The entertained rasp of his voice felt like fingernails over my scalp and tingled my spine. He sounded like a damn stoner but something about it was wildly attractive.
Perhaps because stoners are too relaxed to care what other people think of them. What a way to live.
Harlan’s deep marble blue eyes drifted over me, a stick of dynamite to my already sizzling nerves.
I needed to stop objectifying this man. I’d been over to his teammates’ houses and never once felt like a dog in heat. Perhaps it was knowing he was single. Maybe it was feeling his hot confidence pulsing through the air like a Florida breeze. It could have been the cute way he told me to have a nice day, even when he was being annoying. Or maybe it was because, according to my doctor, I had a good ten years to go before menopause and my body was ovulating extra hard.
By the skin of my teeth, I remained the picture of professionalism on the outside.
“Chef,” I said with a curt nod.
He looked like he remembered his manners in that moment, stepping back and gesturing me inside. “Come in.”
I stepped onto the gleaming hardwood floors and searched for a landing spot for my shoes beside the door. Glancing down, I discovered that he was barefoot. I didn’t give a shit about feet, but his were so . . . bare. What business did he have not wearing foot clothes? If someone was coming over to my house, I’d makesure I had on socks or house shoes or something because I wouldn’t want somebody to have to look at my feet.
Royce didn’t care. Then again, why would a confident, attractive guy in his twenties have any qualms about being perceived?
Harlan Royce took up space, and he didn’t have a single reason to feel sorry about it.
Like a gas, he filled every nook and cranny around him, making sure every being in his proximity felt his presence.
I, on the other hand, felt that weird awkwardness that comes with being in someone’s house who you didn’t know very well. “My shoes?” I asked, searching for a place to take them off.
“You can leave them on,” he said. “Don’t want you to burn your toes while we’re cooking.”
“Aren’t you worried about your own toes?”
He just shrugged. “Here, I’ll hold your bag.”
He held out his hands and took my knife roll and tote bag, reading the logo on it. “North Market, eh? Do you buy a lot of stuff there?”
“I know some of the cooks there. And the pierogis are my favorite.” When I went to slip my fleece off my shoulders, his hand caught the collar. He tucked my knife roll into his arm and draped my fleece over it like it was a fine garment.
It absolutely was not a fine garment, and I thought it was sweet that he treated it like one.
“Oh, man, I’ve never tried the pierogis. You know who makes good ones, though? Dottie’s wife, Lana.” Harlan hung up my jacket in a small coat closet.
“If she’s Russian, those are probably pelmeni, not pierogi. Pierogi are Polish.”
Royce peeked at me over his shoulder with a wink. “Guess you’ll have to teach me how to make them. Come on in. I’ll give you the grand tour.”
“Oh, you don’t have to,” I rushed to say.
He turned like I’d shot him, a hand to his heart. “Chef, do you not want to see my house?”
I laughed. “Let’s cook first. Then you can show me everything.”
“I already got the steak started. We have time.”
I squinted at him. “Oh?”
“Yeah, I put it in the sous vide. We’ll just have to sear it.”
I pursed my lips and nodded, then forced a smile, my voice high-pitched. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Harlan eyed me. “What are you getting at?”
“I just don’t know what you hired me for if you already know everything.”
