Page 15 of No More Love Songs

CHAPTER FIVE

SKYLAR

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“I’m going to learnto cook,” I announce as soon as Gray answers the phone.

“Not what I expected to hear, but okay. I’m happy for you.” He sounds busy. Not work busy. Life busy. I can hear Kai talking about his shoestrings in the background.

“What were you expecting to hear?” I’m having a hard time focusing on our conversation while I can hear Kai. I’m pretty sure I just heard him tell someone his shoestrings are named Charlie and Cassandra. “Also, is this a bad time?”

“It’s perfect, actually. We’re just sitting in the parking lot waiting for someone to bring the lunch we ordered for takeout and didn’t cook to our car. Kai is Facetiming your mom, so no one was even talking to me.” Neither Brice nor Grayson likes to cook. They’re perfectly capable. Grayson’s grandmother even owned a restaurant the whole time he was growing up. He blames growing up in that kitchen for having no desire to spend time in one now. Brice has no such excuse, but I don’t suppose he needs one. They’ve had a personal chef in that house Monday through Friday since baby number one and leave the weekends open for takeout adventures.

“You didn’t answer my first question,” I point out when nothing follows his go ahead to keep the call going. “What were you expecting to hear when you answered the phone?”

“My first thought was you were calling to beg me to come get you,” he admits. “But then I had time to think about it while I was trying to get my phone out of my messenger bag sitting in the passenger seat and I decided you weren’t quitting, but you were probably needing a pep talk to convince you you made the right decision. However,” he continues, “by the time I hit answer, I abandoned that theory too.”

“And?” I ask, unzipping my garment bag to start unpacking. “What was your final theory?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?” I guide the hangers from the bag and move toward the armoire. It’s even more stunning up close than it was on first sight. The details, the gold accents, the gorgeous mosaic art placed into the wood, all of it stunning.

“Because I was wrong and until I’m right, I can’t tell you what I thought.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense, Grayson. The moment passed. You were wrong. What makes you think there will be a repeat of this situation?” I place the first set of clothes inside the armoire and move on to my suitcase.

“Just a hunch.” He laughs. “You know I don’t like to admit when I’m wrong. Just let me hold out hope for the moment I can say, ‘ah-ha! I knew it!’ a little longer. If it doesn’t come, I can still tell you what I thought you were calling for and then you can laugh endlessly at how dumb you think I am.”

“Hm, that does sound like something to look forward to,” I tease him. “Fine. I’ll let it go for now.”

“Meanwhile, what are you going to cook?”

I shrug simply for sake of shrugging, then I flip open my suitcase and answer him. “Lunch.”

“So, you have no idea,” he concludes.

“That is what I’m saying, yes.” Then I remember I never told Kit about my dietary needs which might have led to some clue as to what we’ll be cooking. But I have no dietary needs, so there wasn’t much to share there. “Have you had Kit’s cooking?”

“Yes.” It’s disappointing how hard he’s making me work for this chat.

“And?”

“And he’s a pretty spectacular cook. Uses only local, fresh ingredients and makes pretty much everything from scratch. If you thought you signed up to learn how to open a box of mac and cheese and heat it up, I have to warn you, that is definitely not what’s about to go down.”

“I’ve just spent two hours with the man, I could have figured that out for myself.” I look at the contents in my suitcase and remember that in my hurry to get packed, I didn’t bother folding anything. To be completely honest, I just took the laundry basket filled with my most recent load of clean laundry and dumped it in. The garment bag fared better only because I was able to take items already hanging in the closet and transfer them as they were.

“Yeah, how’d that drive go anyway?” Gray sounds curious for someone who knows both me and Kit well enough to know we probably got along just fine.

“I napped for a big chunk of it, so you know, I think it went pretty well.” I pull open the first of two drawers on the armoire and am pleased to find it’s quite spacious. Spacious enough to dump my clothes in by the armful and bother with folding another time. “We had a nice chat while I was awake. I like him. And I like myself when I’m around him. He’s got this thing about him.”

“What kind of thing?”

“Like, you just know you can trust him.” I drop the second load into the drawer and stand up straight again. “I’m right about that, correct? I can trust him?”

“Yes,” Gray says and there’s no question in it. “You can trust Kit.”

I thought so. No. I knew so.

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