“Well, I was hopeful I could charm you into coming back home with me,” he confesses, and I roll my eyes. “My mother said you liked me enough to sleep with me once, chances are you would sleep with me again.”
“You told your mother we were going to sleep together?” I screech.
“I don’t really tend to talk to my mother about things I do with my dick.” He shakes his head laughing. “But my mother tends to talk to me about what she thinks I should do with my dick.”
“Oh my God,” I say, putting my hands on my face, feeling the heat rise. “How the hell am I supposed to face her the next time I see her?”
“She knows we’ve had sex before,” he reminds me, grabbing the fruit out of the fridge. “We have a daughter.”
“I know but”—I put my hands on my head—“you were literally with someone a month ago.”
He stops moving. “With someone is a big word.”
I glare at him. “Did you or did you not bring her to a family wedding?”
“Yes,” he admits, and he’s about to say something else when I hold my hand up to stop him from talking.
“There is nothing that you can even say after that, so my advice is to just stop talking.” My glare does not leave my face.
“Duly noted,” he says. “I’ll also note that it took me less than two point three seconds to walk away from her.” I roll my eyes. “You can roll your eyes all you want, but it’s the truth. The minute I found you and Avery, it was over.”
“Whatever,” I mumble, not wanting to ever have this conversation because it’s super awkward, and the last thing I want to sound like is that I’m needy. I walk over to the drawer to grab a knife to start cutting the fruit.
“You can ‘whatever’ all you want, baby,” he says softly and I look over at him. He drops what is in his hands before coming over and standing behind me. His hands go to my hips, and he squeezes them. “It’s you.” He bends and whispers in my ear, “It’s always going to be you.” I turn my face, our eyes locking, my mouth going dry, my hands trembling just a bit as my heart races in my chest. I reach up with one hand to cup his cheek. “It will always be you.” He leans in to kiss my lips softly. “Avery and you”—his eyes stare into mine—“will always be my top priority.”
I swallow down the lump in my throat and all I can say is one word in a whisper, “Okay.” He smiles at me and then walks back to the fridge.
“So what do you think about omelets?” he asks me and I just nod my head.
“What can I do to help?” I reply to him, and he hands me the container of mushrooms.
“How does ham, onion, and mushrooms sound?” He takes out the clear deli meat bag and grabs a white onion. He points at the container in my hand.
“Cheese,” I tell him. “You have to have cheese.”
“Yes.” He puts the things on the counter next to me before walking back to the fridge, pulling open
the stainless-steel door, and grabbing the bag of shredded white cheese. “Swiss is all I have.”
“That works.” I walk over to get two cutting boards. I open the plastic film, grabbing a couple of mushrooms out and start to quarter them.
“What is going through your head right now?” he asks me. He grabs a knife out of the drawer, then closes it with his hip, before coming back over next to me, cutting off the end of the onion.
I side-eye him and shrug my shoulders. “It’s strange we share this connection.” I grab another couple of mushrooms. “We share a daughter, and I don’t even know your favorite food.”
He chuckles next to me. “I don’t know if I have a favorite food,” he states, dicing the onion. “My yaya.” I look over at him. “That is my father’s mom. She makes the best pastitsio.”
“What is that?” I ask him as I grab more mushrooms.
“It’s this pasta bake. There are these long noodles that you put in a pan and then add meat sauce on top of the noodles.” He smiles as he tells me. “And then it’s topped with béchamel. It’s so good.”
“Sounds delicious.” I smile at him.
“It’s so good. I’ll ask her to make it for us when we go see her,” he says as if it’s not a big deal.
“What’s your favorite food?”
“Probably chicken potpie, but with homemade crust that is flaky and buttery.”