How hard can it be?
CHAPTER 2
RiverStone
Sunday, May 30
The caviar was a mistake.
I stare at the small glass jar in my hand. Sixty-eight dollars’ worth of fish eggs. What possessed me to buy it? Actually, I know exactly what possessed me. Panic shopping at the gourmet market because I wanted to make sure Kiera had every possible ingredient she might need.
Which is how I ended up with caviar. And truffle oil. And saffron threads that cost more per ounce than gold.
I open one of the kitchen cabinets and try to find a logical place for the caviar. Next to the flour? No, that seems wrong. In the fridge? Probably. I pull open the refrigerator door and survey the ridiculous amount of food I’ve crammed in here over the past two hours.
There’s imported cheese I can’t pronounce, three different types of butter (regular, European-style, and something called “cultured”), and enough fresh herbs to stock a small farm stand. The vegetable drawers are bursting with produce—heirloomtomatoes, baby bok choy, purple carrots that looked cool at the store but now seem pretentious.
I’m an idiot. A well-meaning idiot with no common sense about grocery shopping. Why didn’t I just have Kiera pick up what she needs?
The counters aren’t much better. Bags of groceries still wait to be unpacked, and I’ve got everything from basics like baking powder and sugar to exotic spices with names I can barely read. There’s a whole bag dedicated to different types of oil because apparently, I thought Kiera might need options. What even is grapeseed oil anyway?
I shove the caviar onto a shelf next to some Greek yogurt and close the fridge. Maybe she won’t notice. Maybe she’ll just ignore the weird stuff and focus on the normal ingredients buried somewhere in this chaos.
The doorbell rings.
My heart does this stupid leap in my chest, and I wipe my palms on my jeans. It’s just Kiera. Just a girl coming over to cook dinner. A completely normal, professional arrangement that I definitely haven’t been obsessing over since her text last night.
No weirdness. You pay me, I cook, that’s it.
Right. No weirdness. I can do that.
I head through the living room, which suddenly feels way too big and pretentious, and open the front door. Kiera stands on my front stoop, and my brain momentarily short-circuits.
She’s wearing dark jeans and a simple black t-shirt, her pink-streaked hair pulled back in a ponytail. Nothing fancy, nothing trying too hard, but something about the way the late afternoon sun catches her features makes my heart stumble. A denim bag is slung over one shoulder. Her brilliant blue eyes are taking in the house behind me, and I can see the exact moment she registers just how big it is.
Those eyes flick back to mine, and her hand goes up to fidget with a strand of hair that’s escaped her ponytail. She tucks it behind her ear, shifts her weight, and I realize she’s nervous.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” She glances past me again, then back at my face. “So, uh, this is your place?”
“Yeah,” I say, because apparently, my vocabulary has been reduced to monosyllables. I shake my head at myself. It’s because I can’t stop seeing the way she danced with Skyler at Levi’s wedding—it was like watching pure joy. It did something to me. I clear my throat. “Come in.” I step aside, and she walks past me into the entryway.
I watch her take everything in. The two-story ceiling, the massive living room with a staircase winding up the side, the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the backyard and, beyond that, a slice of ocean view. It’s a beautiful house. I know it’s a beautiful house. But now I see it how Kiera must be seeing it, and heat creeps up my neck.
“Wow,” she says, and there’s an edge to her voice I can’t quite read. “This is... quite the bachelor pad you’ve got here, Hollywood.”
I chuckle at her nickname for me. “I guess.”
“Well, you’re not exactly living like a starving artist, are you?” She turns to face me, one eyebrow raised. “What is this, like, five bedrooms? Six?”
“Five,” I admit. “And three and a half baths.”
“Three and ahalf.” She shakes her head, and there’s that sarcastic bite I’m learning to recognize as her default defense mechanism. “Because Heaven forbid you have to walk more than ten feet to find a bathroom. Must be rough living all alone in this massive place.”
I laugh. “Yeah, it’s a real hardship. I get lost sometimes. Had to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find my way back to the bedroom last week.”
Her lips twitch like she’s fighting a smile. “Sounds tragic.”
