Except, it wasn’t exactly, was it?
Otherwise, when I opened the round plate, I would have revealed a perfect tortilla instead of . . . whatever it was that I’d just made.
Not even. Not smooth. Not . . . good.
“Ugh,” I muttered.
“Why don’t you crumble the cheese, Eden?”
Sighing, I nodded then moved over to the block of white cheese Belle indicated. “Is this the stupid-proof job?”
“No, of course not,” Belle protested.
But Damon was nodding and smirking.
“So, I’m not good at shredding pork, I can’t make tortillas, I burned the beans, and . . . now you dare put me in charge of the cheese?”
“Um . . .” Belle bit her lip. “Okay, it’s pretty much stupid-proof.” A beat. “Unless you drop the block on the floor.”
“Like this?” I mimed dropping it.
Belle gasped then lightly smacked me on the arm. “Don’t even pretend to joke about my cheese.”
“It’s her favorite,” Damon stage-whispered. “Plus, you’ll redeem yourself by making us guacamole later.”
Belle lifted a brow.
“It might even be better than yours,” Damon teased.
A gasp, but Belle was smiling.
“I can make guac later. I’m sure it wouldn’t stand up against yours though,” I said and began breaking off chunks of the cheese, mimicking what I’d seen in the multitude of Mexican restaurants I’d eaten at. Hopefully, I was doing at least that right.
But I supposed if I wasn’t, it was still cheese, so there were worse problems in the world than the wrong sized cheese crumbles.
“You know,” I said. “I just signed on to do a film where I’ll be playing a chef.”
Silence, Damon’s and Belle’s eyes shooting toward mine, wide in surprise.
Then Belle’s lips twitched. Mine followed suit. Damon held it together for another beat . . . but then we all burst into laughter.
“Now, that’s a happy sound,” a male voice said.
I turned, saw an older man who was the very picture of Damon, though a little softer around the jaw and waistline and with a little more gray in his hair.
Despite that, it was absolutely clear that he was Damon’s father, Diego.
DNA, man, it was a bitch.
Whipping toward Damon, I jabbed my finger in his direction. “That is what you’re going to look like as you get older?” I dropped the block of cheese to the plate and plunked my hands to my hips. “Why is it that men always get more handsome with age and woman just get . . . lumpy and wrinkled?”
Bella snorted.
Diego’s lips curved. “I think she’s saying I’m handsome.”
Horror washed over me. Had I really just said that? In front of a man I didn’t know? In front of Damon’s father? I mean, I felt like I knew him, based on this afternoon and all the stories Damon and Belle had told me. “I’m sorry, that was incredibly rude.”
His brows pulled down, face falling. “Are you saying I’m not handsome?”
“Oh, no.” I wrung my hands together. “You’re absolutely handsome. You—” His lips twitched, just barely, but I’d seen that same look on Damon’s face enough to recognize mischief.
And so I put my acting skills to work.
I let tears well in my eyes then covered my mouth with my hand, choking back a sob and turning toward the plate, head hanging. “I’m sorry,” I said weekly. “I’m so s-sorry—”
More silence in the kitchen, though this time it wasn’t trailed by laughter.
A hand on my shoulder.
Not Damon’s, but Belle’s.
“It’s okay—”
I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye, and she took one glance at my face before a wide smile broke out on her lips. Then she burst out laughing. “I’m sorry,” she said between giggles. “I didn’t mean— To ruin— Your joke—”
“Joke?” Diego asked.
Belle nodded. “It seems that Eden fits right in with us and our pranks.”
Damon tugged me away from the counter and into his arms. “That’s because Eden is perfect”—he dropped his voice—“and perfect for me.”
I scoffed. “Hardly.”
He rested his chin on my shoulder. “Perfect.”
“She’ll be perfect if she can finish crumbling that cheese,” Belle said, patting my arm. “And you’ll”—she tugged Damon back to the tortilla maker—“be perfect if you get going on the dough.”
“And I’ll be perfect”—Diego reached for one of the forks that was in the shredded pork Belle had rescued from my incompetent hands—“at eating this delicious—ow!”
Belle had smacked the fork out of Diego’s hand.
“You’ll be perfect at washing up and then getting the table set.”
The disappointment on Diego’s face would have fit right in with the rom-com I’d just finished filming, but Belle had no sympathy. She shooed him off. “Nice try. But I’m guessing by the smell of oil and sawdust on your clothes, you’ve been out with the crew all day.”
“They were building a new robot today.”
“Oh! What kind of robot?” I’d heard about how Diego had worked his way up from a tech to a senior engineer at the company he was working at. Something about artificial intelligence and drones and food deliveries. Apparently, they were contracted to build them for some big company based out of San Francisco.
Diego grinned, coming over to wash his hands at the sink next to me. “A flying robot.”
“That’s so cool!” I exclaimed.
“Well, I think it’s pretty cool I got to meet you,” Diego said. “Damon doesn’t exactly bring a lot of girls home. Especially famous ones.”
“I’m not so famous,” I said.
“She’s lying,” Damon interjected. “Or at least minimizing. Paparazzi are all over her in L.A.” A beat. “But lucky for me, that meant I got to keep her mostly to myself instead of going out.”
“It just meant you were able to bribe me with delicious carbs in order to spin your web of love around me.”
“Love?” he asked, extracting a perfect tortilla from the press. His mom barely let him lift the plate before she’d snagged it and placed it in the pan on the stove to start cooking it. “Or lies?”
“Either.” I grinned, finished with the cheese and moved to the sink to wash. “Both.”
Damon snagged my waist as I moved across the kitchen, intending to help his dad set the table. “Relax, love.”
I spun in the circle of his arms, hand coming up to rub the pleasant ache in my chest, not just from him showing me unbridled affection in front of his family, but also because . . . of his family. They were wonderful.
“This . . . I am relaxed, baby. I—I’ve never been in a place like this, been so comfortable or welcomed. It’s like”—my voice dropped to a whisper—“I’m part of it. Like because they made you, you wonderful man, that they know exactly how to get under my armor and—”
I broke off, blinking back real tears this time.