“I know that you’re a brilliant, strong, motivated, creative, thoughtful, beautiful woman,” I say, before kissing the top of her head. “A little stubborn and a little chaotic, but that’s what makes you special.”
She laughs quietly, squeezing me tighter.
“They created their lives,” I say, stroking her back. “And you’re creating yours. Look at your home. Look at your job—second-highest-rated show at Canoodle behind a very popular sports show.” I chuckle as she pretends to squirm away. “You have friends who will call your phonesixteen times.”
And you have me.
This was inevitable. There was no way I wasn’t going to fall for Gianna Bardot. I knew it when I dared her to date me, pretending like six weeks would get her out of my system. It was a farce, a joke—and now I’m in far too deep to save myself.
She’s going to crush me.
And I’m going to let her, so at least I’ll know what it was like to have her in my arms.
Gianna pulls away, taking my hand and locking our fingers together. I try not to read too much into it. I try not to acknowledge the lump in my throat as she leads me through the house. But whether it was purposeful or instinctual, she still did it. She opened up to me and allowed me to comfort her.
She trusted me.
“What are you painting over there?” I ask as we go through the living room.
“I’m not sure. I was going to do this mixed-media thing, but it didn’t work out. Now it just sits there and mocks me.”
I chuckle. “Is painting your favorite thing to do? Or do prefer … collecting buttons?”
“Those aren’t just any buttons. They were Mom’s and Grandma’s. And I was trying to find a way to do something with them, so they didn’t get lost.” She giggles as we enter the kitchen. “Mom would hate the mess, but I have to think that Grandma would’ve appreciated them getting kicked over while being carried to my room by a tall, dark, and handsome kind—just her type.”
“There are the tetanus cans.” I snort. “These are interesting. They do look like butterflies.”
“Did you doubt my artistic abilities?”
“No.” I watch her rummage in the cabinets out of the corner of my eye. “It was more your sanity that I was concerned about.”
She groans. “I have no food except for Matilda. And we can’t eat Matilda in her current form.”
What is this woman talking about?
“Want to order something?” she asks.
I have so many questions, but I don’t know where to start. So I avoid them all and deal with the snack issue. “Do you have crackers?”
“Yeah.”
“Butter?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
I motion for her to give them to me. “Have you ever eaten butter and crackers?”
“I have not. I’m not sure why you would.” She sets a box and a butter bell on the table. Then she grabs a knife. “Figured you’d need this.”
“When I was growing up, we’d have this sometimes with our dinner,” I say, opening a package of crackers. Memories flood my mind of big bowls of chili and a stack of buttered saltines beside it. “These crackers are a little fancy, but they’ll work. You need the thin square ones for this to be exactly right.”
She hops on the counter, letting her legs swing while she watches me.
I’ve never spent time here before. This is my first time in this kitchen—in this house, no less—yet I feel so comfortable. It would be nothing to open a cabinet in search of a glass or open the fridge for a drink.How surreal.
“We’d have this with soup a lot in the fall and winter.” I smear a glob of butter on a cracker. “Sometimes with roast beef.My dad would crush crackers up and drop them in milk for a snack.”
“Ew.”
