Love In Moments (Love Distilled #2) - Scarlett Cole Page 0,34

placed it over the edge of the cart. “Let’s start with towels.”

Anders followed behind, partly because it was polite to allow other shoppers to pass and partly because he could shamelessly check out her ass. While setting up the gym, she’d mentioned that she wanted to lose weight. He couldn’t see why, he loved something to hold on to, but if she was unhappy, he could help her with that.

Fuck. The idea of her curves in a sports bra and spandex had him glad he was wearing a coat to hide his semi-hard-on.

“Which ones do you like for working out?” Olivia asked.

He shrugged. “Ones that wipe up sweat. Lots of it.”

Olivia laughed and the sound rippled through him. “Okay. But hand towels, bath towels. Like, what size?”

“Honestly, Liv. I don’t fucking care.”

She squinted her eyes at him. “Are you being obtuse?”

“If I knew what obtuse meant, I’d let you know.”

“Difficult. Pretending not to understand.”

He took her hand in his and kissed it. “No, kämpe. I’m not being difficult. You worry about things I don’t care about. I worry about things you don’t care about. You pick the towels, because it doesn’t matter to me.”

“Fine,” she said, but kept her eyes on his. Heat fizzled between them. He could feel it pass from her fingers to his. His chest felt a little tighter. For a millisecond, it felt as though this were their home they were decorating, not a rental that wasn’t even his. And that their home would be as colorful as it was practical. A real home that was vibrant and safe and filled with meaning. It would have the kind of stability he’d never felt growing up, moving from town to town with his father’s job as a junior league coach in Sweden. Moving around so frequently had forced him and Karl to rely on each other. Making friends had been a futile episode of meeting someone new, only to leave them behind twelve or twenty-four months later. The pain of it had hurt more than the loneliness of not making any friends, so he’d stopped trying and found comfort in his own company.

“Make them navy,” he said, offering her an opinion she obviously needed. “Yellow towels look weird.”

Olivia grinned and he leaned against the cart as she opened every towel to check it was perfect before adding it to the basket.

They had similar conversations in many aisles. She decided he needed a wall clock to keep an eye on the time while he was working out, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her he set timers on his phone. He actually liked the wicker baskets she selected for the clean and dirty towels.

“I think we’re done,” Olivia said, looking at the cart as they joined the check out line. “I hope we didn’t spend too much money.”

At a guess, it was about three hundred bucks, less than he earned in an hour. “It’s fine, Liv. But I want to carefully suggest something to you without upsetting you.”

Her smile dropped a little. “You don’t like it, right? As I was shopping, I wondered if I’d pushed you into the Sweden theme. It’s just—”

“Liv. Stop. I said I didn’t care, but I actually like the way you’ve pulled it all together. It’s something else.

“You’ve told me twice that you want to lose weight.” He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer until his hands rested on the curve of her ass. He dropped his lips to her ear. “I don’t think you need to, because I happen to love looking at your ass. But, being an athlete, I also know what it feels like to know you aren’t at your best. I know what it’s like to hit preseason training and feel like I didn’t work hard enough in the off-season. I have this new gym. And I fucking love the idea of you in workout clothes. Will you come over and work out with me when I get back from this road trip? I don’t want to push you. Your call, kämpe.”

Olivia sighed. “I just get stuck. I know what I need to do. I even make some progress, but then I blow it and then I get mad at myself.”

Comments she’d made at Christmas came back to him.

It’s been a long year, Anders. The hardest one I’ve ever had.

There was obviously a lot more to Olivia’s story than he understood. More than how she felt about her weight. And his A-type personality wanted