Page 29 of Sense & Irritability

See? That’s not a sentence.

Iced Avocados Notably. Devour … ?

That one’s even worse.

I’m making dinner on Saturday night—Bolognese on capitelli, with a blue cheese-arugula salad, and a bottle of Cabernet) when I get a text from him.

I have my earbuds in and I’m listening to Taylor Swift, so I get a ding from my phone when the text arrives.

I’m coming down.

Try not to attack me.

Huh. That almost sounds like a joke.

Do cyborgs have a sense of humor?

I suppose it depends on their programming.

The sauce is simmering away on the stove and I’ve been chiffonading the basil. I turn off Taylor and pull out the earbuds just in time to look up and watch him enter the kitchen.

“It’s a good thing I warned you I was coming.” His gaze drops to the chef’s knife in my hands. “That knife would’ve done more damage than the spoon.”

I set the knife down and step away from the cutting board, my lips twitching at his joke.

Despite his dry tone, that was a joke, right?

In the week since I’ve seen him last, I convinced myself that my imagination had run away with me. That he couldn’t possibly be as attractive as I remembered.

Which is funny, because I’ve never really thought of myself as having an active imagination. Not like Trinity. Until now, I’ve always been the practical one. Now I’m the one with fantasies full of serial killers and cyborgs. And men with unruly hair and mesmerizing blue eyes.

Ian isn’t classically handsome. There’s nothing clean-cut about him. No lantern jaw or chiseled cheekbones. Instead, there’s rumpled softness to him. His hair looks like he’s been running his fingers through it all day. His jaw, like he hasn’t shaven in days and did a poor job of it even then. He seems like a man who gives no thought to his looks whatsoever.

But I’m not fooled by his sloppy appearance.

When you work in the food industry long enough, you learn how different bodies carry weight. A tailored jacket or a well-cut T-shirt can hide a multitude of sins.

Ian doesn’t use any of those tricks. From the way his shirt hangs from his shoulders and his pants sit low on his hips, I can make some guesses about Ian’s physique.

Whatever he does when he’s not eating my food, he burns a lot of calories doing it. He has the countenance of an absentminded professor and the body of a triathlete.

However, the illusion of the rumpled, eccentric slacker is ruined when I meet his eyes.

When we met a week ago, he seemed confused, a little befuddled. Today, his gaze is intense and unyielding.

“Did you need something?” I ask, wondering if my egg-based teasing went too far. Maybe I shouldn’t have poked the bear.

When he didn’t comment on the first couple of egg dishes, I just kept pushing.

Except instead of bringing up the meals I’ve been serving, he holds something out to me.

“I found this in the trash last night.”

I barely glance at the slip of paper in his hand. “You go through the trash?”

“No. It was on top.”

Only then do I glance down at what he’s holding. It takes me a second to recognize it as a page torn from my notebook.

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