Chapter 10 Coco #2
The thought hits hard enough to disrupt my breathing. I force it to steady. Getting sloppy now would end badly.
I’ve got to pull it together.
A door opens down the hall. The sound carries, amplified by the bunker’s walls, and the space contracts around me.
I draw a steady breath and still my hands before they give me away. My pulse stutters once sharply, before I force it back into line.
I can hear rustling in the other room. Whatever it is, it gives me a little more time to calm my breathing.
There are three soft taps on the half-open door to the bedroom before it pushes open fully.
Ridge stands in the hall, his silhouette filling the doorway, the dim light from the hall outlining his shoulders. The room seems to adjust around him, recalculating space. His eyes sweep the room before landing on me.
Awareness comes first. Then restraint. My body remembers him before I allow it to, and I resent that more than the fear threading through me.
“Are you finding everything you need here?” he asks.
His tone is casual. The weight behind it isn’t.
“Ahh, yes, thank you,” I say, lifting one shoulder. I aim for indifference and land somewhere close enough to pass.
His gaze sharpens. “You seem on edge.”
“I think the quiet is getting to me,” I reply. The truth, trimmed down. “And the lock disengaging startled me for a second. I guess I’m used to the silence.”
His eyes soften, just a fraction, and the shift unsettles me more than suspicion would have. He glances back toward the hallway.
“This place carries sound,” he says. “It echoes.”
Unsettling doesn’t begin to cover it. I cross my arms, grounding myself in the motion.
“So,” I say, keeping my voice even. “How was your day? I’m sure it was much more interesting than mine.”
He watches me for a beat longer, then nods. “I took care of what I needed to. I brought some groceries and thought I’d make dinner. Figured you could use some real food.”
His eyes flick briefly to the bed.
My pulse jumps. I don’t look for fear I’ll give away my hiding place.
“Real food sounds great,” I say. “I can help.”
At this point, I want out of this room for reasons I refuse to examine too closely.
He steps closer as if he wants to inspect the room, intuition telling him there’s something up. The scent of leather and cedar cuts through the stale underground air. “I’ve got it. I won’t put my guest to work.”
Guest? I’m not sure I’d characterize my status as a guest.
“Suit yourself,” I reply. “I don’t mind earning my keep.”
His gaze holds mine, unblinking. Measuring.
“We’ll see,” he says. “Come on. I’ll show you what I found.”
He turns toward the kitchen without waiting, expecting me to follow.
Good. Anywhere but here.
So I do as expected. I follow, keeping my eyes forward, though they drift despite my efforts.
The way he moves is unhurried, confident. A man who knows exactly how much space he occupies, and how easily it can be taken away.
We walk toward the kitchen. I tell myself, again, to keep my focus where it belongs. It lasts about three steps. My gaze drops without permission, tracking the solid line of his back, the ease in his stride. The realization irritates me more than the attraction itself.
He moves with the same quiet authority he carries everywhere else, as if the space has already adjusted to him. Cabinets open, a pan lands on the stove, and nothing is rushed or performative. Just practiced control.
He heads straight for the stove and reaches for a pan, at first with his injured hand instinctively, and then switches to leading with his left.
“You can sit,” he says. “Or, feel free to watch tv, read a book, swim. Whatever. Make yourself comfortable. It will take me about forty-five minutes.”
“I don’t mind helping,” I say. “As long as I’m not in the way.”
He considers that, then sets a cutting board on the counter.
“Rinse the celery and peppers,” he says. “I’ll take it from there.”
I do as instructed, running the vegetables under cold water, snapping grit from the stalks, turning them in my hands until they’re clean.
It’s simple, repetitive work. Exactly what I need. Something to occupy my hands so they don’t drift somewhere they shouldn’t.
When I pass the vegetables back, I leave space between us intentionally. I don’t want an excuse. I don’t want to test myself.
Our fingers don’t touch.
That should register as relief. Instead, there’s a brief, unwelcome dip low in my stomach, sharp enough that I notice it before I shut it down. The reaction irritates me more than the absence of contact.
He takes the vegetables without comment and reaches for a knife he has in the same bag he brought in the groceries.
The sound of it against the cutting board is steady and assured. Each cut is clean, deliberate. There’s no wasted motion.
Watching him work does something unsettling to my internal balance, and I shut the thought down before it finishes forming. My body responds to his steady competence before my brain reminds it of the context.
He came to my room in the dark, and I took the opening. Afterward, I told myself it was contained. Transactional. A tool meant to gain an edge.
Attraction aimed at the man holding me here is all wrong. It’s not against the rules, it’s against everything I thought I knew about myself.
“You cook like this often?” I ask, keeping my voice level, as if I’m not tracking every movement.
“When I have time,” he says. “And when I don’t trust anyone else to do it right.” A pause. “It helps clear my head.”
That catches me.
I glance over before I think better of it. His focus stays on the stove, sleeves rolled to his forearms, ink shifting with the flex of muscle beneath skin. The tattoos read differently here. Less like a warning. More like something earned through repetition rather than display.
I slide the vegetables into a bowl and set them within reach. He nods once and tips them into the pan. Sausage follows. Then spices I recognize by smell before sight. Paprika. Cayenne. Bay leaf.
The scent blooms fast, warm, and familiar, and I resent how grounding it is.
“You can stir,” he says, handing me the spoon. “Keep it moving so it doesn’t scorch.”
I take it. Our fingers brush for a fraction of a second, but neither of us reacts. My pulse does.
I stir while he steps back, giving me room without hovering, then moves to the sink to rinse rice. The rhythm settles around us. Oil sizzles. The spoon scrapes the bottom of the pan. The sounds layer over each other until the bunker fades at the edges.
“You’re not worried I’ll throw this at you?” I ask lightly.
“Obviously not,” he says, dry.
That answers more than the question. We aren’t going to small talk.
We work in silence after that. No music. No filler conversation. Just shared space and an unspoken agreement not to trip over each other. He checks the pot, adjusts the heat, tastes once, then again.
When he nods to himself, I smile to myself at his humanness. Approval, even over something small, seems like something he gives sparingly.
He plates the food and sets one dish in front of me before taking the other. There’s no ceremony or hesitation.
He gestures toward the small hightop tucked against the wall. “After you.”
We sit across from each other, close enough to register presence without turning it into a standoff. It’s a strange middle ground, where we’re no longer just strangers, but nowhere near anything safe to define.
“Eat,” he says. “It’s better hot.”
I do. Because I’m hungry. Because the smell is impossible to ignore. Because my body is exhausted from staying braced, and the simple act of being fed lowers something in me that I wasn’t prepared to give up.
The first bite makes my shoulders loosen before I can stop it. Smoky heat. Deep, balanced spice. Andouille with just enough bite. Red beans and rice made by someone who understands restraint as well as intensity.
I don’t comment right away. He doesn’t leave space for it, and I don’t push.
The food settles slowly, steadying more than hunger. The sensation unsettles me. It feels like something being returned that I hadn’t consciously realized I’d started denying myself.
“That was…” I pause, then look up. “Perfect. It’s my favorite meal, apparently.”
He shrugs, but there’s a faint pull at the corner of his mouth. “Thought you might need something solid.”
That’s it. No follow-up. No explanation. Care, offered in a way that doesn’t ask for acknowledgment.
The comment reaches into my soul and squeezes out any resolve I thought I had left. It’s not an apology or compensation for what he’s done to me. It’s something adjacent to both, and more, somehow.
I want to ask questions. About my father. About how cooking became his outlet. About why this feels like a temporary ceasefire instead of a tactic.
But I don’t. Not yet. Too much too quickly will do the opposite of what I’m hoping to do.
I study him quietly, trying to reconcile the man in front of me with the one who dragged me into this, bound and blindfolded. Both exist. Neither cancels the other. The realization is uncomfortable in a way I don’t bother unpacking.
“Well,” I say finally, leaning back. “You were right. I forgot how much a decent meal can change the temperature of a situation.”
He dips his chin, acknowledging the point, and starts collecting plates.
I stop him, reaching out. “No. You cooked. I’ll clean.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.” I take the dishes anyway. “But I’m not sitting while you do everything. And since I’m apparently not allowed near knives, this is my contribution.”
I suddenly realize I don’t see the knife anymore. That registers, automatically, even as I move past him. I don’t dwell on it.
My shoulder brushes his arm. The contact is brief, accidental, and still enough to send a sharp jolt through me that has nothing to do with surprise.
I focus on stacking the plates. On the sound of water as I turn on the sink.
He steps in beside me, close enough that I register his heat. He reaches over my shoulder to set a glass in the basin. His chest brushes my arm.
The reaction is immediate and unwelcome. My breath stutters before I can stop it. I keep my hands moving, pretending nothing happened.
“Here,” he says quietly, handing me a towel.
I take it without looking at him, grateful for something neutral to hold.
The counter is narrow. There’s nowhere to stand that doesn’t put us within inches of each other. Heat from the stove lingers in the air, mixing with something sharper that has nothing to do with cooking.
He shifts back, but only slightly. Enough to give me space. Not enough to break proximity. The distance is measured, chosen, even.
Silence stretches. It presses against my ribs until I have to fill it.
“You didn’t use a recipe,” I say, aiming for casual and landing somewhere more brittle. “You do this a lot, don’t you?”
His attention stays on the sink. “I cook when I have time. It clears my head.”
The answer lands harder than it should.
I glance at him before I stop myself. His sleeves are still rolled with the ink highlighted against his skin. There’s nothing ornamental about him in this space, but he’s still beautiful.
I turn back to the counter before the thought finishes forming.
The plates are dry. I stack them carefully, slower than necessary, aware of how close he still is. Every small movement carries weight.
“For what it’s worth,” I say, because backing out now would draw attention. “This was… nice. Almost normal.” I pause, then add, quieter, “The kind of normal I don’t get much of.”
He looks at me then. Not sharply. Not accusing.
I don’t elaborate. I don’t need to. The statement is already more honest than I intended.
He nods once. “I get that.”
There’s no concession in it, or cruelty either. But an acknowledgment of something we share, a burden we both carry.
I tell myself to remember why I’m here. I tell myself not to read into the quiet in his expression, or the way his attention lingers, like the answer mattered more than he expected.
The last dish is dry. I turn and extend it toward him, and our fingers inadvertently touch.
It’s brief, clearly accidental. But it’s still enough that the moment sharpens, leading to his gaze dropping to where our hands meet. He doesn’t pull away immediately.
Neither do I.
My breath catches before I can stop it. He releases our hands first.
“Get some rest,” he says.
The words are calm and final. The line slides back into place exactly where he wants it.
I watch him turn away, my pulse still uneven. The kitchen is suddenly too quiet, and I’m aware of how deliberately he ended it.