It’s all I can do not to heave an exhausted sigh, but I don’t need Luc Valencia to pity me more than he already does. My guess is he has an opinion on the little vignette he’s just witnessed, but I don’t really want to hear it.
That’s another thing I’ve had to get used to since assuming the role as guardian of the household. Other people’s opinions. What I’m doing right with my siblings and what I’m doing wrong. Usually, it’s what I’m doing wrong. As soon as people know our situation, all they want to do is dispense advice. At the doctor’s office. At Mattie’s piano recitals. At school. Emmett’s school counselor is particularly vocal.
So I keep my eyes firmly fixed on the newspaper I’m stuffing into the last juice glass. But I can hear Luc employing the Sharpie on the box of coffee mugs, and out of the corner of my eye, I can see the leg of his jeans and steel-toed boots.
I’ve never really appreciated how good jeans and steel-toed boots look on a guy.
I appreciate it even more as a solid two minutes pass, and Luc hasn’t uttered a word.
And then the unmistakable grumble of an empty stomach fills the kitchen. It’s so loud I actually jump.
I shoot him a concerned look. He’s unloading the spice cabinet into a box on the counter and soundly ignoring my stare.
“Would you like some pizza?” I offer, realizing with a belated pang of guilt that I should have offered him something long before now. We’ve been at it for hours, and I’m sure his caloric needs far outweigh mine. I mean, you don’t get muscles like that without consuming some serious fuel.
“I’m fine,” he says, waving a hand in my direction, but still not looking at me.
With a shrug, I get back to work until his stomach roars again less than a minute later.
“When was the last time you ate?”
“Earlier,” he says, but this time, he glances over his shoulder at me, his eyes inscrutable.
I move to the sink to wash the ink from my hands. “How much earlier?” I’m standing closer to him, and he abandons his task to face me.
“Lunch.” He says it almost like a dare.I dare you to hassle me to eat.
I scoff. He has no idea that I hassle people about eating properly three times a day. Just no one as big as he is. I dry my hands before opening the still-warm oven.
“You haven’t had dinner. You’ve got to be starving,” I say, pulling out the box. “There’s still half a pizza in here.”
“Which you are saving for lunch tomorrow.” Amused certainty plays in his dark eyes, but he doesn’t openly smile.
I blink. “How did you know that?”
Luc chuckles. “It was just a guess, but why else would you get a large veggie pizza if your brothers and sister don’t like it.”
“But—I—” My mouth opens and closes, but he’s right. I was saving some of it for lunch. Then inspiration strikes. “I’ll only eat two pieces. There are four left. You should take two.”
His eyes narrow, but now he is grinning. “Then you could have it for two lunches.”
I pull a face. “I’d be sick of it by then.” It’s true, but I’d probably eat it anyway. I mean, Saturday is going to be crazy. It’ll be a mad dash to get all of us out of the house for Harry’s tournament. Two pieces of stale pizza could be my breakfast.
Screw it. We can get donuts on the way to the soccer field.
I give him my best level stare. “I really can’t let you pack one more spice jar on an empty stomach.”
Laughter takes him off guard, and holy shit. It’s better than chocolate cake. It’s better than a foot massage. It’s better than dewormed puppy kisses.
And for the record, a kiss from a dewormed puppy is the only kind of puppy kiss I’ll accept. Advice to live by.
Luc laughs, and I know for sure I’m total crap at cooking because it’s the best thing I’ve ever made in this kitchen. By a long way.
The sight of it makes my stomach muscles sashay like they are “New Orleans Ladies.” Unable to speak, I do the only thing at my disposal. I open the pizza box and thrust it toward him.
His awesome laugh turns into a wry smirk. Luc leans toward me, and for one shocking moment, I think he’s going to plant a kiss on my cheek, but he’s just reaching past me to tear a napkin from the roll mounted under the counter.
“Unlike Harry, I’m not going to eat over the box,” he says, drawing back and then claiming a slice. Luc takes a bite. Watching that is almost as good as watching him laugh. I forcibly tear myself away, putting the still open pizza box on the counter and blithering a bit more.
