12. Bridget
CHAPTER 12
Bridget
The smell of coffee draws me out of my room like a moth to a flame. Ethan’s back is to me at the counter. The sound of a girl giggling comes from his phone.
“Are you watching porn?” I ask as I try to look over his shoulder.
“Jesus Christ!” he yelps as he fumbles with his phone, nearly dropping it before turning it off and putting it face down on the counter.
“You are, aren’t you?”
“It’s not porn,” he insists but offers nothing else. Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. “I made coffee. I take it you like yours black?”
“Black, like my heart.” Ethan’s smile falls as though my words wound him. “Becka always laughs at that one,” I say with an edge to my tone.
He clears his throat as I move past him to reach for a mug from the upper cabinet.
“Let me. You should be taking it easy. I can bring it to you.”
Hands on my hips, I pin him with my best “Are you fucking serious?” look. “I can make my own damn coffee. It’s not exactly heavy lifting.” When it’s clear that he’s not budging, I throw up my hands in defeat and sulk over to the couch. My fuse is always shorter than normal before I’ve had coffee.
I’m momentarily stunned when I notice that he’s neatly folded his blanket and pillow.
It’s no secret that I like neatness and order, and his small gesture isn’t lost on me. Nope, don’t go all soft on him now. We are not keeping him. This is temporary. Just for another day. Or two.
Ethan hands me a mug, and I bring it to my lips, savoring the bitter flavor and aroma. “This is delicious,” I moan into my mug, the words escaping me before I can stop them.
“It’s an Italian coffee we carry at the restaurant. It was my favorite back in culinary school. We import it straight from Italy.” He sips the light brown liquid in his mug from his spot next to me on the couch.
“That’s a lot of cream you have in your coffee,” I point out, twisting my face in disgust.
“I like it sweet,” he says.
“Is that how you drank it in Italy?”
“Actually, I love a good cappuccino. If you had an espresso machine, I’d make you one.”
“I do have an espresso maker. It’s in the lower cupboard under the island. I don’t keep it out since it takes up so much space on the counter.”
His face lights up as he sets his mug down and all but races to the kitchen. He locates it in the cupboard and flashes a playful, dimple-filled grin at me. He has entirely too much twentysomething energy this early in the morning. “Tomorrow, I’m making you something special. I need to stop by the restaurant and grab some espresso powder and a few other things. Maybe we can swing by there on our walk later today.”
Fuck, he’s already planning another day here. “We’ll see how today goes,” I warn as I continue sipping my nectar of life. Every swallow makes me feel more human. Though I’m interested to see what he can whip up. Nope. Tamp that thought down right now.
Eager to change the subject, I ask, “So what were you watching when I came in?”
“Do you promise not to tease me?”
“I can make no such promise.”
He lets out a deep breath before turning on his phone and handing it to me, sitting beside me on the couch. The girlish giggling continues as the woman on the screen says, “The uglier you go to bed, the hotter you’ll be when you wake up!” She gestures wildly, moving her hands back and forth to show off the products in front of her.
“Are you watching get unready with me videos?” I can’t hide the shock in my voice. Why would he do this? How long has he been up watching these?
“Yup. They’re actually interesting. Until you showed me your routine last night, I didn’t know this was a thing. I had so many questions after you went to bed, so I lay out here on the couch and fell down a rabbit hole.” He rests his hand on my leg as his thumb swipes back and forth over my bare skin. A shiver briefly runs through me at the touch. “And then this morning, I honestly felt a difference in my skin, so I wanted to keep learning more about it… and you were sleeping. I figured you needed your rest.”
“Are you fucking with me right now?” I ask incredulously.
“What do you mean?” His brows knit in confusion.
“This doesn’t make sense to me.” I wave a hand over his body to make my point. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Make it make sense.”
“It’s important to you. I wanted to learn everything I could about it.” He pauses but I don’t give him a reaction. “Isn’t that what you do for the people you care about?”
“No one’s ever done this for me.”
“Then you need better friends,” he chides, nudging his shoulder into mine. He must see the anger flash in my eyes, so he adds, “Or maybe they’ve done this for you, and you never noticed.”
I must look like a fish the way my mouth hangs open as I stare into his emerald eyes. This is dangerous. The way he’s looking at me, and not just with his eyes. As though he truly sees me. I have barriers in place to prevent this. How did he get past them?
He starts speaking before I can form a thought. “When you shared your routine with me last night, it got me thinking. You’d mentioned that you did parts of it because it’s what you were taught. I like knowing the why behind things. I thought it was kind of strange putting on SPF before bed, so I wanted to know if there was a reason behind it.”
“And what did you find out?” I ask, partly interested in what he may have learned but equally annoyed that it feels like he might be questioning my methods and reasoning.
“According to several influencers, it’s not necessary and can clog your pores. Apparently, there are varying schools of thought around eye cream too. Some think it’s necessary, and others say you don’t need a special cream for one part of your face when you can use an all-over moisturizer, which you do.
“I also saw that there’s this stone you can use to rub your products in called a gua sha. And I know I’m pronouncing that right because I watched multiple videos where it was mentioned. It’s actually not recommended that you use a washcloth, so you might want to switch to a microfiber cloth for drying your face and a silicone body mitt for scrubbing. Oh, and there are these LED face and neck massagers that look cool, like rubbing a lightsaber on your face.”
I look at him dumbstruck. He looks so proud of himself, and it pisses me off more.
“You know what a gua sha is, right?” he asks.
“You’re not mansplaining skincare to me right now, are you?”
Embarrassment lights up his face as he realizes that he was doing exactly that. “Shit, I didn’t mean to. I tend to go down an information rabbit hole when I research and get really excited about what I learn. My mom’s a teacher and always says that the best way to retain information is by teaching it to others. When I learn something, I end up giving someone an info dump of that knowledge. It drives Alyx crazy when I do it at the restaurant.”
“It’s driving me crazy. I know what a gua sha is. I just never found it effective. Maybe I wasn’t using it consistently enough, though.”
“That’s fair. Have you tried one of those LED face and neck massagers though? Now I’m wondering if they actually work or if I’ve fallen victim to viral marketing. Damn influencers making me drink their Kool-Aid.” He laughs, and I can’t help how charming I find it.
“I haven’t tried one of those. But I’ve wondered the same thing,” I admit. “Those Korean collagen masks too.”
He flashes me a genuine smile, and I can’t help but release the tension I’d been holding in my clenched hands. It’s kind of sweet that he spent the night learning about this, as long as he doesn’t try to tell me what to do. I know what’s best for me and my skin. I know what’s best for everything in my life.
“One of my sisters is on the autism spectrum, and she tends to obsess over different things. I end up researching everything I can about the things that pique her interest, and that habit shows up in other areas of my life. With other…” he trails off, clearing his throat. “Uh… friends.” It sounds like the word feels bitter on his tongue, but at least it’s starting to sink in for him. We are just friends.
“What kind of stuff is your sister into?” I ask hesitantly, not sure I want to learn more about him and his life but honestly curious after everything he shared about his barfing sisters last night.
“Right now, she’s in her friendship bracelet era, like any other thirteen-year-old girl, courtesy of Miss Swift,” he says, holding up his wrist to show off a bracelet I hadn’t noticed before. It’s understated, adorned in black and gray beads with some letters that spell something I can’t make out. “She made me this one last week. She made me promise not to take it off.”
It’s sweet, and it’s clear his sister is talented as it looks like something he might have purchased at a store.
“What does it say?”
“Master bro chef. She thought it sounded like Joseph, which is my middle name.”
“That’s adorable.” I grab his wrist to examine it closer. “She did an excellent job. She could sell these on Etsy.” As my fingers connect with the skin on his wrist, a wave of electricity emanates from the point of contact, and he locks eyes with me as if to see if I feel it too. I feel it every time we touch, but I refuse to acknowledge it.
“I’ll tell her you said that. It would make her day. She’s always been creative, and once she got into beads and bracelets, I researched all the best places to gather supplies for her projects. I wanted to know which beads would be the best value and would hold up. It was also important to Lizzy to try and source her supplies responsibly, so she tends to use more glass and clay beads than plastic ones, but most letter beads are plastic. She has some lava beads that are cool too. Not all the recycled material beads are pretty, so she tends to mix it up, mostly opting for sustainability unless the aesthetic is off.”
“You’re a good big brother to her. To all of them, it sounds like.” A pang of jealousy washes over me when I think about the childhood his sisters have had with someone like him looking out for them. Meanwhile, I have to get a one-night stand to take care of me after surgery.
He must do stuff like this for them all the time. I realize that the research he described doing for Lizzy is exactly what he’s been doing for me. Reading every word of my discharge papers to know what symptoms I might have. To know what to cook for me. Looking up more about skincare to help understand and improve my routine.
If I don’t break this off soon, this could get messy, the more emotions start getting involved. Plus, given how good he is with his sisters, it seems like he’s going to make a great dad someday, and that life is definitely not in my future.
I pull my legs up onto the couch, keeping them tight against my body so I can rest my chin on my knees. The pressure eases some of the pain in my torso, and I blow out a deep breath of relief. Looking out the large window in front of me, I keep my eyes trained ahead as I feel his eyes boring holes into me.
“Are you feeling better? You kind of scared me last night.”
“About that.” I clear my throat. “While I’m mortified that you had to witness the exorcism, I appreciate what you did for me.” I shift awkwardly in my seat to wrap my arms around my legs while balancing my coffee in one hand. A twinge of pain flashes through my abdomen and I close my eyes as it passes.
“Did you get any sleep?”
“Not really,” I confess, raising my mug to my lips and taking a big pull. “Hence this,” I say, holding my empty mug up to him for a refill. “After all the vomiting, I didn’t want to take any more pain meds. I wasn’t sure what I’d expelled and what was still in my system. My mouth was so dry, and my throat burned too, but I was afraid to drink too much water. It was hard to sleep after that.”
He takes the cup and heads to the kitchen. “Can I get you anything? Do you want to take anything for the pain now?”
“Maybe some ibuprofen? I want to start weaning myself off the harder stuff. Maybe save one for after our walk,” I offer.
“What kind of ice do you require post-coffee?”
“I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I’m only teasing. I think it’s cute, and I want to get it right. If the perfect ice in your drink will bring you a little joy, then I’m happy to help.”
“Could you fill my cup up with the pellet ice? I haven’t been hungry since the demon vacated my body last night. Crunching on some ice might help.”
“Coming right up.” He opens the freezer and begins preparing my water. After refilling the trays and putting them back, he strides over to me with two ibuprofen and the perfect glass of water in his hands.
If he’s going to wait on me hand and foot, maybe I could get used to this.
Shit.