I hurry into the kitchen ahead of him, my heart jumping and dancing in my chest, competing with the sinking feeling in my gut at the sight of the fallen cake.

Adam Walker isn’t the type to show up after nine years and pitch in. He’s a total asshole who never cared about me, not even a little.

I raise my hand to my lips as I rush over to the handwashing sink. Even after all this time, the sensation of his mouth on mine, kissing me as tenderly as anyone ever did back in high school—although admittedly it wasn’t that many people—still burns underneath my fingertips, almost as badly as my cheeks did when the gym doors opened to reveal six of his friends from the basketball team.

In slow motion he jerked away from me, grinning into the sneers on their faces.

“Walker, what are you doing?” Colton Chamberlain, the king of the basketball team, had glanced at me like I was a bug to be crushed under his shoes.

“Nothing,” Adam said quickly. “Just fooling around.”

He shot me a look then that I read as dismissal. For weeks I afterward I tried to convince myself that there was some sorrow there, but when he ignored me, stone cold, in the hallways, I let the flame die out.

Or so I thought.

I wash my hands with a meticulous focus, not daring to look back over my shoulder in case he’s watching, then dry them. Squaring my shoulders, I turn back to face the destruction of my baking career.

“You should probably wash—oh.” My words die in my throat. Adam is sweeping up the remnants of the cake with a broom he located with startling efficiency. While I stand there like a frozen idiot, he tips the last of the crumbs into the waste bin I keep in the supply closet. Then he rolls the bin back into the closet, hangs up the broom and dustpan on their designated hooks, and moves toward me.

The space between us closes, narrows, and something goes tight and hot in my chest. Is the air thinning out in here? His eyes are an electric blue even under the fluorescent lights of the kitchen. I turn half-toward him, my breath shallow, and he stops a foot away, the energy between us crackling.

Our gaze locks. I’m painfully aware of the fact that I’ve been here for several hours, that there’s probably at least a little flour in my hair, that I’m wearing the most ridiculous hairnet in all of history.

His mouth turns up in the same half-smile that drove me absolutely wild in high school and I return it without having to think. Maybe none of this matters. Maybe he came here because—

“Adam,” I say, at the same time he says, “Excuse me.”

“What?”

He cocks his head to the side. “Gotta wash up—there’s no way I can help you salvage this cake disaster with dirty hands.”

The color surges to my face, but Adam doesn’t mention it. He just waits patiently while I step to the side and flee as far away as I can get—to the oversize fridges where the quarter-done replacement layers are waiting.

I always have a backup—every baker does—but this time I got overconfident. This time, I didn’t finish the full decoration because—and I could completely slap my past self across the face—I spent every waking moment over the past week getting the “official” cake just right.

God. Cynthia Hayes is probably right. Cynthia Hayes—she wouldn’t even be sweating right now. She’d just pull out the replacement layers and drive smugly to the country club without missing a beat.

It’s all I can do not to drop my head into my hands. Instead, I pull the door of the fridge open and remove the first layer—the third one, second-smallest, and carry it gingerly to the decorating table. Then the top layer, the smallest.

All I have going for me is that they’re frosted with buttercream. That is as far as I got.

Adam comes to stand beside me and every hair on the back of my arms stands up. I want to reach across for his hand, but he makes no move toward me, just considers the two halves of the cake.

“So…I’m assuming all this decoration is supposed to match.”

“Yeah.”

“And I’m assuming it took a lot longer than…” He raises his arm, turns his wrist. He still wears a cheap watch. “Two and a half hours to do all this.”

“At least…at least these ones are smaller.”

He laughs, and the sound sends bubbles of delight through my torso.

“You’ve got that going for you.”

What do you have going for you? I want to ask. Where are you on your way to?

“Let’s get started.”

“What can I do?” Now he does put his hand on my arm, and I turn toward him. His eyes are overflowing with sincerity. “Anything you need, I’ll do.”