I snatch her around the waist before she barrels head first into third degree burns, grunting when she fights my hold. “Poem, the potatoes are fine.”
“They’re burning!” she wails. “Can’t you smell that?”
I sniff.
Then, I curse.
“That’s the chicken,” I groan, setting her to the side to pull the quickly blackening chicken from the oven. I curse again.
“The potatoes are fine?” she asks, peeking over my shoulder at the stovetop, where the potatoes are absolutely fine. “I can live without chicken. I cannot live without potatoes.”
I scrape a layer of burnt from the top of a chicken thigh. “You’ll have your potatoes,” I mumble. “And you’ll have chicken, too, though it won’t be any I made.”
“Uh… you have a way to procure chicken in the wee hours of the dinner-time dark?”
I nod. “Wolfe made some for dinner two nights ago.”
She grins as I flip the burner for the potatoes off and take the pan away from the heat before heading for the door. “I’ll be back.”
“Godspeed,” she replies, inching toward the stove. “I’ll be here. Not eating bites of dinner directly from the pan.”
I pause at the door to glare at her. “Remember two minutes ago when I told you I would protect you?”
She nods, attention split between me and her beloved spuds. “I do recall that, yes.”
“That includes from yourself,” I warn. “I’m not above locking you in your room while I cook going forward should a kitchen incident occur while I pilfer my brother’s leftovers.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she mutters, poking at the silverware drawer.
Sighing, I decide my best course of action is to be quick and get back before she can hurt herself too much. After all the damage others have done to her, she’s had more than enough for a lifetime. Particularly if I have anything to say about it.
I send up a hope, a prayer, a wish that Iwillhave a say in the matter. That she will allow me such an honor.
Then I steal my brother’s chicken, put aloe on the minor burn Poem gives herself while I’m away, and enjoy the rest of my first of hopefully many dates with the woman of my dearest dreams.
Chapter Twenty-Five
?
Me personally, I love grocery day. Poem though? Yikes.
Poem
Friday, as everyone knows, is grocery day. And grocery day, as everyone also knows, is the worst day of the week. I am now experiencing the worst day of the week with Fox for the second time, and I can confirm that it is significantly worse than the worse it already is when you are forced to begin it while the grass is still wet with morning dew.
“Poem, if you don’t pick up the pace, I’m not getting your Alanis,” Fox threatens, glaring at my feet as they drag the rest of my body with them to the door.
“Why are you torturing me?” I ask. “Why must we go so early? What’s wrong with shopping after noon, when all of the best people have just woken up?”
“Is this why you’re late to work every Friday?” he asks. “Because you don’t shop until an hour before your shift starts?”
“How could I possibly know that?” I retort, shoving my feet into the black combat boots I left by the front door. “How could I possibly know anything at this time of day? How couldanyonepossibly know anything at this time of day?”
“My desires at this moment are not to kiss or cuddle or compliment,” he informs me. “But rather to throttle. How quickly one forgets what frustration feels like when one focuses on love, and yet, here it is, coming home to welcome me like an old friend.”
I yawn. “You could always shop by yourself? Plus, what happened to the whole ‘I want to protect you’ thing you had going on the last couple of weeks?”
“Like I told you last week when grocery day showed up, I’m not depriving myself of time with you just because you’re cranky and mean. Also, protection has nothing to do with throttling. Throttling you is for the pure enjoyment of us both.”
