Page 17 of Make Me Yours
I stopped in front of our house to stretch. “Hey there,” I called as he jogged the last few paces toward me.
“Hey, Easy E.” He smiled.
I couldn’t help but chuckle at the ridiculous nickname that seemed to have stuck. Yes, because being named after an old-school rapper was so endearing.
Cohen’s smile alone worked to ease some of the tension of my conflicting emotions over the last few days.
He stopped beside me, breathing hard, and Bob dropped to the sidewalk, his tongue lolling from his mouth. “Where have you been? You haven’t been over.”
I looked down at my tennis shoes. “Sorry. I’ve been busy.”
He tipped my chin up to meet his eyes. “You were weirded out by what I told you.”
It wasn’t a question, and I didn’t respond. I just held his blue gaze, searching for what, I didn’t know.
He chuckled. “Don’t get weird on me. I’m still the same guy. Sure, I’ve probably held myself to stricter standards than some, but don’t treat me different now that you know.”
“I’m sorry,” I blurted without thinking, realizing that my apology had just proven he was right—I had been treating him differently.
“Bob and I have missed you.” He reached down and ruffled the dog behind his ear.
“Do you want to grab some breakfast or something?” I offered.
He smiled at me again, but shook his head. “No, I take my mom and little sister to church Sunday mornings. You’re welcome to join us.”
“Church? Me?”Um, no thanks.
“Come on, it’s probably not as bad as what you’re thinking. Come with me, and we’ll get breakfast together after—just the two of us.”
I have no idea what possessed me to say yes, but somehow I found myself nodding. I don’t know if it was to make up for my obvious dismissal of him after he admitted his deepest secrets, or just because he was impossible to say no to, gazing down at me with those beautiful blue eyes, telling me he’d missed me, but whatever the reason, I found myself showered and dressed and back on my porch to meet him thirty minutes later. Lord, help me.
Cohen strolled down the stairs, dressed in pressed khakis and a button-down shirt. He looked handsome, and even younger somehow. Even his normally messy hair was fashioned into place with some type of styling product. It was hard to take my eyes off him walking towards me, which was why it took me a second to notice that Bob was with him.
“Does Bob go everywhere with you?”
He rolled his eyes. “My sister Grace got this dog for me when she found out that our fire station dog was killed. Bob was her birthday present to me. But she’s really attached to him too, so I bring him to my mom’s house whenever I go home.”
“Gotcha.”
We walked to the curb where an antique-looking blue Jeep was parked.
He secured Bob in the back and then came around the side to open my door and help me inside.
He surveyed my most modest knee-length black skirt and burgundy top. “You clean up nice.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, climbing into the Jeep.
His mom lived on the south side of Chicago, about a twenty-minute drive, and we kept up an easy conversation on the way.
“How old is your little sister?”
“She’s eight. My mom had this boyfriend—a real dirt bag. He stuck around until she was eight months pregnant and then took off.”
He strummed his thumb against the steering wheel, as if lost in thought. “She was such a wreck that the baby came early. I was fifteen and began working full time to help take care of her, and help out with a newborn. I don’t even remember most of my freshman year of high school.”
No wonder he’d chosen to remain celibate. If that wasn’t a solid birth control method, I didn’t know what was. “So you’ve been working since then?”
“Yeah. And when I was eighteen, I enrolled in an EMT and firefighters course so I’d always have something to fall back on.”
