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“Can I help?”
“I got it,” he says with a smile. “I just want you to relax.”
I don’t think anyone has ever said that to me before. I’m always at work, so I’m used to bosses barking at me non-stop to get moving. Relaxing is a nice change.
“What are you making?” I ask as he pulls out a knife and an avocado.
“The guy at the grocery store said your generation loves avocado toast. Is that true? I didn’t know what it was so I looked it up.”
I can’t help but smile as I picture this manly man in the grocery store googling avocado toast for me.
“I’ve never had it, but I’m sure it’s going to be amazing.”
He smiles gratefully at me and then starts slicing up the avocado. My eyes drop to his big hands and that warmth from last night comes flooding back into my body. He handles the knife like a master chef, slicing and chopping with speed and ease. I wonder if he learned how to handle a knife like that in culinary school or in the Navy SEALs, but I’m not about to ask.
“How did you know where to find me?” he asks as he washes the knife.
“I kept the Christmas card you sent,” I tell him, feeling embarrassed that I kept a Christmas card for three years. Only hoarders or obsessed psychos would do something like that. “It was on the envelope.”
“I looked up your address,” he says as he starts cutting up some kiwi. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” I quickly say. “I thought it was very sweet.”
He looks up at me and our eyes meet. My skin tingles as the air between that intense eye contact charges with electric heat.
I’m blushing when he pulls away.
I was so touched to receive that card. It was the only one I got that year and I had spent Christmas all alone. It was so nice to know that someone out there was thinking of me. It kept me going through the rough holidays.
The coffee maker beeps and I get up to get a mug. “Do you want some coffee?”
“I’d love some,” he says as he cuts some ripe mangoes. “Black.”
He puts the meal together and we sit at the table with a feast of scrambled eggs, croissants, breakfast potatoes, fresh fruit, and avocado toast.
I haven’t eaten like this in years. In fact, this is the first time since my mother died that someone cooked me a meal. I’m always grabbing some extra food from the diner and microwaving it when I get home. I never eat like this.
“It’s so beautiful up here,” I say as I gaze out the giant windows. Jack has a spectacular view of the mountains that go on forever. It feels like I’m in an untouched part of the world. “I didn’t get to see it last night. I only arrived after dark.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t around,” he says, looking upset at himself.
I put my hand on his and he stills. “You didn’t know I was going to show up out of the blue. You don’t have to apologize.”
He doesn’t look like he agrees.
“Plus, you were busy with your… accident.”
I run my thumb over his bruised knuckles, hoping he’s okay.
He takes a deep breath and looks at me. “It wasn’t an accident,” he says in a low voice. “I don’t want to lie to you, Ruby. I’ll never lie to you again. I was competing in a cage match.”
“A cage match?”
He sighs. “There’s a bar that throws them once a month. I go because, well… I don’t know. It makes me feel… something.”
“You don’t have to explain, Jack,” I tell him. “You’re like my father. You were both born warriors. It must be hard when there’s nothing to fight for.”
“There wasn’t,” he says in a low possessive tone as he watches me. “But there is now.”
My body shivers with the way he’s looking at me. If he keeps looking at me like that, I might do something crazy like kiss him. I turn away before my body takes over and I do something stupid like that. He’d probably laugh at me and send me packing.
“Are those…? Old photos?” I ask, staring at the shoebox on the coffee table in shock.
“Yeah,” he says as he gets up and grabs them off the table. “I figured you’d like to see them.”
My heart is frozen as he returns with the box. I only have one photo of my parents and it’s always been such a sore spot with me. I had put my mother’s collection in a storage unit with some of her other stuff after she died, but there was a flash flood out of nowhere and they all got ruined.
My hands are trembling as I go through the box, picking up thick stacks of photos and cycling through them.
