Page 120 of The Girlfriend Zone

It’s the kind of domestic moment I never knew I craved until now—comfortably sitting across from someone, a man who makes me feel like I belong, the smell of breakfast in the air.

“I am, however, a tea sommelier,” I quip, taking another sip.

Miles glances over his shoulder as he slides an omelet onto a plate. “Good,” he says, holding my gaze a beat too long. “You should enjoy everything here.”

There it is again.Here.The word lands, weighted with something unspoken. I spent the night—of course I did. He asked me to, and honestly, I was planning on it anyway. But the question of what comes next looms.

Like, tonight.

I should ask him, but my stomach growls as he sets the plate in front of me, the aroma distracting me, and likely enticing Cindy too much. I scoop her up and set her down in her hot tub, next to her fur siblings.

“So, how did you learn to cook?” I ask again once I return and dig in. The omelet is perfect—savory, fluffy, and impossibly good.

“I taught myself,” he says, coming around the counter with a plate of his own, along with a cup of coffee, and sitting next to me.

It’s nice eating breakfast together. It feels…easy. Like this is something we’ve done a hundred times before instead of something that might not happen again.

“Like, with YouTube and everything?” I tease.

He laughs, shaking his head. “Sweetheart, I started cooking more than twenty years ago. YouTube wasn’t a thing. I learned from the Food Network and books.”

“Books?” I feign shock, clutching my chest dramatically. “You had to learn from books? How old are you?”

Miles shoots me a mock-stern look. “Keep it up, and I’ll put you over my knee.”

“That only makes me want to tease you more,” I reply,grinning as I take another bite. “This is incredible, by the way.”

“I’m glad you like it.” He takes a bite of his, and after he finishes, he says, “I had to learn.”

“Why?”

“My dad was the cook.”

“Oh,” I say, understanding dawning. Miles had mentioned at Birdie’s coffee shop that his dad had left without warning. “And so you took it on then?”

“Yup,” he says, then takes another bite.

That fits him so perfectly. That’s what he does. He takes things on without complaining—responsibilities, people, pets, chores.

“I didn’t want to make things harder on Mom than they already were,” he adds. “I focused on school and helping out with Tyler and Charlie since they were younger. Mom was working full-time and already had enough on her plate. So to speak.”

My smile fades. “School, your siblings, the house, hockey. That’s a lot for a teenager. Did she ask you to step up?”

“No,” he says, his tone a little clipped. “My dad did. Right before he left. He told me I needed to be the man of the house.”

“That’s a lot to put on you.”

He shrugs again, as if shrugging off the memory. “Someone had to do it.”

My chest tightens, a mix of admiration and something deeper—my own hurt over what he went through. I know what it’s like to be left by a parent. But my dad took everything on for Riley and me, his parents helping out. I didn’t have to become an early parent. Miles doesn’t just step up—he sacrifices without hesitation. It’s such a part of whathe does and who he is that he thinks it’s not a big deal. So I push back a little. “Sure, someonehadto do it. Butyoudid it. And it’s a lot. I admire that,” I say, since I want him to know itisa big deal what he did, even if he doesn’t see it that way.

A smile teases at his lips. “Yeah? You do?”

“Of course I do. It’s very you,” I say.

His eyes are soft, a little vulnerable, almost like he’s glad someone noticed. “I guess so.” He heaves a sigh, scratching his jaw. Something’s on his mind. Maybe something he’s not sure he wants to say. But then he soldiers on. “I wanted to ask why he said that to me—to step up. Why he left me with that…weight. That responsibility. At first, I just did it. I stepped up. Cooked, cleaned, studied, helped out. But later, when I graduated from high school, I was a little pissed at him. I really wanted to understandwhy.”

I reach for his hand, urging him to keep going. “I’d have been more than a little pissed.”

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