Chapter 10 #2
Dash and Leo had done the same. We were still living off the cash we’d earned from the club, though mine had dwindled since I’d been aggressive with my investments.
Still, we didn’t make lavish purchases. We didn’t flaunt it.
Food, clothes, gas. It all added up and allowed us to spend our salaries on other expenses.
Not only did I have my own stash here at home, but Mom had one in her basement—Dad’s money.
I took out a thousand bucks and relocked the safe, heading upstairs and to the kitchen.
I took out everything I’d need for dinner, chopping a tomato and a head of lettuce while a pound of ground beef simmered in the spices I’d added.
The scents of cumin, chili pepper and paprika had filled the room when the front door opened and a familiar click of heels echoed down the hallway.
“Hi, Ace.” Nova came up behind me at the counter, sliding her hands around my waist.
“Emmett. My name is Emmett.”
Her hands stilled.
Maybe my mood from earlier wasn’t as gone as I’d thought. But I wasn’t going to apologize either. She could know my fucking name.
Her body stood as stiff as the knife in my hand hovering over the cutting board. Then, the tension in her body vanished. She leaned into me, whispering against my spine, “Emmett.”
Fuck, I liked hearing my name from those lips.
I set the knife down and twisted, taking her mouth. I swept inside, savoring her taste, then broke away.
“What’s for dinner?” she asked, her cheeks flushed from the kiss.
“Tacos,” I answered.
“How was your day?” She moved to my side and hoisted herself up on the counter.
“Meh. You?”
“Fine.”
“What did you do?”
“Worked.”
“And what exactly did you work on?” Yeah, I was fishing for information and I might as well be obvious about it.
“Stuff.” The corner of her mouth turned up.
I narrowed my eyes. “What stuff?”
“Boring stuff.” She shrugged and plucked a piece of tomato off my cutting board, popping it into her mouth.
“You’re not going to tell me.”
“Why does it matter?” she asked.
I moved to her. She opened her knees, making space for me. “Because I want to know.”
She reached over and picked up another piece of tomato, her eyebrows arching in a silent challenge as she chewed.
If it was a game she wanted, then we’d play. I trailed my fingers up her thigh, the roughness of my skin scratching against the denim of her jeans. A flash of lust crossed those beautiful brown eyes and her hands came to my shoulders.
I leaned in close as my hand caressed her hip. My lips brushed over hers, earning a small hitch in her breath, as I splayed my hand over her ribs.
Then tickled her mercilessly.
“Ace!” she squealed, squirming and swatting at me, but I kept at the torture until she was laughing so hard that she begged me to stop.
“Are you going to tell me?”
“Yes,” she howled. “Yes!”
I let her go and grinned, dropping a kiss to her cheek as she swiped the tears from her eyes.
“You don’t play fair.”
“Fair is for losers.” I went to the stove and checked on the meat.
“True. Very true.” She hopped off the counter and went to my cutting board, taking over with the veggies. “I’m a lawyer.”
“Now was that so hard?”
“Yes.” She smirked with a laugh. “I spent my day drafting a will for a young couple. I hate doing them because it always makes me sad when I have to ask parents who will get their children if they die. After crying over it twice, I sent it to them to review. Then I drafted up LLC paperwork for a client who’s starting a new business in Missoula. ”
A knot in my chest unraveled. A sigh of relief came out so loud I knew she’d heard it.
I put the lid back on the meat so it could simmer until we were ready, then went to Nova, propping a hip on the counter beside her as she chopped. “Missoula?”
She nodded. “That’s where I live. I’m working remotely at the moment. I needed a break and change of scenery.”
“Oh.” That truth hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest and the pieces all clicked into place. She didn’t live here. That was why I hadn’t seen her in town before last month. Why she’d insisted this was casual.
She didn’t fucking live here.
I swallowed hard. The end had always been inevitable. Now I knew why.
“Why Clifton Forge?” I asked, pretending curiosity to hide the fact that my head was spinning.
“It’s close enough to Missoula that I can pop back if needed. One of the guys I work with at my firm comes hunting here every year. He’s always saying how nice of a town it is and that it’s not overrun with tourists like other areas. So I found a vacation rental and here I am.”
A vacation rental. Son of a bitch. “How long are you staying?”
She kept her eyes on the cutting board. “I planned a couple of months. I need to be back in Missoula before the roads get bad.”
If she was only staying for a couple of months, we’d burned through more than half already.
I regretted asking. Damn it. I should have kept my mouth shut.
Yeah, I would have figured it out eventually when she moved back to Missoula. But now all I’d be doing was watching the calendar as the days ticked by.
Nova looked over, her smile too bright as she set the knife down, the tomato perfectly diced. Then she went back to the counter, hopping up to her seat. “Any other questions?”
A few, actually. Would she ever have told me that she was leaving? Would she have disappeared without a word? But I didn’t ask because I didn’t want the answers.
“What’s your favorite color?” I asked, moving in between her legs again.
She lifted her hands, threading her fingertips through the hair at my temples. I’d tied it up earlier, knowing that she liked to take it down. “Your eyes.”
“What’s your favorite food?”
“Tacos.”
I brushed a kiss to her lips, then went to the stove and turned it off. I was grateful for the task of setting out everything on the island for dinner. It gave the sting of her truth time to ease.
She was leaving.
I’d known this was a short-term thing and now I had the timeline. Another month at most. That was how much time we had.
“Where’d you learn to cook?” She hopped down and went to the silverware drawer.
“Mostly here, through trial and error. My mom tried to teach me a few things when I was in high school, but not much stuck until I was grown and fending for myself.”
I hadn’t gone to college or trade school.
No professor could teach me more about cars than my own father and Draven could, so I’d joined the club and started working at the garage.
Back then, I’d lived in the clubhouse. There’d always been food in the industrial fridge and usually a woman or two who’d cook for the brothers hanging around.
Sometimes it was a girlfriend or wife of a member.
Other times it was a woman who thought cooking might land her the title of girlfriend—it rarely did.
It wasn’t until I’d moved out of the clubhouse and into a townhouse of my own, wanting some privacy, that I’d learned how to cook.
“It was awful at first.” I chuckled, taking plates out of the hickory cabinets. “Truly awful. But I’d always eat whatever I cooked. A punishment at first. Then it became a motivation to make something I’d actually enjoy.”
I set the plates down on the island that sat in the center of my expansive, U-shaped kitchen.
The cream granite was speckled with flecks of gray and burgundy stone.
I ate at the island most nights, the dining room too big and lonely for one.
Even with Nova here, we normally sat on the stools at the island, sitting side by side with my leg brushing against hers.
I’d miss that when she left. Her touch. Her company over a meal.
“I don’t get fancy,” I said, bringing everything to the island to assemble soft-shell tacos.
“I don’t need fancy.”
“You sure about that? I see your shoes.”
She laughed. “In shoes, yes, I need fancy. In food, I prefer this. Normal food. As long as it doesn’t have shrimp, I’m not very picky.”
I sat beside her, each of us assembling our tacos. “You don’t like shrimp.”
“Nope. I also don’t like sushi.”
“Not a lot of sushi in Clifton Forge.”
“Part of its appeal.” She laughed, taking her first bite. Her eyes closed and she moaned as she chewed.
“I forgot drinks.” I made a move to stand but she put a hand on my forearm, sliding off her stool first.
She went to the cabinet with glasses, taking out two. Then she filled them with ice and water from the fridge.
Just watching her move around my kitchen, comfortable in my space, made my chest ache. Nova was the closest I’d come to having a relationship in, well . . . ever. And she’d be gone soon. She’d go back to her life in Missoula.
She returned to our places, sliding my water into place.
“Tell me more,” I said. “Tell me anything.”
“I’m scared of spiders and snakes. I never say no to cookie dough ice cream. I think ballet flats are overrated. And . . .”
My food remained untouched. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her profile as her eyes turned sad. “And what?”
She looked over, pain etched on her beautiful face. “And I wish I had a better relationship with my father.”
I reached for her, cupping her jaw with my hand.
Nova leaned in, forcing a small smile. “Your turn. Tell me anything.”
“I hate shrimp too. And I’m glad you think ballet flats are overrated.”
She giggled, turning to press her lips to my wrist.
Then we went back to our meals, talking and laughing through another night. The echo of her laugh rang through the house and I willed the walls to absorb it. So that maybe a part of her would remain long after she was gone.