Sammy coughed to hide his laugh. “Technically, your brother-in-law isn’t a Tang. Neither is your sister after she marries him.”
“You know what I mean,” Olivia grumbled. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“Yours, of course.” He ran an absentminded hand through her hair. “How long are they here for?”
“Just the weekend, but that’s long enough. They want to have brunch.” She sounded about as excited as a kid who’d just been told Christmas was canceled.
“Brunch is bad?”
“The last time we had brunch together, my mother made the waiter cry and my sister made us listen to her keynote speech for an upcoming conference. Three times.”
Sammy winced. “Ouch. Do you want—” He hesitated. “If you need moral support, I’m here.”If you need me to go with you, I can,he clarified in his mind. But he didn’t want to be presumptuous and invite himself to a family affair. Besides, the last time Olivia’s mother entered the picture, Olivia hadn’t been too keen on introducing him.
This was a different situation, though. He wasn’t some wannabe baker that’d turned down a once-in-a-lifetime job at NASA. He was asuccessfulbaker, businessman, and all that jazz. But what if that wasn’t enough?
Sammy forced himself to step back from his self-pity party. The problem with the past was that it was a bitch to shake off, no matter how much you wanted to leave it in the rearview mirror. But he was trying.
“...handle it,” Olivia was saying. “I may need one of your cupcakes to console me afterward.”
“Done.” He kissed the top of her head. “Speaking of Kris’s wedding,” he said, bringing them back to the original subject. “Did you buy your tickets for Italy already?”
“Not yet. Kris offered to fly all the bridesmaids out, but we agreed it was too much considering she’s already paid for so many things she didn’t need to, like accommodations at the freakin’castlewhere she’s holding the wedding.” Olivia traced a circle on his abs. “I set a low-fare alert for SF to Tuscany, but it hasn’t gone off yet. I might buy my ticket tomorrow, though. The date’s getting close, and Tuesdays are the cheapest day to book flights.”
Sammy grinned.What an Olivia response.
“I was planning to buy mine tomorrow, too.” He’d wanted to book his flight earlier, but he’d been so busy it’d slipped his mind. He only remembered when Nardo texted him asking if Kris hadreallyput a $600 cheese tray on her wedding registry, considering she didn’t even like cheese.
The short answer: yes. It wasn’t even the most expensive item on the registry. The whole thing was a little rich for Sammy’s blood, but a majority of Kris’s wedding guests were big Hollywood types, so they could afford it. Sammy himself had stuck with a (slightly) more reasonably priced Le Creuset pot for a wedding gift.
“How about we buy ours together? Would be nice to have some company on a long flight and, as Tahoe proved, we travel well together.”
Olivia’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “We’ve traveled together before that,” she said, referring to their study abroad adventures. Even back then, Kris had been extravagant in her spending and had paid for their group of friends to spend a weekend in Macau for Courtney’s birthday.
“That was different. That was part of a group. This will be just the two of us. So?” Sammy tried to sound casual. “What do you think?”
For some reason, this felt like a turning point. He wasn’t asking her to vacation together as a couple, per se—because Kris’s wedding technically wasn’t a vacation—but flying and showing up in Italy together seemed oddly intimate.
Ifshe said yes, that was.
Olivia propped herself up on one elbow and planted a soft kiss on his lips. “I think it sounds great. Hey, maybe we can join the Mile-High Club.”
Sammy laughed, if only because the chances of Olivia having sex in a dirty, cramped airplane bathroom were slim to none. This was the same woman who would rather dehydrate herself on purpose than risk having to use a plane restroom.
“Only if we get upgraded to first class, though,” she added. “And only after the restrooms pass my hygiene check. I’ll bring some extra Lysol wipes just in case...what? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Never change, Liv.” He chuckled. “Never change.”
* * *
The next morning,Sammy had a YouTube baking tutorial shoot, an interview with a local culinary magazine, and a meeting with his operations manager, so he didn’t show up at Crumble & Bake until well past noon.
He was accosted the moment he stepped inside the shop.
“You!” A short, stocky man with a 49ers cap and a startling resemblance to a bulldog jabbed his finger in Sammy’s direction. “You’re the asshole who’s sexting my girlfriend!”
What the fuck?
Sammy cast a glance at Bryce, who gave a helpless shake of his head. He’d always been the nicer, less confrontational of Sammy’s two front house managers. Cordelia was off today—otherwise, she would’ve shut this nonsense down already.