I chuckled. “My repertoire is limited, just so you know, but myfarmordid insist I learned how to cook some classic Swedish dishes.”
I left out that I’d had little opportunity to practice since I’d grown up with private chefs.
“My mom tried to teach me before I left for college, but I was too impatient to pay attention. Now I live on dining-hall food. It’s not great, but it does the job. It’s a challenge sometimes to get enough calories.”
“And the right calories, especially protein,” I said, all too familiar with that problem from my days at Rideau. When you were burning so many calories playing hockey, it could be a real issue getting enough protein.
“I make a lot of protein shakes, but I get real tired of those.”
“I used to mix them with high-protein yogurt and frozen fruit, like raspberries and strawberries.”
Adan gave me an amused look. “Then your dorm must’ve been more luxurious than mine because we don’t have a freezer. Tank and I share a tiny little fridge, but no freezer compartment.”
I could’ve slapped myself. “Right. Sorry. Rideau put all hockey players together and we did have some privileges.”
Adan snorted. “I bet you did. But I also bet Rideau cost you a fucking fortune. Unless you got a scholarship?”
Oh, such treacherous grounds I was now treading on. “No, I didn’t, but my family could afford it. Sorry.”
He’d just shoveled the last heap of mashed potatoes into his mouth and waved me off with his hand. “No need to apologize,” he said after chewing and swallowing. “Not your fault you’re rich.”
Would he react with that same cavalier attitude when he found out I was more than rich? When he discovered I came with a title… and a kingdom?
I pushed the thought away.
After dinner, we moved to the living room with another seltzer, and I found myself at a loss for what to do next. I’d suggested dinner because I’d wanted to spend time with him, but I hadn’t thought beyond that to what the evening might look like.
“Want to watch something?” Adan asked, settling onto my couch like he belonged there.
“Sure. What would you like to watch?”
“I don’t care. You pick.”
I found something on Netflix—a thriller that neither of us had seen yet—and sat down next to him, leaving a careful space between us that felt both appropriate and torturous.
For the first twenty minutes, we actually watched the movie, making occasional comments about the plot or the acting. But gradually, I became more aware of Adan’s presence beside me than whatever was happening on screen. The way he’d relaxed into my couch, the sound of his breathing, the warmth radiating from his body inches away from mine.
“This is nice,” he said quietly during a lull in the action.
“What is?”
“This. Being here with you. Feeling like we don’t have to be careful about every word we say.”
“It is nice.”
“I missed it. After that week when you were avoiding me, I realized how much I’d gotten used to talking to you.”
“I missed it too.”
He turned to look at me then, and something in his expression made my pulse quicken. “What changed your mind? About tonight, I mean. About inviting me over.”
That was the question I’d been expecting, and the one I was least prepared to answer. Because the truth was that everything had changed my mind: his honesty on Halloween night, the way he’d looked when he’d told me he was falling for me, the realization that I was falling for him too and that fighting it was only making us both miserable.
“You did. What you told me on Halloween. The way you were honest about your feelings even when you didn’t expect anything in return.”
“And?”
“And I realized I was being a coward. That I was so afraid of the potential consequences that I was missing out on something that might be extraordinary.”
