God, he smells so good. I imagine crawling over the counter, pressing my nose into the hollow of his throat, and breathing him in. My cheeks heat at the thought.
“You hungry? We’re about to close up, but I can whip up a snack real quick if you want.” I cringe, hoping he didn’t catch the breathless desperation in my voice.
“Sure!” he answers, sounding just as eager, then laughs. “I mean, yeah. I could eat. Need help?”
“Oh, well, you can just sit there and relax”—looking all pretty just for me—“or you could come into the kitchen and keep me company,” I offer, suddenly feeling shy.
“Now that’s an offer I can’t refuse.” He flashes a grin and climbs to his feet. “Is your mom around?”
I shake my head. “I’m closing alone today. Why do you ask? Are you planning to do something naughty? Like ravish me in the pantry?”
I was only kidding, but my own joke surprises me. I’m not usually this playful. Especially with boys.
Instead of laughing, however, Sol sucks in a sharp breath, and his eyes become smoldering blue fire. Scratching the back of his head, he coughs a little. “Jesus, Grace.”
The knuckles on his other hand gripping the counter are white. I may have pushed him too far. All of a sudden, I want to push him a little more, just to see how far it takes for his control to break.
It’s such a bold and bad idea. And for some screwed-up reason, I can’t stop myself.
“On a scale of one to ten, how nervous are you?”
“Three, maybe,” he answers. “I’ve gotten used to being around you.”
I breathe through the excitement and anticipation swirling in my belly as I head into the kitchen. After tying an apron around my waist, I start putting out the ingredients I need to make waffles. I pre-warm the waffle iron, but my senses are attuned to Sol’s movements as he shuffles around on the other side of the door. I’m dying to know what he’s doing. I mean, what’s more interesting than waffles?
He says something, but it’s muffled.
“What?” I ask.
“You play the guitar too?” He ducks his head around the door, sounding surprised. He must have found Mark’s guitar.
“It’s Mark’s.” I toss my ingredients in a bowl. “You play the guitar, right? How about you play something for me while I make these?” I blink up at him and smile sweetly.
He stares at me for several seconds, his eyes growing darker. His fingers curl around the doorframe.
“What?” I whisper, trying to breathe through the quivers ricocheting all over my body.
He’s staring at me, like really staring at me. Need, hunger, guilt, and finally resignation cross his face, then he straightens to his full height. “You look cute.”
Heat fills my cheeks. I lower my head between my shoulders to hide what I’m feeling. I’m not sure when my feelings went from liking Sol to desperately wanting to spend every second with him.
I don’t know what to do with the multitude of emotions tearing through me. How is it possible to feel like this, like nothing else matters but this moment?
Frankly, it’s terrifying. Is this how my mom felt for my dad—this indescribable, intangible feeling? No wonder it almost destroyed her when he left. There’s no way someone could recover easily after feeling like this for someone else.
It’s just not possible.
God. I need to stop this before I fall in too far. Sol and I aren’t meant to happen.
I stare down at the bowl and shiver when his fingers sweep loose tendrils of hair from my temple. He secures them behind my ear gently, brushing my skin.
“You cold?” he asks in a whisper.
I can’t tell if he’s teasing me or genuinely wants to know.
I can’t look at him, though, because I’m afraid my mind is just playing tricks on me.
No relationships, remember, Grace?
Why the hell am I thinking about that? Sol and I are not in a relationship. At least not the one my stupid heart craves. But sometimes a hopeless heart is just that—desperate to feel like it belongs to someone, beating in the same rhythm as someone else’s.
He’s leaning closer now, his chest brushing my arm. And I swear I feel his heart beating as fast as mine. I put the whisk aside and grab the bowl of beaten egg whites, but his fingers brush the side of my body before dropping down into the bowl. He scoops up some batter with his index finger and puts it inside his mouth. He makes an approving noise in the back of his throat.
“Vanilla and butter,” he murmurs, smacking his lips. “You smell like vanilla waffles.”
I snort, my cheeks heating. “How would you know that?”
He scoops another dollop of batter and licks it off his finger. “Back in high school, whenever you’d enter a classroom, the whole place would smell like vanilla waffles. I love vanilla waffles.”
Oh my God. Wow.
With that, Sol walks out of the room casually as though he’s just told me the weather forecast for the upcoming week.
I finish preparing the waffles with a wide grin on my face while humming “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses under my breath, then make a quick job of preparing a batter for some muffins. My ears perk up at the light strumming of a guitar as Sol tunes it.
We’re soon sitting across from each other in a booth with a plate stacked with waffles. Sol sets the guitar on the seat next to him and rubs his hands gleefully as he glances around the table. Within seconds, he’s piled a few waffles on his plate, adding a healthy portion of chocolate and ice cream on them. Then, he bows his head and makes the sign of the cross. He says a grace prayer in a low voice with his hands clasped together on the table. I watch him, fascinated by the movement of his full lips. He ends the prayer the way he started it. Praying before a meal has never looked so sexy.
Don’t get me wrong. I try to remember to pray before my meals, but sometimes hunger overrides all thought.
Sol grabs his fork and knife and digs into his food like a starving man, shoveling huge chunks inside his mouth.
“So good,” he says with his cheeks bulging.
I laugh, shaking my head, and fill my own plate with a heavy dose of maple syrup and vanilla ice cream. “Glad you like them.”
We eat in comfortable silence, our eyes catching a few times.
“The last time I ate waffles with ice cream was . . .” He trails off, his eyes losing focus. Almost sad. “My mom used to make waffles every Sunday after church. We called it Waffle Sunday. It was the only day I was allowed to have ice cream and waffles and syrup. Then we’d snuggle on the couch and watch movies.” He smiles wistfully into his now empty plate, shrugging. “Sorry for being a downer. This just reminded me of her.” He waves a hand across the table.
“Sounds wonderful.” I dig around inside my head for something that’ll cheer him up but come up empty.
He pulls out his phone from his pocket. His fingers fly across the screen before he hands it to me. “Here’s my mom and pop. Most people say I look like my dad.”
I study the image of the man who’s an older version of Sol and a woman with black hair standing next to him. While Sol is a carbon copy of his father, he definitely got his eyes from his mom. “Yeah, you do.” I hand him his phone back, give his hand a comforting squeeze.