Jasmine Guillory - The Proposal

Thank God someone understood that.

“It can be really scary, yeah. I think Jessie’s doing okay, but I’m not sure if she’s taking this seriously enough. She’s only twenty-eight weeks, so we’re all just hoping the baby stays put for at least another two months.”

He’d been terrified when he got the first text from Jessie. Thank God it wasn’t as bad as he’d initially thought, but that terror hadn’t completely dissipated.

She touched his clenched fist. He forced his fingers to relax enough to clasp her hand without breaking it.

“What’s making your face do that?” she asked him.

He scrunched up his face at her, and she laughed.

“My face do what? What is my face doing?”

She touched his cheek with her free hand.

“You have a dimple in this cheek right here. All afternoon and evening on Saturday, I saw it winking at me. The same thing happened when we were in the bookstore just now. But as soon as we sat down, the dimple disappeared. And lines appeared up here.” She drew a line across his forehead with her finger. He closed his eyes at her touch. She dropped her hand, and he opened his eyes.

“Remind me not to go to Vegas with you,” he said. “You’ll let everyone know all of my tells!”

“Oh no.” She shook her head. “I’m an excellent Vegas buddy. I’ll tell YOU everyone else’s tells.”

He laughed and sighed. His face was probably doing that thing again, but he couldn’t help it.

“This early in her pregnancy, for her to get this diagnosis—there’s a lot that could go wrong. I don’t want the rest of my family as anxious about this as I am, so I’m trying to be calm about this when I talk to them. I’m just worried.”

“Where’s her spouse in all of this, or is she single?”

He shook his head.

“No, she’s married, her husband’s great. But Jessie and Angela and I grew up together, she doesn’t have any siblings, so I’m sort of her big brother, as well as Angie’s.” It had always been his job to take care of Jessie and Angie. And since his dad died, he’d made an effort to always be there for them, even when he’d lived all the way over on the Westside. Jessie was still his responsibility, Jon or no Jon.

“Anyway, I was supposed to go out of town this weekend, but I’m going to have to cancel. My best friend Drew got engaged last week and he and his fiancée are having an engagement party in Berkeley. I was supposed to fly up tomorrow morning, but I can’t leave Jessie now. I still have to cancel my flight and call Drew and tell him I’m not coming.”

He sat up straight and tried to shake all of this off. Why had he just let all of these stupid emotions out to this woman who barely knew him?

“Sorry for spilling all of that. I’m sure you didn’t come get coffee with me in order to hear all about my family drama.”

She shook her head and squeezed his hand.

“Well, you didn’t go get dinner with me in order to become my private security guard, so I’d say it’s about even.” Her face lit up. “Ooh, here’s a thing that I bet a pregnant woman on bed rest will love: cupcakes. Courtney’s shop is just a few blocks away. Want to walk over there?”

Chapter Seven

. . . . . . .

Nik shook her head when she saw the pink and white polka-dot Cupcake Park sign. What was she doing bringing Carlos here? She would never hear the end of it from Courtney. But he’d looked so sad about his cousin. Cupcakes were the first thing she could think of that might cheer him up.

“Hey!” Nik said to Courtney, who stood behind the counter with a smirk on her face. “I brought you a customer.”

Courtney waved as she carefully placed an assortment of cupcakes into a box for the woman standing at the register.

“Hey, Carlos, good to see you again. Welcome to Cupcake Park. Nik can give you the rundown of all of the flavors while you wait. She knows them almost as well as I do.”

Nik gave him a wry smile as they went up to the counter.

“As much as I hate to say this, she is correct. I curse the day one of my best friends opened a cupcake shop so close to my apartment. And unfortunately, it looks like business is booming, so she’ll be here for a while, tempting me with her delicious sugary treats. I think she did this to get revenge on me for something.”

Courtney and her customer both laughed.

“I can’t tell if you’re the worst possible advertisement for my store or the best. I guess time will tell.”

The customer picked up her bag containing two big boxes of cupcakes.

“Get the strawberry ones,” she said. “Those are my favorite. Those and the coconut-lime ones. Ooh, and the matcha ones!”

Nik shook her head after the customer left the store.

“All of those are very good, but she’s wrong. He should get the confetti ones and the lemon ones.”

Carlos smiled at Courtney.

“Those flavors all sound great, but I need to start with some red velvet. These are for my cousin, and those are her favorites.”

Courtney smirked at Nik, and Nik put her head in her hands.

“What did I say?” He turned from one to the other.

“When I was opening this place, I insisted that I needed to have red velvet cupcakes. Nik argued strongly against them. She said my whole shop was going to be about unusual and interesting flavors, and that red velvet cupcakes weren’t good enough for me.”

“They taste like nothing!” Nik said. “They’re just a vehicle for cream cheese frosting, but you can put cream cheese frosting on other cupcakes!”

“I guess I can see who won this argument,” he said, and gestured to the case full of red velvet cupcakes.

“A good cupcake shop has got to have some crowd pleasers,” Courtney said.

Courtney was always so happy that she’d been right about red velvet, damn her.

“You’re shopping for your cousin?” Courtney asked Carlos. “Any special occasion, or a just because cupcakes are great?”

He smiled at her, but he had that sad look in his eyes again.

“Sort of. She’s pregnant and newly on bed rest, so I wanted to bring her some cheer.”

“Oh no, your poor cousin. Okay, some cheer, coming right up. How many do you want?”

Carlos put his bags of books on a chair.

“A dozen. At least. If I know my family—and I do—everyone is going to be coming by her house in the next few days, and they’ll all eat one, minimum.”

“Okay, got it.” Courtney pulled out a big pink box. “Here, I’ll put together an assortment of Cupcake Park’s greatest hits, and Nik can take you into the back to show you my kitchen, aka my pride and joy. One question: how do you feel about spicy food?”

He looked at Nik and they both laughed.

“I feel great about it. Why? Do you have a spicy cupcake?”

Courtney grinned her slightly evil grin.

“Nik, you tell him all about my spicy cupcake while I put together this box of treats, okay? And yes, yes, I’ll give him some of the confetti cupcakes.”

Nik led Carlos through the door marked employees only and tried to ignore Courtney’s knowing look. It was like she thought the whole reason Nik had brought Carlos here was for Courtney to start up the rebound refrain again.

To be fair . . . she’d been thinking a lot about that moment on the couch the other night. Maybe too much about it. If Courtney did start up the rebound refrain again, she might be somewhat more receptive. Maybe.

“How long has this place been here?” Carlos put his hand on her lower back to steer her around some cardboard boxes stacked on the floor.

“Just over a year.” Would he slide his hand up her back to put his arm around her shoulders? Come on, give her this one thing. YES. YES, HE WOULD. She leaned toward him and tried not to let her smile show her triumph.