Macarons at Midnight by M.J. O'Shea & Anna Martin Read Free Book Online Page B

one.”
    “Yes. Anise.”
    Tristan chuckled. “That’s not exactly the word I’d use for black licorice. Sounds a bit rude. Naughty, you know?” He wriggled his eyebrows.
    “Knock it off, or I’ll make you help me deliver these.” Henry was about as threatening as, well, something not very threatening. Still, more time with him? Yes, please.
    Tristan shrugged, tried to play it cool. “I’ve not made any plans for tomorrow.”
    He never made any plans. Who was he supposed to make plans with?
    “I haven’t even given you any of the other flavors to taste yet.” Henry grinned and started filling a pastry bag with bright purple cream. “How do you know you want to get behind my product in public?”
    I’d get behind your product anywhere you’d like.
    “I can still deliver them if I don’t like them.” Tristan snort-coughed, trying to clear his head of stray pervy thoughts. “I write ad copy for things I think are ridiculous all the time. Plus, I’m sure they’ll be amazing.”
    It was surreal, the whole scene. Tristan had to keep reminding himself he was sitting in a stranger’s business in the middle of the night watching him bake cookies. That he’d offered to help deliver them, that he didn’t even know Henry’s last name. It didn’t matter. He’d do it anyway. He’d have done it if he’d never even caught Henry’s first name.
    “ So, Ad Man, what did you really want to be when you were a little boy?”
    Tristan grinned. “David Beckham. Of course. I reckon every English boy does.”
    “Well, other than David Beckham. Did you have a backup if the glamor of professional soccer didn’t claim you?”
    “ Soccer .” Tristan fake gagged. “I’ll have you know it’s called football . Colonists,” he muttered and shook his head. Tristan figured they were in the place where teasing was okay. He must’ve been right. Henry laughed.
    “I apologize, your regal and august highness. Football. What were your plans in the absence of a great football career?”
    “Writing. I had great plans to be Britain’s next big novelist.” Still did, in the dark little corners of his heart. Wasn’t exactly the way to pay rent, though.
    “Why didn’t you go to school to do that instead, then? Writing’s very different than advertising.”
    “My parents weren’t really interested in funding the noncareer of Britain’s next big nobody . Basically I was told to pick a practical degree, and so I did.”
    “You could be an amazing writer.” Tristan liked how Henry put so much faith in someone he barely knew. “Maybe someday soon, you can go back to it.”
    “Sure, if you want me to sell you some starlet’s perfume, I can write. Other than that, I’m a bit useless.”
    “Don’t put yourself down.” Henry looked up from his cookies. “I’m not exactly at the Four Seasons, am I?”
    “You went to culinary school to be one of the fancy chefs like what they have at the big hotels?” Tristan couldn’t picture Henry somewhere like that, all miles of stainless steel and towers of unrecognizable fish body parts and weird vegetables.
    “Yeah, I did,” Henry said. “But this makes me happier.”
    Tristan scooted closer to where Henry was filling the sandwiches with glossy frosting. He didn’t want to get in his workspace, but he wanted to be as near to him as he could.
    “Here,” Henry said. “Try this.” He handed Tristan one of the violently pink-and-purple ones. “It’s cassis and blackberry. It’s much better than it looks.”
    Tristan took a bite, and his mouth was filled with intense, dark, fruity flavor. It was unique, a little floral, sweet but unexpected. Sophisticated , his advertising copywriter’s vocabulary decided. “Teenagers like these things?”
    When he’d turned thirteen, he’d served a bowl of crisps, some fizzy drinks, and a few pizzas at his party.
    “These aren’t normal teenagers. They’re probably having something like coq au vin or sole meunière for