When we finally make it back to the cabin, my watch shows we did the full thirty minutes. Plus another ten because we kept stopping to kiss.
“Breakfast?” she asks, and I nod.
“Sounds good. What are we making?”
“We?” She raises an eyebrow. “You want to help cook?”
I grin. “I'm not completely useless in the kitchen. I made a lot of omelets in college.”
“Okay then, Mr. Omelet. Show me what you've got.”
We fall into an easy rhythm. She chops vegetables while I whisk the eggs. I tell her about my tiny apartment kitchen in graduate school and how I lived on eggs and ramen and coffee. She tells me about learning to cook from her mom and Sunday dinners that lasted for hours.
“I miss that,” she says softly. “The slow Sunday feeling. Like time doesn't matter.”
“We could do that.” I'm already planning it. “This Sunday. We make something that takes hours. Homemade pasta or a roast or something.”
“You'd want to spend all day cooking?”
“I'd want to spend all day with you. Cooking is just the excuse.”
She blushes, and I love that I can make her do that.
Over breakfast- perfectly fluffy omelets, thank you very much- I check my blood pressure with the monitor I keep on the counter. It's become part of the routine. Morning reading, evening reading, log it in the app my cardiologist monitors.
“One thirty-two over eighty-four,” I read off the display.
Jennifer leans over to see. “Is that good?”
“It's better. Still not perfect, but better.” I pull up the app and show her the graph. “See? Day one was one sixty over ninety-eight. It's been dropping steadily.”
While she studies the graph, I study her. My gaze moving over her profile and memorizing every small detail about her, from the way she nibbles on her lips when she’s concentrating to the adorable little crease between her eyebrows.
“You're doing so well,” she says finally. “I'm really proud of you, Seth.”
There it is again. That pride in her voice and the warmth in her eyes. It makes me want to be better and do better. Not for the company, or the shareholders, or the board.
For her.
And for what’s slowly building between us.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SETH
My day starts the same way it has been for the past several. Jennifer teasing me about my increasingly adventurous yoga poses, our morning walk, and then breakfast together. I'm learning to breathe through the difficulty and to sit with discomfort instead of fixing or avoiding it.
I'm also learning to be present.
But then my laptop pings with an email notification, and everything changes.
I see the subject line even though I'm not supposed to be checking email: URGENT - Board Meeting Moved Up - Your Presence Required.
My stomach drops.
“What's wrong?” Jennifer asks. She's loading the dishwasher, but she stops with a dish in her hand to look over my way.
“Nothing. Just...” I close the laptop and roll my suddenly stiff shoulders. “Work stuff.”
