Chapter Twenty-Nine Madison
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Madison
“No, you’re rolling those way too small! No one wants a small cookie.”
James laughs as I take the ball of dough from his hand and add more to it, rolling it into a suitable size. “One night of cooking in this kitchen and you’re a maniac.” He wipes his hands on a dish towel, then picks up the wine bottle we’ve been drinking from, bringing it right to his mouth.
We’ve been in here for hours now, days. Who knows?
I expected James to get bored and leave by the fourth dish, but I underestimated him.
He’s stuck with me, washing, dicing, and plating our way through the menu.
It helps we’ve been sampling (devouring) everything as soon as it comes out of the oven or off the stove, burning our mouths and laughing.
He took it upon himself to wash the dishes between each meal while I look ahead, prepping for the next one.
After the first round of dinner options, James stepped out and returned with a bottle of wine. He forgot the glasses though, so we’ve been drinking straight from the bottle.
Now we’re onto the dessert courses. Keeping with the hometown memories theme of the restaurant, I want this cookie to pay homage to my grandma, who made the best damn chocolate chip cookies in the world.
Rarely a school day went by that she didn’t have them waiting on the table for us when we got home.
They’ll be served with a heaping scoop of homemade bourbon vanilla ice cream.
I roll out three more cookies and put the tray in the oven.
“I’m debating making these cookies in mini skillets instead.”
“Yeah?”
“Could be a fun added experience,” I say while wiping my hands on a dish towel.
James hands me the bottle of wine. “I agree.”
I wonder if he can see it. The dazzling joy sweeping under my skin, through my veins. I feel reconnected with myself after tonight. Not a single minute over the last few hours has felt like work. It’s been decadent playtime—even better than I remember it.
I stare at him over my long drink, studying his contentment. The easy way he’s leaning back against the counter. He doesn’t look like he’s in a hurry to go anywhere. It’s how he always looks around me. Or maybe that’s just the sweet buzz from the wine coating my senses.
“Now that we’re done, what’s your final verdict on the menu?”
He tilts his head. “My verdict . . . it’s going to be a huge success.”
“You’re not just saying that? Because I can take honesty.” I pause. “I mean, if it’s negative, I’ll cry for sure, but I can take it.”
He laughs and comes closer to steal the bottle back from me. “Here’s my brutal honesty: I want to eat these exact dishes every day for the rest of my life.”
Oh shit.
I watch his mouth connect with the rim of the bottle. He tips it, jawline sharpening, throat working as he swallows. In the history of the world, drinking wine has never looked so sexy.
Probably I should let his comment pass me by without waving at it.
Probably I should pretend I don’t sense the deeper meaning.
“Maybe that can be arranged . . .” I say.
His chest expands on a sudden breath like he wasn’t expecting me to acknowledge the truth so easily. He sets the bottle on the surface just behind me, placing his body a little closer to mine. “You made it look easy tonight.”
I rest my hips back against the counter to look up at him. “It felt easy tonight. It hasn’t felt that way in a long time.”
“I wish I’d known you were struggling so much in New York.”
This makes me laugh a little. “What would you have done?”
He studies my amusement, eyes raking over my features. “I would have called. Often. Come visit and taken you out like we did last weekend.” The intensity in his voice tells me he’s serious. “I would have tried everything to help. I told you, I’ve wanted to be your friend for a while.”
It’s a nice thought, but I don’t want to tiptoe around whatever this is anymore. I’m ready to bring honesty to the table. “You had every chance to come visit me over the last two years, and you never did.”
“Did I?” He pauses. “Because I think without that breakdown, you never would have let me through the door.”
“Untrue.” I retrieve the wine and take a big swig. “I’ve always wanted to be friends too.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.” James takes the bottle from my hand and drinks from it.
“Oh, if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black!”
“How do you figure?”
I gawk at him. “Because any time I’d call home and FaceTime with the family, you’d leave the room.
” I noticed. Every time. But I didn’t realize until this moment just how close attention I was paying to James all these years.
“And even when I was here in person, if I so much as hinted at a story of something that happened in New York you’d get up and leave.
” I shrug and steal the bottle back. We’re playing tug-of-war. “I took the hint.”
James’s face is startlingly serious, a debate happening behind his dark brown eyes. “You took the wrong hint.”
“What does that mean?”
“It wasn’t New York I didn’t want to hear about, Madison.”
I lightly shake my head. “I don’t understand.”
“When you first got there, you found a tiny bookstore on your walk to the train station. It was full of vintage romances and you found the best pirate one for Annie and mailed it to her.”
And he’s not done: “Last winter your window cracked during a snowstorm and your room was freezing. You duct-taped the crack, and it took your landlord an inexcusable amount of time to get it fixed.” I’m about to interject, but he continues.
“You found a random dog outside your apartment building a few months ago and you knocked on door after door for two hours until you finally found his owner. A sweet older lady who was distraught at losing him. She gave you a five-dollar bill as a thank-you.”
I’m speechless. Can’t find a single word to voice how I’m feeling.
He leans in the smallest bit closer. “I’ve always listened, Madison. I only got up and left the room when you’d start talking about the chef you were sleeping with.”
I’m shaking, but James is steady as ever.
“Ask me why,” he says, those three words enough to set my heart on fire.
“Why did you leave the room, James?”
He steps closer. Body heat crowding me. I want more of it. “Because I have been so damn jealous of any other man in your bed.”
I can’t breathe. James Huxley has been jealous of the other men in my life? What does this mean?
I know what it means. . . .
My gaze drops to his mouth and catches there. Everything shifting and irrevocably changing.
I watch his words form, quiet and heavy with tension. “Say something.”
“I . . . have contemplated putting a laxative in a certain redhead’s coffee lately,” I admit quietly so maybe he won’t hear. But this seems to encourage him to get even closer to me. The front of our bodies touching ever so slightly.
“You’ve been jealous of Jeanine?” His eyes have sparklers in them.
I nod.
“Don’t put laxatives in her coffee, please. She’s nice.”
I scrunch my nose. “Ugh, she’s nice! You’re making it worse.”
“You don’t want her to be nice?” The back of his knuckles skim cautiously against my jawline. I want to arch into his touch like a cat.
“No. I want to hear that you broke up because she was rude and tacky or something like that. Because I’m not nice.”
“That’s not why we broke up,” he says, still giving away no hints about how their relationship ended. Or who ended it. “What else are you thinking?”
“That your kiss didn’t cure me.” I say this to his mouth. “It made everything worse.”
“For me too.” His hand cradles my jaw and his thumb sweeps across my bottom lip, tugging with the slightest roughness—evidence of his pent-up desire.
This is really happening, isn’t it? I’ve been trying to keep a lid on my feelings for him, constantly reminding myself that we are intertwined in too many ways to pursue something casual.
But it hasn’t been enough to overpower what’s right in front of me.
What’s palpable between us. This isn’t casual.
We are good together. I feel good with him.
“James . . .” I say, breathless, sliding my hand up his chest. “I think we should—”
His head dips, and he kisses me—hard—before I fully get the words out. It’s not the same as the one we shared in the cottage. It’s not measured or restrained. It’s desperate.
But just as quickly as we connect, he pulls away. “Shit. You were gonna say kiss, right? I should have asked—”
I grab the back of his neck and pull him down. More. Again. Yes.
There is no hesitation. James captures my mouth like a storm. It is thunder and lightning and wind. Both his hands sink into the back of my hair like he’s trying to hold on to me for dear life. I grip the front of his shirt, wanting him as close as possible.
Our mouths are open, pressing and devouring. Angling and then angling again—and it’s so good I don’t even realize we haven’t used tongue for this kiss until James’s sweeps into my mouth.
A shot of adrenaline strikes through my veins.
I’ve never kissed someone I know so well before.
It’s heady. I know when this man is smiling out of politeness and when he’s smiling because he’s happy.
He’ll eat almost everything I make, but any Brussels sprout gets exiled to the edge of the plate.
He wants to repair the relationship with his brother.
He loves this farm and simultaneously wishes he didn’t.
And now I know wine tastes delicious on his tongue.
James is sunlight. And I am toasty warm, already scheming up ways I can hold his attention forever.
Our teeth clank together, spurring a new sense of urgency in us both.
My arms slide around his neck. Our noses bump.
His forearms loop behind my back to haul me off the ground, feet dangling, chests pressed together.
I feel his smile tug before he laughs—mouth to mouth.
“Wrap your legs around my waist,” he urges, hands clutching behind my thighs to help.