He nodded to it, and Lark reached for it, turned it up to seventy-three and then back to seventy-two. Her fingers then moved to his infotainment screen, where she scrolled through his radio stations, glanced at him, and then tapped to change it from the country he’d had it on.
“Is this okay?”
Christmas music piped through the vehicle now, and Cash nodded.
“I can change it,” she said. “I just like Christmas music, and it’s so snowy here.”
“I said it was okay,” he said.
“You technically didn’t speak at all.”
“Are you always this much trouble?” He gave her his version of her frowny-face-glare.
“You’re my trouble.”
“Maybe I’ll use that as your nickname.”
“You won’t if you value having two seeing eyes.” She pierced him with a cocked eyebrow and looked out her side window.
Cash chuckled again, because this woman. Yeah, just that. This woman. She invited herself along on a grocery run, after challenging him to make a complicated dish for dinner. Then she changed his radio station as if she owned the truck, and now she was going to give him the cold shoulder?
He had half a mind to change the station back, right before he turned around to return her to the house.
Cash gripped the steering wheel, his pulse bouncing through his whole body. “Do you cook?” he managed to ask.
Lark looked over to him. “I get by.”
He sighed and took his turn looking out his side window. “You wanted to come. Are we going to ride in silence the whole time?”
“No,” she said. “The radio’s on.”
Cash looked over to her and watched as her shoulders loosened up and dropped as she exhaled. “When we get there, I’m going to need a few minutes to make a list.”
Lark pulled out her phone. “I can do it.” She tapped a couple of times and looked over to him expectantly.
“Chicken bouillon,” he said, his mind moving through the recipes now. Anything to keep himself occupied and away from pet names for Lark, or personal questions he could ask her. “Frozen peas and carrots. Puff pastry. Ranch dressing. Salad mix. Grape tomatoes. Day-old br?—”
“Slow down, Speedster.”
Cash burst out laughing at the nickname. Lark’s fingers flew as she continued to type. “Let me read it back to you, so we can make sure I got it all.”
She started reading back the ingredients, and Cash said, “Puff pastry. You missed that one.”
“You’re not going to make the dough?” She shook her head and really played up her disappointment.
“Yeast,” Cash said, because he needed that for the doughnuts. “Fresh raspberries. Bittersweet chocolate, unsweetened chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate.”
Lark looked at him, and he nodded to her phone.
“I can repeat those if you need me to.”
“For chicken pot pie?”
“We’re driving an hour to the grocery store,” he said. “I’m getting everything I need for the next several days.”
She blinked. “For Thanksgiving too?”
“Maybe,” he said.
