Chapter 8
Harper
“I’ll bring your car back in the morning,” I promised, slinging my overnight bag onto my shoulder. “Or tonight…but probably tomorrow.”
“Two nights in a row,” my mom mused, tapping the end of her pen against the counter.
“He’s making me dinner,” I replied with a little shimmy. “Thanks for letting me borrow the car.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Make good choices,” my mom called out as I left the house.
“Never! And you can’t make me!” I called back, closing the door behind me.
It was a little embarrassing how excited I was to see Bas.
I’d spent the day looking at jobs online and making sure my résumé was up to date, and I was glad to finally leave it all behind.
Only a few years before, I’d been fielding so many job offers that I’d had to make pro/con lists, and now I was checking my email every couple of hours to see if anyone had reached out.
So far, it had been crickets.
I told myself to be patient, that the job offers would come, but I was a little worried that my old boss had already made the rounds telling everyone that I’d walked out.
Everyone knew everyone, the corporate world was a small one, and there was a very good chance that I was being talked about.
I just hoped someone heard what happened and thought I was exactly the type of honest employee they wanted.
It would happen.
But for now, my hair was done, I was wearing a dress that made my boobs look incredible, I’d slathered my body in scented lotion, and I was on my way to see a man that made my toes curl with just the sound of his voice.
I wondered what he was going to make me for dinner.
“What the fuck?” I yelped, skidding onto the gravel at the side of the road as a lifted truck swerved completely into my lane.
The traction control in my mom’s car kicked in with a loud beeping as I struggled to stay in control, and by the time I straightened out on the asphalt again, the truck had disappeared behind me. He hadn’t even slowed down to make sure I hadn’t wrecked.
Fucking asshole.
I spent the rest of the drive with my heart pounding and both hands wrapped around the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles were white.
The drive between my parents’ place and Bas’s apartment was less than fifteen minutes, and I was still a little shaky as I pulled into his parking space and cut the engine.
At this rate I should probably just stop driving altogether.
Grabbing my bag off the seat next to me, I climbed out of the car to find Bas standing in his open doorway.
His hair was wet, his feet were bare, and he was wearing a pair of jeans that were practically indecent if you knew what was under them.
“Hey,” I called out as I walked toward him. “I hate to be presumptuous, but I brought a toothbrush this time.”
He smiled, and my stomach did a little flip.
Backing out of the doorway, he took my bag and let me into the house.
“You look beautiful,” he greeted, leaning down to give me a kiss. “Take off the coat so I can see the dress.”
“It’s just a dress,” I said with a little laugh, a bit nervous that I’d somehow overinflated it when we’d talked earlier. I took off my coat and set it on the edge of the couch. Before I turned back around, Bas was at my back, his hands running over the curve of my ass.
“I like this,” he whispered in my ear.
“The front’s even better,” I joked.
“Let me see.”
I turned toward him and felt my belly flip again as his eyes flared, tracing down my body and then up again.
“I feel like shit for makin’ you dinner here,” he said, his eyes coming back to mine. “Shoulda taken you out and shown you off.”
“Oh, this isn’t a going-out dress,” I assured him, wrapping my arms around his neck. “This is a dinner-at-home dress.”
“Didn’t know there was such a thing.”
“There is.” I nodded, trying to hold back a smile. “A dinner-at-home dress doesn’t have anything under it.”
His smile lit up the entire room. Bringing his face close to mine, he started bunching the dress up my thighs inch by inch until he could slide his palms against bare skin. One hand stayed on my hip while the other slid over my ass, the tips of his fingers sliding down the center.
“See? Nothing under it.”
Bas’s eyes fell closed as he groaned. “Dinner.” He let me go slowly, kissing the end of my nose as my dress fell back down to my knees.
“What did you make?” I asked as I followed him over to the kitchen area.
“I bought steaks,” he said with a huff. “But when I got home, the smoker wouldn’t heat up.”
“Oh no.”
“So, I improvised,” he continued. “Taco tater tot casserole.”
“Interesting choice.”
“Don’t knock it until you try it,” he warned, offering me a beer. “It was my favorite growin’ up, so I always have the ingredients in the freezer. We’ve got four minutes left on the timer.”
“Thanks,” I said, reaching over to get a bottle opener magnet off the fridge. “I’ll reserve judgment.”
“It’s gonna blow your mind,” he replied, leaning against the counter.
I looked around the kitchen. When I was in there that morning getting dressed, it hadn’t been messy or anything, but since then he’d washed the few dishes in the sink and wiped down the counters. I could still smell whatever lemon-scented cleaner he’d used.
“I like your apartment, by the way.”
“It’s dry and warm,” he joked. “Not exactly Titus’s place, but at least I don’t have a four-year-old pounding on my bedroom door at six in the morning because she’s thirsty.”
“Do you miss living with them?”
“I miss seein’ the kids every day,” he replied, almost sheepishly. “But havin’ the place to myself is nice. Quiet.”
“I bet they miss you, too.”
“Yeah, I need to go over there for dinner soon,” he said as the timer went off and he turned to pull the pan out of the oven. “The secret to makin’ the tater tot casserole is to cook it in a cast iron. I’ve cooked it in a pan and then baked it in a glass dish—garbage.”
“You’re very serious about this casserole,” I teased.
“It’s—you have a meal that you love, right? Just reminds you of home?”
“My mom’s potato soup.”
Taking his time, he scooped out two portions and put them in bowls, making sure that he had enough tots on each one. “I didn’t think this through,” he said, sticking forks in each of the bowls. “Considerin’ I don’t own a kitchen table. Couch?”
“Works for me.”
I carried our drinks over and set them on the coffee table while he followed me with the bowls of food. When we got to the couch, he handed me a floral potholder.
“What?”
“Bowl’s hot on the bottom,” he warned.
“Shit,” I said, hurrying to take my bowl from him. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“It’s fine. The calluses on my hands pretty much take care of it.”
“You’re not going to use one of these? Love the flowers.”
“There’s only one,” he said, sitting down.
I sat sideways on the couch with one of my legs crossed under me and looked at my bowl of food. It smelled good. Taking a tentative bite, I was fully prepared to lie my ass off.
“Holy shit,” I mumbled, covering my mouth with my hand. “That’s good.”
“Told you,” he replied happily. “Taco tater tot casserole always saves the night.”
“This was your foster mom’s recipe?” I asked, blowing on another bite. The first one I’d taken was hotter than the sun.
“Bernice,” he confirmed, nodding. “She had a few tried-and-true recipes, but this one was my favorite. By the time I was thirteen, she had me makin’ dinner one night a week. Said it was a life skill.”
“Smart woman.”
“Pragmatic,” he agreed. “She also taught me the right way to load the dishwasher, how to clean a bathroom, basic budgeting, shit like that.”
“You wouldn’t believe how many guys I’ve met that don’t do shit,” I replied. “Clean a bathroom? Yeah, right.”
“So, what, you were just bangin’ guys with filthy bathrooms?” he asked, wrinkling his nose. “Please tell me you didn’t clean it.”
“Oh, hell no,” I replied with a laugh. “If I don’t live there, I’m not cleaning shit except dishes or whatever. No, they had cleaning ladies.”
“Fancy.”
“It came with the apartments,” I explained. “I had a cleaning lady, too.”
“Ooh,” he teased.
“She probably loved my apartment,” I said dryly. “I always cleaned before she came.”
Bas laughed.
“Well, it was weird! Like, thanks for the help, but my mother would kill me if I trashed the place and expected someone else to clean it up.”
“Kind of defeats the purpose,” he pointed out.
“I’d totally hire a cleaning lady again,” I said, taking a bite of my food. Damn, it was good. “It was nice to have someone doing the deep cleaning for me. Like behind the toilet. I don’t want to put my face down that close to the bowl so I can reach the dust bunnies behind it, you know?”
“You clean the toilet first,” he informed me. “Then when you have to get down close, you know it’s already been disinfected.”
“Still a hard no,” I argued. “I mean, I’ll do it if I have to, but I really don’t want to.”
“I hate doin’ laundry,” Bas said. “Washing, drying, folding, putting it all away just to use it again and start the whole process over. If I hired anything out, it would be that.”
“Laundry’s relaxing,” I argued. “You can just put a show on and then fold while you’re watching. Throw it in the washer, go do something else. Move it to the dryer, go do something else. So easy.”
“I miss doin’ laundry at the house,” he said, reaching for his beer. “This place doesn’t have a washer and dryer, so I’ve been goin’ to the laundromat.”
“Okay, that’s a pain in the ass.”
“Tell me about it. Takes a lot less time, though. Those machines are huge, so I only ever have to do one load.”
“I used to love the laundromat when I was a kid. We always had a washer and dryer, but whenever we’d go camping, we’d have to wash the sleeping bags at the laundromat, and they had a pinball machine. My mom would bring like ten dollars in quarters just to keep me occupied while we waited.”
“Did you guys go camping a lot?”