“Want anything to eat or drink?” I asked him. Rummaging through the cabinets, I pulled out a bag of chips.
“Chips?”
The condescension in his tone didn’t surprise me, he was a gym rat.
“Yeah, chips.” As I turned toward him, I munched on one close to his face. He pulled away, his face scrunching in disgust.
“Tink, it’s barely after noon.”
There was that fucking nickname again. I thought maybe, just maybe, he could call me by my real name for once. Yet even when we were getting along, I guessed I wasn’t worth enough for him to do that.
“Whatever,” I said. “I’m not a freak about what I eat like you. Not many are.”
Logan opened the refrigerator and had his head deep inside. I had to work hard to not stare at his ass bent over in those gray sweatpants. He turned around quicker than I expected, the ingredients in his hands to make one of those protein bowls he always ate.
“Listen,” he said, “I eat chips. But not before I feed my body something it needs first, that’s all.”
I continued munching loudly on my greasy thins of potato goodness as he prepared his food. He glided through the kitchen like a master chef, like someone who was much more proficient in that room than anyone else our age. He was slicing chicken breast one minute, then spinning around to the sink to rinse some kind of bean in a colander. He danced back to the fridge to pull out lettuce, wielded a knife and chopped it like a professional. He added seasonings and sauces and all kinds of fixings that made my mouth water. Within minutes, he had a bowl I would have paid sixteen dollars for down the road at the local Mexican restaurant.
Once he returned to the table, my wide eyes couldn’t leave the bowl in front of him, and he caught me staring.
“Want some?” he asked.
“No.” But I did. It looked delicious. “How did you learn to do that?”
His mouth already had more food in it than should fit as he chomped away. He stirred up the contents of the bowl as he chewed, the aroma hitting my nose. It made my stomach growl.
He heard it.
Next thing I knew, he was getting another bowl from the cabinet and scooping some of his deliciousness into it. He plopped it in front of me, fork and all. No words. Then he sat down to his food and resumed eating. Once he finished another mouthful, he spoke.
“I used cooking as part of my therapy while I was home last year. It calmed me. It forced my brain to only think about the task in front of me, and not the other bullshit it wanted to focus on. It helped.” Looking my way, he gestured toward my bowl with the tip of his fork. “Eat it, tell me how it is.”
I worked hard to get a little bit of everything on the fork: garbanzo beans, corn, chicken, lettuce, avocado, to name a few. It had to be one of the most mouthwatering dishes I’d ever eaten. I felt some sour cream on the corner of my mouth and reached for a napkin at the center of the table.
Right as Logan did.
Our hands touched.
And just like the time his hand slid across my back when I got into his truck, my skin ignited. From a simple touch of his finger.
I didn’t want to pull away.
As it turned out, he didn’t either.
Our hands remained on the same napkin, our eyes low, looking at our hands. Neither willing to look at the other. After what felt like forever, Logan gripped my fingers gently, moving them, and lifted a napkin.
He handed it to me.
“Thank you.”
With a nod, he resumed eating. As did I.
CHAPTER 12
Logan
“So, what you’re telling me, Logan, is that you worked on how you were feeling about your roommate, worked on how you were treating her, and it seems to have alleviated the situation between the two of you this week?”
