by Kim Law
“Yet I did.”
“I offered.” She didn’t look away. “And I’m glad I did. But if you feel you need to go home . . .”
He quickly shook his head. “I don’t. The offer is valid, though. Say the word, and I’ll get out of your hair. I’ll quit taking advantage of your good nature.” He angled his head. “That said . . . I would prefer to stay here and keep taking advantage.”
She chuckled again, and the smile that accompanied it made his heart sing. “Then the decision is made,” she told him. “Stay and take advantage. As long as you want.”
The double entendre of her words didn’t go unnoticed with either of them, but neither commented. Instead, he pulled out her chair and offered her a seat. “Have dinner with me, Arsula?”
Chapter Seventeen
The man could be a charmer when he wanted to.
And his lasagna was off the charts.
Arsula picked at one of the remaining few bites of pasta on her plate as Jaden relayed the story of how he’d managed to prepare tonight’s meal while having only one good foot to stand on, and she found herself giggling at the vision. Lots of hopping, some using a chair to rest his knee on, and a couple of losses of balance resulting in near face-planting against the fridge.
“So,” he said after wrapping up his tale. He leaned forward, crossing his arms and resting them on the table. “What do you think, Lula-bell? Was the lasagna good enough to give me another chance to cook for you?”
She poked at a hunk of beef. Did he really want another chance to cook for her?
She’d been replaying their earlier conversation since they’d had it. There’d been talks of dates, pre-dates . . . being “ready.” Did she want any of those things?
The better question was, would she allow herself to have those things with him? Because yeah. She wanted them. The man not only wore his creased slacks very well—and yes, they’d been ironed—but he’d apparently made it his mission to impress tonight. And she had news for him. He’d succeeded.
“The lasagna was okay,” she replied. “I suppose.”
“You suppose?” He chuckled, and she couldn’t pull her gaze off the way his eyes looked as they crinkled behind his glasses. He rose and moved to the fridge. “You don’t cave easily, do you?”
“I see no reason to.”
“Good.” He pulled out what looked to be a cheesecake, and she noticed that the platter matched the plates on the table. All of which she hadn’t seen in this kitchen before. “Because I don’t like easy.” He turned back to her and held up the platter. “I also made dessert.”
She didn’t let on that cheesecake rated right up there with sex for her. “It doesn’t look like a cupcake to me.”
Laughter filled the room. “You are correct. It’s not a cupcake. But then, it’s not your birthday, is it?”
“Like you’re going to make me a cupcake for my birthday.” She eyed the cheesecake. It looked as homemade as the lasagna. “You’ll probably be long gone by then. Back in Seattle, terrorizing some other unsuspecting woman with tons of unexpected calories.”
“Nah.” A contented smile settled onto his mouth as he sliced two slabs and placed them on matching saucers. “The way I see it, there’s no point in returning for only a month. I talked to my adviser this week. I’m going to finish out everything here.”
“You are?” She’d assumed he’d be leaving by the end of the month. “I guess you’re on the hook to make me a cupcake, then.”
He looked over his shoulder at her. “I suppose I am.”
As he turned with both plates in hand, she rose to get them so he could make it back to the table without hopping. But he shooed her off. “Have a seat, woman. I’m in charge tonight.”
“Yes, sir.”
A flicker of heat passed through his features, but Arsula didn’t let on that she’d noticed. She’d been having flickers herself, ever since she’d walked into the room.
He hopped, performing an excellent balancing routine by not only keeping both slices of cheesecake upright, but also centered on the plates. As he placed hers on the cleared space in front of her, he peeked up, his look saying way more than had been spoken out loud tonight, and all the air seemed to leave the room in a rush. The man had game.
“Tell me about cooking,” she said. “Who taught you how to do that?” They’d covered a number of topics tonight, but nothing overtly personal. With a full tummy, though, and way more than cheesecake running through her mind, she wanted to see if they could go deeper.
She wanted to know that he wanted it, too. And not just deeper by getting naked again.
“Ah . . . cooking,” he began, and lowered to his seat. He forked up a bite of dessert. “I taught myself, actually. Though not until college. And I did that because I’d grown up watching my sister always handling everything in the kitchen herself. It was my way to appease my conscience, I guess.”
“Wait.” She sat up from her leaned-back, I-had-two-glasses-of-wine-with-dinner slouch. “It was you, your dad, four additional brothers, and Dani. And Dani was the one who always cooked?”
“And cleaned.”
“Wow.” For some reason, she wouldn’t have assumed that. She knew from Erica that Gabe was a well-rounded twenty-first-century man. As was Nick. “Sexist much?”
She supposed the change was better late than never, but she suddenly hurt for Dani.
“I know.” Jaden’s gaze strayed to his fork, which no longer had any cheesecake on it, nor did he appear in any hurry to take another bite. In addition, what she’d guess to be grief creased his face. “When our family came close to imploding a few years ago, it was brought to Dani’s attention that our mom had used doing the dishes as a way to control her.” He shrugged and went on. “We’d all been trained to stand back and wait for her to wait on us.”
“And she just went along with it?”
Blue eyes danced over to hers. “That’s Dani’s story to tell, but yeah. We all went along with all of it. Narcissism isn’t pretty, in case you’ve never experienced it firsthand.”
She hadn’t. And the sorrow spilling out of him now made her extra glad of the fact.
“Will you tell me about your mom?” she asked.
“How much time do you have?” He smirked. Then he shook off his maudlin thoughts. “My mother is a story that could go on for hours, Lula-bell. Narrow your question.”
“Okay.” Studying him, she considered what she’d learned about his past. About him. Then she reached over and covered his hand with hers. “Tell me your first memory of her.”
His eyelids closed off his thoughts for a full fifteen seconds, but Arsula didn’t pull away. She’d felt the muscles under her fingers tense the second she’d made the request, and then she’d watched as he’d meticulously worked from head to toe, forcing every muscle group to relax. She suspected it was a coping technique he’d learned years ago, and she found herself impressed with the ability.
“My first memory,” he finally began, “was lying in my bed alone, having peed on myself yet again, and wondering which would happen first. Would my mom come unlock my door and tell me I could come out of my room for the day, or would the school bus drop off my brothers and sister?”
“School bus?” Her hand gripped his. “As in . . . at the end of the day?”
“Three o’clock,” he confirmed. His jaw grew tight. “Though I didn’t know what time the bus showed up back then. I just knew that if she didn’t unlock my door before they got home, then either Nick or Nate would show up and do it almost immediately. Usually Nate,” he added, his voice now a whisper, and Arsula found herself unable to say anything else.
No wonder the man had gone to a counselor for years.
No wonder that’s the field he’d chosen to pursue.
“I’m glad you had your brothers,” she whispered.
“Yeah.” Jaden nodded. He disappeared into additional memories, but for only a few seconds, before he physically shook it off.
His shou
lders rolled under the white shirt, and his lips curved as if trying to recapture the casual charmer he’d been all night. Then he turned his hand under hers and twined their fingers together.
“Enough about me.” His eyes roved over her face. “Turn my smile into an authentic one, Arsula. Tell me what you did today. What kept you out of the apartment for most of it?”
She liked that he asked her to make him smile. “Mostly I was avoiding you,” she answered drily.
He did smile, and she liked it even more.
But she’d also just fudged the truth. It hadn’t been him she’d been avoiding.
“That’s a bit of a fib,” she admitted. Her heart pounded at the thought of what she had been avoiding. “It wasn’t you I was avoiding so much as it was my laptop.”
“Your laptop?” Surprise added to his smile. “What’s wrong with it? It doesn’t turn into some sort of demonic creature on weekends, does it?”
She liked his sense of humor. “No, but it might turn me into one.”
One of his fingers slid back and forth where it rested between two of her fingers, and little tingles began to fire up her arm. “So what’s the problem with your laptop?”
“It had an email on it that I wasn’t ready to look at yet.”
His chin angled down as he studied her, and it took all she had not to look away. “You stayed out of the house all day to avoid reading an email?”
“Yes.” If she acted like that was a perfectly normal reaction, then maybe he’d believe it. “And before you ask, I also deleted the email app on my phone. That way, I wouldn’t be tempted while I was out.”
“You deleted the—” He cut off his question and shook his head in wonder. “I swear, Arsula. Some days I still believe you’re as loony as I thought you were when I first met you.”
“And some days, you probably just wish I was.” She wrinkled her nose at him, producing another round of deep laughter, and she noticed that he’d leaned in closer. And possibly so had she. They were both sitting with arms bent and resting on the table, cheesecake pushed to the side and forgotten, and their faces far too close.
“Tell me about this email,” he prodded.
“It was from your ex.”
His eyes blinked at her answer, but he didn’t pull away. “From Megan? About what?”
“About a website.”
She didn’t say anything more than that. Not at first. Admitting it out loud had made the blood roar in her ears. If she told him about it . . . and especially if she showed it to him . . . the idea of taking that next step would suddenly be all the more real.
“It’s a potential website she worked up for me.” She forged ahead without letting herself think about it. “For a business venture I’ve considered.”
“A business venture? As in, something different than dream interpretation?”
“As in, a deeper level of something similar. Yet not at all the same. I want to be an intuitive life coach,” she admitted. She pressed her lips together the instant the words were out, and then she waited.
She’d said it.
But now, would she do it?
“A life coach?” His thumb slid over hers, and she could see him processing through what that was. As his thoughts returned to the present, his brow furrowed. “Isn’t that sort of what you do already?”
He couldn’t have asked a better question. She nodded. “Sort of.”
He seemed to be figuring her out whether he wanted to or not.
“What I do today is more based upon people coming to me with their dreams,” she explained. “Some ask for my help, seeking guidance in their lives whether they realize it or not, and some truly just want to know about an individual dream. I’m always on the lookout for those in need of help, though, and if they’re open to working on themselves, I take them under my wing.”
“And then they show up here at the office and praise you daily.” The statement was meant as praise, and she took it as such.
“Some of those people are just friends, by the way. I’m always talking, always in ‘healer mode’ internally, and sometimes that slips out in the simplest of forms. Revamping a wardrobe, helping construct a speech asking a boss for a raise. As I told you early on, I’m good with people.”
“You certainly are.” His other hand closed over the one he already held. “What’s the difference in a regular life coach and an intuitive one, though? I’ve never heard of the latter.”
The fact that he was asking questions had a new kind of fire licking deep inside her. One that scared her at the idea of getting burned.
“An intuitive life coach focuses on guiding others to fulfillment from within,” she answered, “before then helping them seek the passions that will fuel their life’s journeys.”
“An intuitive life coach cares about the heart first,” he added, and she nodded.
“Always.”
Both of his thumbs now slid across her skin. “That’s a pretty cool thing to want to do.”
She didn’t say anything, momentarily unable to speak. Having both his hands touching her at the same time, even with as simple a point of contact as what he provided, was totally playing havoc on her system. Add to that their proximity to each other and the fact that she couldn’t get near the man without wanting to be even closer, and suddenly she was not only struggling to speak but to remember what it was they’d been speaking about.
The website.
She nodded again, even though Jaden hadn’t said anything else. They’d been talking about the website, and she’d been explaining the differences in the types of life coaches.
“Would you like to see it?” she asked before she could talk herself out of it. Her breathing became labored at the thought. “The website, I mean. It’s not complete, nor is it live. But I could show it to you if you wanted.”
“I would love to see it.”
And she really would love to show it to him.
Excitement growing, she disentangled their fingers and rose from the table. “Then come upstairs with me. I have it loaded on my laptop.”
She’d hit the fourth step before clueing in that Jaden hadn’t followed her out of the kitchen, and when she turned back, she found him framed by the doorway, his eyes focused beyond her to the narrow set of stairs.
“Oh yeah.” She pursed her lips. His incapacitation had slipped from her mind.
Then she realized that he wasn’t just eyeing the obstacle that would get him through the door of her apartment. He appeared downright scared at the thought.
“Really?” She glanced behind her before continuing. “You’re scared of a flight of stairs?”
“I’m not scared,” Jaden protested, but there was no heat behind the words.
“You look scared.”
“I look concerned,” he corrected. “Because as you might remember, the last time I went up a flight of stairs, the coming down part didn’t end so well.”
That didn’t make sense. “You went up the steps at your dad’s house just the other day.”
“There were five steps in total to get to the deck, with a railing on either side.” He flexed a bicep. “My arms carried me up. The crutches didn’t have to be involved.”
She turned again and took in the lone rail running the length of the stairwell. With it positioned on the same side as his injured ankle, he wouldn’t even be able to use one crutch while also holding on to the rail with the other hand. Not without easily being thrown off balance.
She could go get the laptop and bring it down, she supposed. That would be the logical thing to do.
Instead, she decided she’d rather make him work for it.
See him want it . . .
And she didn’t even let herself ask what she thought she might be making him work for . . . or what might be something he wanted.
“Too bad,” she murmured. She offered an apologetic smile. “I guess we’ll just have to take a rain check.” She began backing up the stairs. “I do think I’ll go on up, though. Mak
e it an early night.”
Crestfallen would describe his look perfectly. “Do you have to? I was enjoying spending time with you.”
His words almost changed her mind. Because no, she didn’t have to go. And because she’d been enjoying spending time with him, too. A lot. She’d enjoyed it so much, in fact, that she’d begun to wonder how the evening might end.
“I think I do have to.” Leaving now would be the safe bet. “Thank you for cooking dinner for me, though. I had a lovely time.”
His gaze burned into hers, and she thought for a moment he would throw caution to the wind. “And thank you for having dinner with me,” he said instead.
“Anytime.”
He nodded, his eyes once again traversing the stairs, as she reached the top.
“Jaden?” She waited for his gaze to make it to hers, and suddenly, him climbing the flight of stairs was no longer about showing him her website. “It really is too bad you’re scared of the stairs.”
Jaden forgot to blink as he continued to stare at the empty space where Arsula had been. What had she meant by that?
It really is too bad you’re scared of the stairs.
And it really wasn’t that he was scared of the stairs. He’d just been contemplating how best to get up them. Sort of. Mostly he’d just been hoping she’d go get her computer and bring it down.
But then she’d gone and issued a challenge.
And wouldn’t he be a fool if he didn’t take her up on it?
Bringing his eyes back to the twelve steps it would take to get him to the top, he determined the time had come for him and his cast to conquer the obstacle before them, and he shifted the crutch under his right arm to settle it in with his left.
The going wasn’t actually as tough as he’d expected—once he’d tested out the first few. He found that he could either hop from one step to the next, or he could basically climb up on his knees. He also found that he was glad no one else was around to witness him crawling to get to Arsula. He kept going, though, because as he’d known from day one, he couldn’t resist the temptation of being around this woman.
