I can’t see him being like that. He was so sweet when he came over to introduce himself to my friend and her sister tonight. He didn’t have to come out at all since we’d only met that once last week, and then he was kind enough to say he and I were peers professionally, which definitely isn’t true.”
“Alex meant that. He thinks you are colleagues,” Cade says, but I sense in his voice he doesn’t believe it either.
That’s okay. I know my level when it comes to what I do. And everything else, for that matter.
“Well, that’s very nice of him, but I think he was just being chivalrous after my friend Meadow’s sister made a dig about my dessert making compared to his being a chef. She’s not my biggest fan.”
“Screw her. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I trust Alex on this.”
For a moment, I don’t know what to say. Cade seems uncomfortable after that brief outburst too and puts his hand on my arm to stop me from walking. Facing me, he lowers his head like he’s embarrassed.
“Sorry about that. She’s your friend’s sister, so saying that wasn’t cool.”
God, he’s cute. I imagine this man could talk the birds out of the trees, and the ones who didn’t want to leave, all he’d have to do is give them one of his sad looks with those dark brown eyes of his and they’d willingly do as he asked.
“You don’t have to be sorry. I don’t like Sabrina much at all. The feeling’s mutual too. She doesn’t think highly about any part of me, but I don’t usually say much to her in my defense when she takes her swipes at my job or how I look because I would never want to hurt Meadow. So no need to be sorry. I appreciated how Alex set her straight in his very professional way, and I appreciate what you said. Truth be told, I silently thought the same thing when she made fun of my dessert making tonight.”
Cade’s face brightens at hearing I’m not offended by his attack on Sabrina. “Okay, then back to screw her then.”
We begin walking again, and thankfully, more people start to fill the pathway around us. Not that I feel like he’s an ax murderer. I don’t know if I ever felt that way, but no matter how good looking he is or how nice it felt to hear him come to my defense about what I do, I don’t really know much about Cade. Better to be safe than sorry with an almost perfect stranger.
Breaking the silence, he says, “You know, you shouldn’t think what you do is any less than any other chef. I admit I didn’t understand what you do at first, but Alex set me straight. He’s serious about food, and he says you’re an artist. That’s pretty impressive considering what your canvas is.”
Excited to tell someone about the rose cupcakes I made today, I begin to explain what they looked like and how I sculpted the frosting to look like real flower petals. Halfway through my description, though, I stop myself.
“God, you probably don’t want to hear about peach colored roses being my inspiration for these silly cupcakes,” I say quietly, embarrassed that I let myself get so wrapped up in telling him about those stupid petals.
“No way,” he says with a smile. “I loved listening to you talk about them. I was trying to imagine them the whole time you were describing them, but I’m not really creative, so I’m probably thinking all the wrong things. I don’t honestly even know what a peach rose looks like. Is that a color or how they smell? You probably think that’s pretty stupid, huh?”
“The peach is the color. I took a picture with my phone. Would you like to see it?”
“Absolutely!”
I reach into my purse and grab my phone, happy I changed my wallpaper the other day from that hot guy Meadow and I saw in that movie last month to a sunset scene. A few taps on the screen and the image of my cupcake creations from this afternoon comes up.
Turning my phone so Cade can see, I point at the frosting petals. “That’s the peach rose cupcakes. I saw them online a couple days ago and wanted to try my hand at making them. I love how they turned out, and from the way customers at the restaurant grabbed them up, I think they were a