Fletch jokes around some more as he places dollops of the dough onto the sheet and then pops it in the oven while I set the timer on my phone. He comes back and stands directly in front of me.

“Now, tell me what’s going on in there,” he says.

“In where?”

“The oven.”

Are all boys this weird? “Well, if all goes according to plan, it’s getting hot in there.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Chemistry speak it to me, sweetheart.”

I roll my eyes and start thinking about the dough ingredients. “When the dough heats up, the sodium bicarbonate will react, and things will change.”

“I bet you know a chemical equation for that.”

“A chemical reaction about the sodium bicarbonate and the cookies?” Seriously? All right. If he wants super nerd, he can have super nerd. “2NaHCO3 -> Na2CO3 + H2O + CO2.”

He smudges flour on my nose. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

His easy smile charms me. His hands rest on the counter on either side of my hips, and he leans against my knees.

Since I’m feeling so full of confidence, I figure I should stretch my wings a bit. “I can tell you about the eggs if you like,” I venture.

“Okay.” His voice lowers to a baritone that reminds me of the scent of scotch and tobacco. “Tell me about the eggs.”

If I were a different kind of girl, I would hook my legs behind him and bring him closer to me so I could rub against him where I’m feeling empty. Instead, my flirting consists of tilting my head and looking up at him through my lashes while telling him that the eggs are a fat and protein that hold the structure of the batter, but also the egg whites are water soluble and support the carbon dioxide bubbles caused by the reaction of the sodium bicarbonate.

“That’s fascinating,” he says.

“No, it’s not.”

I try to look down, embarrassed, but Fletch raises my chin with his finger until I meet his eyes again.

“You’re fascinating,” he tells me.

Caught in the undertow of his gaze, the quiet moment stretches into what feels like infinity. Everything inside me just...untangles...

He brushes a wisp of my hair away from my eyes but doesn’t take his hand away. I lean my cheek into his palm. I want to memorize the moment, but I’ll never be able to recapture the sweetness that fills me from the inside out.

Fletch swallows hard and uses his other hand to wipe off the flour he’d put on my nose moments before. I wish I could read his mind.

He whispers my name. The sound settles over me like a spring breeze, and then the phone timer beeps loudly, breaking the spell and he pulls away.