Chapter 5 #4
His gaze dropped to my mouth for one reckless second before coming back to my eyes, and the kitchen suddenly felt too small for both of us and every honest thing I had just said.
“That vibe,” he repeated.
“You heard me.”
“I did.” His voice roughened slightly, the words dragging over my skin in a way they had no right to. “Just wanted to hear you say it again.”
My breath caught.
He saw it. Cade Mercer seemed built to notice the exact second I lost my footing.
“This is what I mean,” I said, but it came out softer than I intended.
His eyes stayed locked on mine. “I haven’t crossed a line.”
“No,” I admitted. “You haven’t.”
The truth of that changed the air between us.
Because he hadn’t. He had flirted. Teased. Looked at me like I was something worth figuring out. But he had not pushed. He had not crowded. He had not made my smile feel like permission or my nervousness feel like weakness.
And that was probably why he scared me more.
“I want it real,” I said, my voice quieter now. “And natural. If you agree to this, I don’t want polished athlete answers, and I don’t want some weird flirty performance because you know women like looking at you.”
His mouth twitched. “Women like looking at me?”
“I regret saying anything.”
“I don’t.”
“Shocking.”
He leaned in just slightly, not enough to touch me, but enough that my pulse reacted like he had. “For the record, Pip, if I flirt with you, it’s not because I’m used to women looking at me.”
My heart kicked hard enough to make me furious at it.
“Then why?” I asked before I could stop myself.
His gaze held mine for one long second. “Because you keep looking back.”
The room went quiet in a way that felt physical.
My lips parted, but nothing came out. Cade’s attention flicked there and stayed just long enough to turn my bones warm before he pulled his eyes back up like restraint was something he had to choose on purpose.
Then he reached for the bag of potatoes like he had not just detonated a small bomb in the middle of my kitchen.
He moved to the sink, rolling up his sleeves before dumping the potatoes into the colander. His forearms flexed as he turned on the water, and I became suddenly, violently interested in locating the seasoning blend.
Anywhere else.
Any shelf.
Any drawer.
Possibly outside.
The man was washing potatoes and somehow making it look like a threat to my moral structure.
This was unacceptable.
I found the seasoning and set it on the counter harder than necessary.
“Okay. After potatoes, I need to pack the essentials for Cade Mercer 101. Notes, project outline, maybe a few questions if something gets interesting. Not an interview. Just family stuff, real-life observation, and me pretending I’m not academically stalking you. ”
“Academic,” Cade repeated, water running over his hands.
“Yes.”
“Is that project talk for me being interrogated by five brothers?”
“Probably.”
“Should I wear a wire?”
I laughed. “No. But if my brother Knox asks if you’ve ever made a girl cry, lie.”
Cade glanced over his shoulder. “I am pretty confident that is one thing I have never done.”
I froze for half a beat, and his expression sharpened immediately like he had heard something in the silence. I covered it by grabbing a towel and tossing it at him.
“Don’t get cocky. You probably have a campus support group.”
He caught the towel against his chest, eyes still on me. “Noted.”
The softness in his voice made my stomach twist, so I moved fast, pulling a cutting board from the cabinet and setting it between us.
“Sunday dinner rules. One, do not take anything my brothers say seriously unless they’re holding tools.
Two, if my dad tells you the grill is fine, it is not fine.
Three, if someone tells you to try the hot sauce, ask which one because Lyon thinks pain builds character. Four, never sit in Knox’s chair.”
“Knox has a chair?”
“Knox has a chair, a look, and a firearm.”
Cade’s mouth lifted. “Cop brother?”
“Yes.”
“And the academy brother?”
“Emmitt.”
“Firefighters?”
“Ryker and Kellen. Construction and single-dad chaos is Lyon.”
He nodded like he was filing them away. “And you?”
“What about me?”
“Where do you fit?”
The question landed softer than I expected.
I looked down at the cutting board. “I’m the baby.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer they accept.”
Cade turned the water off and set the washed potatoes beside me, his voice quiet enough that it forced me to listen. “What answer do you accept?”
I hated how easily he did that. Took a normal conversation and found the place under it with no warning.
I picked up a potato and reached for a knife.
“I’m the only girl, the youngest, the professional over-explainer, and the one everybody still treats like I might break if they squeeze too hard, which is hilarious considering Bennett family love is basically being tackled emotionally and occasionally physically. ”
Cade watched me for a second. “Do you break?”
My grip tightened slightly around the knife.
There were answers to that question that lived in dark corners of me. Yes. No. Not where people can see. Not anymore. Not all the way.
But none of those belonged in my kitchen at eleven-thirty on a Sunday morning with coffee cooling on the counter and Cade Mercer watching me like he might understand every answer I refused to give.
So, I smiled. “Only when someone insults Detroit sports.”
His eyes held mine long enough to tell me he knew I had dodged.
Then he let me.
“Good thing I’m respectful,” he said.
“You hate my tank.”
“That was before I understood the stakes.”
“Growth.”
“See? You’re already making me better.”
I rolled my eyes, but the smile slipped out anyway. “This is not a rehabilitation program.”
“Shame.”
I cut the potatoes in half and slid them into the pan while Cade leaned beside me, sprinkling seasoning when I told him to and stealing pieces of cronut between tasks like a man who had no fear of contaminating barbecue prep with pastry glaze.
The apartment filled with the small domestic sounds of running water, foil crinkling, cabinets opening, and Cade asking questions that should not have felt intimate but did because he asked like he wanted the answers.
“What does your dad do when he’s not burning meat?”
“Fire Chief. Retired from full-time now, but he still works with the department and pretends he isn’t emotionally dependent on his scanner.”
“Your mom?”
The knife paused for one breath before I kept cutting. “She died.”
Cade went still beside me.
I did not look at him, because sympathy was always harder when it had a face.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and there was no performance in it. No awkward rush to fix the air. Just the words, low and steady.
“Thanks.” I nudged another potato into the pan. “Sunday dinners got bigger after. I think Dad was afraid if the house got quiet, we’d all hear how much we missed her.”
Cade was quiet, but not empty quiet. Listening quiet.
I forced brightness back into my voice before the grief could drag the scene somewhere neither of us was ready to go. “So now we cope through carbs, shouting, and my dad’s commitment to pretending blackened chicken means burnt.”
“Sounds like love with volume.”
I looked over at him, and his mouth softened.
“Your words,” he said.
Something stupid happened to my chest.
I looked away first. “Yeah. Something like that.”
He glanced toward the living room, where my tote bag sat half-packed beside the statue I have been making since I was fourteen.
It’s not pretty, just an old cabinet door from my dads with about a zillion marbles hot glued to each other in various colors and sizes.
All the nevers I have had without my mom.
Cade’s gaze fixed on it. “Is that a marble statue?”
I followed his stare, and my chest tightened in that familiar, private way. For a second, I thought about brushing it off. I thought about joking that I was secretly a bad art major old or preparing for a very competitive playground comeback.
Instead, I set the knife down, wiped my hands on a towel, and pulled the never out of my pocket.
“Yeah,” I said.
Cade watched me from the kitchen, careful now. “Theres a meaning to it?”
I rolled my moth marble between my fingers, watching the moth flash in the light. “I collect them.”
“Marbles?”
“Nevers.”
His brow creased slightly, not confused in a dismissive way. More like he understood instinctively that whatever I had just said mattered and he was trying to be careful with it.
I swallowed. “After my mom died, I started making this list of all the things she’d never get to do with me.
Never see me graduate. Never help me pick a dress for important stuff.
Never meet whoever I marry, if I ever get that delusional.
Never yell at me for ruining dinner because I tried to freestyle a recipe from TikTok. Just… nevers.”
Cade didn’t speak.
Somehow, that helped.
“I know it sounds depressing,” I said quickly, because the urge to soften the truth was almost impossible to fight.
“It kind of is. But it’s not only that. My mom loved weird little beautiful things.
Moths. Old buttons. Pressed flowers. Tiny stuff nobody else cared about.
So, I started collecting things for the nevers.
Little reminders. Like proof that they matter, I guess.
Proof that she mattered enough to leave empty spaces behind. ”
The words came out quieter than I meant them to.
Maybe too honest. Maybe not enough.
I looked down at the marble in my hand. “This one is my favorite.”
Cade’s face changed, not dramatically. He wasn’t the kind of man who turned emotions into theater. But something moved through his eyes, something softer and more dangerous than sympathy because it looked too much like understanding.
“That doesn’t sound depressing,” he said.
My throat tightened. “No?”
“No.” His voice lowered. “It sounds like love.”