Jake raised a brow, then went back to tending to his eggs. Sunny side up, like always. “I’m not sick, but I didn’t get much sleep last night, and didn’t think it was a great idea to leave you alone today.”
“Sorry,” I said, and I really was. I was a huge inconvenience and I knew it. “At least it’s a Friday, so you get a long weekend?”
“Yeah,” he said.
But I still felt guilty. Jake hadn’t asked to be awakened in the middle of the night. Hadn’t asked to give up his own bed just so he could toss and turn on the couch. Hadn’t asked to be involved in my problems, either. And when my mobile phone started buzzing on the countertop, he looked at it askance. “It’s been doing that all morning, Nicky. I think it’s the asshole who hit you.”
Carlos. Wow, the upsetting memory of what’d happened rushed through me again, and I leaned against the countertop to steady myself. Carlos would have awakened from his drunken stupor to find me gone. He’d be pissed. Maybe he’d even be sorry, and want to apologize. Like he did before.
But for some reason, at this moment, I just wasn’t even curious about his reaction. He could fuck off. And when I gave a contemptuous shrug without even reaching for the phone, Jake’s expression lightened, and he gave me a nod of approval, as if to say, atta girl. “Hungry?”
I should’ve said no. I’d already imposed on him enough. But my stomach actually growled in answer, which made us both laugh a little. “You like ‘em scrambled, right?”
“Yep. Scrambled. Just like my life,” I replied, wondering if it would feel better to joke about it.
Nope. Didn’t make me feel better.
“Can I help?” I asked.
Jake nodded. “Bacon’s already done. Potatoes are in the bowl. They need butter…or something.”
“I can do better than butter,” I said. If we’d been home, my mom kept a pantry full of exotic spices, but Jake just had the basics. Still, I could make do with some seasoned salt, cayenne pepper, garlic powder and olive oil.
Cooking together was actually kind of nice, as it turned out, because it gave me something to do, and I forgot why I was here, and by the time we sat down to breakfast—even though it was really lunch time—Jake and I were reminiscing about high school friends, and some of the dumb shit they used to do.
While I sipped at hot coffee and nibbled at the end of a crispy piece of bacon, Jake shoveled a forkful of potatoes into his mouth and groaned. “Wow, Nicky, these are great. Really great.”
“It’s just seasoning. If I’d had some onions, hot peppers, herbs and goat cheese, I’d have knocked your socks off.”
He made a face. “Goat cheese?”
“Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“Left it in the sandbox,” he said, of the war-torn Middle Eastern country where he’d served. But he didn’t say it so grimly as to change the mood.
“Yeah, I bet. But goat cheese is great. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. Besides, if I can make you groan with my spice-skills, just think what I could make you do if you gave me free rein.”
In your kitchen…
That’s what I meant by it. But he stopped mid-bite, his fork just hovering there, as if he’d heard a whole lot of sexual innuendo. And the awkwardness between us stretched until I pulled the blanket tighter around me where I sat cross-legged at the table, murmuring, “Good coffee.”
Jake cleared his throat. “How are you feeling?”
“Good,” I said, picking at my scrambled eggs. “Better, I mean.”
“We should’ve taken pictures of your face last night,” he said, scooping a second helping of potatoes onto his plate before finishing the first. “Unfortunately, you’ve got remarkably good powers of healing. Given how you looked last night, I thought you’d be more bruised than you are today.”
“Unfortunately?”
Jake looked up from his plate. “You know what I mean. Fortunate for your face. But unfortunate in terms of proving what he did to you.”
Oh, he still thought he could convince me to go to the cops. “Give it a rest, will you? The last thing I want to do is stretch all this out and make it into a thing.”
“It is a thing, Nicole.”
I took a bite of egg and had to fight the wince of pain when I chewed. He was right. It was a thing. But I didn’t want it to be. “I just want to be done with Carlos.”
The fact that I hadn’t picked up the phone was proof of that.
Jake sighed. “Well, that’s good, I guess. But what’s ahead of you on the road? You can’t go back to the club and work there anymore…”
Shit. That was a really good point. One that I hadn’t thought much about. And the thought of having to move back in with my mom…ugh. “I think there’s a job opening at the pancake house. It doesn’t pay as much as the club, but it’d be something.”
Jake took a swallow of coffee, then sat back in his chair. “It’d be some money coming in for the short term, sure. And you should check it out. But maybe you should also think about doing something bigger with your life.”
“Okay, dad,” I said, rolling my eyes. Not that I’d ever had a dad to roll my eyes at. Not really. Not even his.
“I’m serious,” Jake said, undeterred. “I realize this town doesn’t exactly encourage aspirations, but you’re too smart and vibrant and beautiful to settle for a life with some loser like Carlos. You could have a bright future doing something you loved…”
Wait, what? He thought I was smart, vibrant and beautiful? He’d never said anything like that to me before. Truthfully, it’d been a while since anybody had said anything like that to me. And I warmed a little from the insides in a way that had nothing to do with my hot mug of coffee. “A bright future doing what?”
“I dunno. Something. Maybe you could go to culinary school…or…I know you love animals. Maybe you could become a veterinarian.”