Chapter 44
LAUREL
The first man I invited over since becoming Laurel Bellamy again shows up carrying groceries and wearing the black glasses like he has a personal grudge against my restraint.
I open the door, take one look at him and lose whatever normal greeting I might’ve had lined up.
Navy polo. Dark jeans. Watch at his wrist. Black frames sitting exactly where I told him they should stay the night I made several reckless promises about what I planned to do with them once I stopped behaving.
Beckett has two paper bags tucked against his chest and another hanging from one hand, but the groceries never stand a chance.
“You look hot.”
His eyebrows lift behind the glasses, and color climbs into his ears almost immediately. “Hello to you too.”
“Hi.” I lean against the doorframe, grinning now. “Still hot.”
“I had a whole respectful greeting planned.”
“Sounds boring.”
“It involved asking how you are.”
“That part can stay.”
His smile softens into the one I’ve gotten so fond of. “How are you, Laurel?”
The teasing slips out from under us. I could give him the long answer—lighter, sad, relieved, still carrying yesterday around in strange little pockets—but standing here looking at him, I find another truth sitting right beside all of those.
“Better now. You’re making it really hard to remember why I was behaving in the first place.”
His fingers tighten around the paper handles, his mouth opens like he’d something ready and misplaced it, and God, I love that I can still knock this man sideways with one sentence.
Beckett Vale can stare down lenders, hostile boards and men with more money than sense without blinking, but tell him he looks good and suddenly his ears are pink.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“So much.”
“Should I come back when you’ve recovered some basic decency?”
I step aside and open the door wider. “Absolutely not. Get your hot ass in my house.”
He brushes past me into the foyer, bringing clean soap and that cedar scent with him, and I shut the door wearing a smile I have zero interest in hiding.
He makes it as far as the kitchen before the contents of the bags start taking over my island: chicken, pasta, lemons, bread, tomatoes, herbs, three different cheeses and a borderline offensive amount of fruit, plus a paper bag of peaches he gives its own spot on the counter.
“Beckett.” I look over the spread, then at him. “Did you rob a grocery store on the way here?”
He keeps unloading. “You told me yesterday that your refrigerator contained mustard, cheese, two eggs and pickles.”
“I was describing a temporary situation, not issuing a distress signal.”
“You called mustard dinner.”
“I said it had potential.”
“That sentence is why we’re here.”
I laugh and pick up one of the peaches. “And these?”
“Lila bought too many outside Franklin and threatened to dump them on my porch. I chose to make her problem your problem.”
“How generous.”
“I’ve got my moments.” He puts the last carton away, glances back at me and asks, “Have you eaten today?”
I give him a look. “Oh, don’t start fussing over me five minutes after walking in.”
“Too late. I brought groceries; I’ve committed to the bit.”
“I ate.”
“Actual food?”
“Yes, Beckett.” I fight a smile. “You can stand down.”
“Good.”
He goes back to the bags, satisfied with himself, and I laugh under my breath; being fussed over by him doesn’t feel like being managed. It just feels nice.
Beckett turns to put the fruit away, and I cross the kitchen, slide both arms around his waist and tuck my cheek between his shoulder blades like this has been part of my life far longer than it has.
He pauses with one hand on the refrigerator door, then lays his palm over mine where they’re linked across his stomach. “Planning to stay attached to me for the rest of dinner?”
I smile into his shirt. “Maybe. I’m comfortable, and the peaches bought you several extra minutes.”
His laugh moves warm beneath my cheek. “So groceries are bribery now?”
“Please. You showed up with food and a face I like. I’m rewarding initiative.”
“Very generous system.”
“I designed it.” Another laugh, lower this time, and I tighten my arms around him purely to feel it.
He closes the refrigerator and turns inside my hold until we’re facing each other, his hands finding my waist with an ease that sends a small thrill through me every time. Mine stay looped around him. We’re close enough that the black frames immediately steal my attention again.
“You really wore them for me.”
Beckett’s mouth tilts. “You were fairly specific about how you felt.”
“I was flirting.”
“You told me to keep them on once you stopped behaving. I took that less as flirting and more as advance notice.”
I grin, fingers drifting along his sides. “Look at you remembering the important things.”
His thumbs sweep over my waist. “I remember most things you say to me.”
The line coasts hotter than it has any right to, mostly because he says it like fact rather than seduction.
I tip my head, studying him. “That could become dangerous information.”
“Mostly for me.”
“And yet you came over wearing them anyway.”
Beckett looks down at me through the frames, no bashfulness left now. “I like what they do to you.”
Heat rolls low through my stomach, immediate and rude, and the tiny shift at the corner of his mouth tells me he sees every bit of it. “You’re getting cocky. I liked you better when I could make your ears turn pink.”
His hands tighten lightly at my waist. “You still can. You’ve just found other ways to ruin my composure too.”
My smile grows. “Good. I’ve invested too much time in that project to lose momentum.”
Beckett leans in until his forehead nearly touches mine, voice dropping with him. “You haven’t lost a damn thing.”
Cooking with him has already lost the novelty of being a date and picked up the ease of habit.
He knows which cutting board doesn’t wobble and where I keep the decent knives; I know he’ll reach for the wide skillet, throw more salt into the pasta water than I ever would and clean as he goes, like a man whose mother actually raised him right.
Within minutes we’re moving around each other like we’ve done this a hundred times, passing the knife back and forth, bumping hips at the stove, tasting the lemon sauce from the same spoon and giving up on whose wineglass is whose.
Beckett handles the chicken and sauce while I halve tomatoes and grate cheese, except his sleeves are shoved to his elbows and every flex of his forearms around the tongs keeps pulling my concentration several feet to the left.
I skim the grater too close to my thumb, and his hand appears over mine, confiscating it.
“Seriously?”
“You’ve spent the last thirty seconds watching my arms. I’m saving you from adding blood to dinner.”
“My thumb survived, and if your arms are going to behave like this in a shared workspace, some responsibility belongs to you.”
His laugh drops low as he sets the grater beside my cutting board. “Want me to cover them up?”
I ogle the rolled sleeves. “Let’s not overreact. I can endure hardship. I’m brave as hell.”
He gives the grater back, his fingers sliding between mine on the handle and lingering just long enough to expose the move for what it is. My eyes lift to his face.
Oh, so we’re doing this now.
“Try to keep all ten fingers for another five minutes,” he winks, already reaching for the tongs again.
Heat climbs the back of my neck, but I bite the inside of my cheek, suddenly incapable of producing a useful sentence, and retreat to the cutting board.
A minute later, Beckett slices a peach for the sauce, takes what he needs and leaves the rest scattered across the board, glossy and gold under the kitchen lights.
His mistake.
I steal one.
“Absolutely shameless. I left them unattended for six seconds.”
“Rookie mistake.”
I reach for the slice still in his hand. Beckett lifts it above my reach, taps one finger against the tip of my nose and says, with so much fondness it nearly ruins me, “Naughty.”
A grin breaks across my face. “You like me naughty.”
The amusement leaves him by degrees, replaced by a warmth that takes some of the mischief out of me without killing it completely.
“I like you happy.”
∞∞∞
We carry dinner outside after dark, plates balanced between us and the wine tucked under Beckett’s arm, and settle onto the patio beneath an October sky so clear the stars have started showing off.
Nashville has finally surrendered the worst of the heat; cool air drifts over the fence carrying dry leaves, woodsmoke from some neighbor committing minor arson in the name of fall and a thread of music from farther down the street.
My security detail has the decency to disappear into the perimeter, and for once I can forget about earpieces, cameras and every other stupid accessory fame attached to my life.
Beckett’s pasta is sublime. His cooking blew me away the first time too, but I’d been wound so tight that night I spent half the meal pretending food was what had my attention.
Tonight I have no nerves left to hide behind, so I take another bite, make a sound I refuse to be embarrassed about and point my fork at him.
“This is stupid good.” Beckett says nothing, but satisfaction starts creeping into his posture anyway, shoulders easing back as he reaches for his wine.
I know that little victory lap by now. “Don’t get cocky. I’m complimenting the pasta, not you.”
A laugh escapes him, and that is about as much argument as either of us gives it.
From there, the conversation wanders wherever it wants—music, Theo’s sophisticated candy operation run out of his backpack, Lila threatening to confiscate his inventory under what Beckett calls questionable tax law, Mama and Celia still arguing over who bought a set of lemon kitchen towels more than a decade ago.
We talk about everything and nothing until the conversation drifts somewhere quieter.