Page 44 of What I Like About You

The worst part about baking cupcakes is without a doubt cleaning up the mess.

Sawyer fiddles with the hot and cold handles on the faucet until he achieves the perfect dish-washing temperature. The sink is large enough that we can work together to finish ASAP.

“So how was your first Saturday rush?” Sawyer asks.

“Pretty good,” I say.

“You’re like a different person here,” he says. “It’s cool.”

I almost ask what he means by that, but I don’t need to. At Maple Street Sweets, I’m not worried about giving myself away. I’m comfortable around cupcakes. Also, it’s just easier for me to talk to the members of Le Crew one at a time. In groups, my brain goes into overdrive and it feels like I never know how to naturally contribute to a conversation. One-on-one is better. My anxious brain shuts off and I can even joke around. It’s new. Almost like I’m writing a killer line for OTP. My words flow instead of sputter.

I make a face, then deflect. “Must be the sugar. You love cupcakes too.”

“I do,” he says. “I’d be here more, if I could.”

“You can’t?”

“Baseball,” Sawyer says.

“Right,” I say.

“It’s my ticket out of Middleton,” Sawyer says. “My parentsare so serious aboutmy future, you know? I tell them I’d be happy to stay, to someday take over the bakery. I don’t know what I want to study, I don’t even know if Iwantto go to college. I do know I want to keep the bakery in the family. They won’t hear it, though.”

I nod. Conversations with Sawyer don’t usually get thisreal, and for the first time all shift, I’m not sure what the right thing is to say.

A moment later, the kitchen door swings open.

“Oh. Hey, Upstate,” Nash says, plucking an unfrosted vanilla cupcake off the cooling rack and jumping up to sit on one of the countertops.

My heart twists in my chest every time he calls me by my lie.

“Hi,” I say, wondering what gives Nash the privilege to sit on the countertops we just wiped down.

“Employees only, dude,” Sawyer fake deadpans.

“Diana said you were wrapping up,” Nash says, undeterred.

Sawyer grins and grabs a rag and a bottle of disinfectant spray from the cabinet. “We are. If you can finish up in here, Hal-lee, I’ll take care of the tables.”

I nod. “Got it.”

I reach for a clean dishrag and continue doing the dishes, hoping Nash will follow Sawyer from the kitchen to the seats out front. Nope. He hasn’t moved from the countertop, where fresh crumbs are accumulating. I try not to look at them. Or Nash. How is he always justthere, wherever I am?

“What’s up?” I ask.

“Bored,” Nash says, his mouth full of cupcake. He swallows and looks at me. “Like the job? The Davidsons treating you okay?”

“It’s good,” I say, drying cupcake plates.

The stack of dirty plates is almost as endless as the silence that follows, so I reach for another rag and toss it to Nash.

I wish I could screenshot the look on his face right now. He raises his eyebrows, like,seriously? I step to my left to make room for both of us at the sink. If Nash Kim has the audacity to come into my nearly perfect kitchen and crumb it all up—he can at least make himself useful. If his idea of a fun Saturday afternoon is loitering in a bakery kitchen and stealing cupcakes and stressing me out, he’s going to help me finish early.

He takes the spot by my side at the sink.

“I’ll wash. You can dry,” I say. “You do know how to dry a plate, yeah?”

Kels’s snark comes out of Halle’s mouth so effortlessly it’s shocking—and that’s when Iknowhe’s already messing with my head. Nash just rolls his eyes. “Of course.”

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