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“What about you?” Grant looked at Max, who shook his head.
“I’m good.”
“You’re good for getting Rory to eat some fiber.” He jerked his thumb at her. “Her diet consists of three food groups—candy, fast food, and pork rinds.”
Under the table, Rory kicked him. Hard.
Appearing faintly baffled, Max shrugged. “I’m a fan of all those things, too. Maybe not in the same meal, though.”
“Sure you don’t want the mozzarella sticks?”
“If we want something else, we’ll order it.” Rory was still smiling, even though a muscle ticked in her jaw.
Grant held up his hands. “Just let me know.”
“Oh, I’ll let you know,” she snapped.
Grant strode back to the bar. Christ, he was such an asshole.
He told one of the servers to take over Rory’s table and went into the kitchen to cook so he’d stop fixating on them. He tied a bandana around his forehead and slapped steaks on the grill. Flames billowed up around the meat.
He’d never seen Rory on a date before. That was why he was being such a jerk. She hadn’t hooked up with any of the guys who’d propositioned her at the bar—not that Grant would know for sure, and not that he intended to speculate otherwise—and he’d taken it for granted that he knew what she did and whom she did it with. She was predictable.
Or so he’d thought. She could very well have a secret life he knew nothing about—and why wouldn’t she? He had no claim on her. He justassumedhe knew her schedule because he sometimes saw her during her Sugar Joy shifts, she came into the Mousehole regularly, and she often talked about working on some database coding or whatever.
Feeling somewhat cowardly, he stayed in the kitchen for the rest of the afternoon, which was where he most liked to be anyway. He flipped burgers, grilled salmon, ladled artichoke soup, sliced freshly baked bread.
During the lull between the lunch and dinner rushes, he turned over the kitchen to one of the other chefs and started back to his house to check his voicemail messages. His parents would be arriving tomorrow at noon, and his father never deviated from a schedule.
The cottage door was open. He turned and went inside, catching a whiff of cinnamon.
What the…?
Rory stood on a stepladder, positioning a red-checkered curtain and rod into place over the window facing the woods.
“What’re you doing?”
“Dancing the tango.” She threw him a narrow look and climbed down, brushing off her hands. “What do you think?”
He didn’t know whether to be more surprised by the fact that she’d thought of decorating the cottage—given what he’d seen of her apartment, home décor was not her forte—or that she’d done it so well.
There were red-checkered curtains, a woven rug under the coffee table, and a quilt tossed over the old sofa. She’d put up framed historical photos of the tavern, placed a little artichoke-shaped teapot on the stove, and spread a sky-blue comforter on the bed strewn with fluffy pillows. A little bowl of potpourri sat on the counter, which accounted for the cinnamon smell.
“It’s incredible.” He rubbed his hands on his jeans, not knowing what to think. “But you didn’t have to do all this.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know much about decorating, but your mother could probably teach Martha Stewart a thing or two. I thought she’d enjoy it more if the place was spruced up a little.”
“Thank you.” Shame rustled in his chest. He scratched his head. “Uh, sorry for being kind of an ass earlier.”
“Kind of? You mean like Voldemort iskind ofevil?” She closed the stepladder and stored it in the closet. “Look, I tried to explain about Max. I never intended to go out with him again while your parents are here, so just chill out, okay? We’re not going to pull off this live-in lovers thing if we argue about the women constantly hitting on you or theonedate I’ve had in months.”
She’d had one date in months? Interesting.
“In fact, that kind of talk needs to be off-limits, or one of us is going to slip up,” she added.
“Okay.” He forced himself not to pry further into her comment that she wasn’t going out with Max againwhile his parents were here. Did that mean she intended to see him after they left?
Jesus. He had to get his shit together. Less than a week, and already it felt like an earthquake was rumbling underneath his quiet, carefully constructed life.
