Chapter 16: Lilah
I spend the entire day cooking and cleaning up my house to get ready for dinner with Olive and Brooks. I finally got the last of my boxes unpacked and my books neatly organized on the shelves in my living room.
I'm putting the finishing touches on dinner and dancing to music in the kitchen while I wait for Olive and Brooks to arrive. They were supposed to be here five minutes ago, but that's just Olive in a fucking nutshell. It drives Brooks crazy to be late everywhere they go, but he loves her too much to complain. Much.
I sprinkle some grated parmesan and chopped parsley on top of the pasta, pull the roasted chicken out of the oven, and add butter to the pan of asparagus sizzling on the stovetop. Everything is perfect. This might be the best meal I've ever made in my life, and if my sister doesn't hurry her ass up, I'm going to start without her.
After checking that the coconut panna cotta in the fridge has fully set, I pull out my phone to check on my sister. This is why we have Find My iPhone turned on. Spying on each other's location is Sister 101 as far as I'm concerned, but before I even get the app open, the doorbell rings. Finally.
I try to untie my apron as I walk to the door, but the damn waist tie is frayed and tangled. I try twisting it sideways so I can free myself as I open the front door. I'm still peering around my hip to see where the snag is when I say, "You're going to have to help me out of this thing, sweet tits."
"Gladly," comes a deep male rumble.
"Fuck!" I yell as I stumble backwards in surprise. Standing in the place where I expected to see my sister is none other than Benjamin Fucking Clark.
"Jesus! You scared the shit out of me!" I clutch my chest and wheeze at him. He's wearing jeans and a lightweight gray sweater. All I can see is his broad chest and muscled shoulders outlined in the knit pattern. Holy god, he looks so good. Why does he always have to look so good? My panties shouldn't get wet just because he's walking around in a sweater, but couldn't he wear sweatpants or something?
Scratch that. If I saw him strolling around in gray sweats, I probably couldn't stop myself from jumping his bones. Socks with sandals. That might be the only thing he'd look bad in.
Ben is smiling at me with an eyebrow cocked like he doesn't understand why I'm surprised. "Dinner smells amazing. Can I give you a hand with anything?" he asks, gesturing behind me.
"What?" I ask, thoroughly confused. "No. Dinner is ready but... can I help you with something?"
Ben flashes me a crooked grin and squints at me like I've lost my mind.
"Do I have the wrong night or something?" He asks. "I may be a Southern boy, but I'm not as slow as I sound," he says, drawing a card out of his back pocket and showing it to me. I snatch the card out of his hand. No, not a card. An invitation. An invitation to a housewarming party. At my house. Tonight.
"What the fuck? Where did you get this?!" I ask him. My already pounding heart picks up with indignation because, even as I ask, I know.
"It was in my mailbox this afternoon. Kinda short notice, don't you think?" Ben jokes, his brown eyes flashing with mischief.
"Olive," I say flatly.
"Sure, I'd like an olive, I guess. Aren't you going to invite me in? Or is dinner on the front porch?" Ben is giving me an infuriatingly cocky look. I should hate it. If he was any other guy, I definitely would.
"No, I'm not offering you an olive. My sister. My sister did this." Even as I say it, my phone starts dinging with text messages in my front apron pocket.
Olive: Enjoy your date. P.S. Payback's a bitch!
Olive: Sorry I said bitch.
Olive: Please save a panna cotta for Brooks and me.
"Oh-ho-no!" I hiss at my phone. "No panna cotta for you!"
Ben is staring at me with a look somewhere in the crossroads of "she's lost her damn mind" and "oh my god, look how cute she is." It's then that I notice he's holding a gift bag, a bottle of wine and a head of romaine lettuce. I'm trying to ignore the way he smells like fresh laundry and cologne, even though it's making me a little weak in the knees.
"What's the lettuce for?" I ask. Ben takes a step towards me on the porch. I'm still one step higher than him, and it puts me at eye level with him. He's so close I can see little shots of gold and black running through his irises as he watches me, smiling that crooked smirk of his. It makes him look arrogant. Arrogant and insanely sexy.
"I'm guessing you didn't invite me over tonight," Ben says. He's so near that my skin is tingling, begging me to lean just another inch or two closer.
"No," I reply. Why do I sound so breathy? A better question might be, why can't I breathe right around him?
"Do you want me to leave?" he asks. I hesitate, not because I want him gone, but because I want him to stay so desperately. It makes me physically ache to think of sending him away, but he reads my hesitation the wrong way, giving me a rueful smile as he steps back and hands me the things he was carrying.
"Maybe another time," he says as he turns to go, his hands tucked in his pockets. All it takes is one glimpse of his broad back and the memory of the way he kissed me to make me move.
"No," I call out.