Chapter 26
MILES
“Alright, fireman, let’s see what you got,” she jokes, pulling herself up to sit on the kitchen counter.
I slide a hand up her leg and lean in to kiss her on the cheek, restraining myself from doing anything more since I promised to cook for her.
I love how her skin reacts to my touch, erupting in a fresh blanket of goosebumps as I run my hand along her thigh.
“Let’s see what we got.” I move towards the door I remember being her pantry and crack it open. Sure enough, there’s not much in here. A box of crackers, canned vegetables from who knows how long ago, and… “What do we have here?”
Turning around, I find her leaning over the counter, trying to see what I’m pulling out of the back of her pantry.
“Where the heck did you find that?” she asks, gapping at the box of pasta and glass jar of sauce I’m holding.
“I feel like that’s a better question for you, it’s your house,” I laugh.
She brushes her hair out of her face and adjusts her glasses. “I must have thought I was going to make pasta one night and then didn’t.”
“How do you survive off of a kitchen like this?”
“I mostly buy enough food to pack my lunches and then get something on the way home from work. I told you before, by the end of the day I want to come home and rot on the couch. Cooking dinner for myself is the last thing I want to do.”
Setting the food I found on the counter, I take a couple steps to stand in front of her. With my hands resting on either side of her legs, I lean in and bring my face close to hers.
“Well if you ever want a home cooked meal, you can call me. I’d love nothing more than to cook dinner for you whenever you want.”
“I’ll hold you to that, fireman.” She smiles.
She kisses me quickly then pushes me away so I can get to cooking.
As I do, she watches from her perch on the counter.
A few times when I glance at her, I can see how her eyes flare as I move around the kitchen, finding forgotten ingredient after forgotten ingredient and throwing it all together to make a perfectly good pasta dinner.
“Woah, you make forgotten ingredients look like a five star meal,” she compliments as I set the plate down in front of her. She’s moved to a stool at the bar and eyes her meal. I wasn’t sure if the hunger in her eyes was for the food or something else, but I love it nonetheless.
“I told you I’d manage.” Setting my plate down next to hers, I pull the stool out, slide it several inches closer to her, then take a seat. She lets out an airy laugh as I slide into the stool and bump our shoulders together.
“I should really start believing you.”
“Now, you’re learning.” I point my fork at her as I reply.
When she takes a bite, she lets out a type of audible exclamation.
The sound that comes from her tells me that the meal is even better than she expects it to be.
Watching her take another bite, her eyes roll to the back of her head and she does a little dance in her seat.
I can’t wait to make her eyes roll like that for a different reason.
“Damn, fireman, you can cook,” she praises, smacking my arm with her hand. She stabs at her pasta again, taking another hearty bite. I love when women aren’t afraid to eat.
“Been doing it at the firehouse for years. I love cooking; I don’t get to do it enough.”
“Why’s that?” she asks, mouth half full, not looking up from her plate.
“Never really had anyone important enough to cook for before now,” I say easily, looking at her out of the corner of my eye. She slowly lifts her eyes from her bowl to look at me. When she does, a faint pink hue grows in her cheeks.
“Well, I love to eat so you can cook for me whenever you want.”
“Don’t tempt me with a good time.”
We sit next to one another and finish our bowls—I finish two—and enjoy the quiet company of the other.
When she’s done, I hop down from the stool and take her bowl, giving it a good rinse in the sink before setting it in her dishwasher for her.
I already cleaned up the pot I used to cook so her kitchen doesn’t even look like someone used it.
“Are you working tomorrow?” she asks, looking at me from across the bar.
“Nope. I have the next three days off since I just did a forty-eight on,” I explain, wiping down the counter tops to finish off my kitchen duties. She nods her head, contemplating something. “Why are you asking?”
Shaking her head innocently, she shrugs. “Oh, no reason. I wasn’t sure if you needed to head home to get some sleep before reporting or…” She holds the ‘R’ a little longer, swinging her eyes towards me.
“Or…” I repeat, mimicking her.
“Or, I dunno, maybe you wanted to stay. I mean, a little longer, here. We could watch a movie or play a game or—”
“Are you asking me to stay the night, doc? On the first date?” I press my hands into the countertop out in front of me and tip the corner of my lips up.
“I didn’t say anything about staying the night, I only mentioned staying longer.
I mean, you could stay the night if you want but you also don’t have to if you don’t want.
Also, is this our first date? Is it a date if we just sit in my apartment?
You did cook me dinner so I guess you could consider this a date.
Counting Friday at Fresh Start would probably be a little inappropriate.
I guess any normal human would consider this our first date but it also doesn’t have to be if you don’t want it to be.
And again, I never mentioned staying the night, I simply said you could stay longer. ”
I move around the counter as she rambles at high speed and spin the stool she’s in so she’s facing me. Boxing her in, I rest my hands on either side of her barstool and lean in. The move finally gets her to stop talking and look at me.
“For someone who’s supposed to listen for a living, you sure do talk a lot,” I hum. Then, I close the space between us and kiss her. “I’d love to stay as long as you’ll have me.”
A shy smile blooms across her face. “Okay, then.”
“What’s your favorite Christmas tradition?
” she asks, poking me with her foot from the other side of the couch.
She’s on one side, leaning her head against her hand, legs tucked underneath her.
We settled on watching The Santa Clause since Christmas is just a couple weeks away and she mentioned it’s her favorite.
“Probably our annual family Christmas gift exchange. The five of us all swap names in a hat and then set a budget we all have to abide by.”
“Sooooo, Secret Santa?” she asks.
She flinches when I run my fingers up the bottom of her foot, reacting to being tickled. Without saying anything, I grab her by the ankle and gently pull her closer to where I’m sitting opposite of her. Holding her foot in my hand, I start to softly knead the bottom of it.
“Mmm, that feels so good.”
I chuckle in an effort to cover up what the sound of her moan does to me and smile. “Yeah, like Secret Santa but we do it with a twist.”
“Ohh, a twist,” she sings. “I love a good twist. What is it?”
“We only have seventy-two hours to get our gift.”
Her jaw drops at the rule we’d made up once Willow was old enough to drive herself.
It was something we decided to add on to our family Secret Santa to make it more exciting.
We all pick our names a week before Christmas but we can’t look at who we got until three days before.
This always leads to some of the wildest, more hilarious things being packaged up and plunked under the tree to be opened.
I’ll never forget the year Carter got stuck on shift the three days leading up to Christmas Day so he asked Willow to buy his gift for him.
He wasn’t very pleased when Ivy unwrapped his gift only to discover it was a framed picture of Willow instead of a real gift.
The picture now hangs on the wall at Ivy’s house.
“That’s a new one, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that before,” she says before yawning deeply.
We ate pretty late and the clock is getting closer and closer to ten o’clock.
After a full day at the office working with patients then coming home and dealing with me, I’m certain she’s exhausted.
I drop the foot I’d been rubbing and reach for the other one, digging my knuckles into the bottom of it.
She tries to stifle it but I still hear the small whimper escape from her lips.
“What about you? Any traditions?”
“Mmmm, I wouldn’t really call it a tradition, more so something my parents do.” She shrugs.
“Care to share with the class, doc?”
She bites her bottom lip and brushes a stray hair out of her face. “They like to hide my presents around the house and make me find them. And not just that, they time me and compare how long it takes me to previous years. If I beat last year’s time, I get a bonus gift.”
“Let me guess, you take this very seriously and run around the house in a dead sprint trying to find them all?” I eye her with a smirk.
“Well, yeah, wouldn’t you run around as fast as you could to get a bonus present?” she cries, giving me a bewildered look, waving her hands around.
“That is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard,” I reply. My face hurts from grinning so hard at the thought of her hurrying around the house trying to find all her gifts.
“Oh, stop.” She sighs, kicking me playfully. “I’m a grown woman, I shouldn’t be running around like a child looking for Christmas presents. It’s a little embarrassing.”
Squeezing the foot she tries to kick me with, I lift it higher and kiss the inside of her ankle. She sucks in a breath at the move. “It’s not. It’s sweet; it means your parents love you. Some people didn’t get that and still don’t have it.”
“Oh…” Her face falls, remembering my familial situation. “I–I’m sorry, Miles. I wasn’t thinking.”