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“I felt like a dickhead. I know it was all just for show but…”

Jamie turned to stare into my eyes and I stared back far too long, forced to wrench them back to the road or risk a car crash. Not for the first time, I cursed her mother. Jamie had a couple of brothers, that was something that Millie and her bonded over, but it was a totally different dynamic. Millie was the princess in our family, and we all jumped to when she gave an order, whereas Jamie? Her mother would’ve been called a boy mum now, because she only had good things to say about her darling boys. The guys weren’t even bad blokes, the youngest of her brothers in the same year as us at school, but it was like to give them a break, her mother had to focus all her critical energy on Jamie.

“But what?” I said, kicking my own arse for saying this, because I could take advantage of Brock’s fuck up. “Big brother made a fuss over you?”

“You’re making me sound like an idiot,” she grumbled.

“Nope, just someone who seems way too uncomfortable with other people being nice to them. You deserve it, you know. Millie would’ve just looked at the spread a guy put on for her and then wondered out loud where the Veuve Clicquot was.”

That was apparently the right thing to say because she started to laugh. Get ‘em laughing, Dad always said, and you’ll get into their pants. While I wanted that more than my own breath, Jamie’s shift in mood was more important.

“Though I dunno if you need to be a bitch on wheels like my darling sister, you could just y’know… be cool when someone does something nice for you.” She snorted, then shot me a rueful smile. “Even, and I say this with great hesitation, be grateful?”

“Fuck…” She sat back hard against the seat and shook her head. “That was so ungrateful. I need to tell him sorry.” Her head rolled my way. “You sure you want to fake date me? There’s a reason my relationships never last longer than a month or two.”

Because they were never the right guys for her, I thought furiously, but I would be.

“I wouldn’t worry.” I couldn’t believe I was going to say this. “I think this is why Millie suggested us for the job.” I flicked my eyes her way. “We know you, Jamie. There’s pretty much nothing you can do that’ll piss us off. Brock will be fine when you get back to work, but maybe you could practise being good with someone buying you lunch by letting me grab you a butter chicken pie.”

A park opened up right out the front of the bakery and I pulled into the spot, then looked at her expectantly. I needed her to say yes, to just move those sexy little lips and say that one word. Trying to play it cool fucking failed me the minute she smiled.

“I’m not that bad, I just don’t deal with surprises real well. You want to buy me a pie?”

“Two if you want it.” I winked, pretending like this was no big thing. “That’s how special you are to me.”

Even though she thought I was joking, her cheeks still flushed a pretty pink. I watched her shake her head and then say what I needed to hear.

“Sure, but I’m buying the coffees.”

I jerked open the door, jumping out and rushing around her side of the car to get hers before she could make a move. That flush got a little brighter, but she took my hands and let me help her out. Pretty sure she didn’t expect for me to keep a hold of one as I led her into the packed bakery, but when she went to pull away, I gripped them tighter. If she fought me, I’d have let her go. I didn’t want to ruffle her feathers any more than Brock had.

Well, maybe a little…

I stole a sidelong look at her, catching the way her eyes flicked around the bakery, taking in the people, then me. It wasn’t hard to persuade myself that we were just a guy with his girl, grabbing a bite to eat on their lunch hour. The yeasty aroma in the air combined with her scent, creating something I wanted to bottle, just so I could sniff it again later, but we lined up and waited for our turn, everything all neat and orderly, until someone burst in to mess with that.

Little kid cackles are the best things. There’s a kind of wild glee that adults just can’t match, and that’s what she did right now, bursting out of the swinging doors that led into the kitchen and ran through the front of the shop.

“Emma!”

I assume that was her mother calling out, a flustered looking lady with a smudge of flour on her cheek stomping out, just in time to see a customer with a tray full of coffees on collision course with the little girl. Little girl, coffee, there was no good end to this. Forced to let go of Jamie’s hand, I leapt forward.

If they kept going the way they were, she would get hit by six boiling hot coffees, somehow I knew. I shouted something at the coffee woman, but she stopped too slowly. I swept in, shoving my hands under the armpits of the little tearaway, her giggles turning to open mouthed fear, right as I carried her out of the way and to safety. Emma stared at me, wide eyed, and then burst into tears.

“Emma!”

As her mother rushed over, I placed the little girl on my hip, making the rhythmic shushing sound my cousins always told me worked with their babies. I bounced her up and down, watching her bottom lip quiver, then still, when her mother arrived.

“Emma! Oh god…” The woman took the little girl from me and turned to see the coffees had been splashed across the floor. The customer just stood there blinking, hands still hovering in the air. “Bailey, can we get a mop here and a refund? Some new coffees?” The mother was desperate to resolve the situation, but her focus quickly shifted back to her daughter. “Emma, you can’t go running off like that! You could’ve gotten scalded.”

The little girl stared at her mother, eyes shining as they filled with tears, then she threw her little arms around her mother’s neck.

“Goodness…” She rubbed her daughter’s back. “It’s alright, darling. Everything’s alright. You’re alright.”

Bailey appeared with a mop and bucket, but the crowds waiting at the counter were only getting thicker.

“Look, I’ll mop this—” I said.

“Oh no, you can’t.” The mother shook her head sharply. “I’ll just… Emma will…”