“Means I ain’t ever seen you cook.” He shrugged.
“You ain’t even known me a week. There’s a lot of things I do that you don’t know about.”
“Care to elaborate?” he asked, genuinely interested.
“No.”
He laughed loudly. “You know, you really are mean as fuck.”
“Not really. I just don’t like many people.” She shrugged as she flipped over a thick piece of French toast.
“What’s stopping you from liking me?” Savio asked as he leaned down to talk directly into her ear. He saw her shiver, and he grinned.
“You don’t listen, for one.”
Savio barked out another laugh. “Idon’t listen? You the hardheaded one.”
“This is my fuckin’ house. I don’t have to listen to anyone in my shit,” she snapped. She fully turned to him and waved the spatula in the air as she spoke, which he thought was absolutely adorable.
“Aight, I’ll respect that, Precious. This yo’ shit.”
Her brows rose in surprise. He chuckled. Savio loved throwing her for a loop like that.
“Right . . . So maybe if you listened more, I would like you better.” She turned back to the stove, and he could tell it was because she didn’t want to hold his gaze.
“I ain’t here to listen, baby. I’m here to keep you safe. How many times I gotta tell you that? You precious cargo. My job is to make sure you don’t break.”
“I don’t break easily,” she muttered. Savio knew her words held a lot of weight, but he didn’t want to push her.
Instead, he reached out and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. “Makes my job easier.”
She glanced up at him, and for a second, he saw her completely disarmed. She cleared her throat, and just like that, her ironclad armor was back in place. “Since you’re up so early, you hungry?”
“I could eat. You sure you know what you’re doin’ though? I don’t want to get food poisoning,” Savio joked.
Cashmere smacked her juicy lips together but didn’t respond. He watched as she piled a plate high with French toast, smothered breakfast potatoes, sausage, cheesy eggs, and grits.She handed him the plate and said, “You know where the juice is if you want some. Why are you up so early all the time, anyway?”
Savio accepted the plate and sat at the island. High key, he was hungry as hell, and it had been a long time since he had a home-cooked meal.
“You really want to know?” he asked before he took a bite of the creamy grits. They were cooked perfectly. Cashmere needed to be very careful because the way to his heart was definitely through his stomach, and she could very easily have his nose wide open for her.
“I asked, didn’t I?” she asked. He watched as she made a plate and set it aside before she loaded another plate with food.
When she sat next to him with her food, he spoke. “I guess my body is still adjusting to being in prison. Always had to be up with the sun while locked down.”
He watched her carefully. Cashmere stiffened with her fork halfway to her mouth. She lowered it back to her plate before she glanced at him. “Prison?”
Savio nodded. He wasn’t ashamed of his past. It made him who he was today. It was a part of his story. “Just got home a month ago.”
“A month ago?” Her eyes were wide, which amused him.
He nodded. “Yeah. Cell and I go way back. Before I got released, I reached out to some people who I knew could connect me with a legit job. Cell ain’t hesitate. I made sure Twizz got a job too. He don’t need to be in the streets no more. Ain’t shit out there for him or me.”
“I feel that,” Cashmere said as she looked down at her plate.
Her response surprised Savio. “What you know about the streets?”
Cashmere snorted before she looked him directly in the eye. “My parents have been mentally unstable for as long as I could remember. I left the house at sixteen and went back for my sisterwhen I found out my daddy was trying to sell her to some nigga. I was on the streets and struggling for a very long time before I came up. I’ve seen a lot. I’ve been through a lot. Trust me, I know a lot about how the streets don’t have nothin’ but bad shit for people like us.”
