Nico pats my arm, and unlike at the diner where I would dread his friendly pats on the arm that I never did tell him made me want to run, I don’t recoil or lean away. He did something so incredible for me that even my subconscious knows I don’t need to be afraid of him.
“I was just the delivery guy,” Nico says, his expression sheepish as he scratches his jaw. “Imayhave tucked a few bits inthere for you.” He lifts his hands, palms toward me. “Not much. Very little. Just…”
I smile, blinking back tears when he starts pulling items from the box and proving his idea of ‘very little’ is not even close to being little at all.
Elias subtly passes me another paper towel once I’ve soaked through the first, and I take it with a grateful smile, trying not to stare at his bare chest the way I keep wanting to.
“You have a mix of different-sized clothes in here,” Nico says, recapturing my attention. “Cheryl at the boutique next door to your apartment donated a bunch of clothes as well.”
Cheryl should hate my guts after my ex nearly burned down her store while he was trying to kill me. As Nico digs through the box, pointing out which local brought what and showing me the strawberry or vanilla toiletry products so I can decide which type I like best, Elias quietly gets to work making breakfast for us.
By the time Nico is waving goodbye with a firm reminder to rest for however long I need it, that my job isn’t going anywhere, Elias has bacon and pancakes with a glass jar of Canadian maple syrup for us on the table after carrying the box up to my room while I walked Nico to the door.
Elias had asked Nico if he wanted to stay for breakfast, but he refused. He had to get back to the diner to help Winston before the lunchtime rush hit.
“Sorry, I meant to help with breakfast,” I say, taking a seat at the table.
“I was trying to impress you before, if you couldn’t tell,” he says, taking the seat beside me.
“The locals were really generous in giving me so many things.” They had no reason to help, but so many of them did.
Elias hums. “This town is full of good people. We all like it here.”
He takes a sip of his orange juice and digs into his breakfast while I pick at mine. “Wyatt said you had a job offer in Florida.”
“Yeah.” He avoids my gaze. “It’s up in the air right now.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
He shakes his head. “That’s a conversation for another time. We can all talk about it over dinner one night, but for now.” He points his finger at my plate. “Eat up, and I’ll show you the house. Maybe we could watch a little TV in the living room before I drive us into town for a late lunch at the diner with the others.”
“That sounds good.”
I should go upstairs, change out of Elias’s shirt, and dig through the box to pull out some proper clothes. There were some pretty cotton dresses that felt great against my skin when I picked through them.
But I’m in no hurry to change. And if hanging out today might involve snuggling on the couch with Elias, and he might hug me again, I’d like that so much better with fewer clothes between his hands and my skin. When he tucked me against his chest before Nico arrived, it had felt like a homecoming. Like a safe, warm place, I never wanted to leave. Even now, I don’t just smell his scent on me. Molasses and dark chocolate have imprinted on me.
My mind is reliving his hands on my bare ass, and the sexy groan he’d growled right into my mouth when he says, “Maisie?”
I jump. “Sorry?”
He looks concerned, then his eyes dip, take in my red cheeks, and, with how hot my face feels, they're definitely red. A hint of a smile curls his lips. As if he knows my thoughts weren’t on something sad or painful, but something hot.
He touches his lips to mine. “Eat, baby, and let me take care of you today, okay?”
Call me weak for not thinking too long or too hard before I agree, but being taken care of feels too damn good to refuse. “Okay.”
Breakfast goes down far too easily.
Elias touches his toes against my ankle, and when I don’t move my foot away, he leaves it there, his foot against mine, his elbow occasionally brushing my shoulder as he eats.
I never thought of breakfast as intimate. In my mind, that was a candlelight dinner with roses in small glass vases. But this meal is… sweet. Romantic and intimate with a man who cooked it for me to impress me, and who keeps finding innocent reasons to touch me.
As we eat, Elias tells me about the farmhouse they rented.
“We bitched and moaned about it being thirty minutes out of town at first,” he explains, “but there weren’t that many motel rooms left since we got here from our last job in Arizona after everyone else. But we looked at this place and just about fell in love.”
It’s a family home that I wouldn’t have thought four big construction workers would opt for over something simple and easy to maintain. And theyhavebeen maintaining it. There’s no crap tossed everywhere, and all the cabinets were clean and well-ordered when I had a peek in them earlier.
