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But as soon as I get home, and I know she’s there, I take a quick shower. I put on fresh clothes, though my home clothes are pretty much the same as my work clothes. Black pants and a black collared shirt, just no suit jacket. I roll up my sleeves a bit to make it more casual, wondering what Quinn thinks of the way I dress.

Which is not the kind of thing I wonder about women.

I want to get into her head almost as much as I want to get into her body, which isn’t right. It isn’t my thing.

But I can’t stop it.

The thoughts are there in my head, insidious little compulsions, these wonderings about her, even when I don’t want them to be.

I head downstairs and find her in the family kitchen, where it looks like a bakery exploded. I’m so glad to see her, I’m not even that bothered by the incredible mess of baking supplies and ingredients that’s covering almost every surface.

I just try not to look at it.

She’s wearing a little lavender-colored dress, her turquoise hair up in a messy ponytail.

She looks like dessert. Sweet, and good enough to eat.

She has music playing quietly, and I ease in behind her. She’s measuring what looks like powdered sugar into the big bowl of her standing mixer. I say in a low voice, close to her ear, “Can I get extra sugar in that?”

“Oh! Jesus.” She startles, and I give her a wicked smile. “Don’t creep up on a girl like that!”

I give her what I think is the closest to a sad-puppy face that I can make. “But I’m so good at it.”

“You’re a creep.”

Oh, but she’s smiling.

“So what you’re saying is, you’ve missed me.” I settle against the counter as she turns the music way down with her phone.

She glances at me almost guiltily. “This week has been a blur. What day is it?” she jokes as she measures a bit of cream into her bowl.

“You haven’t been baking much?” She hasn’t been back to use the kitchen until today. I don’t want to be disappointed, but I kind of am.

“I’ve been working so much at Champagne, and I don’t have a cake order to fill until the weekend. But I offered to make some cupcakes for Mom because we need a few batches for tomorrow.”

“How’s the job at Champagne going?”

“It’s like nine straight hours on my feet, and I’m not getting home until three in the morning. The tips are excellent, though.”

Yeah. That waitressing job is really interfering with my ability to screw her as often as I’d like to. I even went in there last night when she was working, just to see her—and maybe see if I could take her home after. But it was so crowded, so loud and filled with obnoxious drunk people, I had to leave, before she even saw me.

The idea of watching men leer at her became unpalatable as soon as it was right in my face. I don’t know what I was even thinking arranging a job for her at Bliss. I’ve examined it a few times, and can only conclude that I was so focused on the need to keep control of that whole transaction, and make sure she was safe and content—while working somewhere I could keep tabs on her—that I was in denial about the rest of it. And how much I would utterly hate it.

It’s for the best she’s working at Champagne. It’s a nightclub, and I’m sure men hit on her there. But at least people aren’t fucking on the premises.

Probably.

I’d really rather she didn’t work in a bar at all. But maybe we’ll get to that.

“What are you making?” I inquire. I can’t even tell, there’s so much to look at, and I’m really trying not to.

“Buttercream,” she says, and turns on the mixer.

“Why is it so… disorganized?”

“It’s not.”

“I don’t know how you get anything done like this. How do you even know what you put in there?” I eye her buttercream suspiciously as she adds pink coloring.