Chapter 15
Haddie stumbled through the apartment door with her school backpack over one shoulder, her soccer gear over the other, and forearms lined with grocery bags from her “quick” stop at the market on the way home.
Levi sprung up from where he sat at the table.
“Hey there…” He quickly emptied one of her arms of bags and set them on the kitchen counter. “Why didn’t you text from downstairs? I could have helped you bring everything up.”
She maneuvered past Levi and into the kitchen herself, depositing the rest of the groceries on the other side of the stove and letting her schoolbags fall to the floor.
“I thought I had it,” she told him. “I didn’t have it.”
“What is all this?” Levi asked.
Haddie glanced through the galley kitchen’s window and out to the table strewn with loose sheets of paper where Levi had been sitting. “What’s all that?” she countered.
He groaned. “After losing our first game Friday night, I gave the team a weekend assignment: write one page about something you could have done differently that might have changed the trajectory of the game. Past Levi thought he was a genius for coming up with the idea. Present Levi, who has to read the submissions and make sense of it all, isn’t sure he agrees.
” He held his hands out to indicate the mess of bags in the kitchen.
“And now back to our regularly scheduled program. What’s going on?
I thought grocery day was Thursday, not Monday. ”
Haddie felt her cheeks grow warm and cleared her throat. “I…uh…wanted to make you dinner. I mean, make us dinner. As a thank-you for helping out during the grow-a-rainbow activity. I think the kids really liked you.”
Levi barked out a laugh. “Piper doesn’t like me. She tolerates me, though, and is happy to keep reminding me that I was not included on your favorite things poster.”
Haddie rolled her eyes. “I stand by my assessment that three weeks isn’t enough time to know if a person is one of your favorite people.
” She shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to keep trying.
Also, I hope you’re a pasta fan because that’s all I really know how to make.
” She shooed him out of the small kitchen.
“Go read your essays and figure out how to coach your team better. I’ve got plenty here to keep me busy. ”
“Really?” Levi asked. “Because I could help.”
Haddie narrowed her eyes. “You know what would be a huge help?”
“What?” he asked, smiling at her like a golden retriever.
If any other gorgeous man was looking at her like that, it might do things to her insides that would have her thinking about much more than just making him dinner.
But Levi Rourke was no real golden retriever.
He was simply playing the part and would soon be on his way to bigger and better things than a placeholder job in a placeholder town.
And so, as she’d learned to do in the almost month of knowing him, Haddie ignored the tiny stirrings and the whisper in her head that asked What if?
every time he surprised her in a way she wished he wouldn’t. But…she could make him dinner.
“Staying out of my way!” she told him. Haddie laughed and grabbed him by the shoulders—by his huge shoulders—and pushed him out of the narrow galley and back into their front entryway. “Read. Your. Essays.”
“Okay, okay.” He relented, holding his hands up in defeat. “But you’re going to have a hard time beating that Uncrustable I had for lunch.”
Haddie glared at him and pointed to the table, and with a chuckle, he got back to work.
She was by no means a chef under any definition of the word. But she’d been on her own long enough to perfect a couple of go-to meals. Tonight? Tuscan chicken pasta.
She quickly unpacked the groceries, leaving out only the ingredients she needed for the meal.
She put a large pot of salted water on one burner.
While waiting for it to boil, she chopped up spinach and sun-dried tomatoes, minced a few cloves of garlic, and diced four chicken breasts.
Soon, the pasta was boiling and the chicken sautéing with the garlic and spices.
“Holy shit,” Levi mumbled from where he sat.
“Someone knock your socks off with the written word?” Haddie called over her shoulder.
“Not yet,” he replied. “But I don’t think I’ve ever smelled anything so good in my life. Like, ever.”
Again Haddie’s cheeks warmed, or maybe it was just the steam from the boiling water. “You said ‘ever’ twice.”
“Yep,” Levi admitted. “Whatever you’re making over there deserved a second ‘ever.’”
Haddie lowered the heat on her pan and slowly added the light cream sauce she’d whisked together. She willed the heat creeping up her neck to lower as well. She needed a distraction.
“I know it’s a Monday, and we have a whole week ahead of us,” she began, her back still to him. “But I feel like anything I cook tastes better with wine. I think there’s a bottle of red on the counter but…my hands are kind of full.”
“On it!” Levi called .
Haddie smiled to herself as she heard a rustling of papers and then caught Levi’s approach out of the corner of her eye.
Back to back, and—she guessed—both of them trying not to let body parts brush that shouldn’t brush, Haddie cooked while Levi retrieved two wineglasses from the cabinet above the sink.
It was a strange relief to come home from a new job to an apartment in a new town to find she wasn’t alone once the day ended.
As hard as it was to admit to herself, she liked having Levi around like she liked having Emma.
She took it for granted that her homebody friend would always be there when Haddie needed, and Emma was always there…
to an extent. But now she was getting married.
She had a life, a career, her family’s inn…
and Matteo. Haddie was so, so happy for her friend.
But it also made her realize that somewhere along the way, Haddie’s resolve to keep everyone at a safe distance had a long-term side effect. She was lonely.
Coming home to Levi every day felt like a warm, familiar blanket you wanted to snuggle up with on the couch, even if it was too warm to need it.
Not that Haddie needed Levi. Or anyone, for that matter. But maybe a warm, snuggly feeling wasn’t so bad, even if it was only temporary. As long as Haddie knew this friendship was only temporary, she could banish all other expectations from her mind and just enjoy the moment.
She heard the unmistakable sound of a cork popping behind her, liquid sloshing into one glass and then another. And then she felt his chest against her back, felt and heard his slow, shaky inhale.
“That smells incredible,” he whispered, an arm reaching around to offer her the stemless glass.
Even among the garlic and other spices, Haddie could smell the fresh, woodsy scent of Levi’s soap, which meant he’d showered after practice.
It’s just soap, she reminded herself. But something about how it mixed with his own Levi-ness made her wish there was a window she could open so she could gulp a breath of non-Levi air.
Haddie grabbed the wine with her free hand and fought the urge to drain it in one long sip. She killed the heat on the pasta and slid to her right so she could turn around without them having to be chest to chest.
“I need to…” She nodded toward the sink where a colander waited for her pasta.
“Right,” he said, staring at her for a beat, but then he didn’t move.
“Sorry,” he added as if reading her thoughts.
“You just have some flour…” He brushed his thumb over the tip of her nose.
“There!” he added, triumphant. “All clean.” Then he grinned and sidestepped out of the kitchen as if he hadn’t just been so casually sexy to a woman who was already overheating for too many reasons to count.
“You suggested the wine, genius,” she mumbled under her breath.
“Did you say something?” Levi asked, already back in the other room.
“Nope!” Haddie lied. “But clear the table. I’m about to plate everything up!”
Two minutes later, she met him at the table with two full plates, shocked to find that Levi had stealthily set the table with napkins and silverware he’d somehow snuck out of the kitchen when her back was turned.
And for the love of Toblerones, the man was standing behind what had quickly become Haddie’s regular chair, holding it out for her to sit.
She swallowed, set down the two plates, and stepped in front of her chair.
“Um… Thank you?” she told him with a nervous smile.
Levi stepped out of her way so she could slide her chair closer to the table.
He reached through the kitchen window and grabbed her almost empty wineglass from the counter, refilled it from the bottle on the table, and then returned to his usual seat.
He shrugged. “Figured if you were going to cook for me that I could at least do the heavy lifting of grabbing a couple of forks and making it infinitely easier for you to sit down.”
Haddie laughed. “I was really worried about how I was going to coordinate all of those difficult tasks. I don’t know what I would do without you,” she teased, then clasped her hands under her chin and batted her lashes at him. “My hero.”
Levi held up his own refilled glass of wine and nodded for Haddie to do the same. “To Mondays?” he asked.
Haddie wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure I want to say cheers to the most dreaded day of the week.”
Levi raised a brow. “I don’t know. So far, it’s my favorite day of this week.”
Haddie laughed. “Because you’re the first P.E. teacher and coach to realize he loves reading essays?”
“No,” he replied, a surety in his tone that made Haddie’s stomach tighten. “Because no one has ever cooked for me before just for coloring on a paper towel, and I’m guessing you don’t cook for people unless you really like them…unless they’re one of your favorite people.”
Haddie groaned. “You’re impossible.”
“In a one-of-my-favorite-people kind of way?”
She groaned. “If I say, ‘To Mondays,’ will you cease being impossible?”
“If you say, ‘To Mondays,’ does that mean I’m right? About the favorite thing?” he countered.
Haddie straightened in her chair and jutted out her chin. “How about, ‘To roommates who better finish their toast and eat their dinner before it gets cold’?”
Levi laughed. “‘To Mondays’ it is!” He clinked his glass against hers and they both took a sip. Then he set down his glass, picked up his fork, and shoveled a mouthful of pasta into his mouth.
He tilted his head back and moaned in a way that Haddie was sure wasn’t a sound Levi usually reserved for culinary delights.
“It’s just pasta,” she told him, the words coming out more defensive than she’d intended.
Levi’s brown eyes fluttered open as he swallowed and took a swig of his wine before responding.
“Confession,” he began. “I was lying when I said people don’t usually cook for me just for coloring rainbows. Haddie, people don’t…cook for me.”
Haddie’s brows furrowed, and she lowered the fork that had only made it halfway to her mouth. “No one has ever cooked for you?” she inquired with a laugh. “I find that hard to believe.”
“I mean, not in my grown-ass-man-living-on-his-own years, which have been a lot of years.” He scratched the back of his neck and chewed on his top lip. Was he…nervous?
Her expression softened. “You can say whatever it is,” she assured him. “No judgment here. Just a meal between roommates.”
He laughed. “Right. Which is why I feel like a total asshole for what I’m about to admit.
” He blew out a breath. “I have always lived alone.” He motioned between them.
“And this type of thing usually happens in a…you know…relationship. But I–I mean, I traveled a lot for my job, and when I was on campus for any length of time—even in the offseason—I was knee-deep in preseason or postseason training, in strategizing, in…” He hesitated, but Haddie nodded eagerly, not wanting him to lose his momentum, especially if she was about to get a glimpse of vulnerable Levi again.
“In focusing on the one thing I was good at, which was football.” He clasped his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling before meeting her gaze again.
“I never let relationships get to the point where someone might want to make me dinner.”
Haddie nodded while absently swirling the wine in her glass.
“See?” Levi added after a long beat of silence. “You think I’m a dick.”
But she shook her head, finally focusing her eyes on his again. “If you’re a dick, then I guess that makes me one too because aside from a recent lapse in judgment that will never happen again, I, sir, wrote the book on casual.”
How was it that three weeks ago she’d had every intention of making this man a nameless one night stand, and now she was telling him things about herself she’d never actually voiced out loud?
“Do you want to talk about that recent lapse in—”
“No!” she blurted out, and Levi nodded once.
“Fair enough,” he told her, a muscle ticking in his jaw.
“Are you…mad?” she asked, brows furrowed.
“Nope.”
Except his nope sounded a lot like a misspelled yep.
“It’s just that it’s in the past, and it’s not something I want to dwell on or really even think about ever again, so maybe just forget I said anything. Okay?”
His dark-brown eyes softened, and he nodded. “Yeah, okay. Just, if you ever change your mind…”
“I won’t,” Haddie told him and then painted her smile back on and raised her glass. “What should we drink to?” she asked, hoping they could find their way back to normal. Again. Because they really were having the hardest time staying on the path they’d both agreed to travel.
“Um…” Levi began, scratching his chin. “To being afraid of commitment?” He shrugged and raised his brows.
“Now that is something worthy of a raised glass, don’t you think?” she asked with enough forced enthusiasm that she almost believed she was excited that Levi was just as much of a mess as she was.
The bottle of wine was empty, and their wineglasses were well on their way.
Haddie was so not going to be productive tonight with lesson planning, but she didn’t care.
The food was good (if she didn’t say so herself).
The wine was good. And the company? Well, once they got past the bump in the road, it was the best she’d had in a long time, possibly bordering on favorite.
Maybe she and Levi didn’t see eye to eye on the way Principal Crawford was dealing with the school budget, or on whether or not they were the type of roommates that talked about anything other than today, tomorrow, and—when they got there—the next day.
But they seemed to get each other in a way Haddie hadn’t felt gotten before.
“To being a dick!” Haddie declared, raising her glass.
Levi barked out a laugh and lifted his glass as well. “To being a dick, I guess,” he agreed, tapping his glass against hers before they both finished what was left of the wine.