Chapter 52
Katie
If you’d told me a man could make cooking a sexual thing, I wouldn’t have believed you. Mandie and I saw the film, 9 1/2 Weeks when we were teenagers, finding an old DVD at the back of a friend’s mum’s wardrobe. Watching the fridge scene had us howling with laughter and feeling uncomfortable, because you didn’t need to lick honey from someone’s navel to be hot. You just needed to walk around the kitchen like a king in his castle, your thick forearm muscles flexing as you cut vegetables up with complete proficiency.
“OK, I get it.” I looked down at his neatly cut slices of capsicum vs mine. “If I could use a knife like that, I’d kick me out of the kitchen too.”
“Not kicking you out.” His arm wrapped around my waist and he slotted me into the space between him and the chopping board. The knife handle was slid between my fingers, but I couldn’t focus on that, not when he pressed his body into mine. My hips may or may not have popped backwards slightly to press back into him. His huff of breath tickled my ear as he covered my hand with his. “You’re not going anywhere, now…”
Our hands moved together in a slow rocking movement.
“If you don’t lift the knife totally off the board, the point acts like an anchor, helping you control the size and shape of the cuts you make. It’s easier to make them even and uniform.”
“And that’s important?”
I didn’t really care, but it gave me an excuse to look back at him over my shoulder. That meant I caught the way his pupils flared, a small smile forming.
“Not if you don’t want it to be.” His eyes dropped down to my mouth and stayed there. “I mean, it ensures that every mouthful has a consistent mix of the different vegetables, making the dish more homogenous.”
“And who wouldn’t want that?” I was trying to tease him, but that came out all breathy. “Nothing worse than a meal that’s heterogeneous.”
“Are you teasing me?” That damn dimple popped. “Is that even a word?”
“Look it up if you don’t believe me,” I said, turning back to the vegetables.
Following his advice, I stopped making such a dog’s breakfast of the chopping up. Garrett nodded with satisfaction, then turned to start pre-heating the wok.
We fell into a comfortable rhythm that was curiously deceptive. It was like I’d known him my whole life, not just weeks. We were like stars orbiting each other, moving around the kitchen, but never clashing.
Well, until I wanted to.
I got a little cheeky, sliding in against him as I brought the chopping board laden with chopped vegetables. Garrett reached for the board, but I ducked under his arm and went to scrape everything in at once.
“A bit at a time,” he said, stopping me from sweeping everything into the wok. “Don’t want to overload the wok, force the temperature to drop.”
There was no risk of that. Dimly, I was aware of the crackle of the food in the wok, that we were supposed to be doing the stir part of the stir-fry, but instead I found myself staring into his eyes. Part of him wanted to take care of the cooking. I was willing to bet there was a part of his mind that never switched off. I needed to test that, holding his gaze, snaking my arm around his waist, leaning in closer until the acrid smell of burning vegetables hit our noses.
“Shit!” Garrett spun around and started scraping stuff off the sides of the wok. It was only slightly singed, but he seemed inordinately unhappy about that. I tried to fight back a smile, failed and then let out an ugly snort, which caught his attention. “Demon temptress.” He pointed the wooden spatula at me. “You won’t be laughing when your dinner is inedible.”
“We’ll manage,” I said and then dumped the rest of the vegetables in.
“You little…”
He couldn’t curse me out and stir fry the food at the same time, so he focussed on the more pressing need, as I indulged mine.
Part of me couldn’t believe I had a right to touch Garrett, Rhys, or Rhett. My fingers flexed in the air, feeling like I needed to shove them down by my sides. Instead, I peeled his scrub top up.
“Katie…” Whatever protest he was going to make, it was silenced by a kiss pressed to his spine, then another. “Fuck, why does that feel so good?”
Because that was the effect we had on each other. Just when I’d given up hope of ever feeling chemistry with anyone, I’d found three guys who were my perfect match. That’s why my hands spanned his fanning lats, feeling the muscles shift and contract. There was something possessive about it, like I was claiming him as mine.
Or I wanted to.
My hands stopped. I was getting too much into my head, remembering belatedly how quickly this was all moving. That had me pulling back, but only for a second. The gas was slapped off and Garrett turned around, taking my head in his hands.
“I thought of you all day today.” How did he know exactly what to say? “When my boss was tearing strips off me.” I sucked in a breath to ask about that, but he forged on. “On the ward. Patients caught me staring into space, remembering…” His grin was infectious, forcing my lips to form the same smile. “Remembering everything that happened. I told my work wife about you.”
“Work. Wife?”
I went to pull away, but he stopped me.
“Work mum is probably a better description. Helen was nursing when I was still in primary school. She wants to meet you.”
I flushed bright red, but as I was cursing my stupid pale skin, I remembered the text I’d sent.
“Speaking of mothers?—”
“Yes, I want to meet your parents.” I’d expected some push back, reluctance at least. Instead, I got wholehearted approval. “You have to give me the scoop on what they’re like, what I need to say to impress them, but…” My tongue flicked over my bottom lip as his head dropped down. “I’d be more than happy to meet your family.”
“So that’s two down and one to go.” Rhys walked in with a hand towel around his neck, mopping the sweat away. He shot me a rakish grin, right as Bronson bolted towards his bowl of water only to lap it furiously. “Rhett will be in, don’t you worry. Speaking of which.” He hefted his phone. “He’s stuck at work until late. Not sure when he’ll get in.”
“So we’ll save him a doggy bag of food,” I said, turning the gas back on. Bronson barked again, coming over with a big doggy grin. “Not you, pup. People food is no good for dogs.”
Of course, he disagreed.
“I should get going.”
Sometime later we were all sprawled out on the guys’ couch, letting our food settle as we doom scrolled movies to watch.
“No, you shouldn’t.” Rhys rolled me closer so my head was tucked in the curve of his shoulder. “You’re tired and we all know what that does to reaction time when driving.”
“Like being drunk.” Garrett rolled into a seated position and then topped up my glass from the wine bottle. “Do you know how many critically injured drivers are admitted to the ED each week?”
I looked down at my phone and saw yet another message from Mandie had come in.
Gym, bitch. We haven’t been in days, and you know what that means?
Starting conditioning all over again. Trouble is, I couldn’t seem to muster the requisite level of concern right now. Maybe I was mistaken. The new me didn’t need to be tougher, stronger. Maybe I could just enjoy the soft life… As if to contradict that, the muffled sound of a dog barking had me stiffening, because seconds later, Bronson came scuttling back into the lounge room. His ears were flat to his skull, and he looked at us almost shamefaced as he wriggled into the narrow space between the coffee table and the couch.
“Boy, you’ve gotta bark back at that yappy little thing,” Rhys told him.
Apparently, the dog next door was a little terrier. It was filled with an unreasonable rage that should’ve been directed at the small animals it would’ve been used to hunt in years gone by, but it was locked up in a yard all day, going slowly mad from the lack of stimulation.
“Pretty sure you could swallow that dog whole,” Garrett added, but that wasn’t how it worked.
“You’re OK.” I kept my voice soft, almost neutral. Being emotionally reactive would just have him doing the same. “It’s all going to be OK.”
Except it wasn’t. I watched his little body shiver, those big amber eyes pleading for me to do something with the endless faith of dogs. I’d gotten him out of the shelter, hadn’t I? Couldn’t I get him out of this?
“I need to text Marg?—”
I’d barely gotten my phone out when I was yanked back down onto the couch.
“You guys choose a movie. I’ll take Bronson out for a quick walk so he can piss in peace,” Garrett said. “Then we can try that pheromone diffuser thing and see if it helps.”
Rhys had dropped into the pet store and picked one up on the shop assistant’s recommendation.
“And then what?” I resisted Rhys’ pull, going up on one elbow. “What do we do if that doesn’t work?”
“We’ve got the appointment with the vet you suggested,” he told me. “He fit us in as soon as he could. We’ll find a way, promise. Now, one thing I read was if we’re calm, that helps B Dog be calm.”
I felt a pang of guilt as I nestled into his side, but Bronson perked up as soon as Garrett walked towards the front door. For all his terror moments before, he seemed bright and bouncy now.
“C’mon, boy,” Garrett said in the same squeaky voice they all used. The incongruity of it coming from such a big man had me smiling despite myself.
“So, movie?” Rhys bestowed the remote upon me like a queen during her coronation. “I never give up the remote willingly, but I needed to make a gesture to show you just how much I like you.”
“I will treasure this moment.” I held it to my chest, which had his eyes lighting up as his smile faded. “By refusing to put on any action movies.”
“Uh huh.”
“If it has the word Avengers or Justice League in the title, it will be rejected without even watching the trailer.”
“Right.”
Rhys remained completely transfixed by my hand and where it was placed.
“I want funny, soppy, with big declarations of love. Maybe even a costume drama.”
I waited for my words to sink in, and finally he looked up at me with a smirk.
“Pretty people falling in love on the TV screen.” He snuggled closer. “Suddenly, that seems a whole lot more appealing than car chases and explosions.”
“10 Things I Hate About You?” I asked as I scrolled through the options.
“Whatever you want, babe.”