Page 27 of Tangled Up In You
“I got your voicemail,” I said, slowly pacing back and forth in my living room. Looking at the time on my phone, I saw it was a little before five that afternoon. “You’re right. We do need to talk. Do you want to grab dinner together?”
“Yeah,” he said, and he sounded surprised. And hopeful. “That’d be great. Where do you wanna go? Anywhere is fine with me.”
I was about to suggest a restaurant in town, but then I changed my mind. If we were going to talk—really talk—I wanted privacy just in case things got heated. It was hard to hash it all out in the middle of a crowded restaurant.
“Come over to my place,” I said, walking down the hall and into the kitchen. My house was on the smaller side and lacked the extravagance he was probably used to. However, I did okay for myself with living off a teacher’s salary.
“You’re going to cook for me?” he asked, and it was hard to miss the smile in his voice.
Damn him.
“Yeah, don’t get a big head about it. It’s just food.” I opened the pantry, flipped on the light, and scanned the shelves. I’d planned on making spaghetti that night anyway, so I’d just make a little extra. “I’ll text you my address.”
We got off the phone and I grabbed the box of dry pasta and sauce from the pantry before placing them on the counter. After grabbing a pot and filling it halfway with water, I put it on the stove and switched on the burner. While the water was heating, I grabbed the cast-iron skillet and put it on the other burner before getting the hamburger meat from the refrigerator.
I was going over each step of the very simple meal in my head just to have a distraction from the fact Corbin was coming over to my house.
Crap, I didn’t even know what I looked like. I’d changed into a pair of comfy lounge pants and an old T-shirt after I’d gotten home from work, somessywas probably the answer. I didn’t expect anything to happen with me and Corbin, so it didn’t matter if I looked like shit.
Right?
Who the hell am I trying to kid?
I totally understood then why people tried to impress their exes. Not in an attempt to get laid—although I wouldn’t mind that too much seeing as it’d been a while since I’d been properly fucked—but more so to make themselves feel better. Empowered. Like an ‘I’m doing great without you’type thing.
That was so far from the truth, buthedidn’t have to know that. My sex life was laughable at best.
I’d had a lot of sex in college, more as an attempt to forget about Corbin and the hole in my chest. There’d been more gay and bi men than I’d thought there’d be, and I took full advantage of that. At one point during those college years, I’d gotten really bad and was having sex with multiple guys a week.
But no one had ever made me feel the way he had.
Once I’d graduated, I started focusing more on finding a job and then keeping it once I had it. Sex then became a rare occurrence. It’d been about eight months since I’d been laid.
Not that I was counting the time or anything.
Corbin got there just as I was draining the grease from the hamburger meat. The noodles needed about three more minutes to cook, and I still had to put the garlic bread in the oven.
“Come in,” I yelled as I heard him knock on the door. “I’m in the kitchen.”
“How’d you know it was me?” he asked after walking in there. “I could’ve been a serial killer.”
“Serial killers don’t knock,” I pointed out. I set the skillet back on the stove before grabbing the tray of bread and sticking it in the oven. “They’d sneak in through a window or pick the lock. Didn’t Criminal Minds teach you anything?”
Corbin leaned on the counter and came into my line of sight. “Need any help?”
God, why did he have to look so good?
He was wearing a red beanie that readCLASSY AS FUCK—typical Corbin humor—and his sharp jawline was free of scruff. His blue-gray eyes were surrounded by long dark lashes, and the smile in the corner of his mouth was familiar. He reminded me so much of the Corbin I used to know.
“Yeah, sure,” I answered, returning his smile. “Can you strain the noodles?”
I told him where the strainer was and he took the pot of noodles over to the sink. Together, we finished making dinner and set the table. When the timer went off, I took the bread from the oven and placed a few pieces on each of our plates. After pouring us a glass of sweet tea, I joined him at the table.
“Thanks for cooking,” he said before looking down at his plate with a thoughtful expression. “It’s been a while since I had a home cooked meal.”
A tingling happened in my chest, and I inwardly cursed the feeling.Now’s not the time to get soft.
“Ah, it’s nothing fancy,” I downplayed it, hoping that’d help me keep my guard up.
