Chapter Twenty-Four Lily #2
His eyes flicked over to mine. “What happened at the grocery store?”
I scoffed, flinging the blankets off my lap. “Listen, everyone knows when there’s a big storm coming, you get water and canned food and bread and peanut butter.”
As I started unpacking the grocery bags, Barrett’s eyes were unwavering, and I just knew he was counting the loaves of bread as I yanked them out. Then the jars of peanut butter.
“So you got . . . five loaves of bread. And six jars of peanut butter,” he said slowly. “Eight cans of peas and carrots. And . . .” His eyebrows rose on his forehead. “Four massive jars of applesauce.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that the peas and the applesauce were for nutritional value and wouldn’t go bad, but instead, I pushed that tongue into the side of my cheek, because he hadn’t gotten to the inexplicable boxes of Fig Newtons yet.
I didn’t even like them. “What would you have gotten?”
“Not this.” He opened another bag. “That’s something, at least.”
I snatched it from him and pulled out four bags of chocolate chips. “You won’t be complaining about my choices when I make cookies and they’re full of these.”
“Do I get to eat them?”
Oh great, now he was teasing me.
I sniffed. “Undecided.”
He braced his hands on the counter and peered down at the pile titled Lily’s Irrational Grocery Store Adventure. “How about if I make dinner? Will you share the dessert?”
My eyes narrowed in a glare. “Do you purposely make everything sound sexual?”
His eyebrows lifted slightly. “No. You did say you have a dirty mind.” Barrett rubbed his hands together. “How about grilled cheese? Might as well use up some of that bread.”
“You’re really going to make me dinner?” I asked, giving him a sidelong glance as I riffled through the laundry basket to see what pajama options I’d ended up with.
My nose wrinkled. Two baggy T-shirts, and that was about it.
Where was a girl’s fleece pajama set when she needed one? I was never going to warm up again.
“That seem strange to you?”
“Yes.” A balled-up pair of socks was wedged into the bottom corner of the basket, and I yanked them out for layering purposes, careful not to fling any underwear around. “No one ever cooks for me. Unless I’m paying for my meal.”
“Oh, you’re paying, all right,” he said, walking around the counter to stack the groceries in a neat pile next to the fridge.
“With what? You already took sex off the table.”
The moment the words were out of my mouth, I regretted it.
Barrett’s movements slowed. “Do you think I’d make you pay for meals with sexual favors?”
If there wasn’t a dangerous glint in his eyes, I might have thought he was offended.
“No.” I watched his face as he turned again, continuing to put away the food I’d bought.
“I think you’re a gentleman.” His hands paused, but he didn’t face me.
“I think that you equate sex with serious relationships. And you’ve probably never dated casually in your entire life.
That’s probably why I can’t figure you out.
” I swallowed, pushing down my nerves, ignoring the bursts of warmth that came with accidental eye contact and a brush of his skin against mine.
“You flirt with me. You seem to be unbalanced by me, I guess.”
Eventually, he did turn around, but his expression was guarded. I chose my next words carefully, well aware that the two of us were walking a very fine line. At the edge of the cliff, a dizzying fall just on the other side.
Now that I was warm and the fight had drained out of me, down the proverbial drain alongside my embarrassment, I could see how we’d arrived at this place.
How each seemingly insignificant step had gotten us right here—where he risked my anger to take care of me.
Where I risked honesty even through the fear that had always held me back.
We’d begun this relationship—for better or worse—with our weaknesses on display.
Under a blinding spotlight, every wrinkle, every imperfection harshly lit and up for dissection.
But instead of feeling worse for it, I found that I liked Barrett’s weaknesses.
I liked his imperfections. Even more surprising was that I could fully believe he’d say the same about me.
Which was why saying the rest of it out loud, the truly important part, didn’t fizzle and die behind any of the conversational filters I’d spent over a decade cultivating.
“And you want me,” I said quietly, my own voice hardly audible over the loud clanging of my heart. “I can see it in your eyes right now. But I don’t believe that you’ll do anything about it knowing there’s an end date. And that makes me very curious, Barrett King.”
For a moment, he did nothing but stare. Puzzling me out. Just like I was. There was a flicker in his gaze, the shifting of his thoughts, and I saw the moment he came to a decision.
“Let’s play a game,” he said.
My brow flattened. “What?”
“Twenty Questions,” Barrett continued. “You want to know more? Great. So do I.” His arms spread out wide. “We have nothing but time.”
Time had nothing to do with it. I could’ve spent my time learning jujitsu or how to speak Mandarin. I could do laundry (no) or math (absolutely fucking not) because I had time.
This was a bad, no-good, horrible idea. There was a one million percent chance I’d regret it. The thought of someone digging into my past—even if it was him, even with the detestable soft spot I’d developed for this man—made those warm bursts turn to ice.
“What kind of questions?” I asked warily, easing myself into one of the stools at the island.
“We can start easy.” His thumb tapped the edge of the counter, like he was keeping time as he thought of where to start. “You go first.”
“Can’t we play Scrabble again?”
His eyes warmed, and the breath caught in my throat when his lips twitched.
The corners moved up a little farther. Barrett leaned in, lowering his voice like someone might overhear us in this big empty house where we were the only occupants.
“Guess what word Maggie and I used to beat Bryce and Griffin last night?”
“No.” I leaned back in my chair, appraising him openly. “Does that mean you officially recant your cheating accusations?”
“Maybe.”
There was no smothering my smile, especially when a sweet ache took residence under my skin.
If someone were bored and wanted to give that sensation a name, it might be something like longing or affection.
But I wasn’t bored, and I certainly wasn’t looking to name anything at the moment.
Barrett’s eyes dropped, locking in on an unconscious movement, and when I looked down, my fingers were brushing against the birds inked on my wrist.
“How about this,” he said simply, eyes still locked on the absent brush of my fingers against my skin, “you ask me whatever you want.”
I arched a brow. “And you’re not asking me anything?”
“Later. When you’re ready.”
“No questions about . . . about yesterday,” I said, an invisible fist closing around my throat. I forced a swallow, watching his profile carefully.
“Deal.” He pulled butter out of the fridge, along with a couple packages of sliced cheese—sharp cheddar and gouda—and then two plates from the upper cabinets. “Just one for you?” he asked.
When he didn’t press, I let out a deep breath and nodded.
Barrett set out a large skillet and turned on the burner beneath, then buttered three pieces of bread, laying them face down.
I folded my leg up against my chest, setting my chin on my knee while I watched him flip those grilled cheeses like he’d been doing it his whole damn life.
Maybe I had a competency kink. That had to be it, right?
Because it was ridiculous to be this impressed by a man toasting me some bread with a little cheese in the middle.
My standards were higher than that. Too high, some might say, considering my ass was still unmarried and there’d been no one who tempted me to do anything of the sort. But someone had tempted him, once upon a time.
Curiosity rose up, swift and fierce, slamming past my hefty reserve.
There was no pale ring on his finger, no leftover sign that there’d been a Mrs. Barrett King. What had she been like? What had they been like together?
“I’ll play,” I told him.
The glance he gave me over his shoulder was quick and impossible to read. “Hit me.”
Questions about the ex danced on the edge of my tongue.
No. Not yet.
“Favorite movie.”
He flipped the sandwiches again, giving each one a quick tap with the spatula. “Cinderella Man.” Then he paused. “Or Rudy.”
I shook my head, and he must’ve caught it in his peripheral.
“What?” he asked. “You think I’m predictable?”
“A former football player turned coach who loves Rudy? Yes.”
“You’re telling me that movie doesn’t inspire the hell out of you?”
“Never seen it,” I replied.
He hummed briefly, like he was thinking about something. “Good thing we’ve got time, then.”
A brief, vivid image popped up in the back of my mind—me and Barrett and a dark room and a couch and blankets.
It was so date-like. Dates involved movies and questions and food and intention.
According to him, his intentions were pure: keep me from freezing to death and whatnot.
It didn’t explain why my brain didn’t get the memo.
Those images went from PG to fairly explicit very quickly.
I cleared my throat.
“And now he’s forcing a movie night,” I drawled. “Who says I’m not going to lock myself in the guest bedroom after this?”
“You scared, Townsend?”
For a second, his words didn’t register. He said it so lightly. So easily. Somehow the power dynamic had shifted during the course of my knowing this man, and I didn’t like it one little bit.
“Of answering some questions? Hardly.”
God, how easily I could lie when the situation demanded it. If I were strapped to one of those lie detector machines, that baby would be screaming.
“To watch a movie,” he said slowly, and my face heated at the implication that I’d just given myself away.
“Oh.”
He glanced knowingly down at my fingers, where they still touched my wrist. My hand dropped instantly, and I slicked my tongue over my teeth, a crawling sensation wiggling under my skin. I knew what it was too.
Damn him, he was right. And if I tried to say it out loud, I just might choke on the words.
Barrett checked the bottom side of the sandwiches, sliding them easily onto the two plates he’d set out. From the fridge, he grabbed a bottle of ketchup.
I stared at it when he handed it to me first.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
His brows furrowed. “You dip the sandwich in it.”
“Since when? Where’s the tomato soup?”
Barrett flipped open the bottle, squirted a small pile of it next to my sandwich, and pushed it back toward me. I eyed the ketchup warily but figured I couldn’t bitch since the man had just made me dinner, and that hadn’t happened in years.
“You’re very pushy today,” I told him. “I’m not sure how I feel about it.”
His eyes warmed, but he didn’t say anything right away.
“No tomato soup,” he answered. “Some of us chose not to clear out the grocery store today. My parents always served it this way when we were growing up in Michigan.” He lifted his chin. “Try it.” My nose wrinkled. “Oh, come on,” he coaxed gently. “I thought you were the adventurous one.”
“That’s emotional manipulation, sir.”
He watched me quietly for a moment, studying my face in a way that made my hairline sweat a little bit. “Is it working?”
I scoffed but dipped the corner of my sandwich into the ketchup. Barrett gave himself some, watching me from across the island as I moaned through the first bite. After I finished chewing, I licked the corner of my mouth. “’S good.”
He took a wolfish bite, damn near half the sandwich, and my eyes lingered on the movement of his jaw while he chewed. Watching anyone chew should not be a moment for sexual tension, but what the hell did I know?
Barrett set down his sandwich and gave me an inscrutable look.
“What?”
He took a drink of water, then handed me a napkin when he realized he’d forgotten. “That can’t be it.”
I took another bite, begrudgingly swiping the sandwich through the ketchup again. It was pretty tasty. When I swallowed, I met his gaze. “Maybe all I ever wanted to know from you was your favorite movie, and now all my Barrett-related questions are satisfied.”
Barrett hummed, and it was such a low, pleasing sound that I almost shivered.
“Come on. Don’t be a chicken shit,” he said, ignoring the dangerous glare I leveled in his direction. “Hit me. And make it a good one.”
“Fine.” I wiped my fingers on the napkin and pursed my lips. He wanted to play? Not a problem. “Tell me about your wife. Why’d you get divorced?”