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His gaze flickered to where Galen and Ezra were watching. “No. I’ll just eat a pb and j.” He pulled the peanut butter from a cabinet and set it on the counter.
“Suit yourself.”
Mexican food was my favorite and I made quesadillas all the time. They were quick and easy, especially when I used a ready-made rotisserie chicken like I was doing tonight, and one of the first things I’d taught myself to cook after things changed with my family. It had been a pleasant surprise to discover I enjoyed cooking. Thank God for YouTube andTastyvideos to help me.
As I heated oil in a pan, I noticed Baron’s gaze flicking from me to the ingredients I had lined up on the counter. Cheese, mushrooms, onions.
I flicked water from my fingertips to test the oil and it hissed in readiness. Reaching for a tortilla, I was surprised when Baron placed one silently in my hand. “Thanks.” I set it in the pan and lined one half with fillings, then folded the other half over. I sucked at flipping a full quesadilla without losing the fillings, so always made halves.
It was finished in minutes and I transferred it to a plate, then immediately began on another. Baron leaned on the counter beside me, and without a word I nudged the plate in his direction. “Hell,” he breathed, and picked it up.
“Sour cream and salsa are in the fridge,” I said, keeping my features neutral. I wanted to laugh. The old saying that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach had something to it.
“Holy shit, this is incredible,” he murmured a few minutes later.
I slanted a look at him. Baron was a big man. There was no way he would be satisfied with a portion sized for me. “Do you want another?”
“If you have enough. Please. I’ll wash the dishes.”
This time I did laugh. “No need.”
When I turned from the stove to put the second quesadilla on Baron’s plate, Ezra was leaning on the other side of the bar separating the kitchen from the living room. I lifted an eyebrow. “You, too?”
Licking his full bottom lip, he nodded. “If you don’t mind.”
“Don’t mind at all,” I said. “I’m actually a very nice person.” Galen snorted from the sofa. “It’s all right, Galen. You don’t have to eat one.” He made a noise and retreated to his room, slamming the door.
I made Ezra a couple of quesadillas and passed them to him; then started on mine. We ate standing at the counter, Ezra across from Baron and I. Baron moved to retrieve a bottle of water, returning to stand just a little closer than he had been, his hip brushing mine. Looking down at me, he smiled the tiniest amount.
It did something to me, that little secret smile. Made pressure bloom in my chest and warmth unfurl in my stomach.
I returned it, and looked up to see Ezra watching us. His eyes flitted from me to Baron, down to where our hips touched. “Okay?” I asked.
He hesitated a second before replying, and then reached across the counter to wipe a stray bit of sour cream from the corner of my mouth. “Yeah. More than okay.”
I paused mid-bite. Something told me we weren’t talking only about quesadillas anymore. And I was okay with that.
Chapter 12: Ezra
Istared at the whiteboard in my room and scratched my head, willing the elaborate map of figures and scribbles to show something different. This project, involving a thorough analysis of Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem as it pertained to American politics, was going to drive me as mad as the Hatter before it was all said and done with. “No...if two-thirds of the voting population prefer A to both B and C, and two-thirds prefer B to both A and C, and… ” I trailed away.
I’d solved it thirty-seven times with different variables and it was the same every time. Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem wasn’t disprovable. “Shit.”
The problem wasn’t with the theorem. It was that with quesadillas over a countertop, everything was starting to shift. I’d looked at Baron, looking at Jude, and something resonated inside like the twang of a guitar string. I looked at them, and I knew.
We could bemore.
The problem was Gale. He was still very firmly anti-Jude, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with that.
The numbers on the whiteboard swam out of focus momentarily and resettled themselves, only they weren’t A, B, and C. They were B, E, and G, and the population was Jude.Fuuuck.I was losing my fucking mind! I flung the marker across the room, rubbing at my eyes. I needed a break.
Flinging open the door, I stepped into the main room and stopped, arrested by the sight of Jude curled up in the corner of the couch with a bowl of popcorn. “No work tonight?” I asked, speaking slowly to keep my tongue from sticking to the roof of my mouth. She’d been around more often here lately, perhaps thinking things had calmed enough for her to go unnoticed. Or that Baron would lend her some support. The room was dark, with only the light from the kitchen stove turned on, but I could tell that she was freshly showered, her pale hair still damp around her shoulders. Her skin was fresh and clean, and she was dressed in a thin tee-shirt and tiny pajama shorts. It was more what shewasn’tdressed in, though, that had me wound tight and sweating.
She was killing me.
Did she not understand that a female without a bra was like a green light to a horny guy? Because… tits. She had a great rack, and I was horny. Perpetually so, around her.
“No, I’m off tonight,” she answered. “You okay in there? I heard an awful lot of muttering and cursing.”
