“Don’t worry,” Holly calls from the couch. “She’s only allowed to cook once a week. Just enough for me to know that she’ll survive out there in the world without me.”
“I don’t know about that,” he tells Holly, his face pinched with disgust.
“I can cook. This will be good. Wait and see,” I tell them both.
“That wasn’t dinner. That was a travesty,” Damian says. We are sitting on opposite sides of the couch, while Holly snuggles up in the accent chair. Damian pats his thighs, so I stretch my legs across his lap, lounging out. He rubs the balls of my feet and presses his fingers deep into my soles.
I close my eyes, enjoying the feel of his hands on me. “Admit it. You liked it. You ate your whole plate of food.”
He scoffs. “Of course I did. You made it.”
My cheeks swell as I try to pinch my lips together to stop from grinning. He keeps himself so closed off from other people, and that’s the real travesty. Because if they could see what I see, people would flock to him like the rising sun.
It makes me feel special that it’s me that he chooses to share himself with.
Holly’s phone rings with an incoming FaceTime.
“Hey, boo. What are you doing?” Jordan says.
“Hi, baby. I’m just listening to Bri and her boyfriend be sickeningly sweet. What are you up to?”
“They’ve been seeing each other for a while. Must be getting serious,” he says.
I feel Damian freeze momentarily before he continues to massage my feet, but I know that freaked him out. He doesn’t do relationships. He’s made that well-known. I don’t want him to think that I’ve been telling Holly or Jordan that we’re together. Especially since, other than that one night in Colorado, we haven’t beentogether.
“He’s not my boyfriend. We’re friends,” I shout so that I can make sure Jordan hears me, too.
They both ignore me, moving the conversation on to Jordan’s day. Holly gets up and goes to her bedroom so she can take the call in private.
“Sorry about that,” I tell Damian.
“About what?” He looks at me, confusion in his furrowed brow.
“Nothing. Never mind.” I smile.
Damian continues to massage my foot. He presses his thumb into the arch firmly, pushing from my heel to my toes. Once he’s done with one foot, he puts it down and picks up my other foot to do it all again.
I pull my foot from his grip, shifting so I can cuddle up next to him. He opens his arm, inviting me in.
“Did you really hate my dinner?” I ask, tilting my head up to look at him. His impossibly long lashes frame his dark eyes. Full lips. Hard jaw. Thick brows. Just a little bit of stubble coating the lower part of his face. He looks at me, and in an instant, the air around us charges. The urge to kiss him washes over me.
“Yes.” His eyes shine with amusement.
I laugh, the tension breaking as we drift back to a comfortable aura.
“How did you learn to cook so well?”
“My father. Or watching my father get takeout every night, living out of to-go containers, because he never learned to cook for himself,”he says. He brushes his fingers through my hair absently. I snuggle in closer, relishing the warmth of his body as we’re pressed together like this.
“You and your dad are close.” I have never seen them together, but I know they talk often. Every time Damian mentions him, I can hear the note of respect in his voice.
“Yeah. I spent a lot of time with him growing up, especially as I got older. I liked seeing how he ran his business, learning from him. I was never a fan of his wife, even before everything went down, but he was head over heels for her, so I dealt with it.”
I look up at him, waiting.
His gaze softens when our eyes meet. A single dark brow raises. “What? You want me to keep going?”
My fingers swirl in a figure eight across his pec. “Yes. I want to hear everything.”
