Page 4 of The Gingerbread Bakery (Dream Harbor #5)

Chapter Four

Then

H ours after she’d sold out of cookies at the Christmas market, Annie was still trying to figure out how she’d ended up sitting across from the captain of the lacrosse team, sipping cocoa and eating French fries on a random Thursday night, four weeks before Christmas.

It was not something she’d ever expected to add to her agenda.

But here she was.

With Mac.

A boy she hadn’t spoken more than a few words to over the past year, most of which were just the page numbers he was supposed to have completed for class.

They’d been sitting in awkward silence since they ordered, probably because this whole thing was weird, and they had no business hanging out together. But Mac was right. There was no one else around and she was bored.

That was why she’d agreed to this bizarre meet-up.

Boredom. Not because of some ill-placed crush she’d had on Macaulay Sullivan ever since ninth grade when he’d shot up about two feet and stopped being a dick to her friends.

It definitely wasn’t that, because Annie was smarter than that.

Despite her steady diet of teen movies from the last thirty years, she knew that in real life the hot, popular guy did not in fact have a thing for the type A girl. It just didn’t make sense.

As a rule, Annie didn’t date jocks, especially ones that were mean to her friends.

She had nothing to say to them. She didn’t particularly care about how hard anyone could throw a little ball into a net, or hit a ball with a bat, or catch a ball and run, or really do anything at all with a ball.

So, even though she found Mac pleasing to look at, she’d never considered him as dating material.

And she was sure he felt the same about her.

Because, again, this was not a teen movie.

It was weird that they were here.

Even though it was nice to look at him across the booth from her, all dark hair and bronzed skin.

Annie happened to know, thanks to a sixth-grade ancestry project, that although Mac’s name screamed Irish, he was also half Italian.

So even here in the midst of a cold, dark New England winter, Mac’s genes apparently still thought he was in the Mediterranean.

He lifted long dark lashes and caught her staring at him. His immediate smile was enough to make her stomach flutter.

Shut up, stomach.

‘So, Annie,’ he said, leaning back in the booth. ‘Should we clear the air first?’

‘Clear the air about what?’

‘About why you hate me so much?’

Annie choked on her French fry. ‘I don’t hate you.’

Mac scoffed. ‘Yeah, okay. You definitely do.’

‘I do not! Just because we’ve never been friends doesn’t mean I hate you.’

‘Ha! Every time I look at you, you frown at me.’

Annie rolled her eyes. ‘I’m sorry that I don’t fall all over you like everyone else at our school used to.’

‘They did not.’

‘Please! Captain of the lacrosse team? Girls love that crap.’

‘But not you.’

Annie shrugged. ‘I’m not that interested in sports.’

‘Or the people who play them.’

‘So what? It’s not like you were showing up at student council meetings.’

Mac shoved three more French fries into his mouth. ‘Fair. But I still think you don’t like me.’

‘I don’t like how you treated Logan when we were little.’

Mac’s eyes widened. ‘Logan?’

‘Yeah, you used to tease him. And his mom had just died . I guess it did make me hate you.’

To his credit, he looked abashed about his behavior toward Logan. ‘I’ll apologize.’

Annie rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, I bet.’

‘I’m serious. Give me your phone.’

‘What? No!’

‘Pull up Logan’s number. I’ll text him right now.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘I’m dead serious. I was a little shit. Let me apologize, and then me and you can have a fresh start where you don’t hate me anymore.’ Mac held out his hand expectantly. He was serious. Whatever she had been expecting from him, this was not it.

She took her phone out of her purse and pulled up her text chain with Logan.

The last message was a picture of a grinning Nana Estelle in between a frowning Grandpa Henry and a squinting Logan.

They all had sunburn across their noses and Estelle’s giant sunhat nearly covered Logan’s and his grandfather’s faces.

Annie hoped she was having the best time.

She’d been waiting to go on this cruise her whole life.

Mac’s eyebrows rose in amusement when he saw the picture, but he didn’t comment. Just took the phone and typed out a message. He handed it back to Annie to approve before sending.

ANNIE

Hey, man. It’s Mac. Sorry I was an asshole to you when we were kids. Hope you’re having fun on your old-folks cruise.

‘You know this is very weird, right?’

Mac nodded. ‘Yep.’

Annie hit send.

They both stared at the phone on the table and waited for a response.

It didn’t take long before a string of question marks came through.

LOGAN

***

ANNIE

I’m at the diner with Mac

Annie texted back to clarify.

LOGAN

Why?

ANNIE

Not sure, really

LOGAN

Okay…

ANNIE

He wanted to apologize, I guess

LOGAN

Weird. Apology accepted.

‘He says he accepts your apology.’

Mac sighed. ‘Phew. So do you forgive me, too?’

Annie’s phone buzzed again, and she looked down.

LOGAN

Wait, are you on a date with Mac??

She tossed the phone back in her bag. She would deal with Logan later.

‘Okay, fine. I forgive you.’

There was that damn smile again. So maybe it wasn’t just the sportiness that had the girls lining up at Mac’s locker.

‘Great. I don’t know about you, but I feel better.’ His arms were stretched over the back of the seat, showing off the breadth of his chest. Annie swallowed a half-chewed fry and nearly choked again.

‘Shouldn’t you be playing lacrosse somewhere?’

Mac laughed. ‘You know I was captain of a not very good team in a very small school. College scouts weren’t exactly lining up to recruit me.’

‘Oh.’ She wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He didn’t seem overly bitter, but the slightly lost expression he’d had when he told her about his cross-country plan was back.

‘So, what have you been doing since graduation?’ she asked.

Mac shrugged. ‘Mostly working at my dad’s pub. What about you? You didn’t want to go away to school somewhere?’ he asked. ‘Somewhere other than Harvard?’

‘Why would I want to go away? I love it here.’

Mac laughed but cut himself off when he realized she was serious.

‘You don’t feel the same way, obviously,’ she said, her earlier convictions that they had nothing in common and this whole thing was stupid returning.

He leaned forward again, arms on the table. Whatever position he was in, he seemed to take up so much space.

‘I’m just bored. I guess. Or restless? I don’t know. I feel like I need to figure things out.’

‘And you have to leave to do that?’

He nodded, taking another fry and dragging it through the ketchup. ‘I think so, yeah.’

‘But you’re still here.’

His cheeks flushed red at that observation and Annie thought maybe this big, strong guy was just as freaked out about the future as she was.

‘I can help you map a route, if you want,’ she blurted. ‘I mean, I’m a pretty good planner.’

His smile grew again. ‘That’d be cool. Thanks, Annie.’

The pleasure that warmed her body at his praise was almost embarrassing. But lucky for Annie, no one was around to witness it.

They spent the rest of the night with heads bent over Mac’s phone, periodically scribbling places and ideas in the notebook Annie always carried with her, plotting the route that would take him far away from her.

But, by the time Gladys was kicking them out, they were closer than ever.