Page 46 of Loving Carter

I only know one thing for certain—Carter and I are a lot more than merely best friends.

Although I think about starting on Miriam’s cake, I decide to wait until tomorrow. I figure I need to contemplate how to make KeeKee contemplative. Instead, I help Janie with the morning and lunch rushes. Once things die down, I’m thinking about texting Carter when Rachel walks in.

“Hi, Skylar,” she says, walking over to the display case. “Yum, everything looks wonderful.”

I’m not a suspicious person—well, no more than anyone else—but Rachel doesn’t come into the bakery often, and when she does, it’s only for coffee. I doubt if she’s here today to buy a few Snickerdoodles.

“Hi, Rachel. How are you?” I smile, hoping whatever brought her into the store won’t make my day bad, or rather, worse. It’s already a bad day.

“May I have some coffee and...” She studies the display case. “Um, maybe I could have a...”

I laugh because it’s obvious she’s not a bakery-treat-eating person. “You don’t have to buy something, Rachel. It’s fine if you just stop in and visit.”

The look of relief that washes over her face is a little insulting to my baked treats, but I won’t take it personally.

“What’s up?” I lean against the counter, at a loss as to what she might want.

She sits on one of the stools and fiddles with the salt and pepper shakers in front of her. She moves them to the left, then to the right, then to the left—I reach out and stop her.

“Just tell me what you want to say. It won’t hurt my feelings. I promise.” I say this, and mean it, but I have to admit, I sure hope she hasn’t come in to tell me something awful. All sorts of disasters are forming in my brain, and before I get to the “Godzilla is attacking the city” scenarios, I say, “Just tell me. Please.”

“Um, it’s about Gabe.” She reaches for the shakers again, but I’m still holding them.

“What about Gabe?” I’m truly baffled as to why she’s here. Why does she need to talk to me about Gabe? I have nothing to do with him—oh. Now I get it.

“You like Gabe.” My words are fine, but my tone is way too enthusiastic. Rachel looks even more uncomfortable than she did before.

“I realize you may have feelings for him, so I wanted to talk to you,” Rachel says.

Now, isn’t that the nicest thing? If you believe social media and reality television, people today steal each other’s significant others like weasels grabbing eggs in a henhouse. But not Rachel. She’s being very straightforward.

“That’s great,” I tell her, meaning it. “Gabe’s a nice guy, and there is absolutely nothing between us. He was helping our committee find bands for the expo we’re going to hold. No romance there. Feel free to go after him.”

Rachel’s eyes seem to light up, and she smiles. I should get some major Karma points for this. I’ve made this woman’s day. I’m about to pat myself on the back, figuratively of course since my arms aren’t that long, when a horrifying thought occurs to me.

“Gabe likes you, too, right? Tell me I haven’t given you the idea to stalk the man.”

Rachel laughs. “No, I’m not going to stalk him. We’ve been talking on the phone every day since we saw the band, and last night, he mentioned going on a date. I didn’t want to go unless it was okay with you.”

“Didn’t Gabe explain that we weren’t dating?”

“He did, but sometimes guys misinterpret signs and think we don’t care when we actually do.”

She is not wrong. “True,” I say.

Now she’s looking at me like she wants to say something else.

I wait patiently for a few seconds, then say, “What?”

“What?”

I sigh. I wish she’d just say whatever she wants to say. “You want to say something else. What is it?”

She goes for the shakers again, but I snag them first.

“You and Carter,” she says.

I tense. “What about me and Carter?”

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