Eight Years Ago
eight years ago
DELANEY
Blake watched as I piled spaghetti noodles onto his plate, his lips twisting in a way that made it easy to tell he was holding in something.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He struggled even more to withhold his grin. “Thanks for making dinner, Lane.”
I began to reach for the pot of sauce before pausing with a frown. “Is there something wrong with it?”
He shook his head with a laugh that finally escaped. “No, not at all. This is just enough pasta to feed an entire army. We have an Echo practical tomorrow, not a cross-country meet.”
I rolled my eyes and continued what I was doing, ladling a red meat sauce onto Blake’s spaghetti. “I’m not convinced you’re getting enough to eat. I looked in your fridge just now, and all I found was beer.”
“Helps me study,” Blake grunted, his amused expression falling.
“It does not,” I scoffed. “If you want to fuel your brain, you have to fuel your body.”
“I think after I eat this, I’ll be fueled enough to study and do a 5K.”
I snorted. “I didn’t realize you were a cross-country runner.”
“I’m not, and I never have been.” Blake raised a brow. “Do I look like a runner?”
I flicked my gaze over him in a way that should be forbidden, and yet, I felt like I could because he invited it. No, Blake didn’t look like a runner. He looked more like a contact sports athlete, more brawny and sinewy than a runner would be. He looked ? —
Blake cleared his throat to get my attention when I still hadn’t answered, and I jolted, causing the ladle to slip out of my hands, clanging to the counter. Red sauce splattered onto my white shirt, and I groaned, looking down at what I knew would be stains.
I swore beneath my breath before grabbing a towel to wipe off the sauce. Meanwhile, Blake stood, striding across the room. “I’ll go find you a new shirt so you can soak that one.”
Before I could protest, he was gone. And a few moments later, he returned with a U of M alumni shirt in his hands.
“Here,” he said, handing it over. “Now you can pretend you went to the U for undergrad, too.”
I bit down on a teasing retort about how I had no desire to claim a different undergrad, considering mine was already the best, and took his shirt with a sigh, retreating to the bathroom to swap tops. I put my stained one in the sink and threw Blake’s on. It was soft and smelled like him, like a musky, woody vanilla. Despite the U of M connections, I felt upgraded from the shirt I’d been wearing.
“Thanks,” I said, walking back out to the kitchen. “Hopefully my shirt is salvageable, but I think I might like yours better.”
Blake blinked up at me. His eyes grew round before they lowered to his plate of spaghetti.
“Looks good.” He cleared his throat. “Glad you like it.”
Blake barely looked at me for the rest of the meal.