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“Exactly. So why are we eating it for dinner?”
I grin as the exchange replays in my head. I’m at least ninety percent sure he was mostly just yanking my chain. But Jackson really did miss the whole “fancy ramen at hip restaurants” thing from years ago, so, there’s that.
Either way, I fuckingloveit. And even though I’ve only made it like twice for June and me, I wanted to try it with what we had on-hand at the house tonight.
As I stir, though, my face scrunches up I sniff the air. A smell that’s definitely not from my cooking seeps into my nose, and when I turn, I frown.
Would Ilike itif Jackson didn’t smoke? Yes. I think it’s a fairly gross habit, and even when he brushes his teeth afterwards, you can still obviously smell it.
But he’s also a grown man, and I’m not his freaking mom. If he wants to smoke, he can smoke. It’s usually at most two a day anyway.
What gets under my skin, though, and what heknowsgets under my skin, is when he smokes in the house.
Like he’s currently doing.
My eyes narrow on him, sitting on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table next to an open bottle of whiskey. His plaid shirt is haphazardly unbuttoned in a distractingly sexy way, and his jeans are slung low in an evenmoredistractingly sexy way.
But there’s the cigarette in his lips, smoke curling towards the high ceiling as he absently picks out notes on the guitar in his hands.
Even if it’s a terrible habit, visually, is the image of him sitting there looking all sexy-poet-rockstar with a cigarette in his lips outrageously hot?
Hell yeah.
But it’s a picture I can smell. And, guest I may be, Idocurrently live here. And secondhand smoke is a thing.
“Hey, Jackson?”
He looks up, grinning a roguish smile at me.
“Yes ma’am?” He drawls in a way that lets me really hear the whiskey in his tone.
I bite my lip.
“Could you…” I lift a shoulder. “Do you mind…”
He frowns, but then suddenly his brows raise.
“Shit.”
“Sorry, I’m not trying to be annoying. It’s your house—”
“Nah, it’s fine. Just cold out there.”
He grins, shrugging as he plucks the cigarette from his lips and crushes it out in the ashtray on the coffee table.
“Thanks,” I smile. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
“Hell yeah,” he groans, his eyes glassy as he grins at me.
I smile back, but there’s a shadow behind mine. It’s almost eight at night, and while Jackson having a drink—or several drinks—with or before dinner is pretty much the norm, today, he’s been at it a little harder than usual.
Since eleven in the morning, actually.
Yes, we were trying to finish up this latest song we’ve been working on, which has proven to be tricky to get the feel of. But still.
Eleven in the morning on a Wednesday is a little aggressive. So were the two Percocets I saw him pop at two-thirty.
And then there’s the coke.
