Chapter Six Summer #2
I don’t have much room to talk. I’m not exactly the sunniest person around, either, but I get the feeling I have more fun than he does.
“I’m sorry for being an ass the other day. I—I had no right to be one. You didn’t deserve that.”
His words surprise me. An apology is the last thing I ever expected from him. I get the feeling it’s not something Ezra does very often either.
“You’re right. I didn’t.”
He almost looks taken aback by my words, like he was expecting me to tell him it was okay or that it wasn’t a big deal.
It was a big deal. He had no reason to treat me that way, but I appreciate him copping to his fuckup and apologizing. And I tell him that.
He nods in response, and that’s that.
We finish our dinner in silence, then he grabs our bowls and takes them over to the sink. I don’t argue with him as he pulls off his watch and sets it aside, then begins to do the dishes.
Instead, I hop onto the counter next to him, keeping him company as he hands me a dish to dry. It’s annoying whenever the water drips onto my thighs, but I can’t be bothered to move. I’m not quite ready to leave the kitchen just yet.
Or Ezra, truth be told.
He’s intriguing. Grumpy, that’s for damn sure, but intriguing. I get the sense he’s hiding a lot under his gruff exterior, and I want to find out just what that is.
“So why aren’t you working in a restaurant now?” he says after a while.
“I told you. My dad.”
“Yeah, but there are plenty of places here in Port Harbor you could be working instead of here.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Not really. They’re kind of lacking in restaurants here. We have, what, like five good ones?”
“Depends on your definition of good, but yeah, somewhere around there. Why not work at one of those?”
“I’m not sure I want to work for anyone else anymore.”
“You want your own restaurant?”
I laugh lightly. “I would kill for my own kitchen—one that’s truly mine—but it’s not in the cards right now.”
Besides, I’m back in Washington for my father, not my own self-serving reasons.
Ezra stares at me a moment before nodding like he understands, and maybe he does.
Still, I’m grateful when he moves on and asks, “Why Chicago?”
“Because it wasn’t Port Harbor. I’d spent my entire life here up until that point, and something new felt like what I needed at the time. I hated leaving my father, but I’m still glad I did it.”
“And your mom?”
That familiar tug I always feel when I talk about her pulls at me. “She passed away when I was eight. Breast cancer.”
He nods. “That sucks.”
I laugh at his response.
“What? Was that not the right thing to say?”
“No, it was perfect. Most people say how sorry they are—which I do appreciate—but they never state the obvious that, yeah, it does suck.”
“I lost both of my parents pretty young, so I understand.”
My heart races at the thought of just how close I came to being in his same position a month ago. Almost losing my father was bad enough. I can’t imagine how hard actually losing him would be. “That had to have been tough.”
“Honestly, I don’t remember much. I was only six, so it’s not as if that time in my life is full of memories, you know?
There are flashes, sure, but nothing concrete.
” Something flickers in his eyes, and it’s clear it bothers him that he doesn’t recall things clearly, but he tries not to show it.
“I barely even remember the night they passed. It was a multicar wreck where I grew up in Minnesota. Bad weather, too much snow and ice. That kind of thing. I just remember the cops pulling up to the house with their lights on and telling my uncle Paul, who was watching me at the time, what happened. After that, I was just with him. He raised me like I was his own, and I don’t think I fully comprehended what I had lost until later. In more ways than one.”
He says that last part so quietly that I almost don’t hear him.
The urge to reach over and hug him is so strong that I actually do it.
At first he’s stiff. It’s like hugging a board. A really big, broad board, but still rigid.
Then he yields, giving in to it, and he sinks against me, his arms going around me just as tight as I’m squeezing him.
I don’t know what I expected tonight, but it certainly wasn’t this. The scent of rain-like soap fills my senses as I hold Ezra in my arms, and he nuzzles his nose against my neck.
Wait, what the hell?
His touch is soft, almost imperceptible, but it’s there, and my pulse begins to thrum under it. There’s no way he doesn’t feel it. There’s no way he doesn’t know that my heart is thundering in my chest like it never has before.
There is no damn way that Ezra Rawlings doesn’t know what he’s doing to me right now.
He pulls away slowly, his eyes meeting mine, and fuck. They’re dark in a way that I haven’t seen before. The kind of dark that says I’m going to kiss you now.
And I’m okay with that. Hell, I want him to kiss me. I want to kiss him too.
His gaze flicks to my lips, then back to my eyes. Over and over as he inches closer.
Holy shit, this is happening!
I hold my breath and close my eyes, anticipating the moment his lips meet mine.
Except, they never do.
No, when I open my eyes, Ezra is now standing several feet away, and I wonder when that happened. I was so caught up in the moment that I missed him moving.
Though his eyes are still dark, it’s different now. He’s not looking at me like he wants to kiss me. He’s looking at me like he wants to be anywhere else in the world.
And it’s fucking embarrassing. Did I misread the entire situation? Was he not just looking at me like he was a starving man?
“I should go,” he says, ramming his hands into his pockets.
Okay then.
“Sure.” I don’t know what else to say.
“Good night, Sunny.”
Then he disappears through the kitchen door like nothing ever happened, leaving me sitting there trying to figure out what the fuck just occurred.