But I’m not the same girl I was when I was twenty-one.
I’m tired.
I’ve got two years left of my twenties.
And I think I’m falling in love.
“Deal,” I say. “But I hope you won’t wait on me if you already know what you want.”
“I won’t wait,” he promises. “I can be your private chef, and you can be my CEO. I will have dinner on the table when you get home, on one condition.”
I bite my lip as he tilts my chin up. “What condition?”
“Josephine.” He steps in closer, drowning me in the cinnamon scent of him. His hands weave back into my hair. His face hovers centimeters above mine. “Will you please,pleasebe my girlfriend?”
My heart stutters, leaping out of rhythm. I let our lips graze. “Can I taste dinner first?”
A noise of displeasure lodges in his throat. He crushes our mouths together. Kisses me harshly, teeth nipping at my lips. “Sorry. Did you think it was foryou?”
“What other… aspiring vegetarians do you know?” I gasp between kisses.
“This meal is for real vegetarians.”
“I could be one of those.”
“You can be anything you want.”
Will pushes me to lie flat against the countertop and leans on his elbows, bracketing my upper body. His hair falls over his eyes, which are shining with that flinty, concentrated azure color.
“I’ll be your girlfriend, Will Grant,” I say.
He has wiped away all my holdouts. He showed up, and showed up, and showed up. I cannot go back to the Josie I was before he found me, even if I wanted to.
“Thank you,” Will says. “I did wrong by you then. Thank you for giving me the chance to get it right now.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Will feeds me roasted sweet potatoes served over a homemade lemon garlic aioli, garnished with chile-and-honey-buttered pepitas. He got flour tortillas from Matt’s El Rancho, stuffed them full of fried cauliflower and guacamole. There’s a salad with three ingredients—leafy greens, lemon juice, olive oil—and it might be the best thing I’ve ever tasted. For dessert, he pulls chocolate chip cookies out of the oven, slathers homemade strawberry ice cream between two of them, and rolls the whole thing in coconut flakes. It’s more delicious than a home-cooked meal has any right to be, and when I say as much to Will, he rubs at his neck.
We eat the cookie sandwiches on his back porch, where the sun gleams into our eyes and melts the ice cream until it’s dripping down my hand. He polishes his dessert off and then sucks on my fingers, his hot eyes on mine the whole time.
“What’s the verdict?” he asks.
“I will eat all your leftovers.”
“Somebody’s got to.”
“I will buy sound machines and earplugs to block out your snores.”
“I’ll visit an ENT to see if there’s a surgery I can have,” he promises.
“I don’t mind the snoring,” I say. “It’s just a reminder I’m not alone.”
We sit on that porch even after the sun goes down. Will’s hands curl around my body, adjusting me until I can lie across him and fall halfway asleep while he tells me more stories about New York, cooking school, his secret double life as a line cook. All the places he wants to take me when we visit Manhattan together.
“Will we see Zoe?” I ask.
“Definitely,” Will says. “She’s already talked about having you over to her place on the Upper West Side.”
