Page 55 of Cool for the Summer

Every time Jack texts me, I overthink my response, lest the fact that I’m fucking my housemate and co-dog-sitter somehow bleed through the updates about Cleo and my business plans.

The cookie shop is the only thing I’m really sure of. I signed the lease on the Main Street space this morning. Donovan wasn’t up before I left for the real estate office, so I have to tell him when I get back to the house. I’ve ordered industrial-sized ovens and mixers and have orders for flour and sugar and vanilla and spices all ready to go from a variety of wholesale providers. My business license and permits are in the works. If everything goes as planned, I’ll be soft launching by Labor Day.

There are only two hiccups in my plan. One—I technically don’t have anywhere to live once Jack and Pete return in a few short weeks. I’m sure they’d be fine with me staying with them indefinitely, but they’re newlyweds. As hard as it’ll be to leave behind their lovely house, seeing Cleo every day, and having full reign of their gorgeous kitchen, I’m not going to third wheel my cousin and his new husband.

Unfortunately, the blue house on Turner Street turned out to be a dead end—Noelle was going to try to track down the owner, but she got caught up in red tape at Town Hall, and I don’t want to bother her when she’s worked so hard to get me a favorable contract for the bakery. Maybe I can find an apartment to rent. It’s not as if I’ll have much time for housekeeping or fixing up an old house while I’m trying to get my business off the ground, anyway.

The second hiccup is that despite my best efforts not to fall for him like a fifty-pound bag of flour being knocked off a shelf and spilling all over the floor, I’m a complete mess over Donovan.

It’s all his fault, too, for being so smiley and perfect. The other day when I came home, and he asked me to fuck him—god, it was so intense. The image of him riding me is the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I picture when I fall asleep.

He has no idea that while he was having hot, gratifying sex with someone he considers a friend, I was having my heart reconfigured, piece by piece. I’ve been in love before, but not like this. Not where it almost hurts to breathe because the love has wrapped itself around my chest so tightly it feels like it’ll never let go.

I worry that love’s going to end up shattering me. When Donovan leaves Rosedale, I’ll have no choice but to try to let go of the best relationship I never really had.

At least in my inevitable post-Donovan era, I’ll have the shop to keep me busy. I’ll have Jack and Pete to lean on, I’ll even have Kingston, who I now consider a friend. Plus the other new friends I’ve made, like Stacy the baker and Ariana at the wine shop, who, once I spelled out to her that I was gay, seems happy to be a platonic pal.

I’m building a life here in Rosedale, and I’m proud of the actions I’m taking to get over my fear of choosing the wrong thing yet again. Now I’m simply going after something I care about.

If only Donovan wasn’t here all the time, simultaneously within my grasp and laughably out of reach. I walk into the kitchen and watch him grooving to a reggae beat on the speakers. He got a haircut yesterday, though his dark curls still fall luxuriously over the tops of his ears, and his beard’s been trimmed back to sexy stubble. He’s wearing his swim trunks and nothing else. I try to memorize the muscles of his back as he inspects the contents of the refrigerator.

“You finally got the sound system figured out,” I say by way of greeting.

He spins around, a glass container of last night’s leftover pasta in his hands. “Hey! Yeah, I did. Turns out it wasn’t that hard.”

I smirk. “See, I told you I wasn’t a genius. I just read directions.”

He holds up the pasta. “Want some?”

“Not hungry, but thanks.” I walk past him, feeling the sun-warmed heat of his skin as I graze by. He must have just been outside. “I am going to open this, however.” I brandish an unopened bottle of Prosecco I pull from the wine shelf in the fridge.

He raises his eyebrows. “What are we celebrating?”

I unwrap the foil. “I signed the lease for Beck’s Cookie Counter this morning. I can move in next week.” I work the cork out with a pop.

Donovan grabs a champagne glass from the drying rack and hands it to me.

“Join me?”

He hands me a second glass and I pour, then we clink glasses. His gaze meets mine and I smile. I wish I could tell him how I feel—it seems a little dishonest to keep a feeling this big away from the person I’m feeling it about. But I can’t be even more reckless with my heart than I’ve been already. I can only imagine the uncomfortable pity on Donovan’s face if I let it slip that this wasn’t just a summer fling, at least not to me.

“To Beck’s Cookie Counter,” I say.

“To Beck’s cookie empire,” he adds with a smile.

After we sip, he goes about fixing himself a plate of leftovers. “Can I ask you a question?”

I refrain from pointing out that he just did. “Go for it.”

“Where are you getting the money to open the Cookie Counter? I was thinking, if you need investors, I could contribute something. Depending on how much you need, I could also ask some of my college friends—the ones who went into finance instead of the arts, obviously.”

“Oh.” I’m surprised at the offer and touched. “That’s so thoughtful. But I’m actually okay.” I take a deep breath. My feelings aren’t exactly the only thing I’ve been keeping on the down-low from Donovan. “I’m self-financing it.”

“What does that mean?” He takes his plate out of the microwave and sits behind the bar. I lean on the counter across from him and sip my bubbly in an effort to calm my sudden nervousness. It’s just that peoplealwaystreat me differently after they find out about my family, and so far I’ve avoided that particular conversation with Donovan.

“I’m using my own money.”

He still looks confused, and I can’t blame him. When we met, I was basically living out of my car, with no job, no ambition. “So, back in the olden days, one of my Avery ancestors struck oil on his Texas ranch. Long story short, me and my cousins all have trust funds it would take each of us a lifetime to spend. Opening a cookie shop is within my means—though if I do want to turn it into an empire someday, I’d probably be smart to take on investors at that point.” I smile to soften the news that I’m independently wealthy. Strangely, it’s ended more than one of my friendships over the years. That and the fact that my dad is?—

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