“That is absolutely delicious,” he tells me with a groan of bliss. “Wow, you really are the best chef ever.”
“Now you are being too kind.” I roll my eyes dramatically. “I’m okay at cooking, that’s about it.”
“When did you learn to cook?” he says as he walks back towards the bookshelf. “You must have learned somewhere, right? That doesn’t seem like the sort of cooking that you learn in high school.”
“I er…” Oh God, this is hard for me. “I learned to cook at home. To save my mom having to do it.”
“Because she was a busy single parent?” He makes the assumption and I kinda roll with it.
“Yes, that’s it. She had two jobs and not much time, so when I was a teen I learned to cook for her.”
It feels better to say that than I learned to cook while the fact was I picked up cooking because David would always beat my mom if she made something that he didn’t like or if he found something unsatisfactory about it, which got more of a problem as time went on. I couldn’t ever do much for my mom, but I could do that. If David didn’t like what I had made, then he would yell a lot and throw stuff on the floor, but no one got hit and that was all that I could hope for.
But there was no real reason to bring Will into all of that drama yet. Not when it might spoil the big romance of my life. I came here for work, not for love, but if I can have it all then why not. Why the hell not? I haven’t ever had a good view of what love should feel like in real life but I’m sure this is the start of it.
“That’s really sweet of you,” Will continues, not seeing the underlying story between the lines of what I have just told him. “Are you an only child, or did you have siblings to take care of as well?”
“It was just me.” Thank God. I wouldn’t have wanted any other child to go through what I did. “How about you?”
“I have an older brother. But he lives in the UK now, working for a firm in London. So, I don’t get to see him much.” He lets out a sad sigh. “But we do try to talk every now and then. Although over time, it’s gotten less…”
I watch him with intent as he thinks about his family, trying to gauge what sort of upbringing he had. Nothing like mine, I imagine. He is clearly a very settled man who has done well for himself. He never talks much about his success, but I find him very impressive. Not because he has a lot of cash, I’m not sure of that, but because he has made something of himself. That’s what I want to do, that’s why my job tomorrow is going to be so important.
But I’m not going to worry about that now. Not when I’m having this lovely night with Will. Worrying won’t change the outcome of tomorrow anyway, so I might as well focus on having fun.
“Food is done,” I call out as I’m setting it in the plates. “I will finish off the books, thank you.”
“I’m already done.”
As I make my way to the dining table, balancing the plates on my hands, I find him standing by a full bookshelf which looks great. I’m sure that he has done a much better job than I could ever do. “Do you like it? If there is anything that you want me to change, then let me know now.”
“No, it looks perfect.” I grin happily. “Thank you so much for doing this for me. I appreciate it.”
Before taking his seat opposite me, he takes me in his arms and kisses me with love. I can feel the love surging through me like a powerful bolt of lightning. I might not know love, and it may well be too soon for that, but I can feel it in my gut anyway. This really is it. The love that I thought I would never be lucky enough to have.
“I am so glad that you moved next door to me, Serena. It feels really good to have you by my side.”
I open and close my mouth a few times, trying to find the right words to reply him, but there is nothing. My feelings for him are so strong that they don’t even have words. It’s just an overwhelming tsunami that washes over me in waves so strong they nearly knock me from my feet. Instead, I feel happy tears pricking my eyes, at last.
“Come on,” I choke out, trying to cover up how emotional I am. “Let’s eat.”
Will sits opposite me and his legs rests against mine. That could be because the table is so small that we aren’t exactly left with much space but I have a feeling that it’s more because he wants to feel me just as much as I want to touch him. It’s strange for me because he is such an outstandingly handsome man, utterly gorgeous in every single way, whereas I have always been the plain simple girl who blends into the background. Part of the wall paper, never to be noticed. At least, that’s who I used to be back in my home town, but it seems that here in my new life, I am someone better, the sort of person who I have always wanted to be, someone good enough for a man like Will.