Maybe one day I’d ask Boogie about the situation.

I was going to do this right. I was a—mostly—grown woman, and I could handle this… friendship. I knew what I was getting myself into. He had asked me questions. He had been happy to see me. I was ready and willing to be the kind of friend to him that I was to everyone else, for however long he was around.

Well, to an extent.

The past had happened, and it was where it belonged: back in the day. You live and you learn, and all that jazz. Once I was done here, I was going to go home and live my best life.

Like I had been.

One fortifying breath later, I clutched the bag in my hand when we got to the very white kitchen. I didn’t hesitate before asking the man I’d briefly met weeks ago, “CJ, would you like a scone?”

The man paused in the process of settling onto a stool that had already been pulled out around the kitchen island, and I didn’t miss the way his eyes flicked down to the canvas bag in my hand.

I held it up a little higher. “I promise they aren’t drugged, and they have blueberries in them. Coconut oil too. They’re mini-sized.” This wasn’t my first rodeo with skepticism. My nephew had acted like I’d been trying to feed him arsenic the one time I offered him scones with rosemary in them… and he’d ended up eating four once he gave them a chance and stopped gagging before he’d put anything into his mouth. He never doubted me again after that.

Yep, CJ’s gaze still narrowed anyway.

So I kept going. “I give them out to my coworkers, but I forgot, and by the time I remembered….” My favorite coworkers were already gone, and I hadn’t felt like sharing anymore, mostly because I didn’t want Gunner to have any, so everyone was going to miss out. But I stopped talking because this CJ guy didn’t need to hear all that.

He narrowed his eyes even more, and I made mine go even wider to keep from smiling. Jesus, he was making me work for it. All right.

Well, luckily, I was a chicken, but I wasn’t a quitter. The scones were good. They only had six ingredients and took about ten minutes to make, which were two of my most important requirements for recipes I attempted. And it was one I’d nailed years ago and had just tweaked a little more so they were even better than the original version. The blueberry scones were going in the book I wanted to publish one day in the near future, AKA plan C. “They’re mini scones. Almost cookies. Scookies, I guess. I’ll eat one if you—”

The way the man’s very handsome head reared back, with his eyes going wide, was what shut me up.

Then his next words kept me silent.

He snapped his fingers. “I know why you look familiar,” CJ said, his gaze sharpened.

Uh… “We met a few weeks ago for like a second,” I reminded him. It wouldn’t be the first time someone forgot meeting me, but….

He instantly shook his head, and he said in that deep freaking voice that seemed at odds with the fact he wasn’t even six feet tall, “You’re The Lazy Baker, aren’t you?”

The Lazy Baker.

I don’t know who the hell was more surprised, him or me, because I was pretty sure I squeaked, “You’ve seen my videos?” at the same time the narrowed-eyed expression fell off his face like that and he jabbed his finger in my direction. “It is you.”

I nodded because, yeah, it was me. I was The Lazy Baker, or at least that was my WatchTube channel. And Picturegram. And website, which was okay for now but would soon be even better.

I had my hands over my heart as I gaped at him, with my mouth open and everything, because that was how classy I was.

He knew my channel!

HE KNEW MY CHANNEL.

“I thought you looked familiar the other night.” He grinned all of a sudden, all bright white teeth and a smile that turned his face into the opposite of the serious man who had let me in.

“You did?” I’d only been recognized in person maybe like… five times. Five times in more than six years.

It was my hair. I always wore it up and straightened it when I did videos instead of down and curly like in “real life.” And I wore a lot more makeup in them. That, and as one viewer had said, I didn’t exactly have a memorable face. “She’s hot, but I don’t get why???” another viewer had written after that first comment.

So that was cool. A real boost to the ego the internet was. But anyway.

“I just watched the one with you and your sister trying to make the honey walnut shrimp knockoff a couple days ago,” this maybe-football player admitted, still grinning in a way that totally threw me off as his hands went to his hips and he shook his head in what seemed like disbelief again. Disbelief! At me! “I tried to make your banana bread recipe a week ago.”

He’d made my banana bread?

I shit myself anytime anyone told me they did that, but now?

My face already fucking hurt from smiling, and I was going to ignore the tears trying to bubble up in my eyes in reaction. I’d been recognized. He’d made my recipes.

This might be one of the best moments of my entire life.

“You just made my whole month,” I told him, pretty sure I croaked the words out, still holding my hands up against my chest as I tried to keep my shit together. I wanted to give him a hug, but you know, maybe next time.

If we ever saw each other again.

“Do you want a scone then?” I whispered, still hung up on him having made my banana bread.

That time, the nice man didn’t hesitate to nod as he kept on basically beaming at me.

I shot him another smile that probably had me looking like a crazy person and walked over to the island, popping the lid off the glass container and holding it out toward him.

There was literally glee in his eyes. I almost fainted.

I soaked up his face like a psycho as he chewed thoughtfully. He knew who I was! I shook the container at him, feeling light as a feather all of a sudden. I couldn’t believe it. “Have more. I brought them for Zac, but you can have half.”

He didn’t wait. My new best friend, who didn’t know he was my best friend, grabbed three more blueberry scone/cookies and held them in one hand while he fed himself with the other in neat little bites that had me smiling like a moron on the inside—all right, and the outside. But it was called for, and I had no shame.

I could feel myself going up to the balls of my feet again. Still happy. So freaking happy I was going to be happy for the rest of the month, at least. Maybe my whole life. “Do you play football too?”

CJ bobbed his head while he chewed his scone. “For the White Oaks. Receiver. Damn, these are good. There’s really rosemary in them?”

The White Oaks were Houston’s professional football team. They weren’t the best, and most of the time, they weren’t the worst either. The majority of what I knew was that they were a newish team and their quarterback was young. I couldn’t tell how old CJ was; he had a face that could have been twenty-two or thirty-four. What I did know was that I liked him.

“Yes. Thank you. Where are you from?”

“Philly, originally. Then I spent four years in Austin.”

That had me perking up. Was that how he’d met Zac? Some kind of alumni something?

I didn’t get the chance to ask though. “Can I ask you something?” the other man said, still eyeing my tiny scones.