Page 22 of Crushes to WHAT

Who did this to you but the answer is myself.

Almond

Spread out on my kitchen counter is what could generously be called an absolute mess. The chicken is both burnt and raw. The mashed potatoes are lumpy. The rolls didn’t rise right. The corn…

I have to look away. I can’t bear it. The only things that look even moderately okay are the side salad and the fruit, and those aren’t going to fill up my stomach, let alone the stomach of a man of Emerson’s size. We’re going to starve, and it’s going to be all my fault. He’s going to think the lasagna was a blip, and that I’m actually an awful cook.

I cave in on myself, just a little, and clutch at the rolling kitchen island to keep myself standing.

It’s horrible, and I have no excuse for it. I was distracted as I worked on dinner, and the results are a direct reflection of that state. I mean, my goodness, I zoned out for so long cutting up fruits and vegetables that the chicken had time to not only burn, but char.

I sniffle and wipe my nose on my shoulder, wetting the embroidered pink frills there.

“Almond?” Emerson’s voice calls from the other side of the kitchen, startling me.

I jump. “Emerson!” I squeak, frantically wiping away any evidence of upset on my face. “I didn’t hear you come in!”

He frowns. Long, quick strides carry him to me. He stops a mere foot away, cups my face in his still-dirty-from-work hand, and tilts my gaze up, up, up. “What’s wrong?”

His eyes burn into me, searching, like maybe if he looks hard enough, the answer to his question will present itself in the lines of my irises, or the depths of my pupils, or there, in the spaces between my fluttering, wet lashes.

I save him from his fruitless scouring. “I messed up dinner,” I admit. My voice rings small and tinny. I don’t want to tell him I’ve messed up. I don’t want him to know that I am a person who does that—a person who messes up. I want him to think I’m a person—no, a woman who smells like lemons and cooks nice meals and makes him feel like the safest man to have ever graced October, Tennessee.

Instead, I’m leaving a different sort of mark. I’m the careless girl screwing up dinner, a mere night after I almost burnt my house down with him in it.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, averting my eyes from his. I can’t bear the scrutiny. “I wanted you to have something home-cooked and good, but it’s all messed up. Do you like pizza? Or anything from the bar? The diner is open, too. I can go pick something up and bring it back.” I glance his way, find his attention firmly on me, and feel my heart rate kick up. “I promise I’m normally a good cook. Everyone says so. Not, like, voluntarily as one of the first things they think about me, but if it comes up, they say it. I haven’t screwed up a meal this bad since…” Ever. Literally ever. “I’m so sorry. I know getting food will take even longer, and you’re hungry now, and I feel just terrible.”

“Hush,” he orders. His hand slides until only the tips of his dusty fingers cradle my chin. “This is all you’re crying over? Dinner?”

“No,” I answer. “Yes. It’s not just dinner. It’s… It’s for you, and I wanted it to be good, and I’ve had such a day, you know? I wanted to sit down and let you secretly serve me and watch you eat a metric ton of food, knowing that I contributed to keeping you alive, at least for one night. I wanted to… I wanted to see what sort of this you might give me tonight, and I wanted to let you have fun watching me try to figure out what this is, or what it might mean. I wanted…” Last night. I wanted last night, all over again, tonight and every night, forever and ever.

My heart clenches, and my eyes sting.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell him, but I’m not sure if it’s entirely him I’m apologizing to, or if it’s myself.

Emerson’s eyes stray beyond me, to the counter, where our ruined meal lies, hot and cool and awful. He hums. “It’s okay. Not worth an apology, and certainly not worth your tears. Give me five minutes to clean up and change into something not so nasty, and we can go get something instead.” He presses a quick kiss to my cheek, then backs away from me, wiping a drop of wetness off my chin as he retreats. “And you’ll probably want to wash your face before we go, too.” He grins, one side of his mouth rising more than the other. “Some handsy idiot got a little bit of work grime on you.”

He disappears into my hallway, calm and assured and not at all bothered by the epic disaster he’s leaving behind.

I blink at his back. He… doesn’t care? That dinner is ruined. That we’re going to have to go out when he’s worked all day long and still has more work ahead of him. That he’s going to have to change out of his yucky clothes just to make another set yucky, too, when we get back and he goes back to working in the studio, thus meaning he’ll have double the laundry to do for today.

I…

I don’t entirely know what to do with this.

If he doesn’t care, does that mean that I shouldn’t, either? Do I… Do I even want to care if he doesn’t? Do I have the energy to care today, when the day has been so freaking yikes? Do I have the energy to care when Emerson does not?

He didn’t declare me a cooking catfish and stomp out of my house in a fit of clarity regarding my person. He didn’t throw a fit at all, even though my screw up leads only to inconvenience.

Could it be that he just… doesn’t feel inconvenienced? Or maybe he feels it, but he doesn’t mind it? He’s still going to get fed, after all, and he can probably still watch me attempt to decipher this while he sits across a table at a public eating establishment, just like he could from across my dining room table. On his end, maybe that’s worth the inconvenience.

And if he thinks it’s worth it, then what do I actually have to be upset about? He’s willing to eat with me, and on top of that, I got a classic wipes-away-her-tears moment. Now I know, without a doubt, that wipes-away-her-tears moments are ten times better in real life than they are on a page. I could feel his callouses scraping slightly against my skin in exactly the way I imagine his beard would—not a pain, but perhaps a welcome sort of sting.

I replay the memory, letting it calm my frazzled nerves even as my breaths shallow at the ghost of his fingers pressing into my cheek. I focus on the shadow of sensation as I clean up my mess, salvaging what I can for the neighbor’s dog to snack on and tossing the rest. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to the push and pull of my stomach when it comes to Emerson, or if, eventually, the butterflies will pick one way or the other to flutter.

I don’t have an answer when Emerson reappears, dressed in a black Big Ron’s Contracting t-shirt and a fresh pair of jeans. The t-shirt hugs him in the shoulders, then falls loosely over his torso, hinting at the huggable frame beneath. I don’t have any proof that Emerson is ab-free, but I have theories, and they’re beautiful, amazing, wonderful theories, so I let them run wild in my head. In my daydreams, he does have abs. They’re just hidden under a layer of soft, comfy squish—the perfect amount to feel like I’m hugging a bear. Strong, yes, but in the most casual of ways. Strong because he uses his body, not because he’s cultivated it.

The vague possibility that I might one day prove or disprove my theory flits through my brain, and I whimper.