“You seem like you could use it—to relax, I mean.”
“And how are you going to feel if I become an alcoholic?”
“As long as you’re not acting like I kidnapped you, I’ll feel fantastic. Now, drink up.”
She took the glass from my hand and studied the contents. “Well, you kind of did kidnap me, so I guess my reaction is authentic.”
“Oh yeah? Didn’t you follow me here? In your own car?”
She shrugged, still staring at the wine in her hand. “I think that falls under Stockholm syndrome or something.”
“Hmm . . .” I nodded, catching the faintest grin twitch at the corners of her mouth. “Interesting. I wasn’t aware I had that much control over you. Although, now I understand why Kelsey is so adamant that I stay away from you.”
That caught her attention.
“She’s under the impression that you won’t be able to resist my charm, so she’s forbidden me from having anything to do with you.” That was meant to be playful, except it had more of an opposite reaction in my chest. Bringing up how my cousin had asked me to stay away from Tatum, while Tatum sat in my kitchen, filled me with mixed emotions I would’ve rather ignored than dealt with.
“Yet you guilt me into coming to your house and then force-feed me wine? You might want to research the definition of forbid. I think you have the wrong idea of what that means.”
Her teasing response was enough to settle the guilt that would’ve suffocated me if it hadn’t been for the lightness in her tone. That was how I would have to justify her presence—it might have been a selfish reason, but if being around her softened the turmoil inside, then Kelsey would just have to deal with it.
“What can I say?” I peered over my shoulder and winked. “I’m a rebel.”
“I can see that. From my experience, most outlaws wear cargo shorts and graphic tees with Iron Man on the front. It’s the ultimate disguise, really. Especially the Nikes with no socks. No one would ever look at you and guess ‘rule breaker.’”
Good thing she couldn’t see the smile burning my cheeks. “I am wearing socks, thank you. Not all criminals prefer sweaty feet.”
“Do you iron your sheets, too? I bet you do. And your boxers.”
Either a few sips were enough to take the edge off, or she’d reached the deliriously awkward stage of her nerves, because in the two minutes since she’d sat down, she’d relaxed tenfold. It was nice to see, and even nicer to be around when she was as open as this. If only I could get her to be this way all the time around me. Around anyone else, I didn’t give a shit. But around me, I never wanted to see her closed off in her shell ever again.
“You probably shouldn’t make fun of a total badass when he’s in the middle of cutting something.” I held up the knife and quirked a brow.
Her humor waned as she flicked her wrist in my direction, dismissing my empty threat. “I don’t have anything to worry about. I’ve watched you chop that onion for like an hour already. I think I’ll be all right if you ever decide to turn it on me.”
“Excuse me?” I slapped my free hand over my chest in feigned surprise. “First of all, I have not been chopping this for that long. Secondly, I’m very skilled with one of these things; I just didn’t want you to know and then fear for your life. You’ve already told me that I’m holding you here against your will, and the only reason you haven’t left yet is out of some sort of affection you have for me. The last thing I wanted to do was make you run off.”
“I gave you one task, Jay.” God, I loved it when she called me that. Which was odd, considering I vehemently corrected anyone else who tried to shorten my name. Yet from her lips, it was different. “Dice the onion. It looks like you mutilated it more than anything.”
I dismissed her insult and went back to the bane of my existence—this onion. It wasn’t that I didn’t know how to cook anything, because if I wanted to, I could throw something together and it would be edible. The problem was, I’d never been taught how to prepare anything. So if something called for garlic, I used the powder. If I needed onion, I used the powder. If I needed fresh herbs . . . I used the kind that came in a plastic bottle on the spice aisle.
“This is just sad,” she muttered. When I turned my head to see what she was doing, I caught her sliding off the counter. “You don’t want it too small, or you’ll lose the flavor. And if it’s too big, you’ll be crunching on it for days. Let me show you.”
I started to take a step back so she could have the cutting board, but before my foot slid along the tile, she slipped beneath my arm and made herself at home, trapped between my chest and the counter. This proved it—I needed to stock up on whatever wine I’d given her. Less than half a glass, and her nerves had mellowed out.
As she maneuvered the blade, she offered tips and suggestions to make it easier. Yet I didn’t hear a single one. I was too busy losing myself in the fragrance of her hair to listen to anything she said—other than the sound of her voice. With her dark silky locks piled on top of her head in a very disorganized knot, it was easier to catch the clean scent while I stood behind her, despite our height difference.
And as if that wasn’t enough to distract me from my cooking lesson, there was the way her back would gently graze my chest when she moved, or how she’d lean to one side, fitting my arm in the crook of her neck when she pointed something out. That was honestly the only reason I knew when to respond. Without that, she’d know immediately that I hadn’t paid a lick of attention to her instructions.
“Okay, now it’s ready to go in the pan.” She stepped out of my slightly imaginary embrace and pointed to the stove. “You’re going to mix the ingredients for the sauce while that’s heating up. Just keep an eye on it so they don’t burn.”
I did as she instructed and then grabbed a mixing bowl—a plastic cereal bowl, since I didn’t have anything else. She got a good laugh about that, and then she finally began the list she was supposed to have written for me days ago. It consisted of basic kitchen items I would need to survive without resorting to the tried-and-true college diet.
“What kinds of things did your ex used to make?” she asked after reclaiming her spot on the countertop.
I watched as her mouth met the rim of the wineglass. The liquid left her pout moist, giving off the appearance of lip gloss, even though I already knew she didn’t have any on. Other than a small amount of color on her eyelids and a very thin, inky line tracing her lashes, her face was completely bare. When her tongue peeked out and captured an errant drip, I almost lost it. Though not nearly as bad as when she glanced up and caught me gawking.
Shaking it off before she could witness my struggle, I wholeheartedly blamed my cousin for this. Had she not put the idea in my head, I wouldn’t have entertained the thought of Tatum licking something else, or what it would look like to see her tongue savor every drop of—
Nope, I couldn’t allow myself to go there.
“She, uh . . .” I desperately fought to control my thoughts and steer them back to her question about my ex. Jen—that was enough to put the lid on anything remotely sexy. Being rejected by a woman you were in love with had a way of stifling anything appealing about her. “Normal shit. Like meatloaf, chicken, alfredo from a jar. Things you’d probably turn your nose up at.”
“What happened?” Her voice was so small, had I not been looking at her, I would’ve missed the question. “With you guys, I mean. Why’d you break up? Your mom said it was recent.”
“She doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut.”
“Who? Your ex or your mom?”
I smiled and closed my eyes, thankful for her unintentional humor. “My mother.”
“Nah. She has good intentions.”
“Yeah, well . . . wait until it’s your personal shit she’s talking about. She keeps her own business under lock and key; you can’t pry it out of her with a crowbar.”
Just thinking of Jen put me in a funk. Anger churned in my gut while intense pain swelled in
my chest, making it difficult to breathe. My mind bounced between my physical discomfort and the agonizing memories of when I’d finally left so that my world consisted of only me, closed off by a black tarp that had trapped the ache in more than it had shielded me from it.
“My ex is a douche.” Her soft voice tugged me out of the fog, and the more she spoke, the closer to safety I became. “Last year, during the Thanksgiving dinner we had at the restaurant for the employees and our families, he asked me to marry him. I never pressured him to pop the question, didn’t even make a big deal about taking the next step in our relationship. As far as I know, that was his decision, and his alone.”
I shifted the diced onions around in the pan with a wooden spoon while she shared her pain with me. She didn’t have to, and on some perverse level, I was thankful she did. It gave me an odd sense of relief to know I wasn’t alone in the broken hearts club.
“Less than two months after that, my friends had planned a dinner for my birthday. I wanted to get there early, he didn’t, and in the end, I won. Except I guess I technically lost, because while we waited for everyone to show up, he told me he wasn’t happy and left.”
Facing her wasn’t enough. I was drawn to her, and I couldn’t stop until I’d made my way to the end of the kitchen and stood in front of the woman with sad eyes yet determined spirit. Fitting myself between her dangling legs, I pressed my palms against the granite on either side of her and leaned forward until we were eye level with each other.
“Why wasn’t he happy?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
She shrugged, licked her lips, and swallowed hard. For the briefest moment, her gaze dropped, but in an instant, she returned her attention to my face. “I have no idea. It all came out of nowhere. It’s not like there were any warning signs or anything.”
“He never told you what caused him to change his mind so quickly?”
“Not really. I had my suspicions, but he never wanted to have a conversation about it.”
I didn’t know who this asshole was, yet that didn’t stop me from wanting to knock his teeth in. Tatum was an amazing woman—from what I could tell, at least—and she’d wasted her time with a man who didn’t deserve her. Meanwhile, guys like me weren’t scared of a lifelong commitment with the right person, yet we couldn’t get there because the women we chose didn’t comprehend the meaning of sacrifice.
We were two damaged souls, incapable of a future because we each had a past with the wrong person.
“For what it’s worth, he’s a dumbass.” Looking into her eyes, I could see how difficult it was for her to hold my gaze. The fight within her to glance away and avoid whatever connection there was between us in this moment was strong, and I worried I’d lose her.
After a deep breath, something in her shifted. It wasn’t so much a wall that had come down as it was a page that had turned. Her eyes brightened, and the lines along her forehead lessened. “Seems to me like you’re the one who can’t resist my charm.”
I pushed away from her and laughed to myself. But my retort was stifled by the sizzling coming from the stove. I stirred the onions some more and, per her instructions, moved the pan to a different burner.
“She didn’t want to come with me,” I answered, realizing I hadn’t made it very clear as to what I was talking about. “When Bill died, my priorities changed. My entire family lives here, and for the last thirteen years, I’ve been gone. In that time, Marlena got married and had two kids, all of which I wasn’t around much for. So, moving home wasn’t a difficult decision to make. I guess the choice wasn’t as easy for her as it was for me.”
Silence met my confession for a moment, and there wasn’t enough strength in me to face her while she hesitated to come up with something to say. To my surprise, her response wasn’t at all what I’d anticipated. “If Bill practically raised you, why do you call him by his first name?”
I craned my neck to peer at her over my shoulder. “Because he wasn’t my dad.” It felt like a betrayal even uttering those words aloud, but I wasn’t sure how much of my life story she’d been privy to.
“Oh. I’m sorry, I guess I just figured since your dad wasn’t around, and you were so young when your mom married Bill, you would’ve eventually called him something else.” She must’ve seen the confusion on my face, because she arched one eyebrow, smirked, and added, “Your mom doesn’t know when to shut her mouth, remember?”
I shook my head and returned to stirring the onions. “My dad might not have been around, but when Bill first came into the picture, he was still somewhat in my life. He made it known that he was my father. I thought if I didn’t call Bill dad, then maybe my own would come back.”
“And when he didn’t?”
I shrugged. “Bill knew he was the only father in my life—no matter what I called him.”
“Move the pan to the back burner, and add in the mixture from the bowl.”
I loved how she conveniently dropped the subject and moved on.
Once we had everything done and simmering in a pan, I leaned against the counter and waited for the timer to beep. “Where’d you get this recipe from?” I asked, sipping on my own cocktail.
She picked up her glass and studied its contents for a moment. I’d refilled it while she was in the bathroom, and I thought she was about to question why there seemed to be more than when she’d left. Thankfully, she didn’t. Instead, she offered me a knowing grin and brought it to her lips.
“I made it up.”
“Then how do you remember it?” I was in awe over how she’d spouted off the directions as if they’d been from a family recipe.
“No . . . I literally just made it up as we went. Well, technically, I kind of put it together in my head as I pulled everything out of the fridge. But I more or less invented it on the fly.”
“You do that often?”
She shrugged, helping herself to more of her wine. It was nice to see her so relaxed and comfortable, not wound up and shy. It gave me an idea to turn the spare bedroom into a cellar so I’d always have a supply for her.
“If I have random things, yeah. They don’t always turn out the way I’d like, but at least when it’s done, I can see where I went wrong and try again some other time—as long as it was at least decent to begin with. The creation of something new is my favorite part of cooking.”
“Ever thought about making a cookbook?”
She huffed and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. Not to mention, you haven’t tasted that yet. What if it’s horrible?”
I sucked in a lungful of the aroma that filled the kitchen. “Something that smells that amazing can’t possibly be bad. But I’m serious. You could totally be like that chick on TV and have your own show. Not the butter lady; the hot one.”
She laughed through her fingers, and all I wanted to do was pull her hand away so I could see her smile, because as sexy as she sounded, nothing beat the sight of her lips curled, showing off a row of perfect teeth, while her eyes glistened with mirth.
“Okay, if a cookbook doesn’t appeal to you, have you thought about opening your own restaurant? Why work in someone else’s kitchen when you could have your own? I think that’d be amazing. I’d eat there every day.”
It was obvious in the dismissive flick of her eyes that she didn’t take me seriously. Either that or she didn’t agree with my opinion or the value I saw in her. “Again, Jay . . . hold off on the compliments until you’ve tried dinner. Actually”—she held up her hand—“you might want to wait until tomorrow to make sure it doesn’t poison you.”
“If it’s bad, does that mean I get a redo? I think it should. If dinner sucks—and-or is poisonous—then you have to come over another night and teach me something else to make.”
“That wasn’t the original agreement,” she teased, losing the battle against her grin. “I said one night. There were no contingencies in place for unforeseen errors or death.”
“Technically, you were s
upposed to show me how to cook so I’d be able to feed myself in your absence. Would you really make me eat the same garbage night after night? That’s rather sadistic of you, Tatum. Maybe Kelsey is so determined to keep us away from each other to protect me. I bet it has nothing to do with you.”
“Fine.” That one word stopped the world from turning and left me feeling like the biggest winner . . . until she continued. “If this meal is that bad, then I’ll come back—with a stack of take-out menus from places around here.”
“That’s just cruel.”
“I never claimed to be innocent.”
Fuck. Me.
10
Tatum
I was rather pleased with dinner, not that I doubted it or anything. Yes, I’d failed at a few experimental dishes from time to time. But that only happened when we were in dire need of groceries and all I had were random items left in a nearly bare fridge, not when I had plenty of options to choose from.
However, Jason complained about it with every spoonful he shoved into his mouth. The texture, the taste, the aftertaste. Ask him, and nothing was good about it. He also claimed to have cleared his plate and gone back for seconds only because it was so awful he didn’t want leftovers he’d be forced to eat again. Or, as he added, for someone to come over and taste it and think he sucked at cooking. I got a good laugh from that one.
I hadn’t planned to stay and eat with him, but since we’d made so much—and I was actually curious as to how it turned out—I took him up on his offer. That, and I’d enjoyed enough wine to leave me giddy. Besides, I couldn’t very well leave him with all the dishes to clean. Anytime I ate at someone else’s house, I never left without making sure the kitchen was wiped down and everything was put away. That could’ve explained why Diane always invited me over for dinner.
Jason argued about it until he realized I wouldn’t back down. That’s when he grabbed a dish towel. I washed, and he dried. We were like a well-oiled machine. Several times I had to remind myself that this was my Cinderella moment, my one night to be carefree and have fun with a hot guy—and help him clean his kitchen, just like the original cinder girl.
The (Half) Truth Page 13