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Shaking my head, I made my way out of the room, not realizing there was a smile tugging at my lips until I was pulling cups down for the coffee.
And, fuck, I didn’t remember the first time I had a smile on my lips when I got up in the morning.
I heard Lexy making her way into the bathroom, and when I got back to the bedroom with the coffee, she was there with her hair more tamed than it had been a few minutes ago.
“How’re your feet?” I asked as I handed her the mug.
“They’re alright. I’ll live.”
“I’ll redress… hold up,” I said as my phone started to buzz on the nightstand. “Junior,” I told her as I opened the text. “He says I can pop over whenever to talk about this.”
“And by that, you clearly mean we,” she said, raising her disheveled brow at me as she sipped her coffee.
Reaching over, I smoothed her brow. “Yeah, that’s obviously what I meant,” I agreed, realizing my fucking cheeks were starting to hurt from grinning.
“Thought so,” she agreed, looking pleased. “You need to feed me first, though,” she said. “I’m not a good person when I’m hungry,” she warned.
“No?” I asked, liking that information. “What are you in the mood for then?”
“Pancakes,” she decided.
“I can do that,” I agreed, starting to get off the bed.
“Wait… what?” she asked, looking taken aback. “You’re going to… make them?” she asked, making it sound like it was some fucking impossible feat.
“Yeah.”
“You know how to cook?”
“Ah… yeah,” I said, head tipped to the side. “My ma said it’s a life skill, and we all had to learn it. I ended up liking it more than my siblings, so I learned more. You don’t cook?”
“I make a mean microwave soup,” she said, smiling at herself. “My mom died. My dad was never around. If it couldn’t be cooked in a microwave, we didn’t eat it.”
“Yeah, that makes sense. Lottie doesn’t cook, either?”
“Not really. She bakes really terrible cookies at Christmas. But that’s about it.”
“So the last time you had a home-cooked meal…” I said.
Her face was blank for a second.
Then, something a little sad crossed her pretty features.
“Never,” she admitted.
“Well,” I said, wondering what I might have in my fridge and cabinets. “Let’s change that, huh?” I asked before making my way to the kitchen.
She followed me out eventually, sitting at the table and watching me as I moved around the kitchen.
I lucked out with eggs that had a while to go yet. And found a couple of potatoes to make hash browns with.
When I was done, she had a high stack of pancakes, scrambled eggs with cheese, and hash browns.
She looked at it like it was a fucking gourmet meal.
“I’ll make dinner tonight too,” I offered. “What do you want?”
“Shush,” she demanded, mouth full. “I’m busy enjoying this right now. It’s wrong to talk about other meals in front of the food,” she added, making a chuckle escape me.
“Okay,” she declared as she sat back with a hand on her stomach. “I want some sort of pasta for dinner. I don’t care what kind,” she told me. “God, my stomach hurts,” she admitted. “Why did you let me steal your pancakes?” she asked, twisting her face up at me like it was my fault.
“Babe, I was worried I’d lose my hand if I tried to eat some of them myself.”
“I wasn’t that bad,” she insisted.
“You growled,” I countered, making her laugh again.
“It was a grumble at most,” she conceded. “Okay. I’m taking a shower. Leave the dishes. I’ll do them while you shower.”
Guests don’t do dishes, my mom’s voice said in my head, but I let her think that was going to happen as she walked away.
An hour later, we were both dressed, and heading not to Junior’s place, but to Shale’s coffee house.
“I didn’t know this place existed,” Lexy admitted as I pulled the door open.
“Not even after the drive-by a while back?” I asked. “It was all over the news.”
“I am hit-and-miss when it comes to keeping up-to-date on local goings-on. It’s nice, though. How’s the coffee?” she asked.
“You’re about to find out,” I said, seeing Shale give me a smile behind the counter.
Junior was waiting at a table, and gave us a nod as we went to order before joining him.
“You okay?” he asked, looking at Lexy, who’d been tiptoeing in her slides toward the table.
“Her place was broken into last night. She stepped on the broken glass,” I explained. “Lexy, this is Junior. Junior, Lexy.”
“Thanks for looking into this,” Lexy said.
“Not doing it quickly enough, it seems,” Junior said with a sigh.
“Sure you’re doing the best you can.”
“You live in a camera dead zone,” Junior told Lexy. “It hasn’t been easy. Not much to go on.”
“Until they hit again,” I guessed.
