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I hesitate, before replying, slowly, “Yeah. Sometimes.”
He doesn’t say anything, just gets up
and walks into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” I call out, annoyed by how easily he’s moving in my apartment as if it is his own.
“I was woken up, interviewed by the police, all without my morning coffee.”
I hear the sounds of mugs clinking from the kitchen.
“So, I’m making myself some coffee.”
Unable to help myself, I follow the sounds and find myself sitting at the kitchen table, watching my potty mouth boss cracking eggs into a bowl. “That’s not coffee.”
“Your powers of deduction are truly frightening,” he says, dryly.
“You know, it’s very rude to walk into someone’s home and take over their kitchen,” I point out idly. I’m handed an onion, along with a knife and chopping board.
“Then make yourself useful.”
“You’re not my boss,” I complain, even as I start chopping the onion.
His back to me, Jace says, pleasantly, “Shut up, Halley.”
“You also can’t tell me to shut up in my own home,” I tell him, a little gleefully.
“Fine. Stop talking, Halley.”
Grumbling, I push the chopped onions to one side and then rest my chin on my folded arms. “Your Head of Department is dead. Shouldn’t you be more upset?”
Jace pauses where he is whisking the eggs before he turns around to empty the onions into the egg batter. “Hashem was a bastard.”
“Some people say you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”
“Those people are morons,” Jace retorts, harshly. “I never wished the man dead, but I’m not going to grieve for a monster. In my opinion, he got off too lightly. He should have spent years in prison.” He looks over his shoulder at me. “You should also watch out for that Detective David. No friend of Hashems can be a good man.”
“My uncle used to be friends with him.”
Used to be, considering how he had turned his back on him after Hashem harassed me.
“Raymond is the one exception.”
The smell of eggs being fried permeates the room, blending in with the soothing aroma of freshly brewed coffee.
Jace brings the breakfast to the table.
I just watch him. Why does it look like he belongs here?
Any other man, I would be chasing out, but him, this grouchy, foul tempered man who can be gentle at times, who taunts me mercilessly at times, and then takes care of me with such tenderness… him, I like watching move around my kitchen.
Inviting him to crash at my place had been instinctive because we had both been tired, but now that I think about it, considering the fact that I haven’t known him for long, I should have been a bit more wary of letting him sleep on my couch.
So, why wasn’t I?
Jace is wickedly smart, he’s just the right amount of asshole for me to find funny and he’s sweet as well. It’s like he has a prickly hide, which I love getting under. He grumbles, complains, threatens, and in the end I still get my way.
When I initially met him, I had thought him handsome but not someone I would ever consider dating but now, slowly, every time I look at him, my heart beats a little faster. Whenever he leans against his desk, his sleeves rolled up, those ugly thick glasses on his face as he scowls at some document or the other, I have to press my legs together tightly. When he smirks at me, even while I know he is going to say something which will undoubtedly piss me off, that smirk of his, the wicked gleam in his eyes, a prelude to trouble, it makes my mouth dry.
