The hooded figure walked toward me. My brain screamed at me to do something. Run. Grab a weapon. But I was frozen in place.

At the last second, I grabbed a knife from the block on the counter, holding it in front of me with shaky hands.

"Shit, Charm, it's me," the guy said, his own hands raised in defense.

The voice was vaguely familiar. It wasn't until they removed their hood that I placed it. All the fear I had in me was replaced with annoyance. "What the hell, Kai?" My shoulders sagged in relief as I threw the knife back on the counter.

"It was a joke. You didn't have to go all Friday the 13th on me."

"Nothing about that was funny," I spat. My nerves were still shaking because of his "joke". I was so pissed at Kai that it took me a minute to realize Nate hadn't come back in. "Where's Nate?"

I was heading out to the alley before Kai answered, shoving him out of my way with more force than necessary.

The second I stepped outside, my heart dropped. Nate laid motionless, face down, next to his car. I ran to his side and turned him over, recoiling at the bloody scrape on his cheek.

"Nate?" He was breathing, but no matter how hard I shook him, he wouldn't open his eyes. I whipped my head in Kai's direction when I heard him approach. "What did you do?"

"Nothing." He was tugging at his short curls, eyes wide in panic. "I barely touched him!"

I needed to get him to a hospital. When I back at Kai to ask him to help move Nate to the car, Kai was gone. His dark figure running down the alley, leaving me to deal with his "joke".

"Asshole!" I shouted at his retreating back.

Nate stirred awake in my arms. "What happened?"

My body I sagged in relief, tears welling up in my eyes. "You just scared the crap out of me."

He sat up, wincing and touching the back of his head. "Someone came up behind me—"

"Kai," I said, also touching the back of his head. Thankfully, he wasn't bleeding.

"Kai?" He spoke slowly, eyes narrowed as if he was having a hard time figuring out who that was.

"You need a doctor." I stood, helping him up to his feet as well. He wobbled, catching himself on the trunk of his car.

"I don't. I'm fine," he said, rubbing his head again. "Got a mad headache, though."

"That headache could be a concussion," I pointed out.

"It's not." He managed to stand on his own and I almost believed him. Until he took a step, nearly face planting on the street.

"Okay, you're done for the night." I took his arm, leading him to the passenger seat of his car. "If you won't let me take you to the hospital, then I'm at least taking you home."

He looked down at me, brows pinched together. "You can't drive."

"I can," I argued. "I just don't like to. Now, where are your keys?"

He dropped the keys—which he'd held on to through everything—in my hand. I unlocked the door and helped him inside.

After grabbing our things from inside the bakery and locking it tight, I got into the driver's seat of Nate's car.

When the car started up, I wondered which was worse: driving while having a panic attack or driving while concussed?

"Hey." Nate's hand was on my knee, cutting through the clutter in my head. My eyes traveled up his arm until they met his gaze. He seemed to be the clearest he had been since he'd woken up on the street. "You got this. There's nothing to worry about."

As many times as I'd tried to convince my brain that driving didn't equal immediate death, it wouldn't lesson. Yet, when a cute boy said it...

I pulled out of the lot, hyper aware of my surroundings and making sure I used the right signals and drove the speed limit and kept a safe distance from other cars and curbs.

Nate gave me words of encouragement as I made the short drive to his house. His words drowned out the negative voice in my head that. His hand was still on my knee as well. I think that helped the most with keeping me grounded.

By the time I got to his house, Nate seemed more alert and back to normal. I still thought he should see a doctor, but he insisted he'd go the next morning and I was holding him to it.

What he asked next made me think he knocked something loose when his head hit the ground. "You wanna stay over?"

I blinked. Once. Twice. But the confusion remained. "What?" I choked out with a laugh. "My dad would kill us both. And what about your mom?"

He leaned forward, craning his neck to get a look at his house through the windshield. "Lights off," he reported, sitting back. "My mom's sleep and won't be a problem. And your dad... tell him you're with Nessa."

I'd heard stories about people getting hit so hard on the head their personalities changed. I wondered if I was witnessing one of those anomalies. Nate wouldn't have invited me in for a sleepover otherwise.

But the way he watched me as he waited for an answer—a yes—gave me pause. What if his brain was perfectly fine? What if he didn't want to be alone? He had just been attacked.

Yeah. That was probably it. He needed a friend.

I nodded and his mouth spread into a wide smile, showing off every tooth in his mouth. Fluttering erupted in my stomach. "Cool," he said before climbing out of the car.

♡ ♡ ♡

When I agreed to stay with Nate, I wasn't aware that it meant climbing through his bedroom window to avoid having to walk past his mom's room. He claimed she was a heavy sleeper, but wanted to be on the safe side.

His room was neater than I expected. A queen-sized bed made up with blue stripped sheets, a desk with a laptop and a stack of photography books, a TV mounted on the wall above his dresser, which was littered with video games and the systems to go with them.

Then there were his closet doors. They were wallpapered with photos. When I got closer, I recognized some buildings and landscapes from around Aster Pointe. There were a few faces in there as well. Most were of his mom and his friends. Then my eyes landed on... me?

There was a picture of me on my bike, riding through the park. I didn't know whether to be freaked out by Nate taking pictures of me without my knowledge or about how I was smiling in the picture. I looked like one of those overly cheerful girls in tampon commercials.

"You think I'm stalker now, don't you?" Nate came to stand next to me, his hand rubbing the back of his neck.

"Yes, I do." I turned to look up at him, arms crossed. "Is that why you wanted me in your room? To confess that you're obsessed with me?"

I expected him to have some witty response. But when his gaze fixed on mine, his eyes lacked their usual playfulness as he said, "I can't get anything past you, can I?"

Every inch of me felt like it'd be hot to the touch. The fluttering in my chest intensified the longer he stared at me.

"Nope," I said, finally. The word came out breathy and cleared my throat. I pointed to his cheek. "You should clean that up."

My plan worked. He took his eyes off me and I could breathe properly. He looked at himself on the reflective side of one of his games on the dresser.

Setting the disk down, he turned to me. "Is it okay with you if I kick his ass next time I see him?"

"As much as I'd love that. I don't want you to get into trouble," I told him. "It'll be hard to do Bake-A-Palooza with you on house arrest or something."

"But after that?" he asked, grabbing some alcohol wipes from his desk drawer before going to sit on his bed.

"After the competition I'll help you beat him up."

"Deal." He opened one of the wipes and held the game disk out as he attempted to clean up his face.

I felt awkward just standing there, so I sat next to him on the bed and took over. He seemed more than happy to let me. Up until the wipe came in contact with the scrapes on his face.

"Woah," he said, grabbing my wrist before I could get his cheek again. "That burns."

I snorted a laugh. "Stop being a baby."

Reluctantly, he let me continue. A few silent seconds passed with me wiping dirt and blood from his cheek and him watching me as I worked. When it became too much, I said, "Your pictures are amazing, by the way. "

"I told you," he said, grinning proudly. "I know my way around a camera."

"Then why are you wasting your time baking?" I asked, picking up a new wipe. "You should do photography work. It is wedding season right now. You could have clients lined up for days."

He met my eye, a slight smile on his lips. "You know, you're the first person to do that?"

My head tilted to the side as I finished cleaning up his face. "Do what?"

"Not talk about my photography like it's a phase or a hobby."

Instantly, I knew exactly what he meant. My dad thought baking wasn't a viable career. That it wouldn't pay the bills. That it wasn't a real skill.

If I hadn't had my grandma or Aunt Mimi in my corner, I probably would've accepted his opinions as facts.

Baking wasn't some temporary obsession for me. And I could tell by all the photos on his closet doors that photography wasn't only a hobby for him.

He was good at capturing not just an image, but an emotion. It took real skill to do that. One that he definitely possessed.

Once his face was clear of dirt, the scrapes didn't look that bad. They'd barely be noticeable in a day or two. "All done, you big baby."

He laughed. "Thanks."

"Anyway," I said, pulling my knee up on the bed and facing him. "I know how annoying it can be to have someone telling you that your passion is a waste of time."

He nodded in agreement. "Or they bring up money. Because everyone knows doing what makes you happy is pointless if it doesn't guarantee money."

"Everything shouldn't be about money," I said. "At least not right away. We're young. This is the perfect time for us to be making mistakes and seeing where chasing our dreams takes us." I looked up at him then. "What's the last mistake you made?"

"Going out into the alley," he said, rubbing the back of his head. "Honestly, though, Janae."

My eyes widened. "I thought you were in love with her."

"I am. Was. I thought I was, anyway." He leaned back on his palms, eyes straight ahead at his photo covered closet doors. "Now, with her gone, I'm starting to see that we weren't right for each other." His gaze flicked over to me. "She used to pick out my outfits so they'd coordinate with hers."

I covered my mouth to keep from laughing, but when he started, I couldn't stop myself. "Seriously?"

He nodded. "I'm only just realizing how one sided our relationship was. I was basically a lap dog." His face skewed at the thought.

I was sure I'd made that face after realizing how bad Kailand was for me. Laughing, I said, "We sure know how to pick them."

"What about you?" he asked. "What's your latest mistake? Your ex-boyfriend excluded."

"He was never my boyfriend!" The thought was repulsive then, when a month before I would've done anything for that title.

Nate seemed amused by my answer. I swatted his arm, failing at keeping my own face straight. "Shut up."

"Answer the question, Cupcake." He sat up, chin cupped in his hand as he waited.

I narrowed my eyes at him for using that nickname. Then I thought about my last mistake. I knew what it was right away. "Vanessa. We had a fight yesterday. "

"You two were acting weird at the skating rink," he commented. "What was the fight about?"

You, I wanted to say. He was honest with me about his ex. It couldn't have been easy to admit those things. Still, I couldn't bring myself to tell him the truth. Instead, I said, "Boba."

His brows pulled together as he dropped his hand from his chin. "You're fighting over tea?"

"Yeah," I said, suddenly interested in the photo collage again. I stood, walking over to the closet.

"Okay... what happened?"

Ignoring the obvious skepticism in his voice, I continued my lie. "We tried it for the first time—it was on the bucket list—and I really liked it. Nessa wasn't too sure about it, though. Then she started saying that I was just caught up in the new experience of it and that I didn't actually like it either."

The lie came easily. Probably because it wasn't entirely a lie. Switch boba tea for Nate and the truth was there, plain as day.

The bed made a noise and I knew Nate had stood. I could feel the heat of him against my back as he walked up behind me. Smell his soap mixed with the cinnamon from the baking we'd done hours before.

"I have a question," he said, and I turned to him. He was closer than I expected. I had to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. "Were you really talking about milk tea?"

A blush crept up my neck. My mouth went dry. My heart thrummed in my chest. Was my lie that transparent? I could finish what I started back at Cake Me Up, tell him that I liked him.

Nate was standing there in front of me, all but saying that if I took the leap, he'd be there to catch me. Yet all I could think about was what Nessa said. Out of everyone, her opinion meant the most to me. If she didn't think it was a good idea, maybe I shouldn't either. Right?

I swallowed, not fully ready to commit to either idea. "What else would I be talking about?"

He was quiet for a long moment, searching my face... for what? Something I wasn't ready to admit yet?

"I don't know," he said after a long moment. His hand reached up, fingers brushing my cheek until he had it cupped in his palm. "But I didn't think you were the type to let someone tell you what you liked."

And I wasn't. I didn't let my mom tell me what to wear. I didn't let my dad crush my dreams of having my own bakery. Why was that any different?

I liked him. He like me. What was the hold up? And he was willing to be seen with me in public. On national TV. What was I afraid of? Being happy?

"You're right. I'm not," I said, wrapping my arms around his waist. His free hand cupped my other cheek, pulling my lips toward his.

His kiss felt like a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top of a warm slice of apple pie and tasted just as sweet.

He pulled away after a moment, the both of us breathless and grinning. "I've been wanting to do that since the last time."

I smiled even wider and reconnected our lips.

//

Hello humans!

This chapter was kicking my ass!!

I rewrote it like 4 times. It took my blood, sweat and tears to finish it

So let me know if you liked it with a vote and comment ❤😘