“Okay, meat.”
“Have you been cooking for your whole life?” Kole asked.
“Just about,” I said. “All the years that mattered, at least.” I stopped at the butcher section and chose a rack of lamb chops. “I was never any good at anything else. If it weren’t for cooking, I’d probably be miserable somewhere, working some crappy job. And I never would’ve gone down the path that led me to have Elise.”
I avoided mentioning her mother, mostly because I didn’t want to ruin our conversation with depressing details. She was supposed to be all in the past, but I hated how she still managed to affect my life. I knew that she’d been mated to some new alpha and was living a new life with a new family. It wasn’t that I wished we were still together, not in the slightest. It was the fact that I couldn’t move on from the way she’d fucked me up.
Kole touched my arm. Surprised, I looked over at him and realized to my embarrassment that I’d zoned out.
“Every moment in our lives is a star in a constellation of meaning,” he said. “All leading up to this present moment. It’s important to see the beauty in the entirety of it, knowing that it couldn’t exist without one single star.”
He was smiling in a way that made me wonder if he somehow knew what I was thinking, and I wondered if maybe he could read my thoughts. I realized I had no idea what the extent of Kole’s abilities was. But it wasn’t anything that made me feel uncomfortable. The opposite.
He grabbed the edges of the brim of his hat and pulled them down to the sides of his chin and started humming as he walked ahead of me, pausing to peek at a tank full of lobsters. He looked over at me, grinned, and said, “Do we need anything else?”
I was on the verge of zoning out again, but this time thinking about him. There was just something about him. Never mind the fact that he was cute, great with Elise, and interesting—and smelled great—there was something that drew me in. Something I’d never felt before.
Hounds of hell.
Was I just getting carried away because it’d been forever since I’d had any kind of connection with someone else? Since I’d felt attracted to someone?
“No, I think we’re good,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Kole’s place was just a short walk away, a loft apartment on the top floor of an old building that had to be at least a hundred years old—a fitting aesthetic for him, especially in his outfit. We took the stairs, which were made of iron, and circled up to a landing that led to a heavy door made of dark wood. It was unlocked, and he pushed it open and led the way inside.
The place smelled like him—that rich, warm aroma of incense, mixed with old varnish, flowers, and a forest. No surprise, since the place was packed full of plants. It was an open floor plan with the kitchen tucked into a corner. Lots of room, and a fantastic old gas stove.
“I can see what you mean about your kitchen,” I said, bringing the groceries to the counter. Surprisingly, he had a lot of high-quality cookware, but it was obvious he didn’t use it much. Pots, pans, knives, pretty much everything—but his fridge was pretty bare and he only had salt and pepper in the cabinet.
He disappeared somewhere and when he came back, he was wearing a black short-sleeve button-up and black shorts, the robe and hat gone. “What do you think?” he asked.
“You look good,” I said.
“I meant about the kitchen,” he said, looking away. He straightened his glasses. “But, uh, thank you.”
“You know, I think I could fix those for you,” I said, trying to hide that I was blushing like hell.
Kole touched the side of his glasses like he hadn’t realized they were always sliding down his nose. He took them off and wiggled the arms. “I’ve been meaning to get new ones for the longest time. I suppose I’ve gotten used to them.”
“Shouldn’t be too difficult.” I took them from him and examined them. “Yeah. Do you have any tools?”
“I think so.”
“Let me take care of dinner first,” I said. “I’m sure we’re both hungry.”
“I’ll make some tea,” he said, lighting up. He opened up a cabinet that looked packed with different kinds of tea, and I realized he was more of a connoisseur than I’d realized.
“I hope I