Page 18 of Booked on a Feeling

“Noon should be fine.” His voice sounded oddly husky to him.

He watched her car disappear from view, then sprinted off into a run. He’d hardly broken a sweat while jogging/strolling with Lizzy, and he needed to get in a workout to burn off some of his restless energy. If he didn’t want to act weird around her, he had to forget the look in her eyes as they rested on his bare abs. Hadn’t he decided he’d imagined it all? The goal was to get over her, not dream up heated, lingering looks from her.

He was soaked through with sweat when he let himself inside the house. Grabbing some clean clothes from his room,he headed to the bathroom for a shower. Not a cold shower. Because he didn’t need one. Just a regular-temperature shower to clean himself off like a civilized human being.

Washed up and determinedly normal, Jack walked into the kitchen to see his mom chopping vegetables with fierce efficiency.

“You’re already cooking lunch?” He reached from behind her and snagged a chunk of carrot off the cutting board. “It’s not even nine.”

“Galbi jjim takes a long time to make properly.” She walked over to the sink to check on the beef short ribs soaking in cold water. “But it’s Lizzy’s favorite, so I got an early start.”

“Ooh, galbi jjim. We should have her over more often. You haven’t made that for us since New Year’s Day.”

“Like I said, it’s a lot of work, so I only make it for special occasions.” When he reached for one of the peeled raw chestnuts, his mom slapped his hand away. “That took your dad forever to peel, and we barely have enough for the galbi jjim.”

“Can I help with anything?” He knew what her answer was going to be, but he still had to ask. He couldn’t leave his mom to cook all by herself. She already worked too hard in the kitchen at the brewery.

“Just stop eating all the ingredients,” she said as she turned the round disks of sliced carrots into little flowers. It actually looked pretty simple. She cut small wedges out of the disk until five petals formed.

“I can do that for you.” The skepticism in her narrowed gaze stung a bit. “I know I can’t be trusted with actual cooking, but I’m good with woodworking. And that looks an awful lot like whittling.”

She nodded with pursed lips as she considered his words, then pushed the bowl of carrots to him. “I could use the help.”

With a smile, he grabbed a paring knife and got to work. Thefirst couple of carrots looked more like ragged weeds than flowers, but he gradually improved until he was making carrot flowers as pretty as his mom had made them. She obviously approved of his work, because she slid a bowl of Korean radish across the counter to him. She’d cut them into perfect one-inch cubes earlier.

“Trim off all the sharp edges from the mu,” she instructed.

“So they’re more approachable?” He grinned, happy to be entrusted with more cooking tasks than he’d ever been allowed before.

His mom tsked at his admittedly goofy joke and poured out the short ribs she’d parboiled into a colander. After rinsing the pot and the short ribs, she added the ribs back into the pot. He watched carefully as his mom added the ingredients for the sauce into a mixing bowl.

Maybe he could sneak his way into the kitchen at the brewery. He could always use the extra work. His smile waned and faded away. How long could he last like this? Scrounging for work to feel useful? He thought longingly of the job in Los Angeles. What was taking them so long?

“You’ve never been this interested in my cooking before.” Her gaze turned sly. “Does it have anything to do with this being Lizzy’s favorite food?”

“I’ve always been interested. It’s just that you usually shoo me away because you’re afraid I’ll burn the kitchen down or something.” He absolutely hadn’t been daydreaming about making dinner for Lizzy while he waited for her to come home after a long day at work.

“If you say so,” his mom said breezily.

He didn’t trust her tone at all. What was she implying? She couldn’t possibly know about his decades-long crush on Lizzy. Could she? The kitchen suddenly felt very warm. Not wantingto meet her gaze, Jack focused on turning the white cubes of mu into smooth, bite-size nuggets.

“All done.” He thrust the bowl of stylized radish to her. “I have some work to catch up on.”

“You’ve taken care of the most fiddly, time-consuming stuff for me. It makes the rest of my work a lot easier.”

“Glad to help.” He pecked his mom on the cheek and escaped to his room.

Contrary to his assertion (a.k.a. his bullshit excuse to get the hell out of the kitchen to avoid his mom’s probing gaze), he didn’t have any work to catch up on or otherwise. As he stood in the middle of his room with his hands in his pockets, he couldn’t remember for the life of him what he usually did to keep himself busy. He couldn’t remember what it felt like to have real purpose.

To avoid facing how hopelessly lost he was, he sat down at his desk and woke his computer. Maybe they finally got back to him with the interview results. Alas, his in-box was glaringly devoid of new email. Not even a promotional email from his favorite shave club.

He dropped his head into his hands. This was precisely why Option Two was the only way to go. How could someone as driven and successful as Lizzy want someone who had no idea what to do with his life?

Before he could despair further, a notification alertbing-bonged from his computer. His stomach dropped to his feet. Maybe it was the email that was meant to change his life. He slowly lifted his gaze to the computer screen, and like sunlight piercing through a cloudy sky, a smile lit across his face.

CHAPTER FIVE

Lizzy stared in awe at the feast of Korean food laid out before her. “This is too much, Ajumma.”

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