“Don’t ever do that face around anyone with a camera,” he said with utter seriousness.
“What’s wrong with it?” She pulled the face again.
“April?” he asked, clearly trying to hold back a laugh.
“Jack?” She said his name deeply, with an effort at his butterscotch timbre.
“You’ll have to trust me on this.” He gave her a subtle headshake. “Just don’t.”
“Then I guess if I don’t like what Ethan Greene makes, I have no face to hide it.” She bounded down the rest of the stairs.
How was he going to pull off the mac and not-so-cheese and make it palatable? She did not know.
She’d mastered a lot of kitchen magic so her kids could enjoy regular-type foods, but never something as brazen as this.
After the main course, they were creating a non-peanut, no-nut, still-tastes-good butter for a non-peanut PB and J. She had more faith in that than the not-exactly-cheese cheese.
“You’ll like what he makes,” Jack assured her. “He could cook dirt and make it delicious.”
April flung herself into Jack’s arms.
Since they’d had a week of togetherness, learning from each other, understanding how they each ticked, there was no hesitation in his catching her. He seemed to know she was going to pounce, so he had his arms open for her impromptu hug-slash-mounting before she had even jumped.
He held her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist, because she could. Because no one was there. And because, for now, she still had her training wheels for a few more days. She figured she’d roll with them. Enjoy them. Appreciate them. Before she had to let them go.
“Ethan Greene is coming to my house,” she said with another squee.
Jack pressed a solid kiss to her mouth, cutting her off. To be honest, this was a fabulous way for him to get her to stop talking about Ethan. When Jack kissed her? The world fell away until it was just them.
Butterflies in her stomach and heated desire between her legs had become a normal part of time with Jack. She’d never had training wheels quite like this before.
He broke the kiss and held her gaze before nuzzling her jawline.
“You give the best hugs,” he whispered into her hair.
She squeezed him harder, pinching her eyes closed. “How’s that?”
“Your hugs lift a person up.” The words were the soft kind. The kind meant for only her.
Her heart melted into a mess of Ethan Greene’s not-peanut-butter peanut butter. She pulled back enough to look straight into his eyes. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
Jack ran his thumb along her lower lip, their faces nearly touching. “Gotta keep my edge sharp with that chef guy showing up any minute.”
“Ethan Greene”—she enunciated each syllable of his name—“is not ‘that chef guy.’”
He bopped her on the nose with his index finger. “So you’re one of those, huh?”
“One of what?” She moved to her kitchen, where the film crew had set up earlier. Then they’d taken off with Rachel to grab doughnuts at the bakery up the street.
“One who always uses the first and last name of a celebrity.” He tagged along with her to the kitchen, even though she could hear his phone buzzing in his pocket.
“Well, he’s not just any Ethan. So yes, I think it’s important to clarify.” She paused at the entrance to her kitchen. For the record, the kitchen did not look like her kitchen anymore.
First, the dishwasher matched the rest of the appliances. She wasn’t precisely sure how in the hell-o that had happened. In the time it took her to change into the sponsor’s athletic gear and add mascara to her eyelashes, someone had added a professional-grade stainless steel face to the front.
Honestly, it looked great, but her kids would have that piece of adhesive off ten minutes after they got home.
Second, the kitchen was spotless. That was thanks to her and Jack staying up late cleaning absolutely everything. Cleaning with Jack wasn’t normal cleaning, because it involved a decent amount of illicit touches and more than a few kisses.
