by Ethan Asher
Charleigh: IT’S GOT WHOLE GRAINS IN IT. A WHOLE SERVING.
Guy: Easy, caps-lock commando, I can hear you yelling from here.
Guy: So you coming over? I’m just about to pull the beef and chicken and shrimp from the refrigerator.
Guy: They’ve been marinating all day.
Charleigh: The trifecta…
Hmm. It does sound better than the dinner I had planned.
Charleigh: What was for dessert again?
Guy: Nice try, Charleigh.
Charleigh: It was worth a shot.
Makeup: Check.
Hair: Done.
Dress: Hugging me in all the right places.
If I’m going to be treated to dinner, I might as well dress up. Even if it is Guy who’s treating me to it. But as I’m eyeing my reflection in the mirror, I’m wondering if it’s a bit much. Sending the wrong signals?
Whatever. I’m starving and there’s no way I’m going to shimmy out of this dress and find something else.
I give my reflection a final once-over before heading to my bedroom. The floor outside my closet is a mess. Shoes and dresses and sundry outfits are strewn haphazardly. It took a little longer than expected to find my outfit because I haven’t been on a date in a long time and had no idea what to wear.
It’s not a date, I remind myself. It’s dinner. Nothing else. AT ALL. Besides, my mom will be there.
After grabbing my purse, I do a double take of the perfume on my dresser. Might as well… A few puffs later, I’m smelling all sweet and citrusy. Not like I’m trying to smell good for Guy or anything. It’s all for me and me alone.
But when Guy opens the door for me, I’m glad I took more time than usual to get ready.
“Holy shit.”
23
Charleigh
Did I just say that out loud?
Guy’s vibrant, expansive, so-white-it’s-blinding smile tells me that yes, yes I did say that out loud.
“I’m glad you came, Charleigh.”
Dear lord. I don’t remember Guy’s voice being this rough. This sensual. It warms me like a steaming mug of hot chocolate on a cold winter night, while at the same time it steals my breath. And that outfit. Holy smokes.
Sleek dark slacks hug his muscular thighs. A form-fitting white Oxford with thin, light-blue pinstripes, cuffed just below his forearms. A button or two left undone.
Tousled hair. DO care.
Basically, I want to devour Guy—in the most platonic kind of way, of course.
He steps aside, leading me inside with one arm. “Come in,” he says, completely ignoring the fact that I’m drooling all over the floor. Or maybe he’s just being nice and not mentioning it.
Phew. Get it together. You’re supposed to be laying down the law, remember? Focus.
I attempt to shake myself out of it as Guy slips my coat off and hangs it up in the closet. But my breath leaves me once again when he turns back around, his heady scent trailing behind him as he steps around me and then places a single hand on my back.
“You smell wonderful,” I blurt out, momentarily mortified as the words stream from my lips. “Uh—buh.” The longer I fumble, the wider Guy’s smile grows.
“The food,” I say, trying to salvage what’s left of my crumbling dignity. “It smells wonderful.”
Guy maintains his focus on me for just long enough for my neck and face to heat up like a grilled tomato. He lowers his gaze, allowing it to rake down my body at an agonizingly slow pace.
“You look wonderful, Charleigh,” he says once he finally draws his eyes back to mine. He grabs my hand and then urges me toward the kitchen. “And you smell wonderful too.” A wink and smile. Oh lord.
If it weren’t for the incredible smells wafting from the kitchen, hijacking my senses, the last bit of dignity I have left would crumble to pieces.
The island at the center of the kitchen is covered with bowls filled to the brim with a medley of toppings—pico de gallo, cilantro and onions, guacamole, and sour cream. A steaming mound of rice and black beans flank either side.
Although the food looks amazing, I can’t help but notice what’s missing from this picture: my mother. She’s not in her usual spot in the kitchen, relaxing in a chair and reading a magazine.
“Where’s my mom?”
Guys tenses for a moment, stopping mid-stride. “She’s at Jamie’s.”
It’s a simple statement but comes with a slew of complications, the most pressing of which is that I’m essentially on a date with Guy.
“It came out of nowhere,” Guy says abruptly. “She was helping me prepare dinner one moment, talking about how she was looking forward to seeing you tonight. And then in the next moment, she had her purse and was on her way out the door. I sent you a text about it.”
I check my phone and lo and behold, he actually did send me a text, multiple texts, actually.
Guy: Deanna just left
Guy: She says she’s having dinner with Jamie and Marissa
Guy: I didn’t plan this I swear
Guy: You can cancel if you want
Guy: I have no problem eating the feast I made
Guy: And the dessert…
I can’t help but smile at the slew of texts. But if he thinks he’s going to have the dessert for himself, think again.
“It’s fine.”
Not really. I’m a little annoyed at my mother, but whatever, more dessert and fajitas for me. Guy walks over to the stove, where strips of beef, bell peppers, and onions are sizzling in hot oil. “Go ahead and help—” he begins, turning around mid-sentence to find me diving into the chips and guac.
My mouth about orgasms when the guacamole meets my tongue. I moan as the tortilla chip—three wrapped together—crunches in my mouth. I have to sit down before my knees give in to the pure ecstasy going on in my mouth.
“Yourself,” Guy finishes his sentence. “Tasty?” he asks, seeming unsure whether to be happy or terrified that I’m devouring his guacamole like a monster.
"Ish ferry good," I somehow manage with a full mouth, swallowing it down without choking. I take a quick breather as Guy turns his attention to the stove, shaking his head as he stirs the meat in the pan.
It’s like I haven’t eaten all day. Wait. I haven’t eaten all day. Yikes. Today’s been an unending stream of mind-numbingly boring meetings fractured only by near mental breakdowns dealing with Christiana’s demands.
“How is it?” Guy asks over his shoulder.
"Amazing." Not only the guac but the view. I've never had anyone cook me dinner before, let alone a man as attractive as Guy. Yep—I acknowledge that Guy is pleasing to the eye. His muscles. His phenomenal bone structure. I mean, how the hell can a jawline be that sharp? And those hands. I can only imagine what he could do to me with them. With all that said, it doesn't mean I like Guy.
“I’m glad. It’s almost ready. Could you grab a platter for the meat for me?”
I hop off my stool and head for the cabinet where we always kept all the platters. It’s strange how I remember where everything is. Or at least, I thought I did. I close the first cabinet, moving on to the next, and then again when I can’t find the platters.
“They’re on the other side of the fridge now.” Guy turns around and points. “Things have changed a little since you’ve been gone.”
I can’t help but think he means something more than the location of pots and pans. The skin prickles on the back of my neck as I roll onto my toes to grab a platter from the shelf. When I turn around, I find Guy’s eyes on me. They’re kind but unnerving at the same time, as though there’s something hidden underneath the surface.
I offer a fleeting smile before setting the platter down next to the rest of the food. “There you are.”
Guy turns around, hot pan sizzling as steam licks the air. “And here we are,” he says, dumping the strips of meat and veggies onto the platter. He turns around, setting the pan back on the stove and then removes the foil covering another plate.
Um, what? Is what my face is saying right now because I can’t even begin to fathom how much effort Guy has put into this dinner.
"It's not that difficult," Guy assures me. "There are only a few ingredients. The secret is in the spices and a good sear on the meat."
I prod at his arms for a moment and reach up and pinch his cheek, which is easier said than done because there’s not a shred of fat on his face. After I tug at his black tresses, he finally asks me what I’m doing.
“I’m trying to figure out if you’re really Guy or Martha Stewart dressed in a man suit.”
Guy lets out a sharp exhale, turning around as he laughs. He catches his breath a few seconds later. “I’m going to ignore the incredibly disturbing image in my head right now and pretend I never heard that.”
He grabs a plate, tosses a couple of tortillas on it, and then piles them high with meat and veggies and pico and guac.
“Seriously though, how the hell did you learn how to do all this?” I follow suit, loading my own plate up with fajitas, rice, and beans.
Guy sets his plate down and then sits down on the stool next to mine. “Google,” he says, grinning at me for a brief moment before rolling up the tortilla and taking a man-sized bite out of it.
After a few moments of awkward silence, mostly because he's busy swallowing the gargantuan amount of food in his mouth, Guy says, "Seriously. It's not that difficult to learn how to do this." He motions to the food laid out in front of us. "There are recipes for everything you can imagine. Videos, too." Another bite. Swallow. "It just takes a little bit of effort to go looking for them."
"Well, I'll have you know I'm adept at pouring boiling water into cups of ramen. And I know how to properly heat up a frozen burrito." I take a bite out of my fajita. "So if you need any help on that—" Holy shit.
These fajitas are fantastic. MSG? Salt? Fat? All of the above? What sort of sorcery is going on in my mouth? Before I have time to think about it, I’m one fajita deep and halfway through the next.
“I don’t know whether to be impressed or afraid.” I glance up from stuffing my face and see Guy gaping at me, his own tortilla hovering in front of his mouth.
I swallow what’s left in my mouth, set the fajita back on the plate, and then clear my throat. “This might have been the first time I’ve eaten all day. I didn’t realize how hungry I was,” I say shrugging, digging into the rice and beans.
“You haven’t eaten all day?” Guy sets his fajita down. “That’s no good.”
“You remember that whole issue with Andrea I called you about earlier?”
“The marble mixup?”
“Mixup,” I say, using air quotes. “There was no mixup. Andrea point-blank said she hated my design and wanted to make changes to it. If I hadn’t caught this one so early, there would’ve been more.”
Guy wipes his mouth with his napkin and drops it next to his plate. “She told me you’d signed off on it. I just didn’t think to mention it to you.”
“Maybe you should’ve brought it up, but this is all Andrea.”
“She must be a blast to work with.”
“You have no idea.”
Guy smiles, and there’s that swirling feeling in my gut. Or maybe it’s the beans. Probably the beans. Whatever it is, I kind of like it. But what I like most about this moment right now is the overwhelming sense of ease between us. It was only a few weeks ago that every interaction with Guy felt like work. It doesn’t feel like that anymore, and I’m not sure when it changed. Some things are like that. They happen slowly and then all at once, from drizzle to downpour with no in between.
“Is the voice real?” Guy asks me out of seemingly nowhere.
“The voice?” Welp, that sense of ease is gone. I look around us nervously hoping that the TV is on in the background because the last thing I want to hear now is that the person I’m sharing chips and guac with is hearing voices.
Guy laughs. “Andrea’s voice,” he says. “That chipmunk voice of hers. Is it real?”
After my own laughing fit, I take a deep breath. Thank God Guy hasn’t lost his mind. “It’s all show. She turns it on when she’s trying to schmooze someone. Well, guys only. She switches into a Southern drawl when she’s with a female client.” I scrunch my brow. “I’m not exactly sure why, though.”
“She’s playing the role she thinks the client wants. Unfortunately for her, she’s assuming all clients are alike.” Guy scoops out a heaping serving of guacamole with a chip, so much so that the chip breaks and gets stuck in the green goo of deliciousness. He looks at me, raising a brow, and I raise one in commiseration. Nothing’s worse than losing a chip in guac. Okay, there are a lot of things worse than that, but right now, this one’s pretty high up on the list.
Guy selects a heftier chip to rescue its fallen friend and then crunches down on both of them. He claps his hands together, wiping the crumbs off of them and then swivels around to meet me. A trail of his cologne follows in his wake. Christ, he smells so good—like a forest of evergreens after snow, mixed with a crackling wood fire and cinnamon. Definitely cinnamon.
“Ready to take this into the living room? Fixer Upper’s about to come on.”
“What about dessert?”
“What about it?”
“Where. Is. It?”
“Easy there, Chuck.” Guy pats me on top of my head. “We’ll get to it after Fixer Upper. Deanna would be disappointed if we didn’t watch at least one show in her honor.”
“A few things. One. Don’t call me Chuck ever again.” Guy smiles at this, which makes me pause for a longer time than I wanted due to that fluttering feeling just below my sternum. “Two. Deanna has no right to be disappointed in either of us. She’s the one who skipped out on tonight for no reason at all.”
“She forgot about her plans with Jamie and Marissa,” Guy says.
I smile at his naïvety, pull out my phone, and hand it over to him so he can see firsthand the slew of texts Marissa sent me once Deanna showed up unannounced at her front door.
“Huh,” he says, scrolling through them.
“She totally set this up.”
Guy’s silent, scrolling. Scrolling. SCROLLING. WHY IS HE STILL SCROLLING?
“Do you really think—”
I snatch the phone out of his clutches. “I don’t know what you saw, but whatever it was, I didn’t write it.”
“You didn’t text Marissa that my biceps are built like boulders?”
“I—pfft—like—come on…” The pitch of my voice is reaching Andrea levels as I unconvincingly walk back the texts that I sent to Marissa about Guy. I tell Guy a story about an escaped monkey from a traveling circus that stole my phone for a period of time, so I couldn’t be held responsible for most of those texts.
“I wasn’t aware that there were traveling circuses, or that a monkey belonging to one of them would know so much about me. How’d you end up retrieving it?”
“Strange, huh? Anyway, how about that Fixer Upper?”
Yikes. I focus my attention on the last of my fajitas, trying hard to ignore the feeling Guy's gaze has on me. After a few bites, the embarrassment subsides, giving way to annoyance. Unfortunately, I still have a mouthful of food, so what I want to say comes out horribly.
Guy raises both of his eyebrows, prompting me to try again. I swallow and resume.
“Rule number one of proper phone etiquette. When someone hands you their phone, you’re to look at whatever they are showing you and no more.”
“I wasn’t aware,” Guy says unconvincingly. “But I promise not to snoop anymore.” He pauses for a few moments. “Does that include your room too?”
MY WHAT?!
Seeming to sense the storm brewing in my mind, Guy makes the appropriate decision to get up from the island and walk away. Unfortunately for him, I’m not going to let him go so easily now that I know he’s been snooping in my bedroom. I hop off my stool and follow him out of the room.
&nb
sp; “Guy you have no right to be—” I’m only able to get a few words out before he spins around and bear hugs me.
“I’m kidding, Charleigh. You have nothing to worry about.”
I grab his back reflexively and find nothing but pure muscle underneath my fingertips. Yikes. I don’t think I’ve ever touched something so hard yet soft at the same time. I try to respond, but with my mouth being smothered by Guy’s torso, each syllable comes out all wrong. I’m not complaining though.
He pulls away and I can’t help but feel a little bit of loss. I’m not sure whether I should be ashamed at how good that hug—his touch, his scent, his voice—made me feel or embrace it.
"HGTV now. Dessert later." Guy's raspy baritone sends a chill down my spine with waves of tingling pinpricks in its wake, radiating outward.
I try my best to look menacing, squaring up to him with my hands on my hips. "Dessert now. Dessert later."
It doesn’t work.
“You drive a hard bargain, Charleigh, but no.”
He walks over to the sofa and sits down.
He has no idea just how far I’ll go to get what I want.
24
Guy
I can’t keep my hands to myself.
Every chance I have to touch Charleigh, no matter how fleeting it may be, I take it. I'm teaching her how to make a molten dulce de leche cake. She's never had it before—and I've never made it before—but I wanted to try something new. Something outside of my comfort zone. But I hadn't planned for this entire night to be outside my comfort zone.
From the moment I opened the door and saw Charleigh, I knew that any hope of keeping tonight simple was out the window. Charleigh's shoulder-length tresses fell like silk against her shoulder, framing her perfect alabaster complexion. When I saw her I had to resist every urge to reach out, run my hands through her hair and taste her sweet lips again.
“How’s it look?” Charleigh asks as she focuses on stirring the caramel sauce on the stove.
"Gorgeous," I say, not taking my eyes off her. I finger a stray hair that fell across her cheek and pull it behind her ear.