Free How to Eat a Cupcake by Meg Donohue Page A

you think less of me?”
    â€œA little.”
    We smiled at each other. The beginnings of crow’s feet webbed out from Jake’s eyes, giving me a sudden glimpse of the middle-aged man he would become.
    â€œI promise I have much better pickup lines that involve fewer references to children,” he said.
    â€œFewer, huh? You can’t resist throwing one or two in there?”
    â€œHey, if it ain’t broke . . .”
    I wasn’t stupid. A part of me knew, even as I sat in front of Jake enjoying every second of the flirty banter that flowed as fast as summer fog over Twin Peaks, that I should run the other way. I knew I was dealing with a real charmer, a man who was handsome and funny and smart and sweet. A man who, I had no doubt, got exactly what he wanted more often than not. And even though I was a confident, intelligent woman who had received my share of attention from men over the years since high school and could usually sort a dud from a dreamboat within two minutes of conversation, I had to admit there was something about Jake that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
    Okay, it was worse than that.
    I wasn’t usually the type of woman who met a man and immediately started to daydream about marriage and babies. In college and in the six years since, I’d dated. A lot. But as soon as things got serious with anyone, I always found myself pulling away. I wanted love, I did, but I didn’t want to rely on it, or anyone, for happiness. So whenever I sensed love inching itself my way, I shut down; being acutely aware of what I was doing didn’t seem to make me capable of stopping myself. In the end, I always found myself alone again. Still, I gathered from those relationships that I was lovable. But could I love? A sustainable, lasting love? I told myself I could; I just hadn’t found the right man. As the morning progressed and Jake eventually put his hand on mine and told me how sorry he was about my mom’s passing, albeit nearly a decade late in his condolences, and then later, how delicious he’d thought my cupcakes were at the Save the Children benefit, my mind began to meander down a previously untrodden, happily-ever-after path of thought.
    Was it possible that Jake was the key to my whole confusing childhood? Growing up poor among such wealth, an outsider among die-hard insiders, feeling out of place even in the one place that I was meant to feel at home—maybe there would be some karmic retribution if the end result was that out of all that teenage angst I found love? It would be so handy, wouldn’t it? If a relationship with Jake provided enough heat to iron out all the unsightly wrinkles of my life?
    Oh, get a grip, Quintana , I told myself, without much hope of success.
    Once we’d balled up our burrito wrappers and tossed them into the trash, Jake and I walked several blocks from El Farolito to the home of Gus, a rescued shepherd mix that I walked a few afternoons each week. Jake sat on the stoop while I ran upstairs. As usual, Gus was waiting for me at the door of his apartment; I could hear his tail pounding the floor as I turned the key in the lock. Once I got inside, he hopped around me, nipping delicately at my fingers, nails clackety-clacking at the floor, his tail an ecstatic black blur. I knelt down in front of him, pressed his floppy, expressive ears flat back against his head, and planted a kiss on the side of his long, black schnoz. He whined happily, his whole body shimmying. Gus was one of those dogs who had an entirely different personality at home, where his sense of security gave him the confidence to be joyous and goofy. Out on the street, the shelter pup in him came out and he turned skittish and sorrowful, his tan quotation mark eyebrows pressing together to turn his forehead into a series of anxious wrinkles. Needless to say, I was gaga for Gus and his layered personality.
    Downstairs, I could see right away that Jake