12. Does This Make Me An Objectophile?
12
Does This Make Me An Objectophile?
LEIGHTON
Mom
There’s no such thing as too much garlic.
Leighton
Tell that to my very Italian boss.
Mom
Just never snap spaghetti noodles. Ask me how I know that.
If I was going to imbue any aspect of myself onto these children, Lord, let it be my taste in music—and not my uncertainty in the kitchen.
Growing up, the family favorites were all oldies, and if I could pass down the greatness that was Pink Floyd to the next generation, I’d die a very happy woman. That holy mission had Tillie singing Another Brick in the Wall under her breath as she worked on her homework at the dining room table Monday night.
Gotta start with the classics and work our way up, obviously. Beau had played until he dropped—literally—and was now passed the hell out on the couch.
What I didn’t expect, as the music swapped to instrumentals, was the way my whole body went on alert. I turned from the pot on the stove to find Ollie leaning against the kitchen archway.
Jumping, my hand flew to my heart, elbow knocking the wooden spoon perched on the pot, sending it—and a ladleful of red sauce—flying. I shrieked as Ollie muttered an apologetic, “Oh shit!”
“Jesus Christ, announce yourself! ”
“I thought you heard me.”
“Make a noise or something! You’re like Michael Myers just looming in the fucking doorway.”
He snickered, shaking his head as I snatched paper towels from the counter. “Jumpy tonight, Leigh?”
“Before you tried to jumpstart my heart? No, I was not. Thank you very much.”
“What the hell are you doing in here, anyway?” He knelt beside me, helping wipe up the marinara splattered everywhere.
“Indoctrinating your children to restore the next generation’s musical taste. What does it look like?” Our hands collided as we both went to mop up the same puddle of sauce. I would not be acknowledging that the Event-That-Shall-Not-Be-Discussed had not, in fact, purged Ollie from my system.
Apparently, it did the opposite. Because something as simple as a finger graze shouldn’t have the power to send heat flashing through me, but the pulse between my thighs begged to differ. One fucking night, and he had me trained like a Pavlovian dog.
Bad Leighton. This man did not—and could not—equate to the promise of pleasure in my brain.
We’d agreed—everything was simpler if we kept things the way they were.
But as I really looked at him tonight, my body didn’t care. He was fucking breathtaking. His jacket was gone, dark hair perfectly disheveled, tie loosened to expose the base of his throat, sleeves rolled up to the elbow in a way that made me salivate. It was bad enough he had a heart big enough to cast a protective umbrella over the city—he just had to look like that too?
“It looks like you’re cooking,” he observed, snapping me out of my panic-induced micro-sleep as I stared at his hand, tendons shifting over the now-red towels.
“Is this a trick question?”
Chuckling, he straightened and offered me a hand. “I told you. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Who says I’m worrying?”
“You know what I meant. Cooking dinner’s not on your shoulders.”
“Sure, sure, but Beau wanted to make his own pizza, and I thought it was a great idea.”
“And where is Beau? ” he asked with a knowing smirk.
“Passed the hell out in the living room.”
“Fitting.”
“Very.”
“It smells like Nona’s in here.”
“As it should. Tillie insisted it was sacrilege to use store-bought sauce.” I dumped the tomato-soaked towels in the trash, sliding it back under the sink in his fancy retractable cabinet. After the shitshow Friday night, I’d decided to do whatever I could to make that little girl happy.
“As she should,” he said proudly.
“So I swiped the recipe from Alice, who swiped it from Emmaline, who made her vow it wouldn’t leave the family. Think she’ll kill me when she finds out I know?”
“You are family.”
“But not technically, right?” I flashed him my best doe eyes. Because contrary to our little spat on Thanksgiving, no, I did not want to categorize Oliver Hart as “family.” That made Halloween seem… icky. And it was anything but that.
Ollie turned to the fridge, grabbed some fizzy juice thing, and held one up in offering, smirking when I shook my head. “Eh. More likely she tries to marry you off to one of her innumerable grandchildren.”
“Forced marriage was always on my bucket list.”
“Of course it was.”
“I assumed it would be some mafia prince who whisked me away from my life as an indentured stepchild and then slayed all my enemies.”
“Naturally.”
“You got any appealing second cousins?”
Ollie made a noise like he was clearing his throat, but it sounded more like a growl.
“Don’t like that idea?”
“Not even a little bit.”
Chuckling, I grinned at him, shaking my head when he flashed that blinding smile. He just had to be stupidly beautiful. Couldn’t have looked like a bulldog or had one of those punchable faces. No, Ollie had to be the kind of man who made every woman in a hundred-yard radius salivate. Damn it, Pavlov.
Peeling my eyes off the masterpiece in question, I snatched a new wooden spoon from the drawer and turned back to the stove as Ollie ducked into the dining room to press a kiss to Tillie’s very focused forehead. It didn’t seem to bother him that she didn’t acknowledge him. And why in the hell did that sight make my ovaries weep?
I snuck a taste and grimaced as nerves twisted in my belly. I wasn’t a terrible cook, but I definitely wasn’t a professional, and I most certainly didn’t grow up with an Italian grandmother to teach me her ways. Sure, it was hard to screw up pizza—but if anyone could manage, it’d be me. And for some reason, the idea of failing in front of Ollie made me want to crawl into the cabinet under the sink and die quietly.
“Bad?” he asked from directly behind me, startling me for the second time in as many minutes. “Jesus, Trouble, try one less coffee tomorrow. You’re coming out of your skin.”
Yeah. I had been—ever since Beau told me about the grown-ass man talking to him at the park. Stupid . Probably nothing. But it had me on edge, and I couldn’t shake the feeling. I’d sent another email to Detective Riviera, but my hopes for a response weren’t high.
Then that witch rode her broom into the recital Friday night, and I’d felt one shot of espresso away from a breakdown ever since.
“I don’t know, honestly. I’m nervous,” I admitted—right as he caged me against the counter with his body, peering over my shoulder at the simmering pot. My breath hitched.
“It needs something,” I muttered.
“What?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Looks good,” he murmured, and the warmth of his voice ghosted over the back of my neck like a promise. “Smells good.”
Yes. Yes, he did. Like spiced aftershave and man . God, he had a natural musk that made my toes curl. This was not good. Not good at all.
“Try some?”
“Please,” he agreed. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the slight tilt of his chin toward the spoon.
Clearing my throat, I scooped a taste and turned. My back brushed his chest, and my mouth went dry as I looked up—straight into that maddening Adam’s apple. With no words to offer and a lower lip demanding I stop gnawing it, I lifted the spoon to his lips. My stomach flipped as he accepted the bite, chewing thoughtfully.
“Salt,” he said, nodding. “And another pinch of oregano.”
With his hand between my shoulder blades, Ollie leaned past me, grabbed the salt, and gave it a liberal dusting. Then he tossed in a dash of oregano with confident precision. I loved that the man could cook. Loved that he had more money than God but still got his hands messy and treated it like a ritual instead of a task.
Heart pounding, I tried not to notice the way his cologne tangled with the garlic in the air—or how my body buzzed at his nearness.
Tried being the operative word.
Even as I stirred the pot, I felt like I was unraveling.
He stepped away, giving me a brief reprieve, only to return with two silver spoons—handing me one before lifting his own and dragging it slowly between his lips like he had a vendetta against my self-control.
I tried. Truly. But I couldn’t look away.
Never in my life had I wanted to be a piece of silverware so badly.
Did that make me an objectophile? Probably. I decided I didn’t actually care.
“Give it another few minutes,” he said, licking his lips before pursing them thoughtfully. “It’ll be perfect.”
I peeled away from him, forcing my attention to the fridge, yanking out the toppings I’d prepped earlier. Lord have mercy—I had to get myself under control.
Keeping my eyes—and body—as far away from Ollie as humanly possible, I lined the toppings up across the breakfast table in front of the dough I’d rolled out with the kids earlier. But I could feel him. Watching. Thinking.
Based on the wolfish spark in his eyes when I finally stopped playing chicken and met his gaze, he was scheming up ways to make me his next meal.
Determined not to squirm, I bit out, “What?”
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head as he rounded the enormous island.
So that’s what Brexley meant when she wrote that an MMC “prowled,” because holy Hawkeye , I felt like prey. Worse yet, the heat between my thighs and the butterflies in my belly said I liked it.
“Then stop staring at me. It’s freaking me out.”
He chuckled—low and sexy—and I hated how badly I wanted to feel it under my fingertips or reverberating through my ribs. This? This was why I didn’t stay for dinner. Or show up for breakfast. Or willingly interact with this man unless we had buffers. And Matilda Hart, so help me , if you don’t get your head out of academics and come save me ?—
“Just… thinking I could get used to coming home to this.”
“A make-shift pizza kitchen?”
A huffed laugh. “To you.”
“ Oh .” It was a whisper. A broken exhale that sounded more like a plea than a realization. But it was the most ladylike alternative to the full-on “Are you trying to make me shit a brick?” screaming through my brain. Every muscle in my body locked up as he held my gaze. “That’s kind of a dangerous thing to say to a woman who is… already way too attached to your kids.”
“I just mean… I like you here, Trouble. In my house.” A butterfly-inducing step forward. “Making Nona’s sauce. Barefoot in my kitchen. Singing the music our parents grew up on.”
“Okay,” I hedged, dropping my eyes to the toppings and sliding the bowls around like the order of olives to pepperoni was a matter of national security. The soft creak of the floor beneath his feet told me he was closing the distance, even as my heart skipped a beat. A quick glance toward the dining room confirmed Tillie was still hyper-focused on her homework. As Ollie neared, my stomach folded like the first pancake that inevitably flops when you try to flip it too soon. Blowing out a slow breath, I asked, “But like… do you mean ‘get used to’ in a ‘it’s convenient having me look after your kids’ kind of way, or… a ‘we should pick out curtains’ kind of way?”
“What would you say if I said it was the latter?”
“I’d say nothing’s changed in the last six weeks, and we were pretty clear about no weirdness.”
“And what if I said that was the mistake?”
“The no weirdness policy ? ”
He snorted. “The walking away.”
The gold tongs I’d been fiddling with clattered onto the veggie plate as I jerked my face up to his. “Ollie, I have a heart condition, for fuck’s sake.” His chuckle did nothing to soothe the rapid-fire rhythm of my pulse. “You can’t just go around saying shit like that,” I snapped, glancing toward Tillie again, even as the hair on my arms stood up at his proximity.
“Why not?”
“We have a good thing going here.”
“We do. But I gotta be honest, beautiful,” he said, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear—like he didn’t know that gesture was lethal—“I haven’t stopped thinking about that night, Leigh. About what a colossal mistake walking away was.”
“We were kinda interrupted,” I pointed out, relieved I didn’t sound like a breathless idiot, even as my stomach free-fell.
“And I should’ve walked out and said good morning.”
“And gone toe-to-toe with my brother?”
“Worth it.”
“ Stupid . The word you’re looking for is stupid. Pax is unbearably protective.”
“And in the last six weeks, I’ve realized fighting with him would’ve been better than carrying this weight.”
“What weight?”
“Regret, Trouble.”
“Regret is for the birds.”
“Agreed. Which is why we should’ve just said something.”
“Maybe,” I admitted, trying to slow my breathing. He wasn’t the only one who’d rehashed that morning ten ways from Sunday. “But walking into family breakfast with a new scandal still sounds like a terrible idea.”
“So, what?”
“What do you mean, ‘so what’?”
“We’re both adults. Let them think whatever the hell they want. Unless… unless that’s all you wanted. Unless you don’t want more.”
Blinking, I let the weight of his words settle. This man…
“You…” I glanced at a still-focused Tillie, then back to those soulful brown eyes. “You don’t regret me?”
“Jesus,” he said, his voice tight with emotion. “Never. Just… how I handled it. How I let Grey get in my head and paint something beautiful in a light of shame. You make me happy, Leighton. I felt like I was on top of the world until I walked into my office and Grey called me out.”
“What?!”
“That’s not the point,” he muttered, glancing over his shoulder. “And I’m not making excuses. The point is—it shouldn’t matter. What he thinks. What they think. Who cares?”
“Literally everyone.”
“So?” He shrugged. “I’m not ashamed of this.” He motioned between us. “Never was. It just took a minute to realize that’s what we were battling.”
“Because of the family.” Because… that’s what it was for me. I didn’t want to make Pax’s last years in the league uncomfortable. Alice and Greyson’s disapproval shouldn’t matter, but somehow the idea of disappointing her did. Maverick and Axel would never stop cracking jokes about keeping it in the family. Jameson would inevitably disapprove. Elora and Broderick would mean well—but they’d analyze the whole thing six ways from Sunday until everyone was crying.
“Right.”
“Because we’re family.”
“On paper, maybe. But watching you walk Mattie through that panic attack—putting her needs ahead of your own. Going toe-to-toe with Carly and watching her run off with her tail between her legs… You’re killing me, Leighton.”
“She’s a special kid,” I stammered. “And Cruella is a waste of space.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But seeing you with them—God, it’s like a knife to the gut every time I walk through that door. Like getting a glimpse of the life I want. One you’re already a part of. So I’ll ask again. Why shouldn’t I say anything?”
I set down the bowl of olives—now appropriately arranged beside the other veggies—as my mouth popped open.
Was he… was he serious?
Why would he do this to me?
Things were going so well. And could he possibly know how badly I still wanted him?
This man was standing in front of me, declaring his intentions so boldly that my brain couldn’t buffer fast enough to convert emotion into words.
A lapse in control and a stolen kiss? Sure. I could tackle that. But this?
Hello, this is the Leighton Express, and we’re radioing to inform you that the plan has officially gone off the rails.
“Ollie…”
“I mean it. I can’t get you out of my mind.”
“Well, me either. But you can’t just say shit like that.”
“Why not?”
Forcing my gaze up to his, I was caught by the turmoil in those bottomless browns. My voice came out a whisper, terrified and soft.
“Because I might just believe you.”