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It was your first date in a really long time. You barely even realized you’d been asked out on a date, until your friend pointed it out to you.
“He didn’t just ask you to hang out as a friend, Y/N,” she said. “He asked you to come over, cook, and have a meal together. That’s a date.”
You weren’t nervous about it until she said that, but now you were a nervous mess.
You’d met Jared a long time ago, having been a regular at his café ever since you got your job just down the street. At first you’d go in there a couple times a week, for either breakfast or lunch, but nowadays you’d stop in every day, sometimes twice a day. It was the perfect walking distance from your job, just far enough to clear your head but not so far that you couldn’t get there and back within your lunch break.
Jared often worked the counter, even though he owned the place and didn’t need to. He also spent a lot of his time creating new pastries or coffees, delicious things that you couldn’t wait to try.
You could tell how much Jared loved his shop, how his eyes lit up when he told you about a new pastry he’d created or how happy he’d be when you told him to surprise you for lunch.
You did that a lot, lately. It took the decision making away from you and always made Jared happy, so you enjoyed letting him choose what you’d eat.
That’s why you hadn’t really noticed that Jared asked you out on a date. It was a normal conversation one day, one that ended with a – “Hey, you should come by after closing Friday night and we can create something new for the menu together.”
Looking back, you should have realized.
You headed up the sidewalk toward the café at just after six, hoping that there weren’t any other employees still around. The door was unlocked and the little bell jingled above your head. You giggled when Jared popped up from behind the counter, huge grin on his face.
“You can lock the door behind you, unless you want strangers to crash our party,” Jared said. You turned to flip the lock. “I can’t tell you how many times I forget to lock the door and have people come in here at nine o’clock, wanting me to make them coffee.”
You smiled as you walked over to the counter, setting your bag down on a table. “I’m sure you can’t turn them away, though,” you said, knowing how nice Jared was firsthand.
He shrugged, nodding. “True. And I’ve made a few good friends that way, so I guess it’s not all bad.”
The two of you stared at each other for a moment, lost in thought. “Hey, come around the counter and we’ll whip something up for dinner.”
You followed instructions, stopping at the threshold that usually only employees crossed. “You sure I’m allowed back there?” you asked teasingly. Jared grinned, reaching for your hands and pulling you toward him. You ended up stumbling, pressing up against his chest to get your balance.
“You’re definitely allowed back here,” Jared said softly, his hand on your waist to help steady you. Now that you were so close to Jared, you could tell that he smelled like the coffee and pastries he served, but also like nature and the wind, just wild enough to make you curious. Just as you had the thought of standing on your tip-toes to get a better smell, Jared stepped back a half step, motioning toward everything he’d laid out.
“I’m thinking we make some bread, and while that’s baking we can figure something else out to eat,” Jared offered. You nodded, following him to the piles of ingredients.
“I’ve never made bread before,” you admitted, looking at everything with a lost expression on your face. Suddenly Jared was right behind you, his strong body just barely pressed against yours and his long arms reaching around to grab each of your wrists. He moved your hands to a bowl, encouraging you silently to pick it up.
“Don’t you worry, Y/N,” Jared said softly against your skin. “I’ll teach you.”
You had no idea cooking could be so much fun.