Yeah. Her too. “I’ve gotta go, okay? I love you. Tell Daddy I love him, too.” She disconnected and pretended she didn’t feel the weight of Mateo’s gaze as he studied her. When she thought she had herself together, she lifted her face to his.
There was no doubt that he took in the ravages the night had brought because his eyes softened. “My mom doesn’t understand why I can’t always get the holidays off either,” he said.
She looked at him for a long beat, quite positive that her reason for not going home was a whole lot different from his.
He looked at her right back. No smile, exhaustion in every line of his scrub-covered body. She knew his night had been just as rough as hers. With a sigh, she gestured to the empty chair across the table from her.
He sat, but in the chair right next to her, then eyed her food. “I’ll swap you half my dinner for half of yours.”
She eyed the huge piece of cherry pie he set in front of him. “That looks more like dessert than dinner.”
“It’s a dessert sort of night.”
True that. “Homemade or store-bought?” she asked.
“Homemade, straight from my mom’s oven from a big family dinner last night. Which you were invited to, only you didn’t call me back.”
“I’m sorry.”
He chuckled, whether because he didn’t believe her or because he appreciated the lie. “It’s okay, family can be a lot.”
“I like them,” she said.
He lifted his head and held her gaze. “But?”
“But . . .” She squirmed. “I need to work up to that.”
He nodded. Easy acceptance. That’s what she got from him, always.
He divided the piece of pie in half and then put his half on the lid of the container and slid the rest to her. He’d given her the bigger half, and right then and there she knew. He was the One.
If she’d been ready for the One, that is.
Taking the deal, she pushed her food toward him.
With a fork, he scooped up a bite of turkey, dragged it through the dollop of gravy, then scooped some cranberry sauce on top.
She stared at him in horror.
“What?” he asked.
“You mixed everything up!”
“And . . . we don’t do that?”
“Absolutely not,” she said. “The foods shall never touch.”
He slid her a look. “You do know what happens when we eat them, right?”
Okay, so he was definitely not the One. Huge relief.
He ate the bite and closed his eyes in bliss as he chewed. When she started to speak, he held up a finger, indicating he needed silence, so she shut her mouth, watching as his entire body relaxed and tension drained with each passing second.
“Oh. My. God,” he finally said, opening his eyes. “First you kick ass in the OR, and then take the championship in the infamous Moreno snowball challenge, and now this? I’m going to need you to marry me.”
She laughed. “You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah, no doubt. But damn, woman. You’re an angel in the kitchen. This is amazing. You’re amazing.”
She tried and failed to keep the words from warming her from the inside out. “Do you have a lot of family dinners?”
“Yes. There are a lot of birthdays. I get out of most of them thanks to work, which they pretend to understand. But they don’t, not really.”