Rocked (The Everyday Heroes World) - Julia Wolf Page 0,17
I had homes on both coasts. She already thought I was an asshole, no need to tick another box in that column to further confirm her opinion.
She handed me a head of lettuce and instructed me to chop. “You know how, right?”
“I’ll muddle my way through.”
The smile she threw me over her shoulder did this weird thing to my gut. A kind of squirmy feeling I hadn’t felt in ages. I nearly cut my thumb off while smiling stupidly back at her, even after she turned around.
What a fuckin’ weird day. It hadn’t been half bad so far, just weird.
Six
Kat
Devon chopped slowly, measuring out each piece of lettuce before he brought the knife down. I would have found it endearing if he weren’t a grown-ass man who should have been able to cut his own food.
“When was the last time you cooked for yourself?”
He looked up from the cutting board, something akin to guilt shadowing his eyes. “I’m on the road so fuckin’ much, Kat. Have been since I was eighteen. A home-cooked meal is a treat. I can’t say I do a whole lot of it for myself, but I’m up for learning.” He held up the hand holding the knife, and it trembled slightly. “Normally, I’d be going a little faster, but you’ve got me nervous. I don’t want to screw up.”
I stopped what I was doing—flattening out dough to make corn tortillas—to face him. “Why do I make you nervous?”
He set his knife on the counter. “You’re a little scary. You’ve got the whole mama bear thing going on, not to mention the badass vibe you put off. I saw you with that chain around your mailbox—you could probably take a grown man down.”
Ooof, that description wasn’t too flattering. Not coming from a hot rock star who had women throwing themselves at him on a constant basis. I doubted he’d describe any of them that way.
Not that I was throwing myself at Devon Chambers—I wasn’t and had no plans to in the future. But still, I’d love for the reasons I made him nervous to be anything but the ones he’d stated.
“I’m not going to yell at you if your lettuce is uneven, promise. The only time I get scary is when it has to do with my kid.”
He kept an eye on me for a beat. “I believe that. I’m sure I could get you rankled. I have a tendency to do that.”
“Why?” I resumed flattening out my tortillas. “Do you like being an asshole?”
He chuckled. “Nah. I’ve just got a tendency to make jokes when they’re not needed and say the first thing that pops into my head. A lot of the time, it’s inappropriate.”
“Like about Ellie’s fanny pack?”
He snorted. “Yeah, although I have a hard time believing I’m the first person to bring that up.”
“You’re not. But we live in a small town where everyone’s known her since birth. I doubt anyone notices at this point. Not the adults anyway.”
His chopping had picked up speed, but he kept stopping to look at me whenever I spoke.
“What all is she allergic to?”
“It’s more what isn’t she allergic to.” I closed my eyes for two breaths, reining in my emotions. I tried to stick to the facts when I spoke about Ellie’s allergies, because when I started thinking about all that could potentially kill her, I tended to panic, and no one needed that.
“Tell me, otherwise I’m liable to smear peanut butter on her or some shit.”
A snort of a laugh popped out of me before I could stop it. “Oh my god, Devon.” Another laugh, then another.
He grinned at me, chuckling softly while I belly-laughed. “I said something inappropriate and it worked in my favor for once.”
“It did.” I wiped a tear from beneath my eye. “Please don’t smear peanut butter on my child.”
He pressed a hand over his heart, meeting my eyes with a sincere gaze. “It is my solemn vow that I will never bring peanut butter anywhere in the vicinity of Ellie Domingo.”
I hip-checked him. “I think that’s the first time I’ve laughed about her allergies.”
“I’m pretty honored to be the one who made it happen,” he said. “Now, tell me what she’s allergic to so I don’t smear it on her.”
“Do you go around smearing food on people often?”
“It’s been known to happen.” He shrugged, and god, I believed him. I could picture this man randomly cracking an egg on someone’s head or smashing a piece of bread on someone’s nose.