Page 14 of Crossing Lines

“Oh?” she asks, taking a bite of her cereal, staring at me the entire time, still daring me to do…something? “And what does it mean?”

All I can think about is everything she’s not saying with words. About what kind of dare she is presenting me. And in a moment of pure fucking insanity, I grab her hand when she scoops up her next spoonful and guide it into my own mouth. The second our hands touch, my pulse quickens, and I swear the air around us crackles with energy. It’s just a simple touch, but it sends shockwaves through my body, awakening something deep inside me that I didn’t even know was sleeping. But I quickly brush it aside—this doesn’t mean anything. My mind is just playing a trick on me, fueled by the loneliness that creeps in when the night gets too quiet.

“Hey,” she protests. “That bite was mine.”

“Nope, it was mine, in payment for the coffee.” I choke down the dry, horrible-tasting cereal with a straight face.

Outrage flashes across her features, but I take the spoon from her, dip it into my marshmallow cereal, and feed her a bite, careful not to touch her again. She parts her lips and closes them slowly around the spoon. She keeps her gaze on me the entire time and it’s the sexiest fucking thing in the world.

Her eyes flutter closed as she eats, clearlyenjoying it.

“Why don’t you buy this kind,” I say, “if you like it so much?”

“Because the other one was on sale.”

That’s it? That’s the reason? She’s eating something that’s not her favorite just because it was on sale? That’s unacceptable.

“I don’t like this kind.” I give her the box of my marshmallow cereal. “You can have it.”

“If you don’t like it, why didyoubuy it?”

“I had never tried it before.”

She looks at me skeptically and I lie, “We have local brands in Türkiye, and I’m still trying to find one I like here.”

My phone buzzes, an unwelcome reminder that I need to leave. “I need to go.”

“No one is stopping you,” she says. “Don’t get into too much trouble today.”

I arch an eyebrow. “I think I should be saying that to you.”

“Me?” She gasps dramatically. “Trouble? You’ve got the wrong woman.”

“You sure about that?” I leave before she can respond and I’m tempted to smile again all the way to work, just like I have been the past two days.

When I get home at nine, I find Nina on the floor in the living room, eating cerealyet again.

“Do you eat anything besides cereal?” I ask curiously, wondering what she’s doing here at this hour. I don’t even know what she even does during the day. My best guess is sleeping and lazing around since that’s what Zeki would do and he’s closer to her age.

“Why? Do you plan on eating it all?”

“Maybe.” I sit on the floor next to her, my back against the wall, copying her position. I need a few minutes of interacting with someone unrelated to work. Just a few minutes of distraction, before I tackle the mountain of work I need to complete before tomorrow morning. “My bite this morning was the best thing I had today.”

She rolls her eyes. “Your private chef on holiday or something? Having to slum it with takeout?”

“I don’t have a chef.”

“Why not?” She glances at me.

“I don’t like people in my space. I only use one on special occasions.”

“Okay? So then what did you eat for lunch that was so horrible?”

“Nothing. There’s never any time to eat during the day.” Even though I have a lunch break blocked off, I never use it to actually eat. My meetings either run over, or I need the time to prepare for the rest of the day.

Nina frowns and then gets up and pours me a bowl of cereal, the cinnamon sugar kind I despise with almost no milk. She shoves it into my hands without touching me, as if to tell me that this isn’t going to be a regularoccurrence, and plops back down on the floor next to me.

“Thank you,” I say. It doesn’t matter that this cereal is disgusting and that I prefer more milk. This small gesture means something to me, more than she knows.

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