“Or we can continue—dialed down a little,” I add. “Like your trip wire…”
Hadley glances from the fridge to the packaged food. “Is this a trick?”
“What?”
“Is this going to give me food poisoning? Is it laced with laxatives?”
“It’s an apology.”
“Or a trick…”
“I just picked them up. You saw me.” I dig my phone from my pocket and scroll to the receipts for my order to show her.
“How do I know Lenny didn’t pick them up?”
“Want to call him? Or you can scroll through my texts or phone list. I haven’t talked to anyone.” I push my phone toward her in invitation.
She doesn’t pick it up.
I open the bags and set an order of pancakes in front of her first. “Your search for the best lasagna inspired these choices,” I tell her. “These are sweet cream pancakes, and literally the best pancakes you’ll ever eat.” I open the sack from another favorite breakfast and turn the container to show her biscuits and gravy. “These are the best hangover food you’ll ever eat but are even better when you’re not fighting to toss your cookies.”
“Noted.” Hadley sits up a little taller in her seat, the whisper of a smile gracing her features. It’s distracting as all hell.
“And, the best breakfast sandwich you’ll ever eat.” I place the wrapped bagel sandwich in front of her. “The guy who makes these is from New York and he makes the bagels fresh every morning.”
“You take your food really seriously,” she says.
“I grew up outside of Chicago where food is practically a religion.”
Hadley grins, but her eyes remain suspicious.
“You don’t trust me?”
Her answer is a smirk. “I can’t imagine why…”
I pull out the matching items from the second bag, place them in the pile with the initial ones, and mix them like a street magician.
Her lips purse and I again forget to see her as Katie’s friend, taking in the fullness of her lips, the way her eyes flicker with amusement, the shallow marks at the corners of her lips as she fights a smile. “How do I know you wouldn’t poison both?”
“I have a game tonight. There’s no way in hell I can spend the day puking. Want me to take a bit from all of them?”
Hadley drags her teeth along her bottom lip, and I study that, too. “That’s a little too much sharing.”
A dozen innuendos fill my thoughts, considering all the things we could share—should share. But I swallow that and my lust down. It’s been seven months since I’ve slept with a girl, and suddenly that feels like an eternity as I strive to keep my gaze from straying from hers. “Is it?”
Those glacier-colored eyes lower. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“Does that mean you’re not mad?”
“I wasn’t mad before.”
I sit in the seat beside her, though I should pack my own food up and head for the facility –nine miles away from her watchful eyes and rounded lips that have me ready to risk living here for a mere week in exchange for testing the bounds of this attraction that has my pants growing tight.
“Try one,” I urge, reaching for a breakfast sandwich.
She gives me one more cursory glance, then closes her laptop and pushes it away from her. She reaches for the pancakes.
“You like sweet foods for breakfast?”