“Um, maybe I gave it to him because he ordered it first,” Claire offers. “Get ahold of yourself, Haley.”
That’s it.
“Get ahold of myself?” The dam holding back the irritation that’s been building all morning breaks in a spectacular display. I half stand and half sit on the stool and fire away at my friend. “Do you even know what’s happened to me this morning, Claire?”
“No.”
“Let me fill you in,” I say through clenched teeth. “A smoke detector started chirping at four o’clock this morning because the battery went bad, despite changing them last week. Okay? And I was too short to reach it without climbing on a chair, and because it was four a.m. and I hadn’t had coffee, I fell. Hit my knee, bumped my elbow, and I cried. Because I’m a baby.”
Claire bites her bottom lip to keep from laughing.
“Then—”
“Hold up,” he says.
“Hush, Doughnut Thief,” I say, shushing him with a wave of my hand. “Then I couldn’t make coffee because the town flushed the water lines yesterday and the water is still red. And then, because it just keeps getting better, I get a call from Sandra at the library, asking me to come in today, and I’m praying like heck it has nothing to do with the rumors that we’re having budget cuts.” I take a lungful of air. “I’m over today, and it’s not even really started yet.”
“Ouch,” the man says, taking my need for oxygen as a cue to add his opinion. “That is a rough morning.”
“Oh, it gets better,” I insist, feeling my blood shoot through my veins. “Then Joel sent me a text.”
Claire’s brows shoot to the ceiling. “Joel the Hippie?”
“Stop calling him that.”
“That’s what Dane called him the entire time you dated him,” she says.
“You dated a hippie?” the man asks. “That’s surprising.”
I glare at him. “Want to know what’s surprising? I’ve managed to act like a lady and haven’t taken that doughnut right off your plate. That’s surprising.”
He chuckles.
“This isn’t funny.” I bounce in my seat, trying not to beg while also trying not to snatch the pastry. It’s not so much I need the doughnut itself; it’s that I need the comfort of the carbs that will remind me of my mother’s homemade cinnamon rolls and give me the illusion that everything is going to be okay. “My life is falling apart.”
Ignoring my puppy-dog eyes, he digs his phone out of the pocket of his jeans. His fingers fly against the screen.
I take a moment to study him from the side. The light catches his neatly trimmed, sandy-brown hair. His face is freshly shaved, and I wonder vaguely what he would look like with a good three-day stubble.
For a moment, the doughnut is forgotten. In its place is a thought as delicious as the caramel icing—of the taste of the thief’s lips against mine. My little daydream is halted when he slips his phone back into his pocket.
“How much do I owe you?” he asks Claire.
“A doughnut and coffee is four eighty-six,” she says.
He fishes a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and places it on the counter. “Pay for her coffee, too, and then keep the change. Can I get this coffee to go, though?”
“Sure thing,” Claire says.
She strolls to the cash register, leaving the thief and me alone. I struggle to fight the grin splitting my cheeks.
“Did you just buy my coffee?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“You know what goes good with coffee . . .” I look at his plate and then back to him. All he does is laugh.
He gets to his feet, unfolding a body that’s taller, and harder, than I expected. His jeans are coupled with a gray-and-black flannel that fits him well enough that I can see the lines of his body. The curve of his biceps, the dip of his waist, and the slight angle from his shoulder to his neck are divine.
“Are you finished?” he asks.
I zip a line from his boots to his face. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to walk out of here until you’ve finished appreciating me.” He grins. “If you’re done, I do need to go.”
A full-on blush covers my body, and when he laughs, I wonder if he’s thinking it’s the same color as my panties. This makes me blush more.
“You are not the gentleman I hoped you were,” I say.
He smiles devilishly, assessing me as he shoves his wallet back into his pocket. Then, with a pained expression and a dose of hesitation