64 Justin the Human Puppy

"Take a break and eat," Justin instructed, jolting Emily out of the Cookie Zone. She had been on a roll and hadn't even noticed the time passing.

He handed her the cup of soup and package of spring rolls before opening his own container of Pad Thai and digging in. Justin hadn't been kidding; he did eat a lot of take out.

She wasn't paying attention to what was being said but it seemed like he actually knew the delivery guy. They must see each other a lot.

"How much take out do you eat?" she asked curiously before taking a sip of her soup.

He shrugged. "I even burn toast so it's take out or freezer meals."

"Doesn't that get expensive?"

"Have you been in the freezer section lately? A lot of them are only a dollar each. No need to worry about me."

That did  not seem healthy. At least some of the takeout she had seen him get included vegetables.

Emily was a fairly good cook. She had fed her siblings more times than she could count when her mom was too depressed to do anything right after the divorce happened.

"You've been buying me all this food lately. Let me make it up to you by making dinner one night."

The noodles slipped right off his chopsticks as he gaped at her. "Are you serious?"

Emily laughed. His reaction was too cute. "Wouldn't have offered if I wasn't. I think you could benefit from some home cooked food. Is there anything you like that isn't Asian food?"

"Now that you mention it…my mom used to make lasagna all the time but it's been ages since I've had any. The frozen kind isn't the same. Do you know how to make that?"

He looked at her hopefully, once again reminding her of a puppy. He was a junior in college! How could an adult male look so much like a baby Labrador retriever all the time?!

"Sure do. When do you want to do this?"

Justin held up a hand while he finished chewing his mouthful of noodles. "I can probably finish the basic set up for the website by Sunday. I could come over then to go over the next steps while the food cooks."

"Sounds good to me!"

The rest of the meal went by in companionable silence and once the food was gone each returned to their own task. Emily couldn't help but compare it to the end of her dwindling relationship with Brandon. This didn't feel the same at all.

In that case, Brandon was too busy for Emily but made her tag along and find her own things to do anyway. With Justin they were both doing their own thing but when Emily asked him something he immediately stopped his work to listen to what she had to say or help her with what she was doing. Brandon never did that. Spending quiet time with Justin around actually felt nice.

She wondered if he spent quiet time like this with Alexa. Somehow she couldn't see it. Alexa didn't seem like the kind of person who was comfortable with silence, always wanting to be the center of attention.

It physically pained Emily that she didn't appreciate Justin the way she should. If he expended even a fraction of the devotion on her that he did on Alexa, Emily would treat him so much better.

With that thought she froze and accidentally squeezed frosting onto the counter. Where had that come from?

Emily had wished better for her friend but she never wanted to do it herself before. That would mean…that she liked him.

Justin was sweet, dependable, and funny but he was just her friend. Being anything other than that never even occurred to her. No way could she be interested in the human puppy.

This was probably like the time she thought Sam was his girlfriend and wanted to be pampered because Brandon didn't do that. It couldn't be more than that.

Justin really did have an overly generous heart. Spending hours to win a lava lamp for his cousin…buying Alexa an entire menu's worth of dishes…getting her takeout all the time and building her a website for free…if he cared about you he went above and beyond the call of duty to make you happy.

It wasn't weird to want to be taken care of, was it? Especially since Emily had spent so much of high school taking care of other people. She deserved a turn to be taken care of too.

She turned around to peek at Justin. He diligently typed away on his laptop, occasionally pulling a face as if the code wasn't cooperating and running his hand though his sandy hair, making it even messier than usual. Her heart thumped. Who gave him the right to be nice AND cute?

Face flaming, she returned to her cookies. She needed to concentrate and get these stupid thoughts out of her head. The last thing she needed was to be emotionally invested in another person who wasn't interested in her. Try as she might, she couldn't prevent her mind from wandering back to the guy sitting in her living room.

Emily heard a yawn from the other room and the sound of a laptop snapping shut. Justin poked his head in the kitchen.

"Hey, I didn't sleep very well last night so I think I'm going to go home and go to bed. When you're done make sure to take individual pictures of each cookie and send them to me so I can make a gallery on the website later."

At the mention of going to bed, an image of Justin sleepily peeling potatoes in his pajamas on Thanksgiving popped into her head and her heart lurched. She stammered, "I will. Goodnight, see you on Sunday!"

After practically shoving him out the door Emily leaned against it and clutched her chest in a panic.