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“Honey, I’m home!” Vaughn called out as he walked in the door a few hours later.
“I’m in here!” I answered from the kitchen.
“You’ve been busy,” he murmured as he took in the sight of me standing in front of his stove with a big pot simmering away and another with boiling water.
“Busier than you know.” I jerked my head in the direction of the prettily wrapped present sitting on the marble counter. “I bought something as a little thank you for letting me stay here.”
“We keep finding things we have in common.” He pulled a box from behind his back and handed it to me. “Because I got you a gift as a gesture of thanks for agreeing to come here instead of staying with your parents.”
I lifted the lid off the box and gasped in surprise when I saw what was inside. There was a bouquet of stemless, maple-candied bacon roses dipped in dark chocolate. “Whoa! This is so perfect.”
“So is what you bought me.” My gaze jerked up from its delicious view to find Vaughn staring at my present in awe. “Is this the set from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone?”
“It is,” I confirmed. “As soon as I spotted the one you have in your office, I knew I had to run out and get you this one.”
“Once again, you’ve left me at a loss for words.” He gently placed the chess set on the counter and pulled the bacon roses from my grasp to set them beside it. Then he wrapped his strong arms around me and rested his chin on the top of my head. “Chess means more to me than you know. One of the foster families I stayed with when I was younger had a son who was three years older than me. I used to sit and watch him and his dad play. The kid caught on to the fact that I wished I was the one who knew how to play and teased the shit out of me about it. He said I was too dumb. That I’d never be able to pick it up.”
“I’m sorry. Kids can be so cruel.” My heart broke for the childhood he’d had, so different from my own. “Did you ever get the chance to beat his ass once you learned?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. And it felt damn good, too. That kid was such a dick that it was almost a relief when I was moved into a group home.” He chuckled wryly. “James taught me when I was a teenager, and I got into it enough that I joined the chess team during my junior year in high school. We played against his team twice, and they were my favorite tournaments because of the look of utter defeat on his face when I beat him both times.”
I smiled, thinking of a teenage Vaughn breaking girls’ hearts even though he was on the chess team. “James Ryerson, the head of your network?”
“Yeah, the luckiest thing that ever happened to me was meeting James. I’m not sure where I’d be now if he hadn’t taken me under his wing back then.” He gave me a squeeze and let go, taking a step back. “Or I guess I should say it’s one of the luckiest things since I have a feeling that meeting you is going to be life-changing, too.”
“Vaughn,” I sighed dreamily, just as the buzzer went off. “Crap! I’d better grab that before I burn your beautiful house down.”
“What’re you making?” Vaughn asked as he followed me over to the stove.
“Oh, it’s just my specialty—housemade spaghetti.”
“Don’t you mean homemade?” he asked, his brow wrinkling in confusion.
“Yeah, it's what my mom calls my cooking because it isn't quite to the level of homemade recipes since I use”—I lifted my favorite, now empty jar of sauce off the counter—“this instead of making it from scratch, which drives my mom crazy since she’s an amazing cook. If she were making dinner for us tonight, we’d probably be having a fancy bruschetta of some sort to start off the meal, followed by handmade pasta with a meat sauce that simmered for hours on end and her famous meatballs.” I flashed him an apologetic smile. “But she's not here, so you're stuck with my half-assed cooking instead.”
“I'll take whatever you want to give me and be damn happy with it.” Vaughn slid his arms down my back to cup my butt. “Especially if it involves any part of your ass.”
“That’s what you say now, but you haven’t tasted my food yet.” I dumped the pasta into the strainer and pulled the garlic bread out of the oven.
“Maybe not, but I sure as fuck have seen your ass.” He grabbed plates and silverware to set the table. “And it doesn’t hurt that I’m partial to that brand of sauce, too.”
