I waste no time.

“Yes,” I say emphatically. Loudly. Confidently.

“Yes what?”

“Every time we were together, it felt like making love. Every time. All the time. Every night,” I say, and her green eyes twinkle instantly, as if they’ve been lit up by my words. “That’s because I fell in love with you before we even slept together.”

“You did?” she asks, her voice feather-soft and full of wonder. I recognize the sound because it’s how I feel when I look at her.

“I’m crazy about you. I want Swedish Fish with you all the time. I don’t want to be on the other side of the wall in an apartment with you.” I wave toward downtown, where Max lives. “And I definitely don’t want to be all the way on the other side of the city. Right now, it feels like a million miles separate us, and I can’t stand it.”

“I can’t stand it, either,” she says, her voice shaking, and she steps closer. I set the flowers on the nearest table and take her hands in mine.

I meet her gaze. Her green eyes are the only ones I want to get lost in. “I want to be the one you come home to and wake up to. I want to buy toilet paper for you, and go to Bed Bath & Beyond to shop for sheets for a bed that we share.” Her lips quiver, and her shoulders tremble as I go on. “I want to come home to find you in an apron that makes you even more impossible to resist, and I don’t want to ever resist you again.”

She nods over and over, tears slipping down her cheeks. And everything is right in the world again. Everything is miraculous. Everything is good once more because what I thought she was feeling in the cooking class is true. It’s clear. It’s real.

“Don’t resist me.” She grabs the neck of my shirt. “I love you so much.”

And my heart, it doesn’t just pump blood through the body now. It’s a rocket, and it soars straight through the atmosphere and keeps going. It’s no longer an organ that simply sustains all the vital functions in the body. It’s the one that plays the most vital role of all—loving her.

I dip my mouth to hers, tasting her sweetness, savoring the closeness. Her kiss is cupcake and frosting, sex and love. It’s everything that turns me on, and everything I need to be happy.

Her.

I’ve missed it, and I can’t get enough. I kiss her deeper, threading my hand in her hair, then at last letting go.

When we break the kiss, I feel as if I’m floating. As if this is my new normal. And I’m so damn glad I told her, because the chance to be with the one you want—the one who wants you the same damn way—is worth the risk.

I run the backs of my fingers along her soft cheek. “The thing is, I think I’ve been in love with you for a long time, Josie. I think I was falling for you since before I left the country. Now that I’m back, both my brother and your brother laughed at me when I told them I loved you, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.”

Her smile is as wide as the sky. “I’ve been crazy about you for a long time, too, and I think it took living together for my heart to hit my brain over the head and make me realize it fully.”

“Yeah?” I smile dopily. I don’t ever want to come down from this high.

She ropes her arms around my neck, her fingers playing with the ends of my hair, like she did that night on the train. “Last night I was looking back through my recipes—ones I’ve written out in the last few months. I wrote a bunch about you, and it was kind of obvious when I read them that I’ve had a big thing for you for a while.”

I grind against her for a second. “I’ve got a big thing for you,” I say, and she laughs. Then I add more seriously, “I’d love to see those someday. Your recipes.”

“I’d love to show them to you. This morning, I wrote a coffee recipe with cinnamon.”

A new sort of happiness floods my chest because I know why this girl likes cinnamon. I love being privy to all the quirks of Josie. From tuna to cinnamon, from sharing her heart to sharing her home, from sixty-nine to self-love. “Because cinnamon makes you feel like you can do anything?”

She nods. “And today, I wanted the courage to tell you how I felt. Then you showed up and said the same.”

I laugh lightly. “Were we just stupid for not saying a thing before?”

She shakes her head. “No. I think we both loved each other too much as friends to risk losing the other person. But then, I think being apart from you was its own kind of loss. That’s why I told you I had something for you. Something new I made.”

She hands me a bakery bag, the kind she’s always given me, and I’m floored once more by this woman. Josie’s always giving me gifts, and I can’t lie—it makes me outrageously happy to be the recipient.

I read the note first. “Josie’s All-In Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies,” I say with a smile.

“Credit given where credit is due. They were your idea.”

Then I read the recipe that’s printed on the note.

* * *

Ingredients

2 cups chocolate chips

1 cup butter

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup white sugar

3 eggs, beaten

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

* * *

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a baking dish as you prepare to lay your heart on the line.