Tomorrow, I’d be nothing. Tonight I wanted a taste of something.
“It smells delicious,” she noted before plopping her thousand dollar messenger bag on the floor and heading toward me in that tight little work uniform I equally loathed and adored. I loved that she didn’t care about the lavish gifts Lance kept tossing her way. She probably didn’t even know that bag hadn’t even been released to the general public yet. Lance was always about the finer things, not me.
“I made my special spaghetti,” I boasted, feeling ridiculous for feeling proud about something I shouldn’t be doing.
“Let me go change out of this outfit, then I’ll help you set the table,” she offered before disappearing into her bedroom. I tried. I really did. I tried not to imagine her slipping out of her sweaty shirt and shrugging those tight, denim mini shorts off her rounded thighs and leaving them in a pile of torment on the floor.
But I did.
No regrets.
She appeared again, looking fresh with a bare face and bright eyes, wearing an oversized shirt and leggings in the most effortless, casual outfit possible. It made my suit look out of place, and I suddenly feared that she would think I was trying too hard for something she wanted to be nothing. Nothing was such bullshit.
“I’ll go change, too. Tired of this stuffy suit,” I blurted out before passing her, our arms brushing. My chest constricted. My heart did that ridiculous thump, thump, thump that had me questioning the different forms of addiction. If people could make you high, then touching Blakely was like a drug.
I stripped quickly and awkwardly, fumbling through my clothes for something that felt as effortless as her outfit. I settled on jeans and a t-shirt.
When I got back into the kitchen, Blakely had set the table and was humming to herself, shaking her hips as she lifted the spoon and took a taste of the spaghetti sauce. Her face looked squeamish. Shit. Did she not like the sauce?
“Not a fan of spaghetti?” I asked, sweat coating my back.
She blushed before spinning fully to face me, those green, needy eyes trailing my body. “Nope, it’s perfect,” she lied. I could see the lie on her face, like a beacon demanding me to make it better or figure her out.
“What’s wrong with the sauce, Miss Stewart?” I asked. She sneezed.
“I have a very minor garlic allergy,” she replied with a shrug. Fuck. Of course she did. My dish was swimming in something that could kill her. There was a metaphor swimming behind her kind eyes somewhere.
“Do you need an EpiPen?” I asked. How much garlic could kill her?
“One taste won’t do too much damage. But I should probably take some Benadryl. I can make myself a sandwich?” she offered. I didn’t want to be another person in her life she had to overcompensate for—rearrange her life and tastes and preferences for. She had enough of that with her mother.
“How about I order us some take out?” I asked before strutting over to the table to toss the meal I painstakingly prepared. It seemed fitting that the dish I used so many times to swoon love interests wouldn’t be fit for Blakely. Everything with her was different.
“Don’t waste it! You can eat your spaghetti,” she laughed.
“I’ll save it for lunch tomorrow,” I promised before taking it to the counter and grabbing my phone. She watched as I scrolled through different restaurants before deciding on one.
“Hey,” she said before opening the fridge. “A sandwich actually sounds perfect. What do you want on yours?” she asked before bending down to grab the lunchmeat and cheese. She looked so unapologetically angelic.
“Whatever’s on yours,” I replied.
We ate on the couch. She sat cross-legged with mustard on the corner of her lip, practically begging me to lick it off her perfect mouth, which was running a mile a minute. “You can’t honestly believe that the Drake Equation Science Theory is accurate,” she joked before tossing a napkin to the side and scooting closer to me. “It’s a meaningless guesstimate with no proof!”
“Most scientific theories start out as guesstimates,” I argued. I didn’t actually believe in the theory, but watching her argue with me over science was getting me hard.
“So you’re saying this theory accurately predicts the number of extraterrestrial civilizations in the Milky Way? Ridiculous!”
“It’s not intended to be an exact number, just an approximation,” I argued.