Chapter 8 #2
“It was in the basket,” I say in defense and barely resist the urge to clutch at the collar to double-check that I did, in fact, don a could-never-be-considered-sexy oversized flannel dress that hangs on my body because the belt that goes with it that would give me a hint of a waistline wasn’t in the basket too.
Levi’s Adam’s apple bobs. He hasn’t taken a single step toward me, but it feels like the distance between us is shrinking by the second. As if every deep breath of oxygen he inhales into that barrel of a chest of his is making the room smaller and him bigger.
My skin flushes, and a prickling of realization begins to dawn at the corners of my brain. “This isn’t your sister’s dress, is it?” I ask in a quiet voice.
He shakes his head.
Dagnabbit. “I’m wearing your shirt, aren’t I?”
He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. The quicksand that has become my stomach is telling me I’m right.
Because of course not only do I have to smell like this man—which must be as unsettling to him as it is to me—but now the shirt that has covered him so many times in the past is hugging every part of me, and when you think about it, that’s way too intimate a thing for two almost-complete strangers.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I’ll find something else to wear. ”
“Don’t.” He stops my trajectory back to the bedroom with the single word. “I said you could wear anything in the basket. It’s fine.”
The firm, almost angry set of his brow by no means conveys the message of everything is hunky-dory.
I don’t care one bit. Tension makes the air heavy, and I’m weighing the pros and cons of retreating and finding something else, anything else, in that blasted basket, or staying right here because, as he said, it’s fine, and I should take him at his word.
I really wish The Price Is Right host would appear and show me what’s behind door number three right now.
Levi jerks back toward the stove, picks up the wooden spoon off the counter, and attacks the ground beef in the skillet like he’s afraid the cow wasn’t really all the way dead yet and he’s determined to finish the bovine off himself.
“So,” I say warily, “that smells good.”
I’m talking to the solid wall of his back. He doesn’t give any indication that he even heard me, but considering he’s less than five feet away and hasn’t shown any previous signs of being on the cusp of deafness, I’m going to assume he knows I’m talking to him.
This good deed of single-handedly keeping a conversation in motion is going to be harder than I thought.
“Some kind of Mexican food, I’m guessing.”
“Tacos,” he begrudgingly answers.
“Oh, I love tacos.”
He spares me a look over his shoulder that I’m interpreting as something along the lines of everyone loves tacos. Which, of course, is a truth universally acknowledged, so silly me for pointing it out.
“Can I help?”
“No.”
Should have predicted that response.
I look around his house, trying to find a topic of conversation. His shelves of books pull me back toward them. What avid reader, even the shiest ones, can’t be tempted to come out of their shell when talking about books?
“I love your library, by the way.” I pitch my voice a little louder so he can hear me from the kitchen. “Do you have a favorite author or genre?”
Plates rattle in response, then the slide of a drawer opening and the tinkle of cutlery.
“I’m a pretty eclectic reader myself. I always have both a nonfiction and a fiction book going at the same time.
Usually multiple ones on different platforms, if I’m honest. People ask me how I can keep up with all the different story lines, but it’s not any different than having more than one show that you’re watching.
” I tip back a spine and slide the book out of its place.
“Oh, this James R. Hannibal book looks good. Have you read it yet? Is it just me, or are you immediately reminded of Hannibal Lecter when you see the author’s name?
He’s probably heard that a lot, although I would never say that to his face. ”
Something thunks behind me, and I startle, turning. Levi clanks another dish on the table.
“Dinner’s ready.” He retreats back to the kitchen.
The table is hardly set, what with only the skillet of beef and a jar of salsa gracing the center.
I follow him to help gather the rest. I don’t know what he puts in his tacos, but we still need the shells, at least, and plates to eat on.
When I round the island, he’s opening a top cabinet and fishing out two white earthenware plates.
“I can take those in,” I offer.
He spins slowly, as if he’s hoping when he gets all the way turned around, I won’t actually be standing here.
It’s getting harder and harder not to take these little rebuffs personally.
Each time he flinches or scowls or grunts, I try to tell myself that it’s not me, it’s the situation, and he’d act the same with anyone.
But it’s getting harder to grit my teeth and keep my smile in place and my voice chipper.
Because he’s not the only one having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day here.
I’ve miscalculated. I’m standing too close. Levi’s finished his slow-motion rotation, and there isn’t even any room for him to hand me the plates he’s holding near his chest. My chin tilts up as my head tips back, Levi towering above me as still as a statue.
At this proximity, I can see that his eyes aren’t actually liquid gold but the lightest shade of amber that I’ve ever seen.
With as hard as the rest of him is and as unapproachable as he makes himself, his eyes betray him.
They aren’t hard at all but soft and nearly entreating, juxtaposing beneath the strict slashes of his thick brows and the coarse hair beneath the ridge of his cheekbones.
I’m not sure why I’m still standing here when I should be taking a step back. For that matter, I’m not sure why he hasn’t barked at me to move. It’s almost as if we’re caught in some sort of Twilight Zone vortex and I can’t look away, break away.
Levi’s lips part, and his eyes slam shut. He makes a sound that, if it were a word, would only consist of four letters. “You have freckles,” he says by way of an accusation. Like, how dare I, a redhead, have freckles dotting my otherwise porcelain-doll skin.
Like I had a say in the matter, buddy.
“And you smell . . .” That sound again.
Hey, if he doesn’t like that I smell like him then he should have let me stop by the general store to pick up something else.
His eyes and the muscle in his jaw bulge. “And you’re wearing . . .” The air around him practically vibrates as he makes the sound a third time, the reverberations pinging around my chest cavity like a trapped pinball.
He sounds pained. Angry. At himself or me?
Wait. Is he angry because he likes my freckles and the fact I smell like him and I’m wearing his shirt? Mr. I-Can’t-Wait-to-Get-Away-from-You? That can’t be right, can it?
“You should never wear makeup,” he says as he barrels past me, grabbing a box of hard taco shells and a dish of toppings all chopped and ready to go on his way to the dining table.
I should never . . .
Okay, I’m going to skip right over the initial reaction of a man isn’t going to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do or what I can or can’t wear and get straight to the heart of what I think Levi Redding just said.
Or tried to say, rather. Which is that he thinks I’m more attractive naturally and don’t need to cover up or enhance anything with beauty products.
Why, Mr. Redding, I do declare. You have such a way with words.
He’s taken everything to the dining room already, so I follow behind empty-handed. There’s a plate set on the table, but Levi’s holding the other in his hand. Not sure what’s up with that but nothing has been easy to figure out with this man so why would I think that would change now?
I pull out the chair with the place setting and lower myself into the seat. Instead of taking the seat next to me or even across from me like one would expect, Levi goes to the opposite end of the table, the seat farthest away, then sits.
I hold back my snort. So much for that half of a second when I’d deliriously thought he might actually tolerate my presence, much less more than tolerate it. This seating arrangement snuffed that idea out in a jiffy.
Your Darcy theory, Hayley.
Right. If people make Levi uncomfortable, then sitting by himself would make sense. I think?
Levi folds his hands and closes his eyes. I mimic his posture and prepare for a blessing over the meal.
Nothing happens.
I peek out behind a squinted lid.
Levi mouths the word amen and lifts his head.
A silent prayer, then. I say my own quickly, along with a plea for a lightning bolt of inspiration on how to put my host at ease since I don’t know how long we’re going to be forced to be housemates and I hate the thought that I’m making him miserable by being here.
We build our tacos, and I give myself a moment of reprieve from trying to come up with something to converse over. Talking with your mouth full is poor manners, after all. I take a bite, the hard shell crunching between my teeth and the spices exploding on my tongue.
Alert! Atomic-level explosion happening! My eyes and nose immediately water, and I cough. My mouth is on fire. I finally manage to swallow the inferno, then reach for a glass that isn’t there to put the flames out. “Water,” I croak.
Levi leaves and comes back a moment later with a bottle of water. “Too spicy?” he asks like I didn’t just eviscerate every single one of my taste buds.
I take a play out of his book and don’t bother answering.
Instead, I lift my plate and scoot down the table to his end, which just so happens to be where the container of sour cream is.
After scooping copious amounts of sour cream on the rest of my taco in hopes that the dairy will bring down the heat level, I plant myself in the seat beside him.
He stiffens but isn’t so rude as to get up and pretend that we’re playing musical chairs right now.
I pick up my taco and take another loud bite, thankfully not choking this time.
I peek at Levi as I chew. A taco is dwarfed in one of his massive hands.
His other hand rests on top of his thigh, his thumb tucked into a tight fist. He looks like he doesn’t want to be sitting at this table with me, and I know now’s the time to check off that box in my journal and get him to relax, ease his anxiety.
Idle chatter commence.
“So, I don’t know if you know this, but Glen Bell, you know, the founder of Taco Bell?
Well, he claims that he invented the idea of the hard-shell taco.
He was looking for a fast-food alternative to the ever-popular hamburger.
” I take another bite and chew. “He wanted to give Americans something different but familiar while also staying true to a fast-food rule—that the meal can be eaten with one hand on the go.” Another bite.
Chew. “He might have made the Tex-Mex taco popular, don’t get me wrong, but there were patents for a metal taco mold to make your own hard shells at home before Glen Bell ever opened his first restaurant.
So, he might have made the taco popular, but he definitely didn’t invent the concept. ”
The vein that runs along Levi’s temple throbs. He seems to be getting more tense beside me, not less. Maybe if I keep talking?
“Another interesting tidbit about Taco Bell is that it didn’t always ‘think outside the bun’ like the slogan claims. A chili burger, of all things, was on its original menu.
But the franchise does do a good job at innovation, I’ll give them that.
Did you know that it took a team of engineers over two years and over forty recipes to get the Doritos Locos Taco right?
” I laugh, a sort of unhinged sound because I realize the ridiculousness of all these off-the-wall facts about a fast-food chain and the fact that I’m running out of said facts themselves.
“Oh, and the first restaurants had actual mariachi bands playing. I like mariachi music. Do you like mariachi music?”
Levi shoots out of his seat, looking more like the lion I had mentally named him early.
A caged one, at that. His hair is a wild mane about him and he has muscles rippling under his clothes.
He glares down at me, his arms flexed and hands fisted at his sides.
“Stop. Talking. Just . . . for the love, stop talking. You said I wouldn’t even know you were here.
You said it twice. But you haven’t let up.
Not once. You’re here. You’re everywhere, and I can’t . . . just stop . . . I need . . .”
But he doesn’t articulate what he needs. Instead, he makes that growl that sounds like a curse and storms toward the bedrooms at the back of the house in an angry huff. I brace for the slam of a door that never comes, stunned speechless.