Chapter 16
ACE
Five days of us barely leaving this house and my self-control is held together with approximately nothing.
Adelaide is across the kitchen island from me, slicing smoked salmon, wearing those denim cutoffs that end way too high and a bikini top that’s got me staring at her chest way too frequently.
All while I’m cutting mango with the attention of a man who needs his hands occupied or he’s going to do something that ends the careful détente we’ve all been maintaining.
It’s not going great. Nope.
North is in the surf, while Luca is running an errand.
“Question,” she says, not glancing up from the salmon.
“Shoot.”
“What did you want to be when you grew up?”
I glance at her. She has her hair twisted up off her neck, and there’s a piece of it escaping, which I track down to her collarbone and back up. “I’m doing it.”
“Surfing is your childhood dream?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“Most people dream about something they don’t have yet.” She picks up another piece of salmon, examines it. “You dreamed about waves.”
“I used to watch all those surfing tournaments as a kid, amazed by how enormous the waves became. At the time, they were scary as fuck, but to overcome that fear and become one with the wave has always been a dream of mine.” I fan the mango slices out on the charcuterie board.
She considers that, her knife moving in clean, even strokes. “Nothing else pulling at you?”
I’m quiet for a second. “I’ve also wanted to have my own food truck.”
She sets the knife down and smiles at me. “Tell me everything. That sounds amazing and something I can understand.”
“It’s not—”
“Ace.” She leans on the island, and those eyes are fully on me. “Tell me because I watch all kinds of cooking shows and wish I could be one of those people who can whip up magic in the kitchen.”
I set down my knife and lean back against the sink.
“Small operation. Breakfast and lunch only, the menu changes daily based on the market, maybe four or five items, everything made from scratch the same day.” I keep my voice even, though I see the excitement in her expression.
“No freezer food. Loco moco with Wagyu beef and a proper demi-glace. Tuna poke on house-made rice crackers. Soft scrambled eggs with whatever’s good that day. ” I pause. “That kind of thing.”
She’s staring at me.
“What?” I say.
“You’ve thought about this in detail.”
“I’ve been thinking about it for years.”
“Why haven’t you done it?”
The question is so direct that it takes me a second to answer. Most people ask why you want to do a thing. She asks why you haven’t started. “Timing,” I admit. “And the guys. We had other things happening before this.”
She picks her knife back up and returns to the salmon, but her energy has changed. She’s thinking. I watch her but pretend I’m not, admiring every inch of her. How she moves, the breathing that picks up, the rise and fall of her chest. I’m absolutely smitten with her.
“You’d have a line,” she says. “Every day. Before you opened.”
“That’s the plan.”
“I’d be in that line.” She admits it matter-of-factly, like it’s just information she’s providing. “Annoyingly early.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
She grins at the salmon. “You’d hate me for it.”
I chuckle, imagining how good it would be. “I’d put up with it.” Then I reach across for the pineapple on the far end of the board. My arm passes inches above hers, and the air between us is electric and insistent. Neither of us moves for a half second longer.
I pull back.
She exhales quietly and goes back to her salmon, then I quarter the pineapple and don’t look at the way the sunlight from outside is catching the exposed line of her throat.
“Your turn,” I say.
She’s now slicing cucumbers, neat little movements. “For what?”
“Dreams.”
A soft huff leaves her. “Mine are boring.”
“Try me.”
She goes quiet for a second, the knife still moving, and I watch the concentration settle over her face.
There’s a tiny line between her brows when she’s thinking.
I’ve started noticing things like that without meaning to.
The way she presses her lips together before she says anything real.
The small beauty spot just above the edge of her bikini top, near the curve of her breast, barely there, dark against her skin.
I hadn’t noticed it before, but now it’s all I can fucking see.
“I want to make jewelry,” she says finally.
I glance up at her face, dragging my attention to where it belongs.
“I know,” she says, stretching out the word.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You went quiet.”
“I’m cutting pineapple,” I say, keeping my voice even.
That gets a smile out of her.
I set triangle pieces of pineapple on the board. “Tell me about the jewelry.”
Her shoulders ease a little. “Handmade,” she answers. “Completely original. Not the same three designs at every market stall.” She shrugs. “I want a small online store at first, then eventually a physical shop somewhere beautiful, and I can just be creative.”
She says it like she’s trying to keep it casual, but I hear the shape of the dream in her voice anyway. “It’s the opposite of the corporate brand-strategy world I’ve been living in,” she adds.
“It sounds exactly like you.”
For a second, she just stares at me, then her gaze drops to the cucumber. “You’d wear my jewelry,” she says. “Unwillingly. It would probably look incredible on you, and you’d be unbearable about that.”
I grin. “I’d be gracious.”
“You’d be smug.” She laughs under her breath, then sets the knife down and turns toward me, folding one hip against the bench. “What would be your favorite stone to use in jewelry?”
“I have no idea.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No,” I say. “I really don’t. Rings? Necklaces? Tiny crowns? I’m new to this fantasy.”
Her eyes warm. “Not crowns. You’d ruin the vibe.”
“That feels rude.”
“It’s accurate,” she says, staring at me for a long moment, her expression turning thoughtful instead of teasing. “No, I know exactly what stone you’d be.”
I lean back against the counter, curious despite myself. “Go on, then.”
“Onyx,” she says.
I lift a brow. “That sounds ominous, and we’re not talking about Pokémon, right?”
“Wait, you know about the Onix Pokémon but not the stone?”
I laugh.
A small smile touches her mouth. “Anyway, back to the onyx.” She wipes her fingers on a tea towel.
“Onyx looks simple at first. Just dark, smooth, almost severe. Then you hold it properly and realize there’s more to it than that.
It has protective, grounding, and strong energies.
It doesn’t need sparkle to make an impression. ”
I stare at her.
She keeps going. “People use it for those properties.” Her eyes flick over my face. “That feels like you.”
I have no real knowledge of stones. Couldn’t have picked onyx out of a lineup five minutes ago. But the way she says it, with that calm certainty, like she’s been paying close enough attention to translate me into one of the beautiful things she makes, gets under my skin fast.
Because now I can see the stone through her eyes, and I decide that an onyx is my favorite stone, that it suits me, and I can’t think of anything else being a better fit.
I push off the counter and step into her space, not enough to trap her, just enough to let her feel the heat of me there.
“You imagining me in things you make, Adelaide? That’s very thoughtful. ”
Her breath catches, and her gaze drops to my mouth for one fatal second before climbing back up. “I’m talking about jewelry,” she insists.
“Sure you are.”
Her cheeks turn pink, and she hates that I see it, as she tries to glance away, which only makes me want to crowd her closer and kiss that smart mouth until she forgets every sharp reply she’s got lined up.
Instead, because I’m making a heroic effort to behave, I brace one hand on the counter beside her and keep my other at my side.
“You should do it,” I say more quietly. “The store. The pieces. All of it.”
She searches my face, like she’s trying to work out whether I’m just saying what she wants to hear.
“If you made something for me,” I add, “I’d wear it.”
She smiles then. It’s pretty and dangerous in its own way. “Even if you hated it?”
I dip my head, close enough to catch the warmth of her skin and that maddening, sweet scent of hers. “Sweetheart, if you made it, I wouldn’t hate a damn thing.”
She grins—the same expression from the plane—and it knocks the breath out of me. She dips under my arm and strolls over to the sink. I watch her walk away in those tiny shorts, hips swaying.
Days of her padding around the house with us, laughing at something Luca says, leaning against North’s arm during a movie without seeming to notice she’s doing it. Her in the ocean, the way she reads a wave before she rides it, that specific focus she applies to anything she enjoys.
And then the moments like this, where she’s three feet away and her scent tugs at my chest and every rational argument I have about patience vanishes.
She’s been holding back. We all have, in truth, because she’s scared and we don’t want to rush her.
As she washes her hands and dries them, I move but pause right behind her. Her shoulders drop a fraction, and her breathing speeds up.
“Adelaide.” I keep my voice quiet. “How much longer do you think you can keep doing this?”
“Cooking?”
“You know what I mean.” I brace one hand on the island beside her without touching her. “Acting like nothing’s happening between us.”
Color moves up her throat as she turns to face me. “That’s—”
“True,” I say. “And you know it.” I take her wrist lightly. “What are you actually afraid of?”
She glances at where my fingers are on her wrist. Her pulse is racing under my touch.
“I think my heat is coming,” she says quietly.
Everything in me goes still. “How close?”
“I don’t know. It’s never regular.” Her breath catches. “But everything feels too sharp in my head and my body around you three.”