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I stare at it with a blade in hand. “How?”
He laughs, nudging my shoulder. “How can you not know how to chop onions? You’re twenty-eight and…”
“Don’t you dare say ‘and a woman.’”
“And… you have skills to kill a man with a knife, but you can’t slay an onion?”
He’s breathtaking when he smiles at me. When I let him teach me, wrapping his big body around mine, he guides our hands, and all I want to do is never let him go. The onion and truth make me tear up again.
“When I hold you like this”—his lips press to my ear—“it feels like we’ve been apart for ten minutes and not ten years. Is that weird?”
“No.” Everything feels right. “That’s called best friends.”
And it’s the best meal I’ve ever eaten, too.
Later, I sit on the kitchen counter watching him clean up because he won’t let me help.
“Tell me what it was like.” So much I don’t know about his life now. “Like, how did you go from Hilton Head to Hollywood?”
“I got in my car that next day and drove to LA. You hear about actors who struggle for years, but I lucked out. My modeling portfolio and connections had me an agent by the time I got there.” He clicks the dishwasher shut. “I landed Romeo Returns within my first month, and it’s been a wild ride ever since.”
“What’s your relationship with Angie?”
I won’t tell him how the thought of them together makes me sick, how I get jealous over no man but Redix. But he winces like he knows anyway.
“She’s tricky.”
That hurts. “How?”
I have to know. I’ll never be the other woman, other Uno player, or whatever we are.
“My manager introduced us and said she’d be good for me. Angie’s got a show and wants publicity. We did the awards circuit together, and she gave the interviews, repeating my publicist’s stories. We’re a PR stunt, not love.
“Then I went out one night to a club without her. I guess I was so lonely in the lie that I got so wasted, and I almost died. Eric, my assistant back in LA, found me barely alive on my front steps. I didn’t even make it inside. I went into rehab for six months, and Angie stuck around for that and the year since.”
“She’s in love with you.”
“I fucked her twice before rehab, not since. She knows the deal. We’re business and friends. Having her on my arm keeps the focus on our fake relationship, not my real addictions.”
I stare him down, sharing a look with him that speaks a thousand words while I insist.
“Nothing happens between us if you’re with someone else, fake or real.”
Redix holds my stare, he knows my mind won’t change, so he reaches into his back pocket for his phone. Pressing a few buttons, he places a call.
“Hey, Ang.” Silence. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m back home.” Silence while he talks to her with his eyes on me. “Yeah, I’m with her.” My cheeks warm. “And I’m gonna kiss her tonight.” My heart jolts. “I’m gonna make this perfect with her again.” My stomach flips. “So I wanted to tell you. To be honest. We cool?” Silence, while my mind dizzies. “Yep. You too. Bye.”
It’s just like that.
Do I feel bad for Angie or good for us? I don’t know, but that’s Redix. At least he told her the truth before he steps between my thighs, spread open on the countertop.
Is this really happening?
Ten years and we’ll finally kiss again? I’m floating above a reality I can’t believe.
“I could do it right now, Cade.” The satin of his lips slides over mine, and the room spins. “But I mean it. I’m gonna make us perfect again.”
Turning around, he opens the freezer. The couple of minutes he takes to prepare a lemon sherbet ice cream cone finds my heart overwhelmed by how he remembers.
