Haddie stumbled through the apartment door with her schoolbackpack over one shoulder, her soccer gear over the other, and forearms lined with grocery bags from her “quick” stop at the market on the way home.
Levi sprung up from where he sat at the table.
“Hey there…” He quickly emptied one of her arms of bags and set them on the kitchen counter. “Why didn’t you text from downstairs? I could have helped you bring everything up.”
She maneuvered past Levi and into the kitchen herself, depositing the rest of the groceries on the other side of the stove and letting her schoolbags fall to the floor.
“I thought I had it,” she told him. “I didn’t have it.”
“What is all this?” Levi asked.
Haddie glanced through the galley kitchen’s window and out to the table strewn with loose sheets of paper where Levi had been sitting. “What’s allthat?” she countered.
He groaned. “After losing our first game Friday night, I gave the team a weekend assignment: write one page about something you could have done differently that might have changed the trajectoryof the game. Past Levi thought he was a genius for coming up with the idea. Present Levi, who has to read the submissions and make sense of it all, isn’t sure he agrees.” He held his hands out to indicate the mess of bags in the kitchen. “And now back to our regularly scheduled program. What’s going on? I thought grocery day was Thursday, not Monday.”
Haddie felt her cheeks grow warm and cleared her throat. “I…uh…wanted to make you dinner. I mean, make us dinner. As a thank-you for helping out during the grow-a-rainbow activity. I think the kids really liked you.”
Levi barked out a laugh. “Piper doesn’t like me. She tolerates me, though, and is happy to keep reminding me that I was not included on your favorite things poster.”
Haddie rolled her eyes. “I stand by my assessment that three weeks isn’t enough time to know if a person is one of your favorite people.” She shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to keep trying. Also, I hope you’re a pasta fan because that’s all I really know how to make.” She shooed him out of the small kitchen. “Go read your essays and figure out how to coach your team better. I’ve got plenty here to keep me busy.”
“Really?” Levi asked. “Because I could help.”
Haddie narrowed her eyes. “You know what would be ahugehelp?”
“What?” he asked, smiling at her like a golden retriever. If any other gorgeous man was looking at her like that, it might do things to her insides that would have her thinking about much more than just making him dinner. But Levi Rourke was no realgolden retriever. He was simply playing the part and would soon be on his way to bigger and better things than a placeholder job in a placeholder town. And so, as she’d learned to do in the almost month of knowing him, Haddie ignored the tiny stirrings and the whisper in her head that askedWhat if?every time he surprised her in a way she wished he wouldn’t. But…she could make him dinner.
“Staying out of my way!” she told him. Haddie laughed and grabbed him by the shoulders—by his huge shoulders—and pushed him out of the narrow galley and back into their front entryway. “Read. Your. Essays.”
“Okay, okay.” He relented, holding his hands up in defeat. “But you’re going to have a hard time beating that Uncrustable I had for lunch.”
Haddie glared at him and pointed to the table, and with a chuckle, he got back to work.
She was by no means a chef under any definition of the word. But she’d been on her own long enough to perfect a couple of go-to meals. Tonight? Tuscan chicken pasta.
She quickly unpacked the groceries, leaving out only the ingredients she needed for the meal. She put a large pot of salted water on one burner. While waiting for it to boil, she chopped up spinach and sun-dried tomatoes, minced a few cloves of garlic, and diced four chicken breasts. Soon, the pasta was boiling and the chicken sautéing with the garlic and spices.
“Holy shit,” Levi mumbled from where he sat.
“Someone knock your socks off with the written word?” Haddiecalled over her shoulder.
“Not yet,” he replied. “But I don’t think I’ve ever smelled anything so good in my life. Like,ever.”
Again Haddie’s cheeks warmed, or maybe it was just the steam from the boiling water. “You said ‘ever’ twice.”
“Yep,” Levi admitted. “Whateveryou’re making over there deserved a second ‘ever.’”
Haddie lowered the heat on her pan and slowly added the light cream sauce she’d whisked together. She willed the heat creeping up her neck to lower as well. She needed a distraction.
“I know it’s a Monday, and we have awholeweek ahead of us,” she began, her back still to him. “But I feel like anything I cook tastes better with wine. I think there’s a bottle of red on the counter but…my hands are kind of full.”
“On it!” Levi called .
Haddie smiled to herself as she heard a rustling of papers and then caught Levi’s approach out of the corner of her eye. Back to back, and—she guessed—both of them trying not to let body parts brush that shouldn’t brush, Haddie cooked while Levi retrieved two wineglasses from the cabinet above the sink.
It was a strange relief to come home from a new job to an apartment in a new town to find she wasn’t alone once the day ended. As hard as it was to admit to herself, shelikedhaving Levi around like she liked having Emma. She took it for granted that her homebody friend would always be there when Haddie needed, and Emma was always there…to an extent. But now she was getting married. She had a life, a career, her family’s inn…and Matteo. Haddie was so,so happy for her friend. But it also made her realize that somewhere along the way, Haddie’s resolve to keep everyone at a safe distance had a long-term side effect. She was lonely.
Coming home to Levi every day felt like a warm, familiar blanket you wanted to snuggle up with on the couch, even if it was too warm to need it.
