Page 48 of Sugar Baby Mine

“Since I wouldn’t actually count watching trashy reality TV as a hobby, reading is just about the only thing I’ll spend my time on consistently. There are times my ADHD won’t let me, but when I get into hyperfixation mode, I can finish multiple books back to back without breaks, or hell, even sleep.”

“Do you have a lot of books, then?”

“I have a Kindle Unlimited subscription, which feeds my addiction nicely.”

He laughs. “You’re going to call me old again, but I have to be holding a book and physically turning the pages.”

“I don’t begrudge you on that one, actually. I like to purchase physical copies of the books that I really love.” I take the spatula he offers me, flipping the chicken in the skillet as directed while he drops a handful of angel hair pasta into the boiling pot of water next to me.

“Another question,” Ben starts. “If you could have dinner with any three people, dead or alive, who would you choose?”

Oh fuck, that’s a thinking question right there. I chew on my cheek as I tilt my head to stare up at the ceiling.

“Vincent Van Gogh, Audrey Hepburn, and Anne Frank.”

“Interesting,” he muses. “No one currently living?”

“That would defeat the purpose, in my opinion. I could still have dinner with Taylor Swift tomorrow—never let your dreams go until they’re actually dead and buried. Now you,” I prompt.

“Stephen King, Frank Lloyd Wright—the father of modernarchitecture—and my dad.”

My eyebrows raise, and I can put two and two together—I’m smart. Sometimes.

“When did your dad pass?”

He blows out a sigh, raking a hand through his hair. “When I was twenty-five.”

The only thing I can think about is that I’m not even twenty-five yet. Ben’s lived the equivalent of my entire life without his father. He sounds remorseful; the way my heart hurts when I think of my own parents is for another time.

“Okay, so you picked three dead people, too, then.”

Ben cracks a smile, swirling the cooking pasta in the water and setting a colander in the sink for when it’s finished.

“Stephen King is still alive.”

“Might as well be dead, he’s creeping up on eighty.”

“You’re so cynical. What’s something you’d like to do beforeyoudie?”

“Mmm.” I press my lips together, tilting my head before my gaze flicks over to him. Shifting my attention back to the chicken, I flip the heat off now that it’s a golden brown. “You mean like something on my bucket list?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

It’s something I haven’t thought a ton about, but there are definitely things I want to do before I can’t anymore.

“I prefer an experience over something material, like a visceral memory as opposed to a shopping spree in Paris—though honestly that would be fire, too—but I really want to see an aurora borealis.”

He’s silent for a moment. Maybe I’m crazy. Is that crazy? I don’t know.

I chew on my lip, ignoring the fact that I’m wearing lipstick, in order to stop myself from blurting out anything else—like thinking I could actually walk the entirety of the Great Wallof China. I’m not even sure I could walk a marathon without keeling over.

“The Northern Lights, huh?”

“Yep.”

Ben scoops a half-cup of peanut butter into the mixing bowl and flips the switch to the mixer on. He rests his hands on the edge of the counter before turning to watch where I’ve moved away from the stove to play in the whipped cream with a spoon.

“I think that’s great. Something I hadn’t considered at all, to be honest. But that sounds like it would be something magical to witness.”

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