A smile tugs at my mouth as I shut the door, then head back to the kitchen.
That’s when I spot the platter of cupcakes on top of the fridge under a dome. I lift the container down and take the lid off.
Some are the same shade of pink as her hair and some are baby blue. The frosting is piled high and while the condition of the kitchen makes it seem like a couple toddlers made these, they look professionally done and ready to be photographed for a food blog.
Aiden told me she makes great fuckin’ cupcakes.
I eat a pink one.
He’s right. Whipped frosting that’s not too sweet. Fluffy cake and a surprise glob of raspberry jam in the center.
After swallowing my last bite, I reach for a blue one. This one has blueberry goo in the middle. Nice.
I don’t know if this pink-haired vixen is worth all these hassles, but I’ve got a feeling she is.
I resist the urge to eat a third cupcake and instead clean the kitchen up, wiping away all the frosting fingerprints before sweeping and washing the floor, and I then start on dinner.
She’s trying to convince me she’s a slob, but everything being organized and tidy inside the fridge, cupboards, and drawers in this kitchen as well as her bedroom being spotless says otherwise.
8
Ally
I get back from the downstairs laundry room to Jude not only in my apartment, but he’s also cooking. The kitchen is clean and smells good. Add to that, I’m annoyed because he’s smiling at me. Why is he smiling at me?
Fuck you very much for being so gorgeous, too.
“Hey,” he greets.
“Whatever,” I grumble, setting my full basket of clean laundry on the coffee table.
“You like my bami?” he asks, eyes on me like my answer is of vital importance.
“Huh?” I shove everything off the end couch cushion, pick up my basket and dump the clean clothes onto the newly cleared spot before putting the basket back on the table.
“The bami goreng from last night. Making my stuffed peppers tonight. My prabaka’s recipe. Be ready in a little more than an hour,” he says.
“What’s a prabaka?” I ask before I get a chance to stop myself.
“My great-grandmother, Sanja Novak. She’s ninety and she still makes them.”
“I don’t need your food,” I mutter like he’s an annoying gnat and start folding my laundry.
“No, but you want it,” he says, and it feels like those words are sexually charged.
This, I studiously ignore by flicking the TV on, putting on the most ridiculous and annoying reality TV show, and doing it loud. I watch with fake-rapt attention as I fold clothes.
The food is smelling good. My stomach rumbles, despite the two cupcakes I ate when I got home.
“Those cupcakes were pretty damn good,” he calls over, as if he read my cupcake-shaped thought bubble.
He’s drying his hands on a tea towel and then he shoves a foil-covered baking tray into the oven.
I pretend I’m not ogling the muscles in his forearms that bulge by aiming a glare at him. “You did what?”
His expression doesn’t change.
“I made those for a reason. Don’t touch my cupcakes. Don’t touch anything of mine.” I storm down the hall to my room and slam the door.
I made those cupcakes as stress relief. Stress relief about Jude. Jude who is sex on a stick made even sexier in my kitchen making food that smells delicious.
I’m finding myself more stressed by the fact that he doesn’t seem bothered right now.
I peeked into his room when I got back. It was tidy, so I figured me being a slob would annoy him. So far, no.
I’ll give it a bit of time. And a bit more effort.
***
At eleven thirty, he catches me eating a stuffed pepper in the dark of the kitchen, the open microwave door spotlighting my crime.
I stick my tongue out at him from my perch on the kitchen barstool as he pulls out a bottle of water and shuts the microwave door, plunging us into darkness. He’s shirtless. Again. So it’s good I don’t have to see it.
But then he flicks the light on over the stove. The gorgeous jerk is dressed in nothing but a pair of flannel lounge pants sitting low on his waist. Indecently low. He drinks back three quarters of the bottle of water, head tipped way back, arm up and braced on the wall and his throat working it down and making my own mouth go dry. I want to look away, but find I’m unable to. I could spend an inordinate amount of time staring at that strong, tanned, tattooed throat. Even his armpits are sexy.
God, I’m gawking at armpits.
His eyes are then on me as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and sets the bottle back in the fridge before reaching up to the fridge top for my cupcake platter.