“But crackers are not dinner,” I say, as if I was just continuing my train of thought but out loud this time.
“It’s all I have, so it’ll have to do. I should have gone shopping when I brought the eggs, but I was distracted.”
My mom would disown me if she knew I had asopao next door and I was letting her go to bed with just crackers in her stomach.
“Thanks for your help. I’ll turn the music off and dim the lights.”
“Sure.” I walk straight into my cabin to do exactly what I should, even if I don’t want to: fix her a plate.
14HE’S SORTA KIND, I GUESS
Riley
I’m goingto be good and keep the music in my ears. He’s trying to be kind, right? He’s been less grouchy,andhe laughed. Sorta. I’ll count it. I don’t understand how a man with a laugh like that doesn’t do it more often.
Oh, I know—because if he fucking does, all the panties in a ten mile radius would melt off people’s asses. I can guarantee it. I’ve never met anyone who walks around with as much sex appeal as that man, and he doesn’t even try. Mom was always talking about how bad boys are intriguing and whatnot, and it never did it for me, but this? A grumpy grown man, however old he is? I can see it. I can feel it. I had to all but squeeze my thighs in search of some friction when that man’s onyx eyes were devoured me earlier. Either that, or he was extremely annoyed at my choice of clothing. Can’t tell which one.
Aly & AJ blasts in my ears so I can finish up this wall, now that he took the jar—well, vase, I guess—down. I want there to be color on each section, but I didn’t want to cover that up. I found some notes from Mom with advice for me from when she was sick.I put them all in that vase before I went to college. It was very stupid of me to think I wasn’t going to need her sound advice, and someone must have put it up there while I was gone. I refuse to break it, since that belonged to her too, but it’s hard as fuck to take out, since they all get stuck at the neck when I try to empty it.
I don’t have much of her that's just mine. So much I had to share with my sisters, with this ranch, but those, they are mine. I don’t even know if they got some too, and I don’t really care. I get to be selfish for once about something. About someone.
A bug or something lands on my shoulder, and I brush it off quickly. They don’t bother me, but I also don’t need them all over me and up in my business. It comes back, but it’s harder this time. The fuck? I whip my head and shout, falling to my ass—Dominic fucking Diaz is standing behind me. I take my headphones off. “You scared the living shit out of me!”
“Sorry,” he mutters in a suffocated whisper, a sudden wave of heat rushing up to his dark features. That man has been kissed by the sun more times than I can count, but nothing could stop that flush of emotion; it’s clear as day, even though with shame invading his body.
He stretches his calloused hand, and, in one quick swoop, I’m vertical. His intense stare reaches parts of my body he has never touched. “What are you doing here?”
“I knocked and knocked, but I figured your headphones were in. Your door was open, and I just wanted to let you know I brought you this.”
I didn’t even notice the plate of food in his hand.
“You can’t be leaving your door open.” He walked intomy cabinwithout permission, and he’s scoldingmeover the front door?
Of course he is.
“And you can’t be going into people’s cabins without permission.” I cross my arms over my chest, covering my now pebbled nipples. The effect he has on me is bigger than I can deny. I hate it, considering there’s nothing we can do about it.
“What is that?”
“Asopao,” he says.
“Ahsoh what?”
“Ah-soh-pah-oh,” he adds. “It’s a family recipe.”
“And you just whipped that up?”
He lets out a sound I can’t decipher, like half the things this man says—lost in translation in my same language, harder when he says things like that. Where did he even come from?
“I had leftovers.”
“I had dinner,” I reply.
“You had crackers.”
“Girl dinner.” He pinches his nose in frustration. I love getting a rise out of this man.
He’s mustering patience from somewhere deep within him, making me fight the urge to bust out a laugh. “Again, crackers are not dinner.”
