“I have my next two weeks mapped out in my planner.”
He raised a brow. “You have a planner?”
“Yes, I have two. One for life and one for school.”
He continued to stare.
“My brain gets jumbled sometimes,” I admitted, picking at the polish on my thumbnail. “Writing everything out helps quiet the noise.”
“I get that,” he muttered, and his phone rang. “That’ll be Ash.” He jerked his chin toward the kitchen. “The soup is warming up on the stove.”
As I walked into the kitchen, I heard Hayes talking about the security system in a low tone. I got out two bowls and served us each a healthy portion of soup, the herbs and spices filling my nose. My stomach growled.
“Yeah, she has four exit points,” Hayes said from the living room. “No, I can have it installed within the next two hours. Just have Jake call me then. Dominic get anything?”
Clearing my throat, I reached up, grabbing two plates, putting a bowl on each. Out of habit, I began to hum, moving across the space to my silverware drawer to grab what I needed. I closed it with my hip, turned around and jumped. Hayes was leaning against the wall, phone gone, arms crossed, eyes on me. “You feeling okay?” he asked.
I handed his soup to him. “Do you want the truth, or will a lie make you feel better?” I asked.
“From you? I’ll always want the truth, even if it kills me.”
Pressing my lips together, I gave him a sharp nod. “Right.”
He set his food on the table, pulling out a chair and taking a seat. “You don’t have to sit at the table, Superman.”
“I want to.” He pushed out the chair across from him with his boot. “Come eat your lunch. You’ll need the energy for work.”
He finished his soup and bread before I was halfway done, leaned back in the chair, and watched me in silence. I set the spoon down and straightened my spine. “I hate when you do that.”
“Do what?”
“Stare at me like I’m some science experiment.”
“Is that what you think I do?”
“I don’t know, but you make me feel like that. You have this intense look…honestly, Mr. Perfect. It scares the shit out of me sometimes.”
He blinked, his brow pinching. “The last thing I ever want to do is scare you. I apologize for making you feel that way. It wasn’t my intention.” He paused for a moment, looking at the scratches on my table. “You’re just so goddamn beautiful that sometimes I wonder if you’re even real.”
Before I could get the words off my tongue, he rose from his seat, washed off his dishes at the sink, and told me he needed to get my security system installed.
Chapter Eighteen
Margo
“No. For the last time, I will not change the channel to the Home Improvement network,” I drawled, pouring three shots of whiskey for the customer at the end of the bar.
Richard, a local and frequent visitor of this watering hole, was seated at the bar in front of me. He was a retired fisherman, his skin tan and weathered from the countless days and nights out on the water. He had an abundance of smile lines at the corners of his eyes, laugh lines around his mouth. So much evidence of a life well lived, and yet, he was here, night after night, because he hated being alone.
“Come on, Margo. Dannie let me watch it last night,” he argued, his voice rough and weak, a result of yelling at his crew for decades on the sea.
Dannie was the third bartender Joey had in rotation. She usually worked the lunch shift but had been slowly trying to shift to nights because the money was better.
“If you want to watch that shit, go to Margie’s and have yourself a nice slice of pie. I’m sure she’ll turn it on for you,” I said, shooting him a wink.
Richard had a little crush on Margie, the owner of the best restaurant in town. “Marg doesn’t serve beer.”
“Then go home and watch it,” I told him, shoving the shots down the bar. “There’s a huge game coming on in five minutes, and I’m not in the mood to have Joey barking up my ass for pissing off the entire town.”