21. Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter twenty-one
R yder
I woke up and reached for Brennan expecting him to still be with me, but he wasn’t there. Then I heard the tell-tale sounds of someone cooking in the kitchen and smiled. He was cooking breakfast, because of course he was.
I lay for a minute thinking about exactly what last night meant.
I liked Brennan. I had from the first time I saw him in the hardware store, but did I want to keep him?
And was keeping him even an option? We had things to talk about and some decisions to make, but that didn’t have to be dealt with today.
I got up, pulled on a pair of shorts, and went to the kitchen to grab a cup of coffee, but I paused in the doorway to watch the show currently playing out in my kitchen.
Brennan had put on his shorts from the night before and nothing else.
Not that the mesh shirt he’d been wearing had left much to the imagination.
He wore a pair of earbuds—I guess he must keep them in his office—and was dancing around to the beat of whatever was playing in his ears.
I leaned against the door jam and watched for a minute while he shimmied and moved around.
I was enjoying the performance and wondered if he’d be so free to dance around if he knew I was there when he surprised me by giving his ass an obviously exaggerated shake and then looked over his shoulder at me and winked.
I burst out laughing and moved into the kitchen where he was. He popped out the earbuds and smiled at me. “Were you enjoying the show?”
“I was. How did you know I was here?”
“That’s your fault for having such shiny appliances,” he teased. “I saw your reflection in the toaster.”
“Aww, man foiled by a toaster.”
“Yep, they’ll get you every time. I have pancakes, eggs, and sausage.”
“Thank you. You didn’t have to go to so much trouble for me.” I walked to him and wrapped my arms around him, pulling him in for a good morning kiss.
“I know I didn’t, but I wanted to. Now grab a cup of coffee and have a seat. It’s almost all ready.”
“So,” I said, pouring the coffee. “What do you have planned for today?”
“Nothing really.”
“We have to take care of your car, but after that, do you want to go for a motorcycle ride?” I asked.
“My uncle had one, and when we were little, he would take us for rides, but aside from that, I’ve never been on one.”
“Well, all you have to do is hold on. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Okay, sure, why not.”
“We can go by your place so you can change, get your tire taken care of, and then hit the road. The weather is supposed to be perfect for a ride today.”
Over breakfast, we talked about our plans for the week and what jobs I had lined up.
Then I remembered the cookout for all the guys.
“Hey, listen, I invited a bunch of my friends to come over on Saturday for a cookout. You could sleep over on Friday night if you want to and then stay for the cookout.” We hadn’t really talked about what this was between us, and I knew we’d have to do that, but for now, I just wanted to enjoy him being here.
“Oh, that would be fun. I keep telling myself I need to meet people here, but so far, I haven’t done a very good job of it. How many people will be here?”
“I don’t know for sure.”
“You don’t know? How do you know how much food to buy?”
“I don’t know. I just figured I’d buy a bunch of meat, and if I don’t need it, I can freeze it.”
“No, that will never do. You need to have a plan. What were you planning for side dishes? Or are people bringing things?”
“I didn’t ask anyone to bring anything. I just figured I’d buy a couple tubs of the pre-made potato salad and call it good.”
He looked like I’d just said I was going to rob a bank. “You cannot serve your friends store-bought potato salad and nothing else. That will never do.”
“It’s worked in the past,” I insisted.
“Well, that was then. You have me here now, and in my family, you do not serve store-bought potato salad.” I chuckled because honestly, I kind of liked the store-bought potato salad, but he seemed pretty dead set against it.
“You need to give me a general idea of how many people are coming, and I’ll take care of everything. ”
“Brennan, I didn’t ask you to come so you could play host,” I said. The last thing I wanted was him thinking I wanted him here in a work capacity, but when his face fell, I knew somehow that I’d said the wrong thing.
“Oh, um, I didn’t mean to overstep or anything. I mean, it’s your friends and stuff, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want them to get the wrong idea if I’m here acting like—”
“Stop,” I commanded, and he froze. “You misunderstood what I meant. What I meant was I didn’t ask you to come to work like it’s part of your job. I asked you because I want you to be here with me.”
“I wouldn’t be doing it as part of my job, Ryder. I’d be doing it for you, well, and for you friends because no one should have to eat that pre-made stuff.”
“You really enjoy cooking for people, don’t you?”
“I do, and I like organizing things.”
“Believe me. I know that. My business has never been so organized, and if you want to organize this cookout, you go for it. I’ll give you my credit card, and you can buy whatever you need.”
“That sounds good. You get me an idea how many, and I’ll put together a plan.”
I reached over and took his hand. “I’ll get you a list of who’s coming.
But I think we need to talk about last night.
” I saw the change in him as soon as I said that, like he’d thrown up a protective shield of some kind, and that would never do, so I rushed on.
“I mean about us not using a condom, and what that means. I know we were kind of in the heat of the moment at the time, so I just want to be sure we’re on the same page. ”
“Okay,” he said cautiously.
“That isn’t something I normally do, especially not this early in a relationship.”
“Me either. I was with Patrick, my ex, for almost a year before we ditched the condoms.”
I nodded in agreement because that was much more my normal as well, but there was nothing about this thing with Brennan that was my normal.
“I’m not sure exactly what we’re doing here, Angel.
But what I do know is I haven’t wanted anyone but you since the day I saw you in that hardware store, and I want to see where this thing goes. ”
“Me, too,” he agreed.