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His brow furrowed. "You think my friends are hot?"
"Oh, oh it’s clear you’re the one in charge of all the knights, Arthur. The once and future king."
"Mirror, mirror on the wall," he said with a wink, and we both chuckled at the Snow White references. "What about you? Obviously, you and Morgan are close."
"Yeah, we're super close,” I agreed. “But in some ways, it's more like I'm her second parent. When Mom died, I took over a lot of responsibilities. Dad was pretty much useless, and Morgan was just, you know… broken. She was so shell-shocked she didn't talk for a year."
"Wow, that must have been extremely difficult for you to deal with."
"It was. I was nine years older, so it had to be more of a mother-daughter relationship between us for several years, but I love her. And I was the one who did all the speech pathology meetings with the nanny and made sure none of the boys harassed her too much.”
“That’s too much responsibility to put on a kid,” Atticus insisted.
I shrugged, trying to brush it off. I didn't usually volunteer to talk about that time in our lives, but it just sort of tumbled out. “There was no other choice. But Morgan is such a fighter. We learned some sign language and worked hard to get her speech back.”
"So, your dad just wasn't there?"
"No. He’d always let my mother handle the parenting stuff. I think that's why he hurried to marry Clarissa. Not that she's not lovely; she is. And she's really been there for me and Morgan. Well, mostly Morgan, but Dad needed a supplemental wife and mother, and he found one."
As we were walking through the stalls, our fingertips brushed, and Atticus automatically took my hand. The zing of electricity that chased up my arm was impossible to ignore. It made something clench low in my gut, and I had to breathe through the wave of longing. He, on the other hand was not looking at me. He was inspecting other stalls, picking up bracelets, frowning at them, and putting them back down. He was completely unaffected. Finally, we reached the end of the stalls, and he turned to me and asked, "Okay, are you ready for your surprise?"
I laughed. "What? What surprise?"
"It's our last day here. I wanted you to do one thing that you would love."
"Okay."
"It turns out that the Winston Isles has a candy-making factory."
The smile that spread over my face made my cheeks ache. "You're kidding?"
"I'm not kidding. Sadly, they don't make gummy bears, but they specialize in organic vegan candy that's actually not so bad for you, and I got us a class."
I blinked up at him. "You're insane. You didn't have to do this."
"To see you smile like that, I think I did. Come on, let's go,” he said taking my hand in his like it belonged there.
"You're going to let me go and make candy,” I said, positively awestruck.
"Yes, with the caveat that you don't eat too much of it."
"I'm a grown woman. You can't stop me from eating candy" I groused.
"You think I don't know that? I just don't want you to ruin your dinner." He took my hand and lifted it, gently dusting his lips over my knuckles. "I'm cooking, so please try and refrain from overeating the candy, okay?"
"I can make no promises, Mr. Price."
"You call me Mr. Price again, and I won't care about your promises."
"Well, in that case, you're easy to bribe, Mr. Price,” I said with a wink.
Chapter 30
ATTICUS
When was the last time I was nervous?
As I plated the pasta carbonara, I was nervously checking the clock. I had a timeline. We'd gotten back a little late from our toffee making class. As predicted, Gwen had eaten too much candy and had to go brush her teeth.
