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“Want me to take a look?” he asked.
Relief washed through Melody with such intensity that tears sprung to her eyes. “That would be great. Hunter wants to look at the new verses today. I don’t know that they’re any good. I’m absolutely drained of all creative energy.”
To her relief, Nate didn’t scold her, although he sure looked like he wanted to. Mia was also pregnant, so Nate understood how exhausted an expectant mother could get.
“Give me your notes and Mia and I will put our heads together. Go have dinner with Kyle.”
“Thank you.”
She’d left her phone in her purse while she worked. It was in the corner of the room under her jacket. As soon as Nate left the room, she went to dig it out.
At two, when she realized the project for Hunter wasn’t going well, she’d called Kyle and explained that she needed some extra time in the studio. She hadn’t revealed that she was working on something for Hunter. Kyle would not appreciate having his date night usurped by her ex-boyfriend.
Sure enough, there were two calls and several texts over the last half hour. She’d promised him she’d be there at three. Now it was four. No doubt he was frantic. Ironically, showing up late or not at all was the exact sort of thing that had driven her crazy about Hunter. She’d hated how his tardiness had made her feel so low on his priority scale. Now she was doing the same thing to Kyle.
“Sorry, I lost track of time,” she said when he answered the phone. “I’m leaving the studio now.”
“I’m just glad to hear your voice and know that you’re okay.” He sounded less tense as he went along. “I don’t know how hungry you are, but we might have to bag what we planned to go for something simpler.”
She’d been in charge of finding a dish that was straightforward enough for them to handle, but time-consuming in its preparation. She’d settled on a recipe for baked tortellini pie that sounded fantastic. She and Kyle shared a love of all sorts of Italian foods.
Leaving Ivy’s song in Nate’s and Mia’s capable hands, she headed to Kyle’s place. Traffic was worse than usual and it took her half an hour to get there. Now, at four thirty, there wasn’t time to make all the tortellini from scratch, create the ragu, roll out the pastry dough as well as make the almond soup and the flourless chocolate torte for des
sert.
“I was thinking about the shrimp scampi over angel hair pasta we made the first night I stayed over at your place,” she said, hoping the fond memory would alleviate some of the disappointment she saw shadowed in Kyle’s hazel eyes.
“With some crusty bread and something decadent for dessert.”
She had to give him credit for trying to seem upbeat. “Sounds perfect.”
They got in his car and headed for the grocery store near his house. It was a boutique market with specialty cheeses and meats, fresh-baked bread and all sorts of fun and interesting edibles. After loading up with angel hair pasta, shrimp, lemons and garlic, they headed to the bakery for bread and decided to buy a tiramisu and a death-by-chocolate cake instead of trying to make something.
She was sampling an olive tapenade when her phone started ringing. Kyle was several feet away, looking at the infused olive oils. She decided to risk checking who was calling. To her relief, it was Mia. She answered.
“I love the changes you’ve made,” Mia said. “Ivy will, too, I imagine. Nate and I tweaked a couple things here and there. Do you want me to send you the updated version?”
As curious as she was, Melody was leery of letting work interrupt any more of her date night with Kyle. “No, I trust you. Do you mind sending it to Hunter?”
“No problem. You kids have fun.”
“Who is that?”
Melody whipped around and realized Kyle was standing right beside her. “Mia, telling me to have fun tonight.” Her stomach clenched at the half lie, but what Kyle didn’t know wouldn’t ruin their evening. “Are you ready to check out?”
Fifteen minutes later, they were back at Kyle’s house. Melody put classical music on the stereo—Kyle had balked at Italian opera—and together they made quick work of the shrimp cleaning. Standing side by side, they chopped greens, zested a lemon and started boiling the pasta. While their ingredients sizzled in a skillet on the stove, Kyle set the table and poured the basil-infused olive oil into small dishes for them to dip their warmed bread into. In no time at all, plates loaded with pasta and shrimp were heading for the table.
Since he was renting the house, she hadn’t expected such a well turned-out table, including china place settings, crystal goblets filled with juice instead of wine and silver candleholders. He’d even bought a bouquet of bright flowers for a centerpiece.
“This is lovely,” she exclaimed, feeling slightly guilty that he’d prepared for their date while she’d made it a lower priority.
“You taught me a lot about setting the mood.”
In the months they’d lived together, she made sure they had a couple romantic dinners a week. Their schedules were often hectic and she’d wanted to make certain they took time to focus on each other and made dinner a special event.
Sometimes it had bothered her that Kyle didn’t seem to appreciate the extra bit of work that went into their dinners. Now, she was seeing that he’d noticed and understood what she’d been trying to do even if he’d never commented on it.
“Is it as good as you remember?” Melody asked around a mouthful of succulent garlicky goodness.
