Brynn slapped his hand away. “Well, you can’t live here. I live there,” she said, jabbing her finger at her house to the left.
“Do you now?”
Brynn narrowed her eyes at him. He didn’t look the least bit surprised. He looked…smug.
Her jaw dropped open. “You knew? You hate me that much that you can’t let me live in peace?”
“Now who said anything about hate?” he said in a low voice.
It might have been her imagination, but she could have sworn his eyes drifted down and lingered. Not on the cookies. Or rather, not those cookies.
Her mouth went dry.
“Are those for me?” he asked.
She jerked. “Are what for you?”
“The cookies you’re about ready to drop all over my front porch.”
My front porch. It had a terrible ring to it. Good Lord, the man was really planning to live here.
“Brynn?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “The cookies?”
“What? Oh. No. They’re not for you,” she said.
“What, are you selling them or something? A grown-up Girl Scout? Because your outfit needs some work.”
“They’re my cookies. And they’re excellent. They’re too good for you.”
Will rolled his eyes and without warning hooked a hand around her upper arm and yanked her inside. “You’re being ridiculous. Don’t even try to convince me that you’d actually eat one of those cookies.”
“Why wouldn’t I eat a cookie?” she asked, weaving around moving boxes as she followed him into the kitchen.
“Please. You look like you haven’t indulged in sugar since the tenth grade.”
“Tenth grade,” she mused. “Now which year was that, the year you ran my bra up the flagpole or the year you told the entire football team that I didn’t wear underwear under my cheerleading skirt? Which was a total lie, by the way.”
Actually, both of those things had happened in ninth grade. But she wasn’t about to let on how well she remembered those moments.
Or how much they had hurt.
“Honey, I don’t think anyone believed for a second that you went without underwear. I doubt you take your panties off to shower.”
You’ve seen me without panties.
She pushed the thought aside. Immediately.
Since he didn’t yet have any chairs, they squared off on either side of the kitchen island. Will’s fingers toyed with the edge of the platter’s plastic wrap and she jerked the cookies away, the juvenile action giving her a strange surge of satisfaction. Why did it feel so good to be impolite?
“Come on, Brynny. I haven’t eaten all day and the cookies will just go to waste otherwise.”
Her eyes locked purposefully on his sulky gaze and she edged the plate out of his reach, very carefully pulled one cookie from the plate. Keeping the eye contact she very slowly took a bite, making a big show of enjoying the way the bittersweet chocolate rolled over her tongue.
She’d just add an extra mile onto her run tomorrow. It was worth it to prove him wrong.
The cookie turned to sawdust as she saw the satisfied expression on his face.
He’d known she would eat the cookie. She’d played right into his hand.