The corner of his mouth ticks upward, and he slowly lowers his arm.Whit Is Pretty Good at SCUBA.
I groan. “Oh my God. You’re never letting that go, are you? You’re obnoxious.”
“So I’ve been told.” The corner of his lip pulls between his teeth. “Okay, okay. I’ll play nice today since you’re already going through it.”
Removing all but the first three words, he straightens back up and a forced exhale blows from his nose. It feels a lot like a confession. Confirms what I think I know about the way he looks at me, and the pull I feel whenever he’s around.
“I’m not sure either is true, especially right now….” I look down at my sweatpants and oversized shirt. “But thank you.”
“It’s the truth.” His Adam’s apple bobs, and on a wisp of a breath, I swear I hear him utter, “So fuckin’ pretty.”
His words fracture through me. Rocking back on my heels, I grab the counter to steady myself. Thankfully, the soup’s reached a low simmer, so I have something to distract my hands and my mind and, in a moment, my mouth. Which is great news because I might end up kissing him otherwise.
Each carrying a bowl of his mom’s famous soup, we settle onto opposite ends of the couch. With bated breath, Colt waits for my reaction, phone in hand so he can let his mom know my thoughts. Which doesn’t add pressure to the situationat all.
The moment the hot metal spoon hits my tongue, depositing so many flavors I don’t know where to begin naming them, I understand why the soup made Colt’s dad fall in love. I swallow in increments, only one bite in and already desperate to savor every morsel of this.
“Oh my God.” I sink deeper into the couch, stretching out my legs across the vacant middle cushion. “Tell your mom I want to marry her, too.”
He brings a spoonful to his mouth, already more than half done with his bowl, and taps quickly at his phone screen.
“Told her you’ve considered this her formal proposal of marriage, but she regrets to inform you she isn’t single or into women.”
“Well, damn it.”Somehow the second spoonful might be even better than the first.“That’s a real bummer. I could get used to eating this at least once a week for the rest of my life.”
His empty ceramic bowl clunks down on the coffee table, and when he settles back into his spot, his hand falls naturally to hold my foot. I think I might be delirious from lack of sleep, because I make no move to retreat.
“You’re in luck,” he says. “Consider me your official soup dealer. I also have an in for sourdough bread, chicken cutlets, and apple pie.”
“I’ll take all of it, please. My mom was a teacher, and each fall she led an apple pie fundraiser for the elementary school. A whole group of students and parents would spend an entire weekend making an insane number of pies.”
I lose my mom over and over, day after day. I lose her when I least expect it—like now, with the sudden realization that we won’t have pie this fall. I’m in a state of constant, perpetual mourning for a person who is still very much alive.
Colt’s thumb presses firm, yet comforting, against the ball of my foot. “You’d think you’d be sick of apple pies by now.”
“Oh, I definitely went through a period of hating them when I was part of the team that had to peel hundreds of apples.” The reminiscence flutters in my chest. If one good thing has come from Mom’s diagnosis, it’s that I cherish the rarely recalled memories. One day they’ll be the first to go. “But now…it’s a fond memory.”
He nods with a knowing expression, scraping his palm across his short beard. “I’m really sorry about your mom, by the way.”
“Thanks,” I whisper. “It’s…hard.”
My mom and I might not be incredibly close. We did more than simply butt heads when I was a teenager, and as an adult I haven’t always loved that she gives her unsolicited opinions on every choice I make. I also might’ve been jealous of the way she loved my older sister. But that doesn’t make losing her any easier.
So I bottle up my feelings. Push them aside to make the most of the time we have left. Keep them at the forefront of my mind with every parenting decision I make, because I never want Jonas to feel unloved or unworthy or unable to express how he feels with me.
I’ve been failing at all of it, admittedly.
“I bet. I can’t…yeah,wow,I can’t imagine what losing your mom that way feels like,” Colt says.
He stretches his legs out across the couch and lifts my feetto let them rest in his lap. There’s no disingenuous massaging or flirtatiousness. It’s a simple connection—one I’ve apparently gone too long without, because the caress of his hands on my skin instantly drains all tension from my muscles.
Aside from the periodic clinking of metal against ceramic, the room is silent while I finish my soup. And if he weren’t watching me so intently, I’d lick the bowl clean.
“So why aren’t you at the ranch?” I spot a sliver of bare skin between the hem of his jeans and the top of his sock and glide a hand around his ankle. The hair’s soft under my palm, skin surprisingly hot.
“I was…Started work at three a.m.” He settles into my touch, looking almost as relaxed as I feel. “Got off early because the tractor broke down, which is fine by me. I know I’m a ranch hand, which means doing whatever Austin tells me to do, but Ihatespending all damn day in a tractor.”
“What do you like doing instead?”
