I looked up from the pan. Cee’s eyes were on me taking in every word that I said.
“I didn’t want to make a jump decision about the guy after our first meeting. He is a jackass though.” he said. I smiled at the comment, it was always nice to hear the same thoughts I had out loud. The eggs finally finished up and I placed them on a plate.
“This looks delicious,” Cee stated, finally breaking the silence. He looked admiringly at the plates of French toast and bacon that I placed on the table in front of him.
“Dig in. I want to see what you think. It has been a long time since I have made anything for someone other than Ben.”
We both filled up our plates with the assortment of eggs, bacon and French toast. Cee took the maple syrup and doused his French toast in it. That man really did like his sweets. He took his fork and dug in for his first bite. I watched, biting my lip in anticipation for his reaction. He closed his mouth around the bite, and suddenly let out a cough. His lips puckered as if he ate something sour. He quickly swallowed the bite and then took a big chug of coffee.
“What do you think? Did I put too much cinnamon?” I hoped that I had impressed him with my cooking skills.
“No it... it’s good. Just what spices you did you put in here? It is um, a taste that is unique.” He looked down at his plate and shoveled a few more bites into his mouth, swallowing them whole.
“MMMM,” he groaned, convincing absolutely no one.
“Nothing crazy, just cinnamon and some sugar.” I was confused I grabbed a bite of the toast and immediately spit it out. “This isn’t good at all, you liar. This is awful! Why didn’t you tell me? And why are you still eating it?”
I took a swig of my coffee trying to get the taste out of my mouth. It tasted burnt. Whatever spices I had used were not a great combination with milk and chocolate. There was something wrong and I needed to figure out what. I went to my cooking station to better examine it.
“I got eggs, butter, and milk,” I said lifting up each item as I listed them off, “sugar, cereal, vanilla and cinnamon.” Cee started to laugh, a big full laugh. I had never heard him make that sound before. His eyes started watering and he clenched his belly.
“What? What is so funny?” I became confused looking around, and tried to see what he was laughing at. He held out a finger and pointed at the bottle in my hand. He was still laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. His face turned red as he tried to catch his breath. I looked at the bottle in my hand. It wasn’t cinnamon. It was identical to the shaker I kept my cinnamon in, but it was paprika marked with a “hot” label.
“What the heck? I have no idea how this got into my spice shelf. I've never used paprika before. What do you even use this for?” I opened it up and smelt it. It was a warm, smoky and had a kick of spice behind it.
Cee was still laughing as he wiped tears from his eyes. “I bought it for the deviled eggs I made the other week. I know you like things spicy, so I got the hot paprika.”
Wow, I felt dumb. I really hadn’t been in the kitchen for a long time. I glanced at Cee, who looked like he was going to fall over due to lack of oxygen. His laughter was contagious, and I felt a chuckle escape my lips. It grew louder as I giggled at myself, at Cee, and about the fact that he wanted to impress me so he continued to eat the awful tasting French toast so I wouldn’t feel bad. I grabbed at a stitch in my side that formed. I hadn’t laughed this hard in years. After a wonderful few more minutes of sniggering we both regained our composure.
I marched to the table, and grabbed all the French toast off our plates and hurled it right into the trash.
“Hey, I was going to eat that!” Cee protested.
“It looks like we'll just have eggs and bacon.”
“You didn’t put spices in anything else?” He looked at me, questioning as he poked his fork into his pile of eggs.
“No, it's good. I just put salt,” I stated. Cee raised an eyebrow. “I know what salt looks like!” He snickered and took a bite of eggs.
“Now this is good.” He grabbed a piece of bacon and scarfed it down.
“I told you I liked bacon. I know how to cook that at least.”
Chapter Twenty
We sat in a comfortable silence as we polished off what was left of the breakfast. Must’ve been all that laughing, I thought. Made us hungry. It made me proud to know that I could satisfy him more than just in the bedroom. After a final sip of coffee, I stood up and started to pick up the dishes
“What do you think you are doing?” Cee questioned as he grabbed my waist holding me so I couldn’t move.
“Doing the dishes?” I responded confused. I liked the way his hands felt on my hips. Like they belonged there.
“No, you are going to sit down and I'm going to do the dishes.” He pressed me back into my chair and took the dishes out of my hands. “You cooked, I clean.”
I sat as he worked. After he cleared the table, he dumped all of the dishes into the sink. He smiled while he turned on the water full blast. I watched as the water hit the plates and sprayed back on him. I snorted with laughter as he stood in disbelief at the rookie mistake. He was sopping wet, dripping water from his shirt down to the floor. A split second later he recovered from the icy shock and turned off the water
“Oh, ha ha ha.” Cee grabbed the hand towel on the oven and dabbed at his chest. The only thing he accomplished was to spread the water around. His muscles stood out under the dripping shirt, showing just how ripped he was.
“Give me your shirt, I'll throw it in the dryer.” I held out my hand for it.
“You just want to see me naked. I see how it is.” He raised his eyebrows up and down.
“Just take it off!” I said exasperated, but grinning.
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” He peeled the shirt off his chest. I knew he purposely took his time, but I felt like it was Christmas morning and I was unwrapping my present.
No, I shook my head. We are taking things slow.
I still had this pit in my stomach every time I thought of being with him. There was so much potential for heartache, and I wasn't ready to put myself at risk again. He tossed the drenched shirt at me. Luckily, I caught it in my outstretched arms to avoid getting any of the icy water on me.
I walked to the laundry room, flung it into the dryer, and hit the start button. When I got back to the kitchen, I watched as he scrubbed the dishes. His chest was still wet, and exaggerated his muscles more. I stared as he flexed, his smooth arms scrubbing a particular difficult pot. I wished I had made more of a mess so he would have keep working
“Instead of just standing there staring, why don’t you come a little closer and supply me with some good conversation,” he said, waking me from my daydreams.
I ambled over to the sink, keeping a steady gaze on him. I wanted to memorize his muscles by the end of this. Hopefully, then I would be able to keep my urges contained.
“What do you want to talk about?” I asked.
“How it feels when you get all wet.” He grabbed the spray nozzle and squirted water on me, soaking my shirt through until it was transparent.
“You jerk!” My mouth hung open in shock as the prickle of goose bumps popped up along my skin. He was devious with his use of the ice-cold water.
“Just thought I shouldn’t be the only one shirtless. Probably should go toss that into the dryer.” He winked at me. I stomped off, melodrama taking over as I made sure he heard each and every one of my steps.
Cold water streamed down my back as I took off my shirt, leaving me shivering in its wake. I freed my head and saw Cee standing in the doorway of the laundry room, eating me up with his eyes. The dark violet of desire in them overwhelmed me, but I came to my senses quick enough. I covered up my chest with my hands, but my nipples were already hard underneath them. I couldn’t decide if it was due to cold, or arousal.
“Don’t cover yourself up. You are beautiful.” He walked closer to me. I could feel the heat radiating from his body.
I wanted that heat on my skin. He reached for my hands, his thumb grazed my nipple. My back instinctively leaned forward as to get more contact. My own hunger grew and I couldn’t keep it at bay much longer. Cee stepped closer, his chest millimeters away from mine as he took his strong arm and reached over my head. I took a sharp breath in, closed my eyes and waited for him to put his mouth on mine.
“Put this on.” He grinned. He grabbed a shirt that was folded up on one of the shelves and handed it to me. I looked at him with shock and disappointment. I wanted him to take me right here in the laundry room. “I know you want to take things slow, and I respect that. I just had to see your beautiful body one more time.”
I grudgingly put the shirt on, disappointed that he had more self-control then I did. Cee cupped my face, and angled it up to him. “I'm going to prove that I will never hurt you even it takes every day for the rest of my days to prove it .”
He leaned over and gently kissed my forehead. My whole body became Jell-O, and I just wanted to melt into his arms. His kiss made me feel safe, and believe that he would never hurt me. As I felt my mouths start to form the words to tell him how I feel, Cee’s phone started to buzz and jarred us out of our fantasy world. He released my head and grabbed it out of his pocket.
“I'll be right back, got to take this.”
He answered the phone. “Hello?” He strode out of the laundry room and on to the back porch, but he had left the door slightly ajar. I toddled after him, my legs still felt like they had no bones. He was on the deck with a smile on his face. I crept closer to the door to try to hear something.
“I had a great time last night. I hope we can do that again soon.” He turned around and spotted me as I peeked through the window.
His smile fell and he retreated further into the backyard. Curiosity had gotten the best of me and I got caught. I turned away and tried to busy myself with cleaning up the floors from all the water.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on you,” I said as the back door opened and Cee came in. “I hope I didn’t disturb you and your...”
“Nothing important, “ he said in a dark tone that did not make me want to pry further. “Let me help you with the mess.” He got down on the ground and wiped the water up with a paper towel. We finished in a tense silence, I was trying to figure out if Cee was mad at my actions and how to apologize correctly.”
“Ben should be here soon and I think I should go.” He said breaking the tense silence. He stood up to his full height and grabbed his shirt from the dryer. “I want you to be able to spend time with Ben.”
“I'll see you tomorrow.” He seemed to rush out the door before I even got to have a hug goodbye.
The sudden departure left me uneasy and warning alarms were going off in my head. I needed a distraction, and a long relaxing shower was just the thing. I spent time in front of the mirror, too, fixing my hair up, playing with it, seeing if I could make myself over into someone beautiful, put together. Was that what Cee wanted?
I ordered pizza and timed it to arrive just before Ben. The pizza was in hand when he rang the doorbell a second time. I set the pizza in the kitchen and rushed to the door, excited to have Ben back with me. I threw open the door and gave Ben a huge hug the moment I saw him. My little man was back.
I looked up and saw Richard sitting in the car with a woman next to him. His secretary. My heart went cold, and I gave a curt nod. He had the audacity to bring this home wrecker onto my property. Now I knew why he didn’t come to the door. Ben turned around and gave a big wave. Richard waved back and drove off. I felt my knuckles go white and I wanted to hurl a rock at the passenger side window. With a big inhale, I looked down to Ben.
“Did you have fun?”
“Yeah!” he exclaimed. I could tell he was bursting to tell me more.
“Let’s get inside. I ordered some pizza, and you can tell me all about your time with your dad,” I promised.
Ben barely made it through the door before starting a stream of words.
“It was awesome, Mom. Dad took me to see the Riptide. He got me a poster and even had me get on the field and have some players sign it!”
He continued his banter as I sat down some plates and got the pizza ready only. The only break in his talking was to take a bite of the cheese pizza.
“We then went to breakfast with Dad and Ginger. They took me around the mall and let me get some action figures to add to my collection. Mom, you should have been there for the game though. It was so intense...”
I absently-mindedly listened and picked at my pizza as he described the play by play of the game. I loved to have him back, but I’d never think lacrosse was quite as interesting as he did. But I listened, nodding and trying to agree, I wanted him to think he could talk to me about anything, even if I didn’t quite understand it. After we got him ready for bed, I remembered that I had that wonderful meal on Friday with Cee thanks to Ben.
“Thank you again for having Cee make me that wonderful dinner. It was really sweet of you to think of me.” I pulled the covers over him.
“You really liked it?” Ben said with a yawn.
“I loved it. The only thing that would have made it better is if you were there.” I kissed him good night and clicked the light off.
I made my way to my bedroom picking up debris up as I went. Shoes here, lacrosse stick there. Ben had been home for less than an hour and he was already making a mess. I let out a sigh when I finally looked at my bed. It felt like it had grown since last time I was there. I crawled into my side of the bed and tossed to find a comfortable position until I made my way to the other side of the bed. It comforted me to be there. I took a long inhale and was disappointed that the smell of Cee was starting to dissipate.
Chapter Twenty-One
On Monday morning, I heard the door open as I put the final touches on my hair. Ben scampered down the stairs and I heard a thud as he jumped the last two in order to get to Cee.
Cee was here.
My heart pounded as I made my way down stairs. With each step, I realized that I didn’t know how to act with Cee and Ben.
It felt like eternity, but I finally made it to the kitchen, and still had no idea how to behave. Were we going to play it cool, or pretend like nothing ever happened? Would he be expecting me to kiss him or be mad if I didn't? I looked around, but Cee was paying attention to Ben as he showed him his poster with all the signatures. I clutched my cup of coffee and breathed in the warm dark smell.
I wanted to have Cee look at me and let him know that I had this covered. I could pretend things were normal, but he just kept talking with Ben. I guessed Cee had his own thoughts of how to behave with Ben. With disappointment, I went to get my power bar and a soda from the fridge and noticed a brown paper bag in there with my name on it.
“Hey, what’s this?” I asked as I pulled out the bag.
“Just your lunch. I thought I would bring you something. You really should be eating better. Those power bars really aren’t all that good for you,” Cee replied nonchalantly. He barely took his eyes off of the poster.
“Thanks...” I said, a bit confused. I stuffed it into my purse and headed out the door. “See you guys later tonight.”
I heard a couple of grunts from both of them in response. Cee was playing the 'pretend like nothing happened' game like a pro. I could deal with that. It was a good way to act.
I got to the office and it was like every Monday morning. No one wanted to be there, and the weekend was too far away to get excited about. It wasn’t until lunch that I remembered Cee packed food for me.
Inside the bag was a homemade sandwich with turkey, avocado, bean sprouts, and a thin slice of tomato. I looked at it, unsure how I felt about beansprouts, but gave it a bite. It was delicious, and I didn’t mind the bean sprouts.
I continued to eat the sandwich as I unpacked the bag. He had included a cup of hummus, carrots and a little bag of chips. In the very bottom were 5 pieces of chocolate and a note
. I started on the hummus and carrots as I read the note.
Dear Jes,
I know with Ben being back it will be hard for us to talk like we want. In case I'm not able to tell you, you are beautiful. Especially the days when you are frazzled and your hair is a mess. I'll see you tonight, and know when I say goodbye it's the saddest part of my day.
-Cee
Ps: Do you like me? Please check
- Yes – no –maybe.
I smiled. This gesture reminded me just how young he was, yet he was being so sweet and funny. I took out my pen and put a check in the maybe box. I wasn’t going to give in that easily. I tucked it into my purse and would hand it to him as he left for the day. I felt like a teenager again, exchanging notes in the hall so that the teacher wouldn’t see.
***
“How was your day?” I asked Ben, setting my purse on the counter as I came home that evening.
“Great!” Ben grinned. “Cee took me to the park and we ate ice cream.”
“Ice cream, huh?” I looked over at Cee. He blushed slightly and my heart sped up.
“You weren't supposed to tell her that part,” Cee reminded him. “We had vegetables for lunch.”
“Oh, right. We ate vegetables. Healthy stuff. Good stuff. Green stuff.” Ben did his best to look honest, but only succeeded in looking more guilty.
I rolled my eyes at the two of them and laughed.
“Well, I should get going,” Cee said quietly after a moment. He looked up at me and our eyes connected. Heat and desire stirred deep in the pit of my stomach. I wanted so badly to just run over and kiss him. To throw my arms around his neck and feel his body against mine.
There was only one problem. Ben was watching us.
“Thank you, Cee,” I said. He smiled, soft and sweet. “Ben, will you get the plates for dinner out? I'm going to walk Cee out.”
“Sure, Mom,” Ben answered, not noticing that I had never done this before.
Walking on Sunshine: A Sweet Love Story (Seasons of Love Book 1) Page 12