Page 6 of The Cupcake Standard

He shocked me further when he casually laced his fingers through mine. And I almost stopped walking when I realized that I really didn’t mind. This whole situation should have felt weird, awkward, crazy, but it didn’t. There was a rightness to it. As I walked along, hand in hand with a complete stranger whose name I’d just learned, who’d I’d already made out with and who’d called me his girlfriend, I was actually more relaxed than I had been in weeks.

When he let go of my hand to open the cafeteria door, I had to clench my teeth to keep a sound of protest from escaping. But then his hand splayed across my lower back, guiding me inside. A thrill ran through me again at his touch.

This isn’t like me. At all.

The thought sent a skitter of fear skipping along my stomach. I knew first-hand the dangers of falling in love, so I had to be on my guard.

A couple of swipes of his card—college chivalry at its finest—and my breakfast was paid for. The tantalizing smell of bacon caressed my nose. I was fairly hungry—our apartment fridge hovered on the empty side at the moment. Gina and I had both been shorted on hours at our jobs this past week, and my curvy fit jeans were actually starting to feel loose.

Derek nudged me. “Go on, get some food. I’ll meet you over there.” He nodded toward several empty tables before his gaze wandered over my hips. “Those jeans are practically falling off you, and I want my girlfriend to flaunt her curves.” With a wink that left my jaw unhinged, he sauntered toward the omelet station.

My stomach growled as if agreeing with Derek, and I grinned. Who was I to look a gift waffle in the mouth? I practically ran to the waffle station, pouring a pre-filled cup of batter into the iron. While I waited for it to cook, I perused my other options, opting for eggs, bacon and fruit. Satisfied I’d covered most of the major food groups, I returned for my perfectly golden, delicious-looking Belgian waffle.

Hands down, my favorite thing about the dining hall was the always open self-serve ice cream station. Instead of syrup, I poured a nice swirl of vanilla ice cream over my waffle and spread it around like butter. Perfection.

Derek wrinkled his nose as I sat down, but I shook my head. “Don’t knock it till you try it.” I sawed off a square filled to the brim with ice cream.

After a brief moment of hesitation, he leaned forward, eating the offered piece of waffle. I waited for his reaction, cutting my waffle into individual squares in the meantime. When I glanced up, he looked surprised.

“See?” I smirked.

“I think I prefer syrup.”

I rolled my eyes. “The stuff they have here isn’t syrup. It’s corn syrup in a bottle.” My uncle made real maple syrup every February, so I was a bona fide syrup snob. If they didn’t have maple syrup or vanilla ice cream, I wouldn't eat it.

Derek ate a bite of his omelet.

I felt his eyes on me as I finished cutting up my entire waffle. “First thing you should know about me is that I cut up all my food before I eat it. And I only eat one thing at a time. So I’ll eat all my waffle, then move on to my eggs. I might have a piece of bacon in between, but I’ll eat a whole piece, not just a bite.” I shrugged.

He chuckled, a low rumble. “You had a full-on make out session with me last week, then danced away with just a ‘thanks for the diversion’.” He narrowed those blue eyes. “About this diversion, I’ll need to hear that story.” But he didn’t let me respond, plowing on with his list. “Then I told Yolanda you were my girlfriend, without either of us having been introduced to each other. But your eating habits are where we’re starting the explanations?”

Well, when he puts it that way… Heat rushed to my cheeks as I scooped a bite of waffle into my mouth. The contrast of the cold ice cream and the warmth of the waffle grounded me. “It’s a starting point. Better than, ‘hey, want to know why I shoved my tongue down your throat last week?’”

His cheeks tinged pink this time, and he took a sip of his coffee, black by the look of it. “Why did you?”

But I shook my head. “Oh, no. We’re doing things backward, remember? I think introductions should probably be next. Then get-to-know-yous. Then possibly explanations.” My smart mouth couldn’t help throwing one more thing out there. “Maybe we should just sleep together to continue our backward tradition.”

Derek sputtered on his coffee, setting the mug down with a clang. The dark liquid sloshed over the side as he coughed and pounded on his chest.

Embarrassment washed over me. That had been too forward, even for me. I wasn’t one to go out and sleep with a guy I just met. Sticking my tongue down his throat was one thing, propositioning him was a whole other ballpark. I ducked my head, staring at my plate.

“Avery, it’s fine. Just caught me off guard. I was trying to laugh, okay?”

I glanced up at him, saw the earnestness in those deep blue eyes, and relaxed once more. Somehow, I knew he really got me. My hunger returned, fork meeting waffle with a vengeance.

“I’ll go first,” he continued. “I’m Derek Elgin and I have a twin sister named Rhonda.”

I held up a hand, interrupting him from further speech. “Wait, Elgin? As in the Elgins? The ones who own that huge shipping company on the Great Lakes?” They were practically royalty around here, with their obscene wealth and community involvement. There was even a hall on campus named after them. I blinked at him, when he nodded. Holy shit, I kissed a billionaire.

Taking advantage of my stunned silence, he went on, “I’ll be graduating this semester. Go SMU.” He pumped a half-hearted fist in the air. “I’m studying the ever-so-exciting subject of mathematics and I live in one of the apartments just off campus.”

My eyebrows were probably on top of one another by the time he finished his spiel. I heard what he didn’t say—his family legacy spoke for itself. He was rich and didn’t have to work. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around that level of wealth. The name Rhonda stood out to me. “So Rhonda’s your twin…?”

He nodded.

“And that was her friend…?”

Another nod.

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