Page 44 of Mayhem

Cooking for two? For a date? That’s a different story. My go-to dish is lasagna. It’s basically foolproof if you get the right ingredients, and the leftovers are often better than the original meal. The problem is that I don’t know how to make a small lasagna for two, so I end up making an entire deep dish pan of it and will most likely be eating lasagna for the rest of the foreseeable future.

I’m also not the neatest cook. Some people clean as they go – I am not them. By the time the lasagna goes into the oven, my kitchen looks like a disaster area of dishes, utensils, cheese containers, and tomato sauce. Glancing around, and then down at myself, I find that I’m also covered in tomato sauce.

Fuck.

I tried to be so neat, and even had one of my grandmother’s old aprons on, but the sauce found a way to aim around it and hit my carefully selected outfit. There’s even some in my hair. How did that even get there?

Swearing to myself under my breath, I hurry to clean everything up. The kitchen, the dishes, myself. The entire time I’m praying and wishing for Brad to take his time. In my head, I’ve still got at least fifteen minutes.

Don’t be early. Please don’t be early.

The doorbell rings.

Shit. Fuck balls. Criminy on a cracker.

Of course, he’s early.

I rip the apron off, and ball it up, throwing it into a drawer I’ll forget about later. Running down the hall to my bedroom, I nearly bang into the wall as I pull my shirt over my head blindly. I hurry to find another blouse, and button it up quickly, making sure it matches my skirt. Taking a quick glance in the mirror by the door, I do my best to pull myself together, my heart racing a mile a minute.

I don’t even look through the peephole, and swing the door open, my breath labored from running around, but all I see are flowers. Bouquet upon bouquet of flowers. Is this a delivery or something?

“What the?—?”

Brad peeks through between the bouquets, a sheepish grin on his face.

“I wasn’t sure what kind of flowers you liked…so I got some of each…”

My hand is on my chest as if it can keep the racing to a minimum, but it’s not working. I can’t believe he bought out a damned florist shop for me.

For me.

After the past week, I thought we might still be awkward alone, but this – this douses all those thoughts. He really has forgiven my mistake, and fucking hell, he’s hitting this date out of the park at the first bat.

“Brad…you shouldn’t have…” I say as I start taking the flowers from him.

“Actually, I can’t take all the credit,” he says, following me into my now spotless kitchen that smells amazing. “It was mostly Charlie’s idea.”

“To buy every flower in LA?” I search for vases in my cupboards. I think I have one or two… I know I don’t have enough for all of these.

“Well, to bring you flowers. Once I got to the florist, and they asked what kind, I kind of went a little crazy.” His cheeks flush red at the admission, and holy shit, I don’t know if I can make it through dinner without throwing myself at him.

“A little? There’s a contender for Understatement of the Year.” I can’t help but laugh as I start trying to cram every flower into some sort of arrangement in the three vases I was able to find. “I don’t have enough vases for all of these…”

“Let me see,” he says, rummaging through the cabinets and pulling out tall glasses and travel water bottles while grinning. “Improvisation at its finest.”

We work side by side in a comfortable silence, cutting stems, pulling off extra leaves, sorting the flowers into various containers. The fragrance of the flowers mixed with the aroma of spicy Italian food is heady, but delightful. There’s a charge bouncing between us as we work. An undercurrent that accentuates our closeness in the small footprint of my kitchen.

“Ouch,” I hiss, as my thumb catches on a rose’s thorn, a small bead of blood rising on the skin.

I instinctively bring it to my mouth to suck on, but Brad reaches over and grabs my wrist, pulling me close. He catches and holds my gaze as he licks the blood from my finger. Heat shoots through me as I watch, the sting of the cut instantly gone, and other sensations jumping to the surface.

“Better?” he asks, still locking eyes with me as he turns my hand, exposing my palm, and proceeds to trace a trail of kisses across my wrist, my pounding pulse nearly evident on the thin skin where his lips brush. His soft beard almost tickles as it touches.

“Much,” I breathe, forgetting all about the thorn, and concentrating instead on his lips on my body. I want them all over me.

Now.

I break free of his hold and grab his shirt in a fist to pull him to me. His eyebrows raise briefly in surprise, but then his lips start to curve into a smile. I don’t let that smile finish as I take his mouth with mine, pouring my need into him with a kiss that could set this apartment on fire.

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