Page 39 of Flagrant Foul
I find a fruit bowl in one of the kitchen cabinets and carefully arrange as many apples as possible in it. I find that if I stack them on top of each other in a conical shape, I’m able to put almost two full bags of apples into the bowl. I stash the third bag in the back of the fruit drawer in the fridge.
I peel a mountain of potatoes and, after reading through several recipes, decide to mash them. Seems simple enough—just boil the potatoes in a big pot ofwater and whack the crap out of them with a whacker thing when they’re cooked. I can do that.
I fry up some bacon, slice up a few apples, and place them neatly onto two dinner plates.
By the time Teddy gets home, I’ve lost control of the mashed potatoes. Think I might have overwhacked them. They’re smooth to the point of liquidity but also kind of sticky and a lot more gloopy than mashed potatoes I’ve been served in the past.
“What are you making?” he asks, eyes dancing as he walks over to me. “Chicken parm?”
“Nah. I should’ve stuck with chicken parm though,” I admit. “Decided to try mashed potatoes, and I’m not sure I got it right.”
He lifts the lid and peers into the pot and mutters, “Jeez, that’s a lot of mashed potatoes.”
“Practice was long. I was worried you’d be hungry.”
He smiles at me like it’s the first time he’s ever seen me. Like I’m the best thing on the planet. The best thing in existence. “Thanks, Sev. I am hungry, and I love mashed potatoes. And apples. And bacon.”
I know it probably shouldn’t mean so much to me. I’m pretty sure it’s part of his whole seduction routine, being all nice to me and whatever, but damn. Seeing him happy and thinking I made him that way is someheady bullshit. “They started out okay, but they’ve gone all gluey now.”
“Maybe they need a little more milk. It always takes more than you think.”
I add a healthy glug of milk, a pinch of salt, and taste them. The improvement is notable.
Teddy is still standing next to me. Really close. He grabs a spoon, scoops up some mashed potatoes, and blows on them before putting the bite into his mouth. He hums his approval. It’s a soft, low-pitched sound I feel in the tips of my fingers.
When he’s swallowed, he looks down, chin dipping to his chest, as a shy smile creeps up his cheeks and makes a work of art of his face.
“You look nice tonight.” The way he says it is bashful and sweet. It’s such a simple compliment, but the sincerity behind it floors me. Takes my knees out completely. “I love it when you wear cut-off T-shirts. I always have. I have a thing for it, I guess. I never told you this before, but this arm”—he reaches up and wraps his hand around the meat of my upper arm—“this bicep, the left one…seeing it roll up and down your arm…it was kind of my sexual awakening.”
That floors me more.
I try not to, I swear to God, I try not to, but despite my best effort, I find myself flexing my bicep.
It makes Teddy huff softly.
He lets go of my arm, but his eyes don’t move. They’re still on my bicep, looking down, and oh man, he’s so pretty when he looks down. All lashes and chiseled cheekbones and angelic features.
He leans down, making me freeze, and for the briefest of moments, rubs his face lightly against my arm.
Nose, lips, cheeks. Soft, smooth cheeks.
His smile has changed by the time he looks up at me. It’s still sweet, but Jesus, it’s laced with some kind of hot sex now too.
I suck in a hard, involuntary breath, and as I do it, he presses his lips lightly against my arm.
It’s nothing more than a dusting of flesh. A ghost. A whisper that pours pure arousal directly into my bloodstream.
I don’t taste my meal. Not the potatoes, not the apples, not even the bacon. I don’t even taste Teddy, though the air is thick and heavy with his presence. I don’t taste him. I feel him. His lips on my skin.
It was the lightest kiss you could ever imagine. So light and innocent that it almost didn’t happen.
I feel it though. Jesus, I feel it. Even now, almost an hour later, I feel it so strongly that I go to the bathroom, twist myself around, and look in the vanity mirror, searching to see if he did something strange to me to make me feel this way. To see if he left a mark on me or something.
Obviously, there’s nothing there. My arm looks the same as it always does.
I go back to the living room and sit on my side of the couch.
Teddy watches TV.
