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“I need to get ready,” I call back as I sprint for the bathroom, nearly tripping over his tangled jeans on the other side of the bed. “If you want coffee, you’ve got to make it yourself, sorry!”
“Better get a move on, teacher,” he calls after me.
I laugh before I duck into the bathroom and crank the shower on.
I scrub myself down in a whirlwind.
By the time I walk back into the bedroom wrapped in a towel, his clothes are gone and so is he.
The smell of brewing coffee and eggs frying floats back from the kitchen.
I stuff myself into a pair of nice black pants, demure but cute brown boots, a lace-edged white camisole with a high neckline, and a close-fitting pale-blue cardigan. I finish with a quick dusting of makeup.
When I’m done, I follow the smell of coffee into the kitchen—only to find Lucas standing barefoot in front of the stove, his shirt draped over the back of one of the kitchen chairs.
My breath sticks in my throat.
His jeans nearly fall off the stark angles of his hips, making me think of handles. Something to grab him by and cling to and not let go.
I’m distracted from watching how the rising sun from the kitchen window plays over his bare chest by the sudden realization that he’s raided my fridge and pantry.
There are cheesy scrambled eggs, sizzling bacon, grated potatoes forming crispy hash browns, and the smell of toast. It’s only taken me twenty minutes to get ready.
Damn, he’s good.
He glances up at me lazily and lets his eyes drift over me with a growing smile as he shuts the burners off and starts piling the eggs on two of my new blue ceramic plates.
“Look at you,” he drawls. “Think I’m gonna start calling you Miss Rockwell, not Miss New York. You’re straight out of a pretty painting.”
“I could also start kicking you out.” I smile sweetly.
“You wouldn’t dare, darlin’. I made you one hell of a breakfast,” he says with mock-innocence.
He’s quick to arrange both plates, flipping bacon and hash browns next to the eggs, plucking out the toast the second it pops up and slathering the slices in strawberry jam.
For a second, it’s familiar. I know those movements.
Someone who’s done diner work.
That’s where I learned to cook, too, and how to put together plates in under thirty seconds.
He’s just as quick to balance the plates with one arm, two mugs of coffee in the fingers of his other hand, bringing them to the table.
“You look like the type who’d run out the door without breakfast on her first day.” The look he gives me is less teasing and more affectionate. “Eat, Miss Lilah. You need food to handle all those munchkins.”
I don’t quite know what to do with myself as I settle down at my little kitchen table. He arranges forks and knives on napkins for both of us while I watch, way too amused.
“Thank you,” I say a bit hesitantly, picking up a fork. “Diner job, huh?”
“What?” He gives me a puzzled look as he sits in the chair opposite me. He apparently eats like a heathen, shirtless and barefoot, but I can’t say I mind the view.
“The way you were slinging those plates. It reminds me of when I worked at my mom’s diner. I guess I was just wondering if you’ve done that, too.”
“Oh.” With a low chuckle, he scoops up a bite of eggs. “Nah, but galley work on a Navy ship isn’t much different. The new recruits get to be everyone’s waiters.”
“So you did join the Navy.” I scoop up my own eggs, taking a tentative taste—and I can’t help purring my appreciation.
He made these with butter. They’re melt-in-your-mouth good.
Lucas goes quiet, though, pushing his eggs and bacon around his plate with his fork, looking down at them.
“Yeah. I did. Celeste didn’t want it, but with her gone, it was the best way to find my footing. Got my GED and a special dispensation to enlist before I was eighteen. Easier than making me a ward of the state.”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “If I could’ve avoided that... I would have.”
It’s a strange thing to have in common.
We both lost the people who mattered most before we were eighteen, and someone else got to decide what to do with us.
I’m glad for him, in a way.
He had a chance to choose his own destiny before someone snatched it away from him like they did with Mom and me.
But he’s quiet, his eyes downcast.
I’m not sure what to say, so I just set my fork down and reach across the table, curling my fingers lightly against his wrist.
He glances up at me, his eyes guarded, offering a smile that doesn’t mirror that sad green gaze.
“I didn’t stay real long,” he says. “Just a few tours. Saw some interesting places. Japan, South Korea, Bahrain, Oman, Djibouti. But y’know, as messed up as this place is sometimes...” He looks away from me, holding a piece of toast to his lips, his gaze fixed distantly out the window. “I just couldn’t stay away from home. It’s like Celeste kept calling me back to Redhaven.”
