“It’s perfectly understandable.” He reached down and grabbed my pants to hand me my phone.
“Thanks, I’ll be right back.”
“Hurry, I have something for you.” I’d never seen him so excited, almost innocent.
I went into the bathroom and closed the door to call my mother. She didn’t answer at first, but she called me right back as soon as I got off the phone. “Hello?”
“What happened?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry. I should’ve called you. I stayed the night at Loren’s.”
“Oh, thank God,” she sighed.
“How’s Dad?”
“He’s fine. I left a couple hours after you. When I got home, he was sleeping.”
“I don’t like the idea of leaving him alone like this.”
“There’s nothing we can do.”
“We’ll talk about this later. I’ll be home soon.” When I hung up and walked into the bedroom, there was a food cart sitting next to the bed with a bowl of strawberries and a mountain of breakfast food. “You rock.” I flopped onto the bed next to Jake.
“Well, I am hard.” He pulled the blanket back to show off his pup tent sticking out of his track pants.
“Yeah?” I grabbed a strawberry off the cart and tried to feed it to him, but he snagged it from me and stuffed it in my mouth.
A drop of juice fell down the side of my mouth. He licked it off, hitting the sensitive space on the edge of my lips. “We have bacon, sausage, eggs, and pancakes.” He leaned over to the edge of the bed. “And this.” He pulled a rose off the bottom of the cart and handed it to me.
I smelled it and set it aside on the nightstand. “Thank you,” I said.
“I had to do something.” He grabbed another strawberry and popped it in his mouth while I took one of the plates off the cart and filled it with eggs. “So I made you breakfast.”
“It’s wonderful,” I said. “Do you like to cook?”
“Oh, yeah. Normally, the kitchen is for the girls.”
“Right, a woman’s place,” I said.
“Exactly, but whenever I get a chance, I like to kick them out and make something for myself.”
“What’s your favorite thing to make?” I asked.
“Curry,” he said. “I need it in my life.”
“Really?” I lifted an eyebrow.
“Yes,” he said. “And I make it from scratch, none of that nasty paste they ship in.”
“I like paste.”
“That’s just because you haven’t tried my curry.”
“Do you like it hot?” I asked.
“That’s the whole point, but there’s a way to do it. You boil the peppers first. That way, it’ll be hot, but it won’t burn.”
“You’re a genius.” I took a bite of my eggs while he made himself a plate. He couldn’t keep his eyes off me. He made a concerted effort and tried to focus on his plate, but every time I took a bite or looked at him, it was too much. He had to take a peek.