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“Me too.” He lets me go slowly, stepping back with a grin. “Maybe the best ever.”
For a moment I forget why we’re standing in this parking lot in the first place. I forget the freezing night air and the borrowed jacket that’s keeping me warm, the altercation we just had in the pharmacy. All I see are his Cameron-blue eyes, and for a moment, that’s all that matters.
Then he blinks, shrugs, falls back into his lazy stance. “We’ve got three more pharmacies to check before we hit the road to Chicago. Shall we?”
Wordlessly, I nod and let him bundle me into the car. This night isn’t at all what I was expecting. It’s a disaster, but also, somehow, quite improbably, it’s the opposite of that.
6
CAMERON
“I wish I smoked.”
I look over at Grace with my brows raised. “You absolutely do not.”
“You’re right.” She sighs as I turn my attention back to the road. “But it seems like it would be satisfying right now.”
Two of the three final pharmacies on our list were closed. We’ve got one more shot before we head north—and the only reason I don’t love the thought of that is because I know it’ll upset Gracie. Three hours in the car with her isn’t a hardship from where I’m sitting, but that’s three more hours of anxiety for her, which I don’t want.
“I’ve always wondered how you chefs smoke the way you do and still, like, taste things properly.”
“Part of the culinary school experience. Trust me, quitting was a bitch.”
I feel her eyes on the side of my face and wait for the inevitable question. “So why did you?”
I normally deflect with a joke about not wanting to give Big Tobacco the satisfaction anymore, but for this girl, I take stock of my answer before I speak.
“Have you ever had really good risotto?”
She blinks. “I’ve had risotto, but I wouldn’t say it’s been exceptionally good.”
“Mmm. I’ll make you mine sometime.” The offer’s out before I can overthink it, and I’m pleased when her face splits into a grin. “Anyway, the trick to really good risotto is constant agitation. Just stirring and stirring to get the rice to release all its starch until it’s creamy. In my first kitchen, my only job was to stir pot after pot of risotto all night long. Constant agitation.”
She’s entirely focused on me now, and I run my thumb over my jaw as I consider how to phrase the next part. “That was kind of how I lived my life back then. Always in motion. Fighting. Drinking. Fucking.” I don’t dare look at her. “Never enough sleep, never enough drugs, never enough sex. Always back in the kitchen the next day to do it again, and again, and again. Just constant agitation. The only time I held still was to smoke in the alley.”
She’s quiet as she absorbs this. “And now?”
I shake my head. “I’m all out of starch. I don’t want the drugs or the crazy hours or the sex with strangers. All those bad habits. So I took my tattoos and my expensive knives, and I bought a house. Hired a really good sous chef to take on some of that pressure in the kitchen so I can be slightly less of a workaholic. Hoped I might meet a nice girl.”
I glance at her and catch the frown that flits across her face. Shit, does she not get what I’m saying?
“You’re the nice girl, Gracie,” I tell her. “You’re the one I want to make risotto for.”
Her eyes are fixed on the road, but I still see them widen. “It’s just… you’re so cool, and I’m so… not.”
“Are you kidding me?” I barely control my disbelieving laugh at how much she’s underestimating herself. “You’re an attorney who keeps people safe on the job. You host an erotica book club. You just destroyed an asshole pharmacist. Your life’s all pulled together.”
“It’s really not,” she insists, so I consider all the little bits of her that I’ve been able to collect after months of living next door.
“Okay, maybe not. You never miss trash day, but you’re always rushing your bin out at the very last minute,” I say. “And you keep your garden watered, but the flowers and the weeds kind of mingle once things get going. You order DoorDash more times a week than anybody should. You’re together, but you’re not perfect.”
She blinks at me, clearly surprised at my list. Then her lips twitch.
“And I guess you’re notalwayscool. I mean, I’ve watched you fall asleep in a lawn chair listening to the Cubs on the radio. You know who else does that?”
I raise my brows and wait for her to deliver whatever punchline’s lurking behind her pursed lips.
“My grandpa, that’s who.” She folds her arms over her chest in triumph. “Fast asleep listening to an old-timey announcer.”
