Flipping Love You (Boys of the Bayou Gone Wild #3) - Erin Nicholas Page 0,57

on coming back. Cold cereal at home was so much easier. But damn, she hadn’t had a cinnamon roll in forever. And she really liked eggs Benedict, as a matter of fact.

“Thank you. That’s so nice. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Ellie, Leo, and Cora hovered for just a moment, and Zeke finally said, “The penguins don’t get here for a few days. She’s not going to just pull one out of her pocket.”

Ellie swatted him on the shoulder, but the three of them moved off and back to work.

“They’re really that excited about the penguins?”

Zeke cut into his breakfast, but gave her a look that clearly said, seriously? “Fuck yeah. penguins are awesome. And to have them right here in Autre…who would’ve thought?”

Dammit, these people were so nice. And they were excited about her penguins. She really wanted to give the penguins a quiet, peaceful place to lay their eggs and hatch a whole bunch of new babies. A bunch of loud, enthusiastic Cajuns clustering around watching would not be conducive.

What if the penguins wouldn’t breed? What if they didn’t lay viable eggs? What if the eggs wouldn’t hatch? What if the hatchlings didn’t survive?

“You’re overthinking.” Zeke pulled her bowl of grits closer to him, reached for the sugar, butter, and cinnamon and started adding them to her bowl.

“Hey,” she protested.

“You don’t know what you’re doing. Let me show you how this should be.”

You don’t know what you’re doing.

He wasn’t talking about the penguins. She knew that. Everyone here thought she was a penguin expert. She was, of course. At least relative to anyone else here. But she was definitely feeling a little unsure.

Zeke pushed the bowl back to her and handed her a spoon. “Taste it.”

She wasn’t really that hungry suddenly. “I’m okay.”

“Stop being a diva. Taste the grits.”

She looked at him with surprise. A diva? She hadn’t been called a diva before. “I’m just not hungry.”

“Bullshit. You haven’t eaten this morning. And you burned a lot of calories last night.”

He gave her a grin that made her tingle in spite of the niggling thoughts of being a penguin fraud.

“Besides, once you try this you will be hungry.”

Deciding that arguing with him was also a waste of time, she took the spoon from his fingers and dipped into the bowl. She took a small taste.

Huh. Not bad. She didn’t mind oatmeal and cream of wheat and this had a perfect combination of sugar and cinnamon. She looked at Zeke.

He smiled. “Right?”

“Yeah. Okay, you were right.” She took another bite.

He watched her eat for a minute or so, munching on a strip of bacon. After she had taken about four bites, he pushed his plate toward her. “Okay, now try this.”

He’d eaten about half. But there was plenty still left. The portions here were huge.

“You don’t like grits?”

“Grits are fine. Sometimes. But they’re no eggs Benedict.”

“Grits are probably more my thing though,” she told him. “I like simple and straightforward. Eggs Benedict is… complicated. There’s lots of ingredients and it takes a lot more time.”

“I hear you loud and clear, Kansas. Taste the fucking eggs Benedict.”

She really did believe that he understood her analogy with breakfast food and how she preferred her life and relationships.

But she still leaned over and cut off a piece of the eggs Benedict. She took the bite, fully expecting to enjoy it.

What she hadn’t expected, however, was to moan out loud.

“Oh my God,” she said, after she swallowed. “That’s amazing.”

He lifted a hand and tugged on the end of a strand of hair. “A little extra time and a few extra ingredients are sometimes worth it.”

Yeah, she didn’t miss his analogy either.

She also didn’t miss that it was the morning after, they barely knew one another, and he was already pressing for more.

“I’ll give you that,” she said. “But I don’t have time for eggs Benedict in my mornings. And the grits do the job. When all is said and done, all of the food gets broken down into the same parts that your body uses for nutrition and energy. All I need are the calories to get me through the day. It doesn’t really matter where they come from. So I definitely opt for simple.”

“You’re not wrong,” he said. “But if you’re only focused on what happens after, you’re missing a lot of pleasure of the initial experience.”

Yeah, yeah.

“Here you go.”

They were interrupted by another woman. This one looked to be in her mid-fifties. She had brown hair the same mahogany color as Zeke’s