Page 46 of What Started In Deception

He raised his brow. “Is it?”

She nodded. “I want it to match the vibe of the space that I create. I don’t know what that is yet.”

“If we pick out a nice one—something you like—it’ll fit with any vibe. We could make a couple of burgers for our lunch today.”

She snagged her lip with her teeth because it wasn’t the worst idea. It had just never occurred to her to look until later in the summer—her original timeline.

“Delicious juicy burgers, Lyd. On your very own grill. We can eat them on the porch and enjoy the weather.”

She couldn’t deny that she was liking the idea more and more. “Maybe.”

He shrugged again. “Ultimately, it’s up to you, but we could put it in the back of the truck, take it home, and get it set up.”

She bobbed her head from side to side, figuring that Ty was onto something. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to look.”

He smiled. “There she goes. Living on the edge and changing up her plans.”

She grinned as he winked at her and snagged her hand, walking out of the range with her.

Ty stood in the driveway next to Lydia, admiring her new honey of a grill while she glanced at the owner’s manual. Stainless steel, four burners, side tables, a warming rack, and a Weber at that. After an hour of intense scrutiny and reading what felt like hundreds of online reviews, she’d picked out a great one. He rubbed his hands together, eager to move things along. “Let’s light this thing up.”

She started flipping back through the manual. “Let me read about it in the instructions again.”

He put a halting hand over hers. “We don’t need to read the instructions. I know how to turn on a grill.”

She nodded as she looked at him, snagging her bottom lip with her teeth. “Okay.”

“What’s up, Lyd?” Because something was bothering her. Plus, he was officially starving, and they still needed to let the chemicals burn off before they could put anything on the grates.

She shrugged. “I’ve never lit a grill before.”

“You won’t be able to say that after you do it.”

She swallowed. “Maybe you can do it this first time. So I can watch what you do.”

He adamantly shook his head. “No way. This is your grill. You need to do the inaugural light.”

She exhaled a quiet breath. “I just—Burke’s friend, Miles, burned his eyebrows off one summer when he tried to light the grill, and I’ve been a little nervous about the idea ever since.”

He frowned. “He burned them off?”

She nodded. “They were singed down to nothing. He looked pretty different until they grew back.”

“How the hell did he do that?”

“The gas ran for too long, and it made a bit of a fireball. I remember that I was twelve that summer. Miles, Burke, and I were on our back porch. Mom called Dad in to help her with something in the kitchen, and Miles told Burke that he knew how to light the grill—that he did it all the time at his house. Burke told him to go ahead, and shortly after, there was a poof of fire, and that was it for Miles’s eyebrows.”

Ty huffed out a laugh as he shook his head, more than a little amused by her story. “He’s lucky he only lost his eyebrows.”

“Mm-hmm,” she said as she eyed the grill before she looked at him again. “I just—I really like my eyebrows, Ty.”

He burst out laughing, finding her as funny as he did absolutely damn adorable. “They’re great eyebrows.”

“I think so.”

“We’ll make sure you keep them.” He gave her shoulder a nudge closer to the grill. “You can do this. I’ll walk you through the steps.”

She nodded with more determination. “Okay.”