AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Understood.” He backs up, drawing his hand away and I miss the touch. “Your sister helped me pick it out,” he admits, ruffling his soft-looking hair with one of his hands. I’m suddenly a tad jealous, wishing it was my fingers running through the thick locks.
I stretch up onto my tiptoes and peck him on the cheek, surprised when I witness him blush.
“It’s gorgeous,” I say, taking the orchid to the kitchen and setting the plant on the counter.
He totes the basket into the kitchen. “Hope you’re hungry because dinner is almost ready. I just need to use the oven for about ten minutes.” He pulls out a round, aluminum foil-wrapped disk from the basket. “Garlic bread.”
More carbs…yes!
“Famished,” I say and my stomach makes a noise that makes him stop and his eyebrows rise.
“Good to hear,” he says toward my stomach with a smile that makes me hungry for a lot more than dinner.
Twenty minutes later, we’re eating lasagna, garlic bread, and a tossed salad. And he made everything. A wide berth of conversation topics and a bottle of wine flow easily, and soon I forget about the mountain of Dirty Hoes paperwork waiting for me upstairs on my desk.
Soon we’re chilling on the couch, small plates of the Oreo fluff dessert I made today. It’s five ingredients and about ten minutes of work. It was the least I could do.
“This dessert is amazing, Cali,” Quill says, swallowing down another mouthful of his second plateful. “Seriously, if you ever decide to stop working at Dirty Hoes, you should consider opening a dessert shop.”
I smile, but it quickly fades as my brain races with flashes of fond memories. “If there’s one thing my father passed on to me, it was his love for food and baking. My mother almost burned down the house several times cooking or baking, but my father always made the most amazing dinners. Even after working hard all day, he’d tell my mom to sit and relax while he made everyone supper.”
“Wow. He sounds like one heck of a man.”
He was a lot like you, giving, sensitive, and even surprising.
“He really was,” I say, pushing a spoonful of fluff around on my plate. “I always dreamed of finding a man like him one day and having a beautiful outdoor wedding. I wish he could see me get married one day, see that I found a good man like him. Instead, all I’ve dated are immature jerks. The last guy broke up with me by passing a note across the table, like we were in second grade.”
“Ouch,” Quill says as he sips his wine. “That must have sucked. How long did you date?”
“Two years.” I scoff. “I should’ve known better. There were flags waving in my face from the start, I was just so desperate to find someone before my father passed that I ignored them.”
I put up with so much that it made me angry to even try after that. I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t let it happen again, so I just stopped looking.
Until you came into the store.
“Two years?! And he broke up with you over a note? What a giant asshole.”
I can’t help but chuckle at Quill’s bluntness. “Agreed. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. Sorry for dumping all my old drama on you.”
Quill reaches out and puts his hand on mine, giving a reassuring squeeze. The way his skin melts onto mine and eases my anxieties makes my heart thump a little harder in my chest. I swear he could simply take my hand and lead me away from my problems at any second, cart me off to some magical place without paperwork and shitty exes and the pain of missing my father.
“How long ago did you lose him?” His eyes are big and soft, nothing like the jaded stare I see every time I look in the mirror these days.
“Last year, just before Christmas.”
He squeezes my hand again. “I’m sorry, Cali. I know the pain doesn’t go away. You just learn to live differently.”
It’s the first time I’ve felt genuinely comforted by someone other than my sister or mother over my father’s passing.
“Thank you, Quill.” I slide a little closer to him.
My trust might’ve been broken, but my heart feels like it’s starting to heal.
Someone understands me…
