AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I wasn’t sure what you like, but in the grocery store you had a bunch of breakfast foods, so that’s what I got. I figured we could have breakfast for dinner and then maybe play again.” He set the bags on the kitchen counter. “I tried to get the brands you had. You like the peppered bacon, right? Sausage patties, not links. I don’t know what kind of potatoes you prefer, but I’m telling you now, if it’s not hash browns, you’re wrong, and that’s what you’re stuck eating tonight.”
My legs wouldn’t move, my arms neither, so I just stood there, a few feet away from him, holding the groceries. He’d put all that thought into me? Cared what kind of bacon I liked and paid attention to my breakfast sausage? Why would it matter that much?
“What?” Charles asked, plucking the bags from my hands. “Did you just realize how charming I am?” he teased, like it was second nature, and I guessed for him it was.
“Food is food. Sure, I have my preferences, but I’ll eat anything. You didn’t hafta put the extra thought into what I almost bought.”
“I didn’t have to, but I wanted to. Friends do that kind of thing for each other.”
“We don’t really know each other.”
“We stayed up talking all night. I like you, and I think you like me too. We know each other well enough to know that.”
He was…Christ, he was so different from anyone I’d ever known. I’d thought that before, but it was hard not to remember it every time I saw him or talked to him. “Okay,” I replied, not sure what I was okaying. That we knew each other? That I liked him? That we were gonna cook dinner together, if that’s what he had planned?
His megawatt grin curled his lips again. His smiles always looked real, like he never had to force one, unlike me. “Let’s do it.”
We unpacked the bags. He’d gotten bacon, sausage, and potatoes, but also eggs, milk, butter, biscuits, and orange juice. “I should pay you back for this.”
“Only if I can pay you back for the steak.”
“Yeah, but I had that at home.”
“Fair is fair, Brian. I don’t make the rules; I just follow them.”
I chuckled. “You did make the rules, and you sure as shit don’t seem like the kinda guy who follows them unless you want to.”
“See? You do know me!”
If I argued with him, would he think I didn’t appreciate what he’d done? And because I truly did, instead of putting my foot down, I said, “Next time it’s my treat again.” Next time. Because again, I wanted there to be one, and if he kept coming, as far as I could tell, I would keep wanting him to.
“Deal.”
We washed our hands and started cooking together. We got the bacon on first. When I tried to slip around Charles to grab another skillet, he moved at the same time, accidentally bumping into me. His back touched my chest, his ass against my groin. Charles nearly stumbled, so I reached out, hands on his hips to steady him. An electric shock shot from the tips of my fingers where we touched, zipping up my arm and making me jerk back. My elbow hit the counter, pain exploding in the bone there. “Ouch. Shit.”
I grabbed on to it, but looked at him because that whole thing had been embarrassing as hell. My torso tingled, though, like I could still feel the heat of him against me.
“You okay?” Charles cocked a brow playfully, clearly trying not to laugh.
“Shut up.”
“I mean, I know I’m hot, but not enough to burn you, which is how you acted.”
“Shut up,” I said again because it was the only way I could think of to answer him. And yet I had to bite the inside of my cheeks not to smile. What in the Sam Hill was wrong with me? Why did I want to smile?
This time I managed to go around him without the two of us touching. I got the skillets, Charles taking one from my hand and placing the sausage inside.
“Remember that time you saved my life?” he asked.
I frowned before realizing what he was saying. “Two minutes ago when you tripped over your own feet?”
“Yep, that was the time. Good thing you were here to save me.”
My heart thudded, and that tingle in my chest increased, working its way down some, past my belly and into my groin. Why I felt like that, I didn’t know, but it made me rub my left pec, tension filling the area again. “You should be more careful,” I replied, trying to play it off like I was as casual about it as Charles.
“Still, I was lucky you were around.”
I rolled my eyes, but my stomach seemed to sizzle and pop as if in sync with the bacon. “We’re gonna burn it.”
