Baking Me Crazy (Donner Bakery, #1)(19)

"But you need a job, too. You've worked your ass off for the past six years. You can hardly blame yourself for not knowing she existed when you started school and picked your major."

"Picking my major is how I met her," I reminded him. "I never would've coached that team if I was in business school or something."

We pulled into the driveway, and there was her car, parked in front of the house like it belonged there.

"Have you called Hunter?" Connor asked, referring to our oldest brother who lived in Seattle.

I gave him a weird look. "What's he gonna do? He's like, a school administrator or something."

"Yeah, at that uppity rich people prep school, man. Maybe he's got some connections he can call." Connor pulled his truck in next to Joss's car, and he looked over at it meaningfully. "Isn't it worth it to check? Let's be real, sometimes pulling a few strings is the only way someone will finally give you a shot. Or maybe Samantha does," he said, mentioning our brother's wife with a pinched forehead.

We only looked at each other briefly before he started laughing. "Yeah, I know. We've talked to her like, twice ever. Maybe not Samantha. But it can't hurt to ask Hunter."

"I suppose."

"Ask Grady too," he said, referring to our cousin. "He's got that … whatever the hell he does."

I laughed. "Don't ask me. He loses me every time he brings it up. But it's nothing to do with sports either. Some tech thing that goes way over my head."

"Can't hurt, little brother. That's what family is for, you know." Connor slugged my shoulder as I got out of his truck, and I nodded as I got out so he could head back to his place just down the road, the house Sylvia would be moving into with him after they got married.

I glanced over at my apartment, but it looked dark, so I walked through the garage and let myself in. The kitchen was empty, as was the family room. There was no answer when I called out for my mom and Joss. Hooking my gym bag over my shoulder, I walked back to my place slowly, typing out a text to Hunter.



Me: Hey, big brother, I'm tapping out all my options here for a job, and it's not looking promising. Know anybody who might talk to an incredibly intelligent Southern boy with impeccable manners and a master’s degree in sports medicine?



I hit send just before I opened the door, and through the window next to it, I saw her asleep on the couch.

As quietly as I could, I turned the knob and walked in.

Her chest rose and fell evenly, and her face was smooth as she slept deeply. She was curled on her side, my blanket covering her up to her chin. Sitting carefully on the chaise that extended out of the other side of the couch, I set my chin in my hands and watched her sleep.

In five years, I had the thought often that my life would be easier if I didn't love her. If I could look at her and not have my chest pinch painfully from the force of my tightly bound feelings. If I could be next to her and not wonder what it would feel like to tilt her mouth up to mine and kiss her smooth pink lips. It would be so much easier if I could lay awake at night and not have to wonder if I'd live with this yearning for the rest of my life.

I'd felt wild physical attraction before her—the kind of lust that only a seventeen-year-old boy could—and I wasn't a virgin. That ship sailed a solid year before I met Joss, but it wasn't something I regret. How could I have possibly known what it would feel like the day I met her? There was no way.

In the years since, I'd dated other girls. I'd kissed them, touched them, and let them touch me—sometimes spurred on by a desperation for that same spark, that same tug in my chest that Joss pulled on every time I was around her. Yet every kiss, every touch felt wrong on a soul-deep level. Not because I believed in some unattainable chaste ideal, or that experiencing other people before we found our person was wrong, but because I'd already found her.

Whatever my own soul was comprised of, that intangible thing residing in my body that made me me met its match the day I met Jocelyn. And trying to make someone else fit was one massive exercise in frustration.

"Stupid Buchanan curse," I whispered.

There would never be a day when I didn't wish Jocelyn would just … wake up and realize it. That one day, she'd see me differently. That she could look back on the day we met and see that I'd never wavered because the way I loved her was as constant and unyielding as the Earth rotating around the sun. Something that couldn't be stopped or prevented.

In her sleep, she shifted on her back, but her long legs remained where they were.

And I watched as Joss slowly started to wake. When she opened her eyes—the morning glories climbing up the east side of my parents' porch blue—she didn't notice me right away.

"Good morning, sunshine," I said quietly.

She smiled, stretching her arms over her head with a satisfied groan.

I wanted to see her do that every fucking morning for the rest of my life.

"That was an epic nap," she said in an adorably groggy voice. Her eyes fell shut again, her mouth curving up in a tiny smile.

"Yeah?"

Joss hummed, eyes still closed. "Can you move my legs for me? Stretch them out?"

I swallowed. My fingers curled into my palms. "Sure."

Even though I didn't need to move with such careful, slow movements—and even though she could, and probably should, do it herself—I slid my hands up the back of her calves until they were hooked under her bent knees. Turning her legs so that they were straight, I brought her feet up against my thigh. People underestimated how tall she was. I didn't get to stand next to her often, but when I did, it was so hard not to wrap my arms around her and see where her face hit.