Page 88 of Can't Kiss the Chef

“You almost gave me a heart attack.”

I smile when Mia comes trotting in behind him.

The house has been quiet today since Margo and Indy have already left for tomorrow’s away game.

“Sorry, I’ve just missed you,” he tells me as he settles on the couch next to me.

There goes my quiet night reading by myself. He pulls me into his lap and I trace the tattoos on his left arm.

“What’s this?” His pointer finger and thumb pinch around the light. He pulls it out of my hands. I’m distraught as I watch my well-loved book dangle two feet above the couch.

I snag my book and make sure it’s secured safely in my lap before turning to Byron.

“That is a book light I use because the lighting in these apartments sucks.”

Byron gently picks the book off my lap and places it on the coffee table.

“You know what we don’t need good lighting for?”

The way his sinful blue eyes rake down my body tells me that my attempts to read are done for the night. His athletic frame eats up the space between us as he lightly pushes my shoulder back. My head lands against the arm of the couch, my body sprawled beneath Byron’s.

The first kiss is a light off centered peck. Byron’s lips tilt into a smirk as he pulls away from me.

“If you’re going to distract me from my book, you better make it worth my while,” I say as a reminder. Knowing Byron is aware of how much I hate a half-hearted kiss.

“Be careful what you ask for Pipsqueak.”

He tucks a stray hair from my attempt at a top knot back into the black scrunchie. The gentle gesture doesn’t match the heat in his eyes.

He knows exactly what I’m asking for and now I’m desperate for it. He kisses me again and this time I reward him by kissing him back. As he lifts his body off mine and fits a hand between the couch and my body getting ready to flip our positions. I notice Mia making a mad dash for us out of the corner of my eye.

“Byron,” I yell as he is about to lower his body to mine and push his shoulders back. As Byron is falling to our carpeted den floor, Mia lands safely on my belly.

“Oh my gosh, Byron are you okay?” I say through a grimace. I honestly didn’t know I had that kind of strength in me.

Byron pushes himself off the ground and rotates his shoulders a few times. When he swings his arms in front ofhimself then crosses them, Mia jumps out of my lap and scurries off to the spare dog bed Byron left here at the beginning of the week for the nights he spends at my house.

Byron gently lays his head in my lap. I brush his shaggy blonde hair away from his forehead as we sit in comfortable silence.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” I hesitate trying to find the right words.

“I was wondering if you wanted me to see if my dad could set up an appointment for your dad. Getting a second opinion is never a bad idea.”

He freezes in my lap. We haven’t talked about his dad since we got back to school. I was waiting for Byron to initiate some kind of conversation, but with the possibility of his parents coming up this weekend he’s given me no other choice.

“Are you sure?” he asks me with his eyes glued to the ceiling.

“I’d do anything for you, By. I hope you know that.”

He sits up and rotates until he is facing me.

“Is it bad that there is a small part of me that says fuck him. He doesn’t deserve my help after he abandoned me and my mom for so long.”

Pain flickers in his deep blue eyes. I can see the hurt kid who just wanted a father who stayed.

“No, I think you have every right to feel that way, but do you want to know what I think?”

He nods.

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