“Who’s every man?” I shot back.
“Oh, come on. No man wants to wash their own clothes.”
“Been doing my own laundry since I was tall enough to reach. It ain’t hard.”
“It’s not man’s work.”
“And being your servant ain’t a woman’s work,” I said, finally walking away from him because my palms were itching to curl up, and it had been way too long since my fist had that satisfying crack of bones on bones.
“Fucking dick,” I was mumbling under my breath, not realizing Stephanie was coming in from the back room.
“Who is?” she asked, tone light, pleasant.
“Craig.”
A surprised snorting laugh escaped her at that.
“What’d he do?” she asked, voice conspiratorial.
“Set modern relationships back seventy years.”
“Huh,” she said, glancing past me. “Yeah, actually, I can see that. Did you have a cookie? I made them.”
“Heard that. No.”
Her brows pinched at that. “Do you… want one?”
I didn’t.
But from her?
A cookie, a subpoena, a crowbar to the ribs? Whatever she was offering, I was taking it.
“Sure.”
“I made them,” she told me, grabbing a tiny napkin with a pine tree pattern on it, then placing a cookie on it before handing it to me. “My mom’s recipe,” she added as I looked down at the gooey-looking cookie. “What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Is it cooked?”
“Of course it’s cooked.”
“It looks soft.”
“Yeah, they’re soft-baked.”
“I’ve had soft-baked. These ain’t them.”
“I mean, store-bought is a different kind of soft-baked, if that’s what you mean.”
“It’s what I mean,” I said, pulling the cookie up for a sniff. Sugar, chocolate, but still different than any cookies I’d ever had before.
“Have you, have you never had a home-baked cookie before?” she asked, eyes going doe-round.
“Can’t say I have.”
Her hand went to her heart, and I swear those dark eyes of hers looked a little watery. She wasn’t going to fucking… cry about it, was she? About cookies?
“Now I wish it was warm,” she said as I finally lifted the damn cookie and took a bite.
