As I chew another carrot, the sweet taste turns almost bitter in my mouth. For a second, the thought of going back to my normal friendship with Travis disappoints me.

Only for a second, though.

May is too good at board games. When she was a kid, I used to let her win. She was around eight when I realized I was no longer letting her win—she was just beating me at everything. You might say most board games are primarily about luck, but I don’t know. It seems like she finds a way to outsmart me every time.

After winning two games of Clue, she asks if anyone wants to play Scrabble. Thankfully, Grant is happy to take her up on it so the rest of us can bow out. She really makes me look like a dummy when she kicks my ass at that one. I should stop letting her read so much.

Elise stays to watch, but Travis and I sneak off to the kitchen to take care of the cookies we’re baking for the movie later. Well. The cookies Travis is baking. From scratch.

I might not cook, but May and I are big fans of sweets, so I do know how to pop some pre-packaged cookie dough in the oven. I even remembered to stop at the store to buy it. But when Travis saw, he scoffed and ran out to get ingredients to make his own cookies.

Show off.

I watch him as he takes the bowl of dough he mixed out of the refrigerator and finds the cookie sheet in the right cabinet on his first try. He looks particularly good today. His jeans seem tighter than usual. Or maybe they’re not. Maybe now that I’ve let myself acknowledge how hot he is, my eyes are just more drawn to his ass.

God, the things I could do to that ass if he’d let me.

No.

Nope.

Not going there. As if that would ever happen.

Meanwhile, I’m over here looking like a bum in maroon lounge pants and an old Skyler James concert tee. May insisted we both get them when I took her to his show years ago. I’m not that obsessed, I swear.

After he scoops out the cookie dough and sticks the sheet in the oven, we hang around here. He grabs himself a water bottle out of the fridge—and no, I didn’t know I had those in there—while I get a pot of coffee going.

“You know drinking coffee in the evening really isn’t good for your sleep,” he says.

“It won’t keep me up,” I tell him, filling my mug. “My body’s so used to it.”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “That’s not how bodies work. Even if you don’t have trouble falling asleep, it’s still in your system and it will affect the quality of sleep you get.”