“Can I have another mug of hot chocolate?” I shook it in front of me.

She stopped, standing in front of the stove with a spatula in hand, scooping out three rolls into a plastic container.

“Sure.” She held out her hand.

My chair scraped against the linoleum floor and I stood. It took less than two steps to cross the kitchen and stand beside her. The dampness in her hair was gone. Left behind was a messy bun with pieces of hair falling around her ears and neck.

She turned and yelped, nearly running into my chest.

Maybe I was standing a little too close, but I didn’t move an inch.

Now she smelled like chocolate-covered raspberries. Was that a thing? If it wasn’t, it should be.

“Did you turn in your part of the paper?” She grabbed the mug from my hand and refilled it, using it as a barrier between us. She shoved it into my chest and took her seat on the far end of the table.

“Already done. Michelle screeching at me isn’t my idea of fun.”

“Me neither.”

I slowly sipped my hot chocolate, determined to know more about Bay.

“What’s your college plan?”

Her head shot up and she shoved another piece of the roll into her mouth.

“The plan is college.”

“I figured, but where?”

She stared at me, her gaze assessing, before dragging another strip of dough through an icing pool on her plate. Whatever the test had been, it seemed I’d passed. “I’m waiting on the scholarship letter from my first choice. It’s a school in California.”

I let out a low whistle. “That’s far.”

“It’s got everything I want to do, but if the price isn’t right, I’ll stay in-state. What about you?”

She leveled her gaze like a challenge, like I’d expected her to show me hers, but I wouldn’t show her mine. I’d most definitely show her mine. I shook my head because there wasn’t anything else to show her. Empty pockets, empty future. There were twelve days until the Titan Combine.

“There’s a few more weeks until the decision deadline. I’ll have to decide which school will give me the best shot at going pro.”

“That’s a big decision. I’m not even sure if my degree will help me get a job after.”

“What are you studying?”

“Accounting and audio production—music production.” She cleared her throat.

“You want to be a singer.”

“No—no, I want to produce music. Singing, that’s a whole other ballgame and it wouldn’t even make sense for me to go to college for that. I’d need a broken-down van to crisscross the country, playing dive bars until my big break where I was chained to a record label for five albums and earned almost no money before suing them and finally breaking out on my own.” There was a hint of longing in her voice before she shook her head and laughed.

“You paint such a pretty picture of the music industry.”