She grew up observing those idiosyncrasies frustrate her already impatient mother, then, later on, irking her husband who’d turn sharp and short. Trying to love the people she was supposed to love best, trying to please them, she learned to make herself small as a girl and as a woman to stay that way. Being her full self only led to hurting and being hurt. Now she’d begun to think, that hurting and being hurt had happened because she’d tried to do a good thing in a bad way, in a way that cost Thea her true self. Now she had a promise to keep—to Lauren and, more importantly, to herself. She was going to be big, to learn to love herself, to learn from and love only people who wanted all of her.
People like Alex.
“You daydream a lot,” Alex says. “Don’t you?”
I blink, snapped from my thoughts. A blush creeps up my cheeks. “It’s a bad habit,” I tell him.
Alex shakes his head, a soft grin tugging up the corners of his mouth. “I don’t think so. Not when it makes you smile like that.”
Setting my hand on my warm cheek, I feel the truth in what Alex said. I am smiling.
Even so, I feel vulnerable, exposed, asking Alex for what I have. To learn from him. To make mistakes in front of him. To trust him to be patient with me while I do.
“You really want to teach me to cook?”
His grin deepens. “I’d love to teach you to cook.”
My heart trips, then warms. “Just the fundamentals,” I tell him. “Nothing extensive or demanding. We can keep it to basics, so I won’t take up too much of your time. Doesn’t even need to be lessons, really. We could just do it when we’re hanging out and you’re cooking meals. I can be your sous, learn from working beside you.”
Alex holds my eyes. “We could do it when we’re hanging out and putting together meals, sure. But I’d also be happy to make dedicated time for it.”
Butterflies race through my stomach. “I realize this is like asking Lisa Leslie to teach me how to shoot layups.”
“That flattery”—he says, eyes back on his cards—“will get you somewhere.”
I laugh. “What can I do to… I don’t know, compensate you for cooking lessons? Babysit Mia? Be your scullery maid?”
“You already are my scullery maid,” he says mildly, his mouth tipping at the corner. He’s teasing. It makes me smile.
“I do the dishes after you cook for me, that isnotbeing your scullery maid. I’m serious Alex, what can I do, to return the favor?”
His gaze slides up again and locks with mine. He’s quiet for amoment, then says, “Would you read to me, sometimes, when I’m cooking, maybe, or when we’re just… hanging out?”
My heart sprouts wings, beating wildly in my chest. “Sure. What kind of books?”
“Ideally,” he says, “the books you love and think I’d love. Or not. It can be whatever you want. Nothing extensive or demanding, though, so I don’t take up too much of your time.”
I sigh. “Message received. I cheapened it by making it transactional. And I made it sound like I’d be twisting your arm.”
“Bingo.” He sets down his cards.
“Actually, we’re playing euchre.”
He gives me a quelling look.
As I bring my cards up to hide my face, his deep belly laugh echoes in the kitchen.
Alex curls his fingers around my cards, lowering them, then setting them gently face down on the table. He’s close, leaning in on his elbows. His warm spicy scent washes over me.
I take him in for a moment, my eyes traveling his body because I can’t help it. He’s in another old T-shirt, heather gray with a vintage Penguins Hockey logo across the chest, hints of skin peeking through where it’s so threadbare it’s almost sheer. He’s slightly sunburned on the bridge of his twice-broken nose, on the tops of his cheekbones above the shadow of his stubble. His eyes are deep, midnight blue.
“I think,” he begins, “that you know me well enough by now to believe me when I say, I won’t tell you I want to do something if I don’t want to do it. And I want you to be just as honest with me, Ted.”
“I know,” I tell him. “I am.” And I mean it, which feels… strange. And good.
I always thought holding in the truth, when I knew it might bristle or challenge, was an act of protective care for the person you loved, for your relationship. I’m starting to understand it actually did the opposite. Because a lie of omission is still a lie, words empty of true meaning. And empty words are flimsy things on which to build a relationship. What I thought threatened love is actually what shores it up most.
“You promise?” he says.
