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“Some. You don’t make it easy to know you.” He wasn’t wrong.
I had walls for reasons, but I believed he did too. A conversation for another time. “I’m trying to make it easier for you.”
“Thank you.”
My gaze flipped to his again, making a mess out of what I was trying to do. “You’re welcome.”
He laughed, deep and rich, throaty, all the way from his chest.
“Why are you laughing at me again?” I asked, turning away before I kissed him just to taste his laugh.
“Because this has felt entirely too domestic, and I’m waiting for you to attack me or something to even it out.”
“Waiting for me to attack you? Is that what you think of me?” I kept my features schooled, wanting his honest assessment and not to be laughing.
“This isn’t us. We are aggressive and combative and frankly quite vile to one another. I know we made an agreement, but it’s still strange to wrap my brain around the civility of it all.” He didn’t even try to hide his amusement.
“This is what you asked for. I’m trying to give you the whole boyfriend experience.” I plated his food, making it pretty with fruit and powdered sugar, before wiping the edges with my apron and setting it in front of him.
He looked from the plate to me and back but didn’t say anything.
“What? Do you not like breakfast food now?” I thought food would be the easiest thing between us. “I’m really starting to think there is something wrong with you.”
“Starting?”
“Okay, confirming there is something wrong with you.” I made a plate for myself. “Is your brain going bad after all these years? Like decline in old age after centuries?”
“No.” He scoffed, then gestured at the plate. “Do you do this with everything?”
“What do you mean?” It was my standard fair. Nothing elaborate. Breakfast was easy.
“This. Is this how you always cook?” His brow ticked up, and amusement spread across his lips.
“Yes. What’s wrong with it?”
He stared but didn’t answer.
“What? If you don’t like it…” I grabbed the plate, but he caught my wrist.
He pulled, dragging me against the counter and stretching out my body to bring my wrist to his lips. I expected him to bite, but no such luck. What he did was much more alarming. He pressed his lips to the soft skin there. “I love it. I didn’t expect it. The care and—hmmm—I want to say effort, but it’s not the right word. There is something so precise about how you cook. I didn’t think you could surprise me anymore, but you have.”
I brushed my fingers over his lips, tracing his face, and we stared at each other that way. I stretched to an uncomfortable position, food burning, his meal getting cold, but we couldn’t quite bring ourselves to break apart. It had been that way since the start.
“It’s burning.”
“I know.”
He let me go, and I dumped the piece from the pan into the trash. We ate in silence, only eye contact and deep thought.
“Are you staying another night?” I asked, putting another piece on his plate when he’d finished the first.
“Would you like me to stay another night?” he asked, carefully cutting his food, focused on his plate like the words he was saying were nothing.
“Can you handle it?”
“All these questions.” He shook his head. “Maybe a little less doubt and a little more faith.” His words penetrated, hitting a place I’d thought too well-guarded to be affected.
“I’m fighting in a couple of days, so we have to go back by then.” I wasn’t sure why I said it. He’d never been an active participant in that part of my life.
