Page 23 of Spicy or Sweet
But I also remember the feel of Noelle’s fingers on my cheek as she wiped my tears. The steady rise and fall of her chest beneath my hand. The brown sugar, gingerbread scent she emanates. The soft cadence of her voice, the soothing sound of her breathing.
“I’m here, and I’ve got you.”
I’m too exhausted to unpack the way those words echo in my mind—the way they’re the last thing I think about before I finally drift off.
12
NOELLE
I’ve never seen someone carve the peel from a lemon so intensely. Honestly, I’ve just never seen anyone work so intensely in a kitchen, period.
There are a hundred things I should be doing, but I’m falling behind on my to-do list because I can’t stop watching Shay. At first, I just wanted to make sure she was okay after last night. Intense doesn’t even begin to cover it. It can’t have been easy to open up about the accident like she did, to talk about her sister, but she seems fine today. Maybe a little more tired than she usually is—I spotted several takeout cups from The Frosty Bean in the recycling when I came in. Otherwise, she seems right as rain.
Once I confirmed that, it should’ve been easy to look away, but I can’t.
It’s not like she’s doing or making anything particularly exciting; she’s just doing it in a way that could only be described as… captivating. She narrows her eyes, focusing solely on whatever she’s working on, her lips pursed. I’ve never noticed how small her hands are, how delicate her fingers are. Why would I have? But now that I have noticed them… God, I think I’m losing it.
I turn my attention back to the bowl of cookie dough before me. Triple chocolate, with crushed pretzels and big flakes of coconut. It smells divine. No matter how long I’ve been baking, I never tire of stealing a bite of cookie dough as I’m scooping it. I know people say you shouldn’t, but life is too short to worry about raw cookie dough.
In the three and a half days we’ve worked together, I’ve tried to get a grasp on Shay’s music taste, but I can’t. It’s all over the shop, from country, to ’90s boy bands, to R&B, to musical theater, to ABBA. There’s a lot of ABBA, actually. I would confidently guess that they’re her favorite band, and based on the number of times “Lay All Your Love On Me” shows up on her playlists, and the way she can’t stop herself from swaying when it does, I would guess this is her favorite song.
I let my gaze dance over her body as I scoop the cookies and sprinkle them with sea salt. She moves slowly, softly mouthing the words. I zero in on her lips, on the sweet pink blush. She always wears a sheer brown lip balm that smells like coffee—I know because it’s so strong I can smell it when she’s putting it on—and looking at her lips as she sings along to ABBA, I can’t help but wonder if it tastes as good as it smells. If Shay tastes as good as she smells.
The thought stops me in my tracks, like I’ve been doused in scalding water. I still, my hand hovering over the cookies, my eyes glued to her lips.
I donot, under any circumstances, want to taste Shay fucking Harland. Not now, not ever.
This is just the past week, month, year, catching up with me. I’m tired—I didn’t get to bed until two this morning, after putting everything away. I need to lay off the caffeine and the cookie dough and sleep more. Maybe I need to go for a walk by the reservoir and literally touch grass. Maybe I need a girls’ night with Rora, where we look up all the people we went to highschool with online to see what they’re doing now. What I don’t need is to kiss Shay.
I shouldn’t even bethinkingabout kissing Shay.
Because she’s Shay. Fucking. Harland.
“Noelle?”
I jolt back into awareness, realizing I’ve been staring so intently at Shay’s lips that I missed whatever she said. “Huh?”
“I asked if the music is too loud? I can turn it off.”
“Yes,” I snap. It comes out harsher than I intended, and a small crease appears between Shay’s brows. This is good. I need to remind both of us that I don’t like her. Last night was… I don’t fucking know what last night was. All I know is that less music means less of Shay dancing, and maybe I’ll be able to concentrate better.
Shay recovers quickly, a pretty smile spreading across her mouth. “Sure!” She turns the music off and sets her paring knife aside in favor of something bigger to slice the peel into tiny ribbons.
I finish sprinkling the salt and cover the trays with plastic wrap before sliding them into the freezer. We’ll bake them the day they need them on set. In hindsight, I should probably have waited to salt them until baking, but I?—
“What are you doing?” I cross my arms, glaring at Shay as she closes her lips around a spoon.
“Tasting the batter,” she says, her tongue darting out to catch a drop the spoon left behind on her lip. “You want to try it? It’s really good.”
“You shouldn’t eat raw flour or eggs.” I’m a goddamn hypocrite.
“One bite won’t hurt,” Shay replies with a soft, twinkly laugh and… a wink. I bite the inside of my cheek and turn away, the sharp burst of pain doing nothing to ground me.
Who just winks like that?
I was so worried I wouldn’t be able to hide how much I dislike Shay while we’re working together, but apparently, I was worried about the wrong damn thing. This is bad.
This issofucking bad.
