She went still, letting her thumb slip free with a little suction sound. “Sorry,” she whispered.
“For?”
“The porn-star noises.”
He flashed a grin. “That was my favorite part.” He held out the box. “Another?”
“I think maybe I should stop at one.”
“Not on my account,” he said, and took a second doughnut for himself.
Callie blew out a sigh and did the same. “I won’t be able to button my jeans.”
“There’s always your PJs.”
They both looked down at them and for a moment she wished that she’d listened to her own advice from her site and was wearing some really sexy lingerie.
From the countertop her phone buzzed an incoming text. With maple glaze all over her fingers, she carefully swiped the screen with her thumb. “Siri, read my text.”
“Text from Best Grandma Ever,” Siri said. “Darling, the word on the street is that you keep going out into the wild wearing strange combinations of clothing. You’re not going to catch a man like Tanner Riggs in sweatpants. Put on some of them fancy skinny jeans they sell nowadays. Show him what you’ve got.”
Callie closed her eyes. “Thank you, Siri.”
“Yes,” Tanner said, smiling. “Thank you, Siri.”
“You’re going to forget you heard that,” she said.
“I’m pretty sure I’m not,” Tanner said. “And for the record, you could totally catch me in your sweats.”
“Stop,” she said, and blew out a breath. “Not that I’m not grateful or anything, but tell me again why you’re here?”
“Because you didn’t show at the bakery,” he said. “You let your asshole ex scare you off.”
“You think he’s an asshole?”
“I know he’s an asshole.”
She took another big bite of the maple bar and let the sugar soothe her. “For all you know,” she said, “I did something first that prompted him to leave me.”
“Babe, even if that was true, the words are simple. I don’t want to get married. That’s all he had to say, preferably before the wedding day. Instead, he pussied out and screwed you over good.”
“Why do guys say that when talking about weakness?” she asked.
“What, pussy?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, why isn’t it that instead of acting like a pussy, he acted like a man’s ego, because we all know there’s nothing more fragile than that.”
He grinned. “You’re right. I stand corrected.” His smile faded. “Is he the reason you left Lucky Harbor?”
“Maybe a little bit.” Humiliated, angry, disillusioned, she’d stayed in San Francisco after graduation. She’d been finished with love, finished with forever-afters, and most definitely finished with men in general. But finding a job after graduation wasn’t easy, and she’d fallen back on something she’d been good at—weddings.
And no, she hadn’t missed the irony.
“Was yesterday the first time you’ve seen him since your wedding day?” Tanner asked.
“You know, usually people avoid talking to me about this. I think they’re afraid I’m going to cry or something.”
“Are you?”
“Hell no,” she said. “Not over him.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Definitely not,” she said.
“Gotta talk shit out,” he said. “Or it’ll kill you.”
“You don’t seem like a big talker,” she said.
“I pick my moments.”
“And this is one of them?” she asked.
He slid her a look. “If I said yes, what would you want to know?”
Everything.
That thought was a little much for her to swallow, and she couldn’t imagine how he’d feel, so she kept it to herself. “I saw you with your son on the boat yesterday,” she said. “Things looked…tense.”
“We’re working on it,” he said. “I’ve got about fifteen years of resentment to battle my way through.”
“And his mom?”
“She’s decided that she needs a mom break,” he said. “I’m up at bat.”
Callie took in the easily spoken words, which didn’t match the pain in his eyes. “You’re going to do great,” she said quietly.
He met her gaze. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she said. “You always do the right thing. It’s who you are, it’s hard-wired into you.”
“And you got all that from our breakfasts?” he asked, holding her gaze. “Or from your grandma?”