Page 17 of Rayna's Daddy

She didn’t speak. She sat the tray on the table, stepped back against the wall, and tapped away on the iPad.

“We’re going to get to work on what we talked about and let Rayna eat.” Josh headed toward the door. Patrick followed.

Chandler wiped his mouth on a napkin, sat his plate on the island sink and followed Josh.

“See you later, Rayna.” He smiled and waved.

“Nice meeting you.” I waved back.

Only Eddie and the woman on the wall remained.

“Are you okay with me having Eddie look at the phone?” Kyler drew my attention.

“Oh, yeah, sure.” He stood and held his hand out. I placed my hand in his. He gave my hand a reassuring squeeze, pulling me up. He guided me toward the table and pulled out the chair.

He handed the phone off to Eddie who, without removing his headphones, plugged my phone into his computer and typed away. His fingers moving with lightning speed.

Kyler came back to the table and picked up each item off the tray and arranged it in front of me. When he removed the lid from the bowl of soup; the steam hit me in the face.

I inhaled. It smelled amazing.

It had actual pieces of chicken. Not just chicken flavoring. And the noodles were a little thicker than the packets I used, and the broth smelled heavenly.

He sat a fork and chopsticks on a napkin next to the bowl. A glass of ice water came next. When it was all situated to his liking, he sat down next to me.

Is he going to feed me, too?

I picked up the chopsticks before he offered.

“This looks amazing.” I stirred the noodles. “Better than the packets I get from the dollar store.” I giggled and cringed.

I gathered a heap of noodles on the end of the chopsticks and brought it halfway to my mouth and stopped. Was he going to watch me eat? I sat the chopsticks down and put my napkin in my lap.

“Would you like some?” I asked.

“No.” He smirked. “Thank you.”

His phone range.

I picked up a piece of chicken with my chopsticks and brought it to my mouth.

“Careful sweetheart.” He touched my hand. “It’s hot.”

I nodded. It was hot, his touch was hot, the way he stared at me made me hot. He was hot. Like instead of the fire emoji, my phone should have a picture of him with his arms crossed and glaring in its place.

I blew on the piece of chicken before popping it in my mouth.

“Good girl.” He smiled. I groaned and covered my mouth.

“Good?” He looked at his caller id.

“Oh, my goddess, yes.” Who cared about embarrassment? This was too good to waste. I brought a reasonable number of noodles to my mouth and slurped them down.

“I’ve got to take this.” He held up his phone. “Don’t eat too fast or you’ll make yourself sick.”

“Yes, sir.” I saluted with a chopstick. He stopped and narrowed his eyes at me.

I am such a dork.

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