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His statement sent a shock wave through my body, and even he wasn’t immune to the effects of his truth bomb. It was obvious he hadn’t meant to say it out loud, and panic streaked through his expression.
The silence stretched between us until it was taut, and as fragile as a souffle. Could he hear my heart as it thundered in my chest?
I barely whispered the question. “You spent the last year thinking about me?”
Abruptly, he moved. He stabbed his fork into the plate, picked up the last bite of a ravioli, and eyed it with suspicion. “What’d you put in this? Truth serum?”
“Preston.” When he lifted his gaze, my words tumbled out in a rush. “I thought about you all the time, too.”
He didn’t look happy to hear it, though. “Don’t tell me that. I don’t want to know.”
“Why not?”
His intense stare was back, drilling down into me. “You know why.”
I opened my mouth to try to convince him, but just then a figure appeared in the kitchen doorway, silencing the conversation.
My father’s expression was pure dismay as he stared back at us, and it grew to anger as his gaze swept over the table, noting the meal I’d prepared, and the two wine glasses.
Anxiety and excitement mixed inside me.
How would he react? If he told Preston to leave, what excuse would he give? As far as he could tell, we weren’t doing anything but having dinner. One that maybe looked romantic, although I’d told Preston it wasn’t. Plus, a half a glass of wine for me wasn’t a big deal, and Preston was twenty-four. He hadn’t done anything to warrant my father kicking him out.
But he hovered in the doorway with narrow eyes, looking like he was considering doing just that.
If he did, there’d be hell to pay.
I’d reached my breaking point with them controlling me, and it seemed like my father sensed that. Changing the deal we’d struck about culinary school was one thing, but if he tried to tell me who I was and wasn’t allowed to hang out with, he knew that’d be pushing me too far. The final straw.
So, he said nothing. He marched to the fridge, pulled out a can of soda, and then couldn’t seem to get out of the kitchen quick enough.
As soon as he was gone, a thrilled look overtook Preston’s face. He’d enjoyed making my dad uncomfortable almost as much as I had.
“If he doesn’t like me in his kitchen,” his tone was full of corruption, “imagine how much he’ll hate it when you take me upstairs to your bedroom.”
Oh, my god. Heat pooled inside my body at his devilish smile. He was going to give me my next lesson here? It was so wrong and bad.
Fuck, I couldn’t wait to do it.
When we’d finished our dinner, I attempted to clear the table, but Preston launched to his feet. “The rule at my house is whoever makes the food doesn’t have to do the dishes.”
While I appreciated the gesture, I convinced him it’d be faster if we did it together, so we half-assed our way through them, and then he followed me up the stairs. I was sure my dad knew I was headed to my bedroom, and that I wasn’t going alone, either.
The stairs creaked under our feet as we ascended them.
Anxiety made my breath go shallow when we entered my room. Not because I was nervous about what was going to happen. It was because Preston Lowe was in my bedroom.
It felt so private. Intimate. He was seeing the place where my crush for him had grown. The location of so many of my fantasies. And the bed where I slept every night, where I sometimes got off while thinking about him.
I was so distracted by my thoughts I didn’t notice what he was doing until my bedroom door clicked shut.
No, a loud, angry voice boomed in my head, making me jolt.
It had sounded exactly like my father, and the memory came flooding back. I was in eighth grade when Colin had a girl over for the first time. They’d gone into his bedroom, and when my father had discovered the door shut, he’d yelled the word so forcefully, my mother and I had come running to see what was wrong.
I grabbed the doorknob, twisted, and pulled. “No, it has to stay open.”
His lips parted, and for a moment, he looked too stunned to speak. Then irritation lifted his eyebrows. “Seriously? That’s fucking ridiculous.” He asked it even when he knew the answer. “Aren’t you twenty years old?”
