Page 57 of Don't Go Faking My Heart

I don't know how I feel about it.

But this shirt is driving me crazy.

I'm learning all sorts of things about Rusty since Philip came into town. I thought I knew him as well as I knew all my closest friends. But if I'm learning this much new stuff after a year, do I really know that much about him?

And why does that possibility fascinate me so darn much? I'm attracted to jerks, not mysteries.

I'm intrigued by mysteries.

Rusty isn't a mystery, I tell myself. He's a multi-faceted human being who has given you a noogie. Stop romanticizing everything.

Although, it's at least a little bit hard not to romanticize a guy who calls me gorgeous?—

Wait.

Does he call Patty gorgeous?

Rusty takes us around the back, much to my surprise, and we enter through a door that says "Staff."

He holds the door for me. "Do you moonlight as a cook?" I ask.

"No, he sunrises as one," a good-looking but scruffy guy in his mid-thirties says. He's wearing a white apron over a white T-shirt and jeans and stands near an industrial oven. A couple of kitchen workers—sous chefs? I don't know the term—busy themselves with chopping and mashing things.

"Sunrises? What do you mean?"

"He likes to come before we open and help bake the bread for the day."

"Not just the bread," Rusty says.

"That's true. He makes a solid corned beef hash."

I look at my handsome blond friend with the kind, smoldering hazel eyes. "You didn't tell me you had another job," I say.

The unkempt cook snorts. "Like he needs another job."

"Like I'd let you pay me," Rusty says.

I shake my head hard enough that my streak of blue curls sticks to my lip gloss. There's a level of subtext to this conversation I can't follow. "Mind filling me in on what you're talking about, boys?"

The cook wipes his hand on his white apron and holds it out to me. "Sorry, forgot my manners. I'm Patrick."

"Patrick …" I look at Rusty and then grab his shoulders and shake him. “Seriously, Hotcakes? This is Patty?” I laugh, and the tension lodged in my throat escapes like a bubble. "This is amazing!"

Patrick's dark, thick eyebrow quirks up. "Why is that?"

"Because you're not a woman!"

“No.” He gives Rusty a flat look. “And only my closest friends call me Patty."

“Thanks for letting us come when you have a full house," Rusty says.

"If you're willing to help until the dinner rush ends, you're welcome to eat whatever you make. Now get to work."

I have never seen Rusty like this.

When he's doing graphic design for Jane & Co., we're constantly bouncing ideas off each other. He's excellent, but our work is so intertwined that we complement each other. I love working with him like that, but it's nothing new. It's how I work with all my friends.

Rusty is a boss in the kitchen.

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