Tara rolls her eyes. “In your dreams, biker boy.”
He laughs good-naturedly. “You’re right about that.”
We spend the next half hour dishing out desserts to the bikers and then they get some to go. I can’t help but watch the way the one they call Jason keeps watching Tara. It’s obvious he’s hooked, and she’s trying to act as if she’s not interested at all, but I know her... she’s definitely into him.
When they leave and Jason promises to see Tara tomorrow, I whirl around. “What in the world was that?”
Becca laughs. “That is the new biker gang in town.”
“Club. They’re not a gang. They’re a club,” Tara corrects her.
Becca just laughs some more. “Yeah, okay, that’s the new biker club, and Tara here seems to have caught the eye of one of them. They’ve came in every day, order everything we have, and they even clean up after themselves. We’ve had to bake extra and even keep some stuff stored in the back just to make it through the evenings.”
I look at Tara. “Jason seems nice. He definitely doesn’t like any of his friends looking at you.”
She blushes. “I’m not interested.”
I don’t believe her for a minute. We spend the next half hour with Tara filling me in on special orders and events. I could spend the rest of the afternoon here catching up on paperwork, but I'm anxious to get back to Nash.
I walk out the door, and I tell Tara to call me if she needs anything. I stop at the store and then go back home, and I'm surprised when I get there that Nash has fixed dinner. The table is set with lit candles and a chilled bottle of wine. I set down the small bag of groceries with just the staples of bread and milk.
"You fixed dinner," I said, surprised.
He grabs the bag and unloads the groceries. "Yeah, but don't get too excited. It's only spaghetti."
I look at him curiously. "I love spaghetti, especially your spaghetti."
He smiles at that. "I know you do."
I can feel the butterflies in my stomach as he leads me over to the table. I drink a glass of wine, and I can feel myself loosening up around him. We talk about any and everything. Well, everything except for past hurts. It seems as if we both try to avoid anything that will bring that up.
I have to keep reminding myself that Nash and I are divorced, that this probably won't go anywhere, but the more we sit here and laugh, the harder that is to do. When we finish eating, he all but pushes me out of the kitchen and tells me to relax in the living room, he's going to clean up.
"You're the one that's hurt. Let me clean up."
He shakes his head, stopping me from going into the kitchen. “I feel great. No headaches, vision is good. I’m good.”
I tilt my head and know he’s telling the truth but also knowing it’s not right for him to cook and have to clean up. "Nash, I'm serious."
He still doesn't let me in. "I got this. Let me do this. I'll be in in a minute."
I go and sit down, and I feel a little weird sitting on the couch as he cleans up. I can hear the dishwasher going, and he joins me a second later, two glasses of wine in his hands. He brings one to me and then sits next to me on the couch.
"Talk to me," he says.
I shrug and take a sip of the wine before setting it on the coaster on the table. "What do you want to talk about?"
He reaches for my hand and laces our fingers together. "For starters why you ran out of here this afternoon."
I tense up, already not liking where this conversation is heading. "I just needed to check on the bakery."
He smiles at me. "I know you, Emery. There was more to it than that."
And I realize I just need to put it all out in the open, lay it all out for him. "I needed to put some distance between us. It would be so easy to get used to this, to having you around like this. I needed to get my head back on right."
He sighs, "I regret all of the missions that I left you to go on. If I could go back and change the way I did things, I would. I just need to know that it's not too late to change things and to make things right."
I shake my head. "I don't know, Nash. I can't ask you... I just don't know." All I can think about is just how unbearable it was without him. Would I rather have him half the time than not at all? I'm second-guessing everything now, and it seems like everything is jumbling around in my head.