Chapter 1 The Favor
THE FAVOR
BECKY
An awkward clang brought my attention from the stove to the old ass clock on the wall.
An antique find, it was one of the first items Carter and I both looked at on one of our random outings.
We heard it go through one of its strange clanking dings and immediately agreed that it belonged in our kitchen.
Each arm of the clock is a utensil, and it makes the most unusual half chimes, half dings every three hours.
I squinted to see the knife was on the twelve, and fork on the six.
Damn. Work was over at four, and I last heard from Carter when he kissed me goodbye in the morning.
That last part was not unusual. Not lately, at least.
My third phone call went to voicemail, so I left my usual loving and caring message.
The type I tended to leave for my man when he was not communicating with me.
"Hey, asshat, where in the hell are you? I actually made dinner tonight that is not boxed or a frozen pizza.” I was standing at the stove in our little kitchen, spoon in hand, fighting the urge to toss everything into the trash and grab that frozen pizza.
Instead, I stirred our sad fajita filling aggressively for a moment while continuing my rambling message.
“I am having one hell of a time keeping it hot without turning it into burned sludge.
" My last two words were punctuated by more aggressive stirring and sounded more like burrruruurned sludge.
I paused to look at the results and shrugged.
It was officially too late to save the appearance of dinner—those poor peppers had seen better days. However, the taste was fine.
Probably.
I disconnected the call and quickly typed out a message.
Me
Seriously, honey, I'm actually worried. Please send me a sign of life so I don't have to send out a search party.
The message delivered, but it didn’t get marked as read. Shaking off my unease, I put the phone down, turned the stovetop to low and covered the meal that vaguely resembled fajitas. The clock on the oven read twenty after. Stop checking the time, Becky.
Needing a distraction, I restarted my audiobook and meandered into the living room, plopping myself onto our couch.
Sudoku on my screen as my earbud played a new romance by Mackenzie Madden worked great to keep my mind off of Carter.
Not half a chapter later, the tell-tale rumbling of my fiancé's old-ass truck pulled my attention to our front door.
The tightness in my chest released, crawling up to my shoulders instead.
After an afternoon of dubious communication my emotions warred with each other—relief and frustration.
Thank goodness he's home safe are the first words that trickled through my mind.
The second thought, the other part of me, was the one that won out once he walked through the door, snapping out loud, "What the fuck, Carter.
I was worried and waiting, yet you're obviously not missing an arm or dead in a ditch somewhere. "
Honestly, it was a roll of the dice which one it was going to be.
Our eyes met across the room as the door thud shut behind him.
His were full of warmth and humor—his usual response to my snark.
He toed off his shoes, leaving them in the middle of the floor, and came lumbering up to me with a wide grin.
Sigh. I love that stupid grin on his stupid, beautiful, bearded face.
Carter leaned over where I was sitting and gave me a loud smacking kiss.
"Dinner smells amazing." He visibly inhaled the supposedly amazing smell of our sludgy fajitas then held out his hands to help me up.
I rolled my eyes but accepted his help and verbally pushed him, a little more gently about the timing of his arrival home.
"Yeah, we got a new customer whose car needs a bunch of work, and all our rentals are out.” I raised my brow at him when he stopped there as if that was all I needed to know.
Instead of elaborating, he gripped my hand and launched me up from the couch to land practically in his arms. We paused there like that, with him hugging me close and me being held.
He ended it by kissing the top of my head.
“When that happens, Billy and Paul usually have a few of us play taxi service as a favor while we work on their cars.
" Hell, I remember them doing that before.
He kept a hold of my hand and led me into our kitchen to prep our plates for dinner.
“Were you the only one who could do it?” Slimy Paul likely didn’t even give him the opportunity to choose.
“No, but it worked out where I do the majority of the Taxiing.” He can’t say no to save his life, and everyone is always taking advantage.
“You need to tell them to shove it up their asses next time they ask you to do something they won’t do themselves.”
I had everything out on the counter already, or so I thought.
Carter grabbed an additional hot sauce from the designated hot sauce corner of our spice shelf.
I placed his tortilla on his plate, and held my breath when he opened the pan to the chicken and veggies.
He didn't even blink at the sad state of them, waving away the steam then loading his plate. I shouldn’t have worried so much about how it looked.
Carter massacred my culinary delight by topping it off with a massive dollop of sour cream and a small river of hot sauce.
I swallowed my waited for further explanation on Carter’s late return time. When his mouth was full of his third bite of fajita, I recognized he wasn’t going to offer up any explanations.
"Did your phone break?" The frustration wins again.
He took another massive bite and said, "A corshnot huh-ee." At my raised eyebrow, he finished his bite and repeated, "Of course not, honey. You know I don’t text and drive. Driver’s Ed one-oh-one!” He smirked at me, then shoveled in another heaping bite while I started in on mine.
“And secondly, I felt really unprofessional making a phone call with a customer in the car.” That’s fair.
The fajita was all mush and stuck funny in my mouth, but I was stubborn and took another bite as he explained his evening.
“We ran into the usual summer construction, tried to avoid it, took a couple of wrong turns, and finally got to their house.
I only wanted to get home once I was finally on my way.
" This explanation was followed by a final, massive bite of disaster fajita.
I pushed my unfinished dinner fiasco toward him and got up to start cleaning.
I was not going to be able to choke down any more half-digested veggies for dinner.
Normally, we did the I cook, you clean rule, but Carter had spent an extra couple of hours getting a customer to his house, so out of the goodness of my heart, I did both. My halo was shiny and showing.
I was elbow deep in suds and soapy water once Carter finished both fajita adjacent food items. He let out an exaggerated groan and got up from the stool at our island.
I heard more than saw him, and brought his plate to the sink to finish.
Rough hands slid along the waistband of my leggings until they settled on my stomach.
He yanked me back, leaving no space between our bodies, as his nose pressed into the sensitive spot behind my ear.
I shivered as he spoke, “I can’t wait to—” He stopped and ran his nose along the side of my neck.
“Watch some Midsomer Murder with you and drink some tea.” Then, with a smack on my ass, he grabbed the kettle from its place beside the sink and filled it up.
I laughed and finished the dishes while he put the kettle on and then let the dogs out.
The kettle glowed green while the water heated, and I selected our preferred mugs and the tea flavor of the night.
Carter came in beside me and finished prepping our teas.
He brought our steaming mugs out as I skipped ahead of him to turn on the TV to our favorite show.
We climbed onto the sectional where I happily snuggled into his solid frame.
He passed my mug to me and sat back, manspreading and cradling his own favorite mug between his oil and grease-stained fingers.
Our bodies moved in sync in our sighs of contentment.
His body next to mine was the closest to home I’d felt since I left my family to go to college so many years ago.
I honestly thought that this customer was simply a footnote in our life. I didn't see any hints of it becoming more.
Until it did.