I was sure that would work fine.
I was less sure about him bringing up my mom.
How would I even tell her I was seeing her ex-husband, the man who’d helped raise me?
“Crappiest Christmas gift she ever got me. Us—whatever,” I muttered. She’d totally bought that tapas set with Cameron in mind. I couldn’t cook to save my life. What the hell was I gonna do with serving bowls? In the meantime, I’d saved up for three months to get her a purse she’d really wanted.
“You’re just mad she favors me.” He smacked a kiss to my cheek before he tried to decide between two mangoes.
“You’re not putting fruit in the food, are you?” I hated that. It was some bullshit.
“Give me some credit, babe,” he huffed. “This is for the dessert.”
Whew.
“Okay, now it’s definitely DEFCON 5!” Cameron yelled from the kitchen. “They’ll be here in ten minutes!”
I inspected my work and adjusted a fork on the table. Since our apartment was tiny, we’d had to move the kitchen table from the kitchenette to the living room so we’d all fit. Otherwise, we kept the table partially folded against the wall when it was just Cameron and me. Not that we ever ate in the kitchen anyway…
“I think you mean DEFCON 1,” I replied absently. “High number, everything is chill. Low number, take cover in a refrigerator.”
“That makes no sense. Is the table set, hon?”
“Yes!” In fact, I was very pleased with it. I mean, it was as good as it was gonna get. The plates and silverware—and glasses—didn’t match very well, but we couldn’t do anything about that. Plates had broken over the years, replaced by a single option we’d found on sale. Cameron had tried to find matching sets, but it hadn’t exactly been a priority. This wasn’t a dinner-hosting kind of studio apartment.
The important thing was, we had four big plates, four smaller plates, and four salad bowls. As Cameron had instructed. And napkins tucked into the wineglasses, ’cause I’d seen a fancy picture on Google. That’s how they did it.
“Did you put on a tie too?” he hollered.
“Yes, sir!”
He poked his head out of the kitchen and stared at me. He had red sauce on his cheek. Should I tell him?
“Noa…”
“My love.”
“Noa!”
“What?!” I smoothed down my tie. “You said nice shirt and a tie.” I’d opted for a pale gray button-down he’d bought for me—and a black tie.
“I can’t fucking deal with you,” he said curtly and disappeared from sight again.
I smirked to myself and scratched my butt. He hadn’t said anything about pants. He should count himself lucky I’d had the decency to put on briefs and socks. They matched my tie.
I loved that boy so hard, but he had to unclench. Lucian wasn’t going to see me anyway. He was, however, gonna notice every effort Cameron had put into this evening, from the elaborate dinner—I mean, three freaking courses—and my boyfriend’s gifts to the man.
Glancing around the living room, I wondered if there was anything else I could do. I might love to mess with Cameron, but I didn’t wanna be a complete asshole. Everything looked good, though. We’d pushed the La-Z-Boy and coffee table to the side, the bed was made in the alcove, I’d taken out the trash, and I’d vacuumed.
Oh, candles! Cameron had bought candles. I could take care of that. I strode over to the front door and grabbed the bag from the dresser there. Six candles. We only had four candleholders, so the other two would have to be spares. I lit two in the window and two on the table. That was fancy, wasn’t it?
I could go one step further, to boot. Our light in the ceiling had been broken for months, so we used a floor lamp next to the alcove. It had little spotlights on it, and I was the genius who draped our knitted scarves and beanies over them to dim the lighting. Winter wear was interior decoration in the summer!
“Babe, it’s practically French bistro romance atmosphere in here now!”
He reappeared in the doorway while he was whisking something in a mixing bowl. At first, he looked tense and annoyed. Then he relaxed a little and even smiled.
“I like it. Thank you. Now put on some damn pants, please. They’ll be here any—fuck!”
Yeah, that was them, calling on the intercom.
“I’ll buzz them in!” I skidded across the floorboards and pressed the receiver button. “Hello, this is Noa. You’ve reached the Hayles-Jacobson estate. How may I help you this fine evening?”
Two warm, domly chuckles filtered through.
“We request permission to enter the premises, freckles.”
Fuck yeah, Daddy was in the house. I’d missed him so damn much. He’d felt super awful about not having found time for us to see each other this week—so far—but work had been crazy, and that wasn’t exactly his fault.