Page 50 of The Best I Never Had

I thought he was just hungry, but with this new information, I can see the passion for baking in the way he savored his first bite, like he was trying to identify each ingredient.

Dawn shakes her finger. “Don’t BS me, boy. You know it’s impossible when talking to family. I remember the cake you made for Camila’s birthday a few summers ago.”

Owen runs his hands up into his hair. “But this is bigger. I can’t do this by myself.”

A slow smile curves Dawn’s lips, like she’s a spider giving directions to a fly. Take the shortcut through this web. Trust me. You’ll be fine.

“Well,” she says, “isn’t it convenient, then, that Thea was just asking what she could do to help.”

My mouth drops open. “I don’t know if I’m the best person for this.”

It was one thing when it was some random cousin, but being trapped in the kitchen with Owen for hours is the exact opposite of distance.

I shift in my seat. “Y’all have five thousand family members. There must be someone with more baking experience than me. Camila?”

She shakes her head, patting her belly. “I struggle around strong smells. No way I could handle it.”

Dawn nods to Owen, who looks at me with a grimace. “It wouldn’t just be a day. With something this big, we’d need to do a bit every day.”

Dawn cuts in. “Exactly. No one else will be consistently available. Besides Addy and Harrison, but we can’t have them baking their own wedding cake, now, can we?”

“There’s no one else?” Addy asks, and everyone around the table shakes their heads.

I look over at Owen, who gives me a little shrug. Looks like we’re baking a cake.

Why does an apron make a hot guy even hotter? Owen’s mixing the dry ingredients in a bowl he’s tucked under his arm, the muscles in his biceps flexing with each rotation of the spoon. He’s more delicious than anything he’ll whip up in this kitchen.

“Thea?”

I jump at Owen’s voice, realizing he’s been talking to me while my brain overlaid it with 1980s porno music.

“You can do it?” he asks in a tone that makes it clear it isn’t the first time. “Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ones?”

This little experiment has two goals. First, make a test cake so Addy feels comfortable with us making the one for the actual day, and second, to figure out if I’m useless in the kitchen. With how distracted I’ve been by Owen, I’m afraid I’m proving the latter true.

He sets the bowl of dry ingredients in front of me and gestures to the wet ingredients that he already measured out. All I have to do is put them in and turn on the gorgeous industrial mixer.

“Yeah, no problem,” I say, shifting the bowl closer. I keep my focus on the task at hand and not on the way his chuckle gusts against my neck.

Once I pour everything into the bowl, I step back, proud of myself for making it through without spilling anything. And yes, that’s how low the bar is for me. I slide the mixing bowl into place and flip the mixer onto the highest setting.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Owen says, rushing across the room. I spin to his voice to ask what I did wrong, but he’s right there, our fronts pushed together as he reaches over my shoulder to turn the mixer to a lower setting. He grins down at me. “You weren’t listening earlier, were you?”

“I was a bit distracted,” I admit. He doesn’t shift away, and neither do I. “I figured the faster it went, the faster we’d be done.”

“Baking is all about taking your time,” he says, his voice quiet. “Savoring the process. Why rush to the finish line? Getting there is half the fun.”

Are we still talking about baking? Because it doesn’t feel like we’re talking about baking, and I’m so close to throwing myself at him, consequences be damned. Before I can make another irresponsible decision, Owen’s soft gaze goes wary.

He pulls away, leaving me cold. “Anyway, you’ve got it now.”

I can’t see into his brain, don’t know if he’s upset or pulling away because I told him we needed distance, but my mind keeps winding back to the comment I made last night. The look of hurt on his face and the way my heart twisted in response.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “For what I said last night.”

He laughs, but it doesn’t come anywhere close to his eyes. “No big dea—”

“It is a big deal,” I interrupt. He doesn’t speak again, and I force myself to say the words, even though they’re hard. “I—I lash out. When I’m feeling vulnerable. Always have. It’s easier to hurt other people than face my own shit, but I don’t want to do that to you. I don’t want to be someone who hurts you. So I’m sorry.”