Blaze chuckles then stabs a zucchini square with his fork. “Don’t knock it ’til you try it, kid.”
“I don’t think we should have to eat things we can’t even spell,” Zeke pipes up from across the table, talking over a mouthful of mac ’n’ cheese.
I pause, fork halfway to my mouth. “Z-U-C-C-H-I-N-I. And no talking with your mouth full.”
Ryder, who is sitting next to Zeke, nudges the six-year-old with his elbow. Zeke narrows his eyes then huffs a sigh.
“Yes ma’am,” he says, looking across the table at me and earning himself a smile.
Jacob, one of the boys not much younger than Liam, keeps moving the vegetable from one side of his plate to the other as if it will somehow find a magic portal and disappear. I point at his plate with my fork. “You have to at least try it. You know the rules.”
Blaze laughs beside me. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those moms.” His face falls as soon as he says it, so I smile at him to let him know it’s okay. I may not have given birth to these boys, but they are every bit as much mine as they are anyone else’s.
He sets his fork down on his plate and looks between all the boys. “My dad had this rule when we were growing up. If you put it on your plate, you have to eat it. One time… I think I was about six years old, we went to this fancy seafood buffet, and I was so curious about snow crab. All the adults were eating it, and I wanted to show my dad I could be just like him. I piled my plate with crab as high as it would go. To this day, the sight of crab makes me want to puke.” He finishes his story by grabbing his fork and shoveling in a bite of chicken.
I try to picture Blaze as a little boy, plate piled high with snow crab, trying to act grown up. I wonder what his childhood was like. Did he have siblings? Was he happy? He was probably homecoming king or captain of the football team. His parents probably have the perfect marriage, and he probably took his senior trip to Greece.
We are not the same.
Liam drizzles barbecue sauce over his mac ’n’ cheese then peels the bacon off his chicken and crumbles it on top. I tilt my head and watch with all the other boys. The bacon pieces sink into the melted cheese, and it actually doesn’t look too bad. I glance down at my macaroni that somehow looks boring now. Liam wipes his hand on the napkin in his lap when he’s finished then grabs his fork. “Miss M’s rule is whoever has the most food left on their plate has to help with dishes.”
“Is that so?” Blaze asks.
“That is so,” I answer him.
He nods once with a quiet hmm but continues eating. Dinner continues on without incident. And by without incident I mean no belching or jokes about someone else’s butt crack. It took me a solid two months to teach them a proper dinner table routine. Every time one of the boys asks to be excused, Blaze grabs their plate and scrapes the remaining food onto his own until it looks like a Picasso painting. No one says a word. No one argues with him when he takes their plate. Even though we all know exactly what he’s doing.
“I guess I’m helping with dishes,” he says with a smirk after the last of the five boys gets up from the table.
“You cheated.”
Blaze stands with a wink. “The rule says the plate with the most food.” He holds his plate out for me to see. “My plate. No one said it had to be my food.” Then he stacks it on top of the empty plates he gathered and walks to the kitchen.
I slide my chair away from the table and sigh, noticing the way his charcoal gray T-shirt stretches across his broad shoulders and the way his jeans fit him just right, loose hanging at the hips but snug over the curve of his ass. His long legs close the distance between the dining room and kitchen in a few swift strides, and I have to remind myself I have no business thinking about hips or asses or broad shoulders.
That familiar stirring swims in the pit of my stomach when he stands next to me in front of the sink, all lean muscle, trim waist and the perfect amount of scruff along his jaw. I wash. He rinses and dries. Every time his hand brushes mine when he grabs a plate or pot, my breath catches in my throat. We don’t say much, but there’s no need for words when the silence is buzzing with so much energy. The water sprays over his forearms, making me want to lick it off the veins running up his hands and arms.
“So, the guy at Shooters…” His words drag as though he’s not sure he wants to say them.
“He’s a friend.” I hand him a sud-covered plate.
He dips it under the running water and cuts a glance at me from the corner of his eye. “How close of a friend?”
Is he seriously asking what I think he’s asking?
“Just a friend. And more Brody’s friend than mine. It’s not like that.”
There are zero benefits with Jake’s friendship.
He finishes rinsing the final plate then pushes the handle on the faucet down to turn the water off. When he looks at me, his gaze studies my face as if he’s committing every feature to memory. It’s intense. Then again, everything about him is intense. “Well, that’s good to know because—"
“Hi, honey. I’m home.” Haley’s voice interrupts him.
I grab a towel to dry my hands and wait for Blaze to finish his sentence.
He doesn’t. Instead, he schools his features as though he hadn’t just asked me if I was fucking Jake then seemed relieved when the answer was no.
“There’s a plate in the microwave,” I say then pass the towel to Blaze, knowing the food in the microwave will end up in the trash. I don’t know why I always bother saving her a plate. Haley doesn’t cook, and she rarely eats when someone else cooks. The boys love it when it’s her shift because she always orders take out. The fact that her parents own one of those food delivery services might have something to do with that.
She holds up a plastic bag and smiles. “I’m good.” Her gaze shifts to Blaze who is currently drying his hands. She looks back at me and raises a brow in question.
“Haley, you remember Blaze?” I know she’s dropped Liam off at the brewery at least once, and this man is hardly forgettable. She replies with a slow, subtle nod but continues staring at us in silence. “He brought Liam home.” Then stayed for dinner and volunteered himself to help with dishes.
“Good to see you again, Haley.” Blaze greets her with a wide grin then glances back at me. He drops the towel on the countertop. “I guess I should get going.” His eyes twinkle. “For real this time.”
Haley enters the kitchen and sets the plastic bag on the island. “He came all this way, Addy. You should at least walk him out,” she says, doing that thing where she focuses on pulling Styrofoam containers out of the bag instead of having to look me in the eye as she tosses me under the bus.
One of the boys yells loud enough for it to echo all the way down the stairs. “Come onnnnn! I had three seconds left.” If I had to guess, it’s Jacob and there’s a video game involved.
“Well, it looks like my shift has officially begun.” Haley grabs a mozzarella stick from one of the containers and shoves a bite into her mouth. “Great seeing you, Blaze. See ya later, Addy.” Then she hurries up the stairs as the yelling continues.
Blaze laughs as he walks toward the door. The sound is so deep and warm that I can’t help but smile. “You guys sure have your hands full. I remember all the shit me and my brother put our nanny through…” He trails off as though he’s remembering something then clears his throat. There’s a sadness in his eyes that makes my heart hurt for him.