Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
Ramsey
I stop short when the smell from the kitchen hits me. It’s my mom’s casserole. My favorite thing she used to make, and I haven’t had it in years. No one makes it the way she did. I tried once or twice. But I swear I’m about to round the corner and see her standing there in her apron. She always did her best for us, trying to make it feel like we grew up in a normal home with a normal life and had a Susie homemaker for a mom.
I kick off my boots, careful not to get the mud on her floors, and set them in the tray. Another scent wafts around the edge. Apples and cinnamon. I get my answer a second later when I see my favorite apple pie cookies cooling on the counter, caramel dripping over the edge and steam still rising from the top. My girl has a lot of good qualities, but baking and cooking has never been a thing she’s eagerly embraced. The last thing I thought she’d do is break into my mom’s old cookbooks. So I’m curious if she made the food or if she’s just brought it over from Kit’s kitchen to ours.
But a couple more steps, and I see Haze standing in front of an open oven, pulling a casserole out with oven mitts and an apron on. She’s concentrating so hard on not dropping it or burning herself, I don’t want to say a thing to distract her. The look of relief on her face when she sets it on the stove and checks it, finding it unburnt, makes me grin.
Not that I should smile at her. She’s done everything she can in the last few days to drive me off, and it was damn close to working last night. Except for the fact that I’m every fucking bit as stubborn as she is when I want to be. I watch her exhale as she takes off her oven mitts one by one and stacks them on top of each other next to the stove. She glances over at the pile of dirty dishes in the sink and sighs, looking exhausted.
“What’s all this?” I ask, startling her in the process. She presses her hand to her chest and turns around.
“I thought…” She takes in my sweat-soaked, dirty appearance for a moment, and then her eyes snap back up to mine. “I thought you’d be hungry after all the work you did today. So I cooked dinner.”
“I could’ve just had Kit make something.”
“I know, but I…” she trails off, looking into the distance, then shaking her head and looking at the floor. “I’m sorry about the last few days. I wanted to make a point, but I took it too far last night.”
“Since when can you cook?” I change the subject. I’m not in the mood for discussing last night. Not until I’m showered and fed. Until then, I’m gonna be too fucking cranky not to say shit I don’t mean. Like telling her what a little bitch her boyfriend is for needing her toys to be shaped like his shriveled dick when he isn’t around.
“I’ve been learning. Kit has been teaching me a few things. ”
“She into my mom’s recipe book now?” I nod at the casserole.
“No. I am,” she answers softly.
Which means she’s been cooking him meals out of it. Serving him my mother’s recipes at her table. I see red all over again, even if it’s irrational.
“I want the cookbook when we’re done here. It should be in the family.” I move toward the hallway to take my shower.
“Ramsey!” she calls after me, and I pause, looking back over my shoulder. “Please eat dinner.” She gives me doe eyes. The kind that always used to work on me whenever we fought, and my heart twists just that little bit. Enough that my arm twists with it, and I agree.
“Fine. Let me get a quick shower.” I need space for a few moments, time to wash the day off and remind myself that if I want to win her over, I’m going to have to swallow my pride more than once. This whole arrangement is going to drive me to the brink of what’s left of my sanity.
I finish two helpings of the casserole because it tastes that fucking good, and the nostalgia bleeds into my heart with each bite. She serves me my favorite beer with it, like she remembers everything and knows exactly how to weaponize it all against me. It’s a war I started; I should have been prepared for her to fight it. But she’s winning battle after battle, even when I think I’m on offense.
When she sees my empty plate, she stands abruptly, wiping the corner of her mouth and setting her napkin aside as she eyes it.
“Do you want more?”
“No. I’m good.” I set the fork and knife on the edge of the plate. “It was good though.” I’m trying to offer some semblance of a peace offering to her.
“Do you want some of the apple pie cookies? Kit helped me make them so they shouldn’t be too awful.” She offers up a smile, and that has me wondering what trap she’s laying for me now. I lose my ability to keep up the pretense even as she continues. “I have vanilla ice cream too if you want that or whipped—"
“What’s all this about?” I ask, interrupting her, and her brow furrows in response. She blinks a few times and then shrugs, looking down at the table.
“I’m sorry. For before. All the tormenting… and Curtis. I think I took things too far with you, and I didn’t mean to hurt you, if that’s what I did.” She hedges her apology, and I want to deny it. I want to tell her my ego is bulletproof, and she didn’t touch my feelings. But it’d be a lie. Hearing her talk that way to him had felt like being stabbed after the progress I thought we were making.
“You could have just said that this morning.”
“I wanted to make up for it somehow. This was the best I could come up with.”
“Why?”
“I told you… I felt bad after last night. I shouldn’t have pushed you like that.”
“That’s what we do best, isn’t it? Push each other’s buttons.” I stand and grab my plate, headed for the kitchen sink.
I want air. Time away from her. Because sitting here eating dinner together. Coming home to her after a long day. It was the kind of thing I dreamed of when I was younger, and I feel like a fucking fool for tormenting myself with it now when I know I can’t have it. She might want me in her bed, but she wants him in this seat—and that’s going to eat at my heart until it fucking withers.
“Ramsey, please…” She reaches out, and her hand slips around my wrist, dropping when I don’t stop. “Ramsey!” she pleads as she hops up from her seat and follows me into the kitchen.
I whirl around on her and study her as she stops short of me.
“What do you want?” I snap, harsher than I even intend.
“I want to…” Her eyes lift to the ceiling and then back down to her hands, where her thumb rubs over the surface of one of her dark red nails. “Live up to the bargain we made. You said you’d give me a couple of weeks, and you did. So I want to make good on it. If you really want to sleep in my—our—bed tonight. You can.”
“I think I sleep better without having to listen to your guy moan like a stuck pig.”
Her lips quirk up in a smile for half a moment before she smothers it and tries to look remorseful.
“I won’t do that again.”
“And you know what I want doesn’t involve sleep,” I press, because if I can’t have what I want, I’ll take what I can get.
She nods, and she looks at the floor. “I know.”
“What’s the catch? How are you tricking me tonight?” I slip my hand under her chin, and her eyes lift to meet mine.
“No catch. No trick,” she insists.
I study her, her pale-blue eyes taking me in at the same time. They drift down to my lips, and I can tell she’s thinking about last night. I lean in, closing the distance between us to kiss her, imagining what it’s going to be like to finally feel her warm, plush lips against mine again. I’m drunk on it before I even touch her. And just as I’m about to finally have it—have her—again, she takes a step back and puts a canyon’s worth of space in between us .
“But I do have one rule,” she says softly. I close my eyes and bite my tongue for a full ten seconds before I speak. I’m doing my best, but even I have my fucking limits. I force a smile when I reopen my eyes.
“You have a lot more than one rule, sugar.” I raise my brow to find her matching my expression in defiance.
“No kissing.”
“You didn’t mind me kissing you last night.” I do my best to mask the way the request tears into me.
“I mean on the lips.”
“Again…” I smirk.
“Don’t be a smartass.”
I reach out and run my thumb over her lower lip, trying to make peace with the fact I won’t get what I want—yet. But I will. Eventually, she’s going to cave, and I can wait as long as it takes.
“Fair enough. This set only spits poison, and the other tastes like sugar, so it’s not much of a loss.”
She lets out a little sigh and shakes her head at my comment. Her eyes are still on me, though, studying my face and lost in thought. All I can think about is how much I want inside her. How none of the rest of it will matter when I’m buried in her and she’s saying my name.
“Any more rules? I want to know them now.” I run my fingers down her jaw, and she leans into my touch.