“It’s dinner time,” Joe said. “I’ve called you five times.”
“Have you?”
Joe stared at me like I was a mutant. Rhys elbowed him. “Leave the boy alone.”
Boy. Still.Always. I rolled my eyes and wheeled off towards the house on my own. There was no one in the kitchen, but on the stove was a huge pan of sausage casserole. I brought it to the table and fetched stacks of bowls from the cupboards.
Harry and Joe wandered in a few minutes later.
“There’s nine of us,” Harry said.
“No Angelo?”
“Not today.”
Frowning, I dumped cutlery on the table and dropped into the nearest chair. It had been weeks since I’d last seen Angelo. I knew his condition sometimes knocked him out for days at a time, but this was fucking ridiculous.
Joe ruffled my hair. Annoyed, I ducked out of his reach just as Rhys and Cole came inside.
Cole seemed as irritated as I felt, but I couldn’t tell if it was genuine or just the way his handsome face fell. To cheer myself up, I let my gaze run over him while he wasn’t looking my way. His hair was, as usual, tied back in a messy bun, and he was wearing his standard outfit of a white tee with the sleeves folded back and loose trousers with colourful patterns. I chanced a glance at his feet and instantly resented the flip flops obscuring my view until Joe kicked me under the table.
“What?”
Amusement danced in Joe’s dark eyes, but he said nothing, which irked me even more. Joe wasn’t a bloke who held back, ever. Healwayssaid what was on his mind whether it was the right time to say it or not.
I turned away from him, leaving me face to face with Cole. They were evenly matched in the hot-dude stakes, but despite days of sweating every time he was nearby, Cole seemed the safer option.
Still wearing his troubled frown, he took the seat next to me. His proximity made my heart skip a beat, but I ignored it and stood to start serving the food as Harry brought a giant bowl of greens to the table.
A collective groan went around the room.
“Shut it,” Harry said. “You’ll thank me when you’re older.”
Rhys snorted but helped himself to whatever devil’s vegetable Harry had steamed in the weird contraption he kept on the kitchen counter. Joe followed suit, and I glared at him.Traitor.Gone were the days when I could rely on him to have my back on this shit.
Still scowling, I passed bowls of casserole around. Cole first, and by the time I served myself, a pile of green had appeared in my bowl. Harry was distracted pulling hay from Joe’s hair, and Rhys was the king of minding his own business. Which left...
I raised an eyebrow at Cole.
He shrugged. “They’re good for you.”
What do you care?But I couldn’t say it. Didn’t trust myself to speak without giving away the fact that he was making me sweat again just by meeting my gaze for a split second.
I sat down and started to eat, skirting around what I was now fairly sure was a gigantic heap of cabbage. Conversation was a low hum and I stayed out of it without bothering to eavesdrop. I knew everything I needed to know about farm business already.
Cole didn’t speak either. It made me ponder why he’d decided to venture into the house for dinner when he’d spent every night since he’d arrived by himself—to my knowledge, at least. I also had to wonder what he’d been eating up until now, because I knew full well his fridge was still empty. His cupboards bare. Cole Maguire was a man who lived a frugal life. I liked that—material shit meant nothing to me—but at the same time, Cole’s lack of self-care unnerved me. He seemed to have forgotten about himself.
Psychic now, are you?
As if. Cole was impossible to read, and I had a feeling that had nothing to do with the fact that I’d known him all of three days.
He reached across me as the thought completed and scooped half my cabbage onto his plate. I took the compromise and ate the rest, mixing it into the casserole to mask the bitter taste, all the while musing that my life would’ve been a helluva lot easier if I’d liked only girls. Or, if Cole’s eyes had been the same colour as the cabbage instead of the bewitching green that coloured my vision even when I wasn’t looking at him.
I need to get out of here.
I took my empty bowl to the sink. Rinsed it and dumped it in the dishwasher I’d installed for Joe’s birthday. As luck would have it—or not—Cole did the same. “Are you going home?”
He grinned a little. “Where else would I go?”