KeyLargo
Low
Wakingup to breakfast in bed has always been a fantasy of mine that’s made me giddy from head to toe. Levi made me breakfast, but I was far too impatient to hang out in bed while he got to play in the kitchen with the scent of bacon flirting shamelessly with him. Besides, I missed him too much not to be near him. His go-to attire for his morning chef routine consisted of nothing more than a pair of gray sweats. And while he moaned over the eggs and sausages sizzling away, I moaned and drooled over his rock-hard chest, those heavy delineated lines that run along his abs, those pecs that fan out like wings. Once in a while, his biceps would twitch while he fooled around with the spatula. Levi is a barefoot god in the kitchen, and just thinking about his magical spatula-wielding ways has my panties disintegrating to nothing. Damnbreakfast.
“Well, don’t just stare at it,” Lex growls as if I’ve insulted her, and I probably have. “Come on and eat.” She pulls those bright red lips of hers into something just this side of an evil sneer. Her deeply tanned skin glows under the white robe she’s donned, and her hair sits in a messy bun on top of her head. Lex doesn’t have a stitch of makeup on, save for her berry-stained lips, and she looks as if she belongs in a magazine. She’s made breakfast for me and delivered it on a gorgeous old rustic wood tray—two buttery, dripping with syrup waffles that look to die for, and a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and coffee ontheside.
I cut the waffle with my fork, hacking off a generous amount before offering her the first bite. “Are you always this nice to yourguests?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had guests.” She takes the waffle off the fork with her teeth in oneaggressivemove.
I pull my hand back apprehensively. “Anyway, you’re an excellent hostess.” I should know. I’ve been holed up here for the last two days. She’s kindly confiscated my phone and swears she’ll tell me if Lisa texts me in the event there’s a bona fide Hartley familyemergency.
“And you don’t have to take off work again today. I swear I’m going to live through this.” Tears sting my eyes once again as if to say maybe I’m not. “Forget the two-fifty you owe me. Not that you had any intention on making good on that threat to pay me.” I give a sluggish wink at my lame attempt at humor. “Anyway, the last thing I want is for you to end up in my joblessshoes.”
She sweeps the floor with her gaze. “Enough about me.” That manufactured grin of hers lasts less than asecond.
“Enough about you?” I chortle through my next bite. “You’re like some big mystery. I literally know like two things about you. You’re a food critic, and youfuckedAxel.”
“Ugh!” She picks up a pillow and swats me hard over the head with it. “Is your mother aware of the filth that comes out of yourmouth?”
“Ah, so you’re aprude.” I can’t help but bite down on a smile. It’s been a difficult mission finding the cracks in her armor, other than the crevice just above her heart that only Axel Collinscanfill.
“And I abhor expletives, so please rid yourself of the need to shed them inmyhome.”
“Yes, ma’am!” I salute her playfully with my fork. “You do remind me of my mother in that way—and to answer your question, no, she doesn’t know that I speak fluent sailor-ease. She’s dead.” I take an angry bite and wash it down with quite possibly the best java in the world. “Oh my God, did you drive out to Hallowed Grounds for this? On second thought, I’ve never tasted anything this good before in my life. Please tell me there’s more where thiscamefrom.”
Lex frowns—her go-to expression. “It’s a roasted blend from Ethiopia. If Hallowed Grounds served this, you’d pay seven dollars for a single cup of black. You don’t adulterate something this smooth with cream and sugar. You need to drink it dark to appreciate the bold and fruityflavors.”
“My God, do youever. And don’t forget the nuttynotes.”
“You’re the nutty note.” She averts her eyes. “Go back to your dead mother. Whathappened?”
For a second I’m slightly offended at her curt and crass appraisal of my mother’s unanimated state, but then I remember this is Lex, and since I’m essentially couch-surfing at her place—or featherbed-lounging as it were, I have to take the good withthebad.
“We were in a car accident, and she didn’t make it.” I take a quick breath. “I was driving.” There. And for the first time ever, I didn’t follow it up withit was my fault. Levi and his insistence that it wasn’t my fault comes back to me, and suddenly all I want in the world is for him to be right here in this bed with me, holding me, comforting me over our own breakup of allthings.
Her face contorts into a genuine look of shock. Lex has such limited range of emotion that it stuns me for a moment, and I’m half-expecting her to tell me there’s a spider on my shoulder. Shocked is the last reaction I expected from her, even if that news sort of does warrantthelook.
“I’m really sorry to hear that.” Lex strums over my hand lightly with her blood red pointed nails in a show of affection. “My aunt died the same way. Only she was alone in the car. I know my cousin blames himself, but that’s not the way things like this work. You can’t use it as a crutch. You don’t get to have that excuse for the rest of your life. His mother would hate it, and so wouldyours.”
I blink into the idea. “I guess you’re right. I have sort of been using it as an excuse for an awful lot of things, but it’s onlynatural.”
“So is diarrhea, but it’s lethal if you have it nonstop. Anyway, I made sure to stay in town to help care for the younger two. Rush and Sunday hadn’t even graduated high school at that point. Their older brother, Nolan, just recently pulled his act together, and their father is married to his business. Honestly, I’m still not sure if he knows my aunt is gone.” She averts her eyes at the thought, and that flicker of annoyance that just whipped through her lets me know her uncle sits square on hershitlist.
“Wow, that’s really nice of you to stay here and make sure your family is okay. How about your mom and dad? I bet they’re really proudofyou.”
“They’re gone.” Her lips give a dismal smack as she takes my fork and helps herself to another bite of my waffles. “Mom took off when I was just a kid,” she says through a mouthful. “She had this weird thing with an old boyfriend and left my kid sister and me with my dad. He had a heart attack at work one day. He sold insurance, sat in the same cubicle for the last twenty years of his life.” She loses her gaze out the window a moment. “Priscilla was my mom’s sister—she’s the aunt that died in thewreck.”
“That’s terrible.” My lips start in on an uncontrollable quiver, and I leap over the vintage tray with those waffles to die for, and pull her into a heartyembrace.
“What are you doing?” she whispers, and her voice drops down to its lower register as if I’ve just initiated a move to confuse a burglar—orher.
“It’s called ahug, Lex. Just gowithit.”
An angry knock erupts over the front door, and we both jump, nearly sending the wafflesairborne.
“Who is that?” she hissesmyway.
