Page 46 of Almost Love

“You made me breakfast.”

“Everyone’s gotta eat.”

He gestured to his plate. “Youmademe breakfast. Like served and decorated the damn thing.”

“Are you too manly to accept someone else making your plate?”

“What…no, I…” he trailed off, blushing slightly. “Nobody’s ever done that for me and I fucking loved it.”

“Good.” She turned to her plate, adding a dollop of cream before sprinkling fruits over it. She felt his eyes on her, but focused on cutting her pancakes.

“Tell me about yourself,” Oakley said.

“You first.” Clementine shook her head and shoved the food into her mouth.

“Drive a hard bargain, huh?” He smiled, eyes never leaving hers as he said, “Some would say I was a true blue Californian, surfing every chance I got. I wanted to do it professionally, got pretty far.” When he hesitated, eyes finally dropping from her face, she saw the way his shoulders tensed and jaw flexed. “I uh…I’ve been on my own since I was nineteen, got into some trouble here and there. A friend introduced me to tattooing soon after. He trained me and did all of my ink, then hired me at his tattoo shop. I’ve been traveling all over the country, trying to find a place where I belong and stumbled across your happy little town. And I never want to leave.”

She nodded, shoving more food into her mouth. With her fork, she gestured to his tattooed arm, “How many tattoos do you have and how many have you done for others?”

“Nine on me. As for how many I’ve done…close to six hundred?”

“Seriously?” That seemed like a lot. Even though she knew that tattoos and cake weren’t the same thing, she tried toimagine herself having made six hundred cakes and it made her head spin.

“Oh yeah. I haven’t designed most of them, though. Most people come in knowing exactly what they want, so we’re recreating. But I love sitting with the client and talking about their ink, getting to know their thoughts and what it means to them.”

That made her smile as she said, “That’s how I feel about wedding cakes too. Most couples want chocolate or vanilla; they don’t want to experiment. So they give the planners a list of approved flavors and I have to work with that. I love taking risks and trying new things, even in life, but a lot of people don’t like that.”

“Why wedding cakes?”

At his question, she realized nobody asked her that outside of interviews. Everyone else had been there through the journey into wedding cakes. She shrugged, licking whipped cream off her fork mindlessly. “Why not?”

His eyes narrowed as they focused on the tines of the fork slipping into her mouth and she watched his chest expand as he breathed. The minute she pulled the fork out, Oakley’s mouth was on hers. The movement startled her, but she steadied herself by grabbing his bicep and kissed him back. Her lips parted against his and he took the invitation to lick into her mouth. She moaned, her tongue darting out to stroke over his, as she dragged a hand into his hair. This time, he grunted and the kiss deepened. Heads tilted, tongues tangled, hands reached for each other as their bodies were brought closer together. She liked that instead of playing coy like he had for the last few hours, he took what he wanted, because the way he kissed and the way his tongue took charge set her on fire.

A soft whimper escaped her lips when he finally pulled away and she chased his mouth for more. His hand brushed along herthroat and she blinked her eyes open as his fingers gripped her jaw. “You’re the best kind of trouble, chef.”

She grunted and turned her head, attempting to nip at his fingers. Oakley pulled his hand away, a beautiful smile painted across his lips.

“Why wedding cakes?” he asked again.

“It was never my plan, really.” She slid one of the coffees towards him and poured hers into the davara and back before taking a sip. “I was focused on the usual stuff and Frankie showed up one day, asked if I did custom cakes. I hadn’t considered it until that point, but one custom wedding cake turned into another and then before I knew it, bridal magazines across the country were interviewing me and featuring the bakery.”

“That’s pretty amazing. How many cakes have you made so far?”

Because Oakley was hesitating, still nervous about his filter coffee, she did it for him. He blushed when she nudged the tumbler back his way.

“I was thinking about that when you said you’d done six hundred tattoos. But truthfully, I don’t know. Some of them have been really simple single tier cakes. Others have been three or four, those take up a lot more time.”

Lips pursed like he was impressed, he sipped on his coffee. “Are you from Wildes?”

“Small town in Iowa. Moved to Newark for business school, visited Wildes a few times to volunteer at the shelter. Like you, I loved the town, so came back after pastry school.” Sipping on her coffee, she watched him for a minute. “You said you’ve been on your own since you were nineteen, why?”

When he hesitated, Clementine flinched and realized that this probably fell into the box of things that had happened andhe didn’t want to talk about yet. She started to apologize, but Oakley shook his head and smiled.

“It’s been thirteen years, you’d think that after all that therapy, I’d be comfortable talking about it.”

“You don’t have to,” she said softly, giving him an out.

“It’s okay, you should know.” Oakley cleared his throat and shifted on the stool. “I’d been surfing my whole life and was in Hawaii for a competition. It was going to be the event that changed my career, skyrocketing me into the professional league. So obviously my family was flying out to support me. But on their way from the hotel, they had an accident and were killed on impact.”

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