“I was thinking about Indian food, but I don’t know if you eat Indian.”
My stupid stomach growls, but I cough to conceal it.
“There’s a great place in Olde Town that has a delicious buffet.”
He just won’t stop.
“Their butter chicken melts in your mouth and the paneer? Delicious.”
When I say nothing, he makes a left. “If you’re not hungry, you won’t mind if I grab something real quick? All this talking is making me hungry. And I’ve been craving something spicy.”
All this talkingis right. The man seems to say as little as possible but goes on and on and on about curries at the first sign of the silence? I swear there’s a How-to-Get-Under-Lorien’s-skin manual and he’s read it.
He pulls into the parking lot of what must’ve been a turn of the century house and parks, rounding the stupid SUV to open my door.
Nope. Nuh-uh. No chivalrous acts during the annoyed phase. It’ll have me melting into some amorphous goo and forgiving what shouldn’t be forgiven.
I step out and walk to the restaurant, as he beeps the locks and pulls the door open for me.
It’s way easier to be mad at the beautiful—yes, I can admit it—man in front of me than at myself for him rebuffing what seems to be unwanted sexual attention.
A niggling voice in the back of my head says I need to forgive myself and stop expecting him to overcome my behavior, but I silence that devil on my shoulder.
Or would it be the angel side?
It doesn’t matter.
27
the almost
Lorien
The food is delicious and, much to my chagrin, it makes me soft and pliable.
“What did you do today?” I take a bite of the spinach concoction and withhold the happy hum that wants to leave my body. Mostly. A little happiness does escape, and I don’t care one bit.
His eyes zero in on my face. “I went to Ayla’s. You’ll meet her husband Christian sooner or later. We had some business to discuss.”
“What kind of business?”
“There was some… drama a while back with my father. Christian is looking for resolution to that.”
I don’t mean to lean in, but his voice dropped when he started speaking and I was drawn to him. Moth to a flame, of course. “Will he get it?” My voice is barely above a whisper.
He nods once. “I’ll make sure of that.”
“You don’t get along with your dad?” Sadness laces my tone, but I don’t mean for it to. It would break me to lose my dad, to have any kind of drama separate us.
“He’s dead to me.” He stabs a piece of meat and forks it into his mouth.
I can’t help but stare at his beard as it moves and wriggles.
He quirks an eyebrow and tilts his head. “Wifey, you’re staring at my mouth again.”
Mortification blooms hot under my skin and I look down. “I need more”—I wave at the plate and let the rest of my sentence dwindle as I return to the buffet line. I don’t need more anything. I want more, but I’m full as a tick. I have to remember this place because I could easily become a regular.
I circle the buffet pretending to study my choices. All the while my mind twists a plot.
