33. Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
Lauren
The first few days living with Aiden passed in a blur. Before I knew it, I’d unpacked everything I’d brought to the house and been added to the O’Malley sibling group chat. Between exchanges of who was bringing what to the 4th of July picnic and subtle teasing about Kiara’s potato salad, Aiden’s sisters asked questions to pull me into the conversation. By the time we got to his parents’ house for the party, everyone treated me like I’d been part of the group for years. Most of his nieces and nephews recognized me from story hour at Karma and were beyond excited to learn they were getting yet another cousin. The youngest even kissed my tiny bump, which was apparently something he did regularly to his mom, Fiona, who was due in September.
Though I felt much better in my second trimester, looking pregnant meant everyone from the mail carrier to the Torid Tuesdays Book Club thought I was working too much. Cammie insisted I end my days when she came in, if for no other reason than she was tired of hearing customers fuss. I typically arrived at Aiden’s house before him, but the massive summer storm soaking the area must have shut down his worksites. I parked behind his truck and hurried through the rain to the porch.
“Hey, Lauren,” he called from the back of the house as soon as I opened the door.
I kicked off my wet shoes, hung my keys on the hook Aiden installed for me, and headed to the kitchen. I found him leaning against a counter full of groceries, studying a piece of paper. His hair was still damp from the shower, and he’d changed from his work clothes into a pair of gym shorts and a t-shirt that molded to his toned chest. I wanted him to cross the kitchen and kiss me hello, but he simply looked up from the paper to acknowledge me.
“Making dinner?”
“Trying,” he said, setting the paper on the counter. “At least I hope so. I grabbed a frozen pizza just in case.”
“Smart.” Between his mother, his sisters, and Rose, we’d had enough casseroles to get by since I moved in. I usually ate before Aiden, but he’d made a point of finding me wherever I was after he’d heated up his food in the microwave. It was as if he couldn’t stand the idea of eating alone.
“It seems pretty straight forward,” he said. “Dump all the ingredients on a sheet pan and put it in the oven.” He pulled open the drawer under the stove and took out a baking sheet and a skillet. “But what the hell is a sheet pan? A sheet is flat and pans usually have edges. Neither of these looks like they’d work.”
“I don’t cook,” I said, stepping closer. “But I’ve seen Rowan use a cookie sheet with edges. I’m guessing that’s a sheet pan.”
He nodded as his phone rang with a video call.
“Have you cut yourself or caught anything on fire yet?” Kayleigh asked as soon as he answered. “Hi, Lauren,” she added, waving at me.
“Hi,” I said, trying not to laugh. Aiden operated a successful business that regularly required the use of heavy machinery, yet his big sister had called to make sure he was OK making dinner. I’d never experienced that level of care and concern as a child. Rose came the closest to filling the maternal role in my life now, but from what I’d seen, each of Aiden’s sisters were more of a mother to him than my mom had ever been to me.
“I feel better knowing you’re there, Lauren,” Kayleigh said.
I held up my hands. “The closest I come to making a home cooked meal is reheating what someone else cooked.”
Kayleigh rubbed her forehead. “It’s OK, we have a while before the baby eats solids. How far along are you in the recipe?”
“Far enough to know I don’t have a sheet pan,” Aiden said.
“Yes, you do. Ciara bought you one. I watched her put it under the stove.”
He showed her the drawer, and she sighed. “Fiona is the worst nester,” she mumbled. “Look around. It’s there somewhere that Fi thought made sense.”
We finally found it in the pantry holding an assortment of plastic containers arranged in an impressive pyramid.
“Did you get the parchment paper I told you to buy?” Kayleigh asked, having stayed on the call the entire time we looked for the pan. “The precut sheets?”
Aiden nodded and showed her everything he’d laid out on the counter. “Thanks for the recipe. I’ve got this.”
Kayleigh bit her bottom lip. “Maybe you should call me later to make sure the chicken’s cooked.”
Aiden let out a huff. “I grill chicken breasts all the time. Don’t worry. I’ll be sure it’s only a little pink in the middle.” He ended the call, but his phone rang again before he could put it down. He smiled and typed a text.
I hadn’t seen him smile much since I’d moved in, and I was no doubt the reason. He had his guard up. He was attentive, caring even, but cautious. “Can I help?” I asked.
He placed his phone on the counter and gave me his full attention. “I was only teasing Kayleigh. I won’t serve you undercooked chicken. You can go upstairs and rest. You must be tired.”
I was, but the last thing I wanted was more time in my room alone. Apart from the first couple nights I slept in Aiden’s bed, I hadn’t been sleeping well. The mattress in my room was comfortable, but I had a difficult time shutting off my mind. I tossed and turned, replaying all the ways I’d hurt Aiden and wishing he was curled around me. More than once I thought of walking down the hall and sliding into bed with him, but he wanted to take things slow. The least I could do after all the pain I’d caused was respect the pace he set. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t try to speed him up by spending more time together. “I’d like to help. If that’s OK.”
“Yeah, of course,” he said, running a hand through his damp hair like the thought of an extra hour with me had rattled him. “We better start by washing our hands. Kayleigh wrote it in all caps on the top of the recipe.”
“I adore your sister,” I said, walking to the sink.
A soft smile crossed his lips. “Yeah, she’s pretty great. Overbearing sometimes, but she means well.”
I flicked on the faucet and started washing my hands. “You’re lucky to have her.”
“I know,” he said, joining me at the sink. “I won the family jackpot.”
The words had rolled out of his mouth like he said them all the time, but as soon as he spoke them, his eyes widened.
“Lauren—”
“I couldn’t have picked a better family for the baby.”
His eyes softened. “They’re your family now too. You’re in the group chat. That’s our version of initiation, and you earned it in record time.”
My chest filled with warmth. The O’Malleys had gone out of their way to make me feel welcomed. “Must be all the good karma I’ve been working on.”
“Or mine,” he said softly.
Talk about taking the top prize. I’d won the one-night stand, accidental pregnancy jackpot. Less than four months ago, Aiden and I couldn’t be in a room together without fighting, and now I wanted to spend every moment I could with him.
He soaped his hands and put them under the water I’d left running. It was the closest we’d been, physically, in days. I let my hands drip dry into the sink, soaking in the comfort of being near him again. I could feel the heat from his body and practically taste the spicy scent of his soap. Too soon, he stepped away and grabbed a dish towel that he handed to me.
“Ready to do this?” he asked.
“I am.”
We muddled through slicing three peppers, two onions, and a pair of portabella mushroom caps. They weren’t pretty or even, but they were sliced and in a large plastic zipper bag waiting to be seasoned with the chicken.
“I bought tenders, so we don’t have to cut up raw chicken,” Aiden said. He reached for the package of meat on the counter with a grim look on his face.
“I hate touching raw meat,” I blurted out. “It’s one of the reasons I don’t cook. It’s gross, and I can never eat it after it’s cooked if I touch it when it’s raw.”
His blue eyes sparked with amusement. “Same. But I’ve gotten used to it. I was just thinking that I didn’t want you anywhere near raw chicken, but I didn’t want to piss you off by asking you to let me handle it.”
“Handle away. In fact, I’ll turn my back until it’s in the bag with the vegetables.” His lips quirked but stopped short of a full smile. I spun around and kept rambling. “I promise I’ll get over it. After the baby’s born, I’ll handle raw meat like an adult, but my stomach still isn’t 100% all the time, and I’m pretty sure I’d gag right now if I tried.”
“The chicken is safely in the bag,” he said a moment later. “Mind turning on the sink for me and squirting some soap on my hands?” The man was not messing around with salmonella, and I felt confident he really could cook chicken safely.
As he washed up again, I grabbed the recipe and studied Kayleigh’s neat handwriting. “Looks like we just need to add the garlic oil and spices.”
“Way ahead of you,” he said, pulling a packet of fajita seasoning from a drawer. “I figured we could take a short cut.”
“You had that in the drawer because you knew Kayleigh would video call at some point, didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “I figured it was likely.”
I looked at the collection of spice bottles on the counter and shook my head. “You already bought everything. We might as well follow the recipe. She took the time to write it down so neatly.”
He looked over my shoulder at the careful script and frowned. “Fine, but we’re using the premade salsa and guacamole I have in the fridge. We can try her recipes for those once we master fajitas.”
“Deal,” I said, and my stomach grumbled loudly.
He raised his eyebrows at me. “We might need to dig into the chips and dips before dinner. It’ll be a while since we forgot to preheat the oven.”
Shoot. We’d missed the first step after “WASH YOUR HANDS.” “We’re really bad at this, aren’t we?”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” he said, his eyes serious and fixed on mine. “That’s just part of trying.”
He wasn’t talking about dinner. I wanted to assure him I was trying. I pictured myself as a mother, as a part of his family, but the image remained hazy in my mind. Golden and dreamlike. Too good to be true. I wanted to apologize again for all the ways I’d hurt him and still could.
I hadn’t told the realtor to take the listing offline. No one had made an offer after Aiden’s expired, and I honestly didn’t want one. But I still wasn’t confident I could be the person Aiden and the baby deserved. I figured if I wasn’t meant to stay in Peace Falls, the universe would send me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
Instead of admitting my doubts to Aiden, I set the temperature on the oven. We measured spices and oil before he sealed the bag and shook everything together. When he dumped the food onto the parchment-lined pan, it smelled so good my stomach grumbled again.
“Take a seat,” he said, pointing to the table and benches built into one of the kitchen’s corners. “Food is on the way. I even got microwave queso, but if you value your life, best keep it a secret.”
While dinner cooked, we sat across from each other eating tortilla chips and talking. As he’d done every night since I moved in, he asked me how my day had gone and told me about his. Sitting at the table he’d built, pulling chips from the same bag, I finally understood why he’d sought me out every night with his leftovers. I’m sure he’d grown up having family dinners, and even if I’d already eaten, he was continuing the tradition with me.
I’d never shared the smallest moments of my life with someone day after day. Mom didn’t care, and Grandpa wasn’t much of a talker. My friends were always there for me, especially for the big stuff, but I wasn’t calling Rowan daily to tell her that one of my suppliers had switched my order for caffeinated and decaffeinated beans. While the kitchen filled with a delicious smell, we kept talking. The conversation might have seemed mundane to him, but the realization that I could do this every night for the rest of my life made it feel extraordinary to me. Before I knew it, the timer beeped.
Aiden’s eyes widened. “Shit, we were supposed to make rice and beans.”
I smiled at him. “Like you said, everyone makes mistakes when they’re trying. Plus, we took down an entire bag of chips. I’ll be good with one fajita.”
“Let’s see how we did,” he said, finally giving me a full smile.
I cut one of the chicken tenders in half, snapped a picture, and sent it to Kayleigh before we sat down again to eat the first meal we’d made together. It was without question the best fajita I’d ever had.