“Sean Knox. He went on to do some more amateur fights but never turned pro.”
I nod. “Yeah, well, he couldn’t beat you. But afterward, I had a gut feeling something was about to go wrong. I tried to brush it off because you’d won the fight, and it was two days before Christmas. I knew I wouldn’t be able to see you over Christmas break, so I wanted that night to be special.”
“You were going away with your parents for the holidays.”
“I lied,” I say, peering up at him. “We were staying in town, but I was afraid you’d ask to come over or for me to go out and hang with you, which we couldn’t do.”
Mark nods in understanding.
“What if I bought a tree this year?” he asks as the room grows silent.
“Fake one or a real one?”
“Pssh, we don’t do fake around here, J.”
I laugh at the same time my belly flip flops at the moniker only he has ever called me.
“It’ll be my first tree in this place in five years of living here. Can’t have a fake one.”
“That’d be nice.”
“Good. You need to help me pick it out.” He pushes back from the table, lifting both of our plates, and then rolls over to the sink.
My gaze follows him with my mouth agape. “Me? What?”
“Oh, and I’ll need you to help pick out decorations, too. Only a tree sitting in the middle of my living room? It’d look naked and lonely as hell. Hey, how’d you find out where I lived anyway?”
Blinking, at the sudden change in the direction of the conversation, I smile. “Resha.”
He tilts his head to the side and looks so cute. I stand and move over to him, kissing him on the lips.
“When you wouldn’t answer my calls last night, I called Resha. She left her number on the paper she’d written her address on. I asked if you were still there. She said you went home, but before I hung up, she gave me your address.”
“I’m going to have to talk to my sister-in-law about giving out my damn address to strangers.”
He laughs when I push at his shoulder.
“Since when am I a stranger?”
I gasp in surprise as he pulls me down onto his lap.
“Since never, J.”
Chapter 14
“Ican’t believe I’ve been letting you take me out to restaurants this whole time while you’ve been hiding your ability to cook like this,” I squeal as I take another bite of the garlic beef enchiladas Mark made us for dinner.
He chuckles, wiping his mouth. “I couldn’t show you what I had up my sleeve right off the bat, baby. You might try to move in and never leave. It’s happened before.”
“Is that right? Some skeezer you had up in here tried to move in after tasting your cooking?”
“More than one.” He wiggles his eyebrows.
“Ho,” I say, and throw my napkin at him.
He tosses his head back as he laughs. I can’t peel my gaze away from him.
It’s been more than a week since Thanksgiving, and not a day has gone by that Mark and I haven’t seen each other. After I went home to check on my mother the day after our first night together, I made it back over to Mark’s, and as promised, he took me shopping for holiday decorations and a tree. Hours later, we sat on his couch, spent, while the fireplace roared as we gazed up at the tree.
