Page 63 of I Choose You
I threw on a pair of joggers and a T-shirt and found her in the living room. She was lounging on my couch, a blanket draped over her legs. She looked like she belonged there.
“Okay.” I got her attention. “I can make us pasta, or pasta, or um, pasta. What’ll it be?”
Her gaze raked down my body, and she chuckled. “Well, I was feeling pasta, so I guess option two.”
“Solid choice. I’ll get it started.”
“I can help,” she said, moving the blankets off her lap.
“No. I offered to make us dinner on this non-date, Friday night in. You just relax.”
I rummaged through my cabinets for the ingredients. I did have pasta, but only a bit left of a few different varieties. I threw the elbows, spaghetti, and penne together in a saucepan and set it to boil. Apparently, I didn’t have any jars of pasta sauce, but I had milk and butter. I could make a sauce withthat, right? I got to work, keeping an eye on the pasta while I got to work on the sauce.
“Dinner’s ready,” I called to Claire fifteen minutes later.
We each made a plate, and I grabbed us both a water as we settled in at the small dining table I had.
Claire’s lips were pursed together, trying not to laugh at my mismatched noodles. The spaghetti looked a little odd and clumpy, but whatever. We both dug in at the same time. I nearly spit it back out, only barely managing to get it down.
“What the hell is wrong with this?”
“It’s… good,” Claire lied. She committed to it even further, going for another bite. I could see the look of terror on her face as she picked around the spaghetti, going for the elbows and penne instead.
“Don’t you dare put that in your mouth,” I hissed.
What the hell did I do wrong? It was pasta. How could I screw up boiling noodles?
Claire went in for another bite despite my protests. She had to cover her mouth while she ate, probably trying to make sure it didn’t come back out.
“It’s not terrible. It just needs…” She trailed off.
“Flavor?” I asked. The butter sauce was watery and bland. The spaghetti was clumpy, the elbows were chewy, and the penne was crunchy. It was a fucking disaster.
She laughed, lightly at first, before it turned hysterical. Before I knew it, she was hyperventilating in a silent laughing fit.
“This is so bad,” she huffed between her sharp breaths.
I wanted to be mad and disappointed, but watching Claire swipe her tears of laughter away was making that impossible. I chuckled, shaking my head. “You are not eating any moreof this. I think it went to your head,” I told her, cleaning up both of our plates and dumping them in the trash.
Claire collected herself, laughed again for a minute, and recollected herself.
“Are you still hungry? You can order us something with delivery. Use my card.” I pulled my credit card out of my wallet.
“I’m good. Maybe something for dessert though.”
“I was hoping you were going to be dessert.” I turned to her, taking in her lightly dotted freckles across her soft pale skin, her perfect long legs, and my oversized sweatshirt covering up her stunning figure.
“Reid,” she warned. I could see her breathing quicken. She tried to hide a grin, and the playful glint in her eyes told me she didn’t hate me flirting with her.
“What? A guy can hope,” I winked.
I threw out the rest of the dinner and started doing the dishes. Claire worked beside me, drying the dishes and rummaging through my cabinets to figure out where they went.
“So, your boss is a dick.”
She groaned. “I want to defend him, but it’s hard.”
“Because he’s a dick.”
