chapter 6

Frankly, she was a little relieved. Nothing had happened between them, but there was still a bit of chemistry there that was getting harder and harder for her to ignore.

Everyone at work loved Matt. He was easy-going, funny, a hard worker, and eager to please. The men liked him because he would talk sports with them, and they were happy to have another guy around. (The women in the office outnumbered them two to one.) The women liked him because he wasn't an ***. More than once, though, Kate overheard a few of the girls talking about him.

"He's cute, but kinda chubby for my taste."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. I think he's put on a few since he started working here, too."

"Maybe Kate needs to drag him to the gym with her." They started giggling as they walked off to lunch together. They weren't trying to be mean, but it sounded mean. And it kind of hurt her to hear it. It also...intrigued her. Had he somehow put on weight without her noticing?

It seemed impossible that she would miss something like that, but they had been really busy lately. Business was recovering, and they had two big new accounts they were working on. As he was getting ready to go to lunch a few minutes later, Matt ducked his head into her office. "Can I grab you anything? Sandwich? Coffee? Brownie?"

"No, I brought something from home. Thank you, though!"

He flashed his killer smile and left. As he headed for the elevator, she watched him closely. Sure enough, his love handles were looking even more squeezable, and his ass was filling out the new pants to capacity again. He even jiggled a little when he walked. Her whole body started tingling. Gosh, she was horny. She shook her head to clear it.

That's when a naughty little plan started to form in her mind. Kate loved to bake. She'd started practicing on cute guys in college (with half a mind to fatten them up, but it never seemed to work), and briefly flirted with the idea of becoming a pastry chef, but the hours were long and grueling. But she still loved to bake as a hobby, mostly cookies, brownies, cakes, pies, things like that. She was always taking treats to friends and neighbors, but rarely brought in anything to work. (She didn't like to keep temptation so close by.) If Matt was fattening up a little anyway, it wouldn't be so bad to help speed up the process, would it?


Kate had just put a batch of her special chocolate chip cookies in the oven when the phone rang. Her mother. Ugh.

"Hi Mom!" she said brightly.

"Hi sweetheart, how are you?"

"I'm good, I'm good. What's up?"

"Oh, I'm just checking on you. How's work?"

"You know, it's going really well right now."

"That's wonderful, dear! And how's your love life these days?"

Kate made a face. "Oh, why don't you just cut to the chase, Mom?" she laughed.

"Well, honey, we worry about you! We want you to be happy!"

"I am happy, Mom..."

"Have you talked to Jeremy lately?" Her family loved Jeremy. Her mom kept holding out hope that they would get back together again.

"You know, I haven't, but I heard from Emily that he's seeing someone lately."

"Oh, too bad. Well, what about you? Are you seeing anyone?"

"Not exactly..."

"Well, what does that mean, exactly?"

"It means that I'm sort of interested in someone, and maybe he's interested in me, too, but nothing's happened yet."

"Hmmm, someone from work?"

"I'm not answering that question."

"Well, honey, just remember, you're getting older. You don't have much more time before, you know..." her voice trailed off.

"Mom, you have four grandkids already, and they live twenty minutes away from you. You'll be the first one to know if and when you can plan on one from me. I've got cookies to take out of the oven. I'd better go. Bye!"

She didn't even let her mom finish. She was fuming. Parent should be legally required to butt out of their kids' love lives once they hit 30, she thought to herself.

She took the cookies out. They looked gorgeous. Well, at least she still knew how to do something right...