It’s too cold in this town for you to go without this. If you want to say thank you, come see me. I’m sure you can figure out where I live.
Z
PS Here’s my phone number in case you don’t have it yet: 555-284-6433
I smirk at his cheekiness. He must have found my coat and seen the address I scrawled on the tag just a couple of weeks ago in case I left it somewhere.
I look down the hallway but the place is empty.
When did he bring it? And how did he get inside a locked-down dorm that doesn’t even open its doors until eight in the morning?
I didn’t hear anyone outside the door last night and I was up for another half-hour when I got home, so it must have been this morning, which means he was up early.
With a sigh, I slip it on over my sweatshirt and head for the exit.
A bit later, most of my surly mood has vanished, and I feel like a kid in a candy store with my nose literally pressed against the glass case. I’m in the donut shop. “I’ll take two dozen chocolate, two dozen plain, and two of those churros. Mara loves those,” I tell Joaquin Rios, the owner, as I straighten up.
He grins, eyes dancing. “That’s it?”
I groan. “Don’t you think that’s enough?”
“Ah.” He shakes his finger at me. “But I have something special. Made it last night—for you.” A small, wiry man with beautiful light brown skin and a lilting Mexican accent, he’s a friend of Mara’s, and I worked here in high school to earn extra cash, which I socked away for college. He bustles off to the back then comes out of the kitchen holding a tray of chocolate donuts with dark sprinkles on top. He’s written Sugar in white icing on one of them. “I made these to celebrate you going to law school and to show our appreciation for your help with the paperwork for the zoning regulations for our food truck.”
I don’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t get in.
“Oh, that’s so kind.” I fiddle with the zipper on my coat. “You didn’t have to do that. I liked helping you.”
“But it would have taken me days. You went to town hall and figured it out, and now my donut truck is raking in the money.” He laughs, setting the tray down in front of me. “I call these Ding Dong Donuts in your honor. They have a heavy cream filling.”
I huff out a laugh, fighting a sudden urge to let tears fall. Dammit, I will not cry! He’s so nice and I should be thankful and not upset that it’s reminding me I really don’t have a law school to go to in the fall.
He gives me a big pleased smile, and I go around the counter to give him and his wife, Anna, who’s come out of the kitchen, a big hug.
A few minutes later, I’m past the pain—hello, sugar—and sitting in my truck cramming the donut in my mouth and sighing in ecstasy when a muscular body jogs past the front of my vehicle. He’s a big dude, dressed in Hawthorne colors with a black knit hat and blond hair sticking out—
My lovely donut goes flying straight to the floorboard. Zack.
Immediately I duck down in my seat, mostly because it’s automatic and I’m still unsure about last night. I mean, we had hot sex, and I turned him down for a repeat, and now things are…weird.
I ease back up from hunkering down, peeking over in his direction. Dayum. I sigh, taking in the tall body with a trim waist that tapers to muscled legs.
He leans over, breathing in great gulps of air, and I wonder how long he’s been running. Campus is quite a ways away from here, at least five or six miles, though that’s probably nothing to an athlete like him.
He yanks off his hat and shakes out his hair, running a large hand through the strands. A gust of cold air stirs through the morning air and he leans back against the brick of the storefront, his head tilting up to the sky. He drags a hand over his face, and I suck in a breath at the vulnerability that flashes over his features.
What’s he thinking about?
With a deep inhalation, he throws his hat and gloves down on a bench outside the Quickie-Mart and pushes his way inside. The movement