21. Lizzie
TWENTY-ONE
LIZZIE
I was in the kitchen putting together a snack for the kids when Sean came in to top up his drink. He watched me arrange cut vegetables on a platter for a moment as he filled his glass with water, then nabbed a carrot stick when he thought I wasn’t looking.
I smacked at his hand, and he laughed.
Sometimes it caught me unaware just how gorgeous he was. When he laughed like that, it made me feel like I was full of helium and just one fraying thread away from floating away.
Laurel’s words echoed in my mind. What if he was interested in me? She seemed so sure of it, and maybe…
“Is all of that for the kids?”
I looked down at the plate of veggies and dip, then nodded. “Yes, but I can make up another plate for you guys to have while you watch the game.”
“If it’s not too much trouble…”
“Not at all.” I smiled but turned away quickly to get the supplies out of the fridge again. Laurel’s comments were getting to my head.
When I turned back again, Sean leaned against the counter next to me. His arm brushed mine, and his gaze followed the movement of my knife. I sliced through a cucumber and began to cut it into sticks.
“Where’d you learn how to do that?” His voice was low. Intimate.
I arched a brow. “What, chop veggies?”
“Use a knife like that.”
“Mostly YouTube videos,” I admitted. “Here. Let me show you.” I put the knife in his hand and curled his fingers around the handle and the base of the blade. His skin was warm, his hand much larger than mine. My heart thumped at the feel of him so close to me. “You have more control holding it this way compared to just gripping the handle.”
“Right,” he said, and put down his drink. “And then I just…”
“Yeah. Rock the knife back and forth. Just like that.”
I stood close to him, my face near his shoulder, until he’d finished cutting the cucumber into slices. He grabbed a red pepper and positioned it on the cutting board.
“Let me show you a trick,” I said. “If you top and tail the pepper, you can get all the seeds out sort of like you’re fileting a fish, and then you’ll end up with a big strip that’s easy to julienne.”
“I have no idea what any of that means, but I trust you,” Sean replied, grinning. I couldn’t have stopped myself from smiling back if I tried. But I didn’t try. I just stood there grinning at him over a board of half-prepared vegetables like a loon.
He smelled delicious. As I took the knife back and showed him what I meant, he leaned closer so his chest brushed my shoulder. It might have been my imagination, but I thought his hand might have floated up to brush the small of my back.
My heart rattled. My hands shook—they shook so hard the knife slipped.
Sucking in a hard breath, I pulled my finger away to see a thin line of red seeping from a fresh cut. “Ouch!”
Sean’s brows slammed down. He hit the faucet, tested the water temperature, then curled an arm around my back to guide me to it. “Wash that. Where’re the bandages?”
I pointed at the bottom drawer on the other side of the kitchen with my foot. “There. But it’s only small. I might not even need?—”
I stopped talking when Sean tore open the box, sending bandages flying over the counter. He grabbed one, then tossed me a clean dish towel and started opening the bandage’s package.
Once my finger was dry, Sean gripped my hand in his much larger one and carefully, gently smoothed the bandage over my tiny wound. His fingers ran over the flesh-colored fabric a few times, his thumbs gently massaging my palms.
It was the most intimate touch I’d had with a man since my divorce, and it made me so light-headed that I had to lean against the counter.
“You okay?” Sean asked softly, concern in his eyes as he watched me.
“I’m fine. A little embarrassed that my knife-cutting skills failed me when I was trying to impress you.”
He gave me one of his brilliant smiles, and my heart took off at a gallop again. My hand was still cradled in his, and neither of us made any move to pull away.
“Sean, you’re missing the game!” Aaron called out.
We both jumped. I pulled my hand away and cleared my throat, making a show of inspecting the bandage. Sean tugged at his shirt and took a big step away from me.
“All right, all right,” Sean answered back. He stayed there for a moment, then cleared his throat. “I should…”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
Once he’d disappeared around the corner, I leaned my palms on the kitchen counter and let out a long breath. I felt silly for being so infatuated with him. I was quite literally in the process of trying to find him a New Year’s kiss with another woman.
I was the opposite of special. I’d been invisible for so many years that even the scrap of attention that Sean had paid me was going to my head. So he’d touched my hand when he was tending to my wound. That was normal, wasn’t it? I was the one who was being ridiculous.
Whatever Laurel had seen in him wasn’t real. Or if it was, it might be some passing attraction that would fizzle out soon. For Sean to be interested in me, he’d have to broach the topic with my brother. He’d have to tell his oldest friend that he wanted to date me, and he wouldn’t risk their friendship with that kind of bombshell unless he was seriously interested.
Seriously interested in me . With all my baggage, my past, my complications. Didn’t seem likely, and indulging in these kinds of thoughts was just another way for me to torture myself.
I took a deep breath, cleaned up the bandages still strewn all over the counter, then went back to chopping vegetables.