive. “Well, yes. People love how I’m a menace with frosting.”