Page 50 of I’ll Be Watching You

He kissed the back of my neck.

“No time for fun,” I said.

“There’s always time for fun.”

But he turned me to look at him. He’d been asleep when I got home, but woke up as soon as Lu and I came in at two in the morning. I was glad I’d warned him my sister was coming over, because he came out of my bedroom wearing sweatpants instead of the boxers he liked to roam around in after hours. He had already made the guest bed for her, and I gave him a brief summary of what we learned before I crashed.

“I’ll make breakfast. You can pay me back tonight if you get home at a decent hour,” he teased.

“You don’t have to cook for sex, but I sure won’t complain about either,” I said with a grin.

I got up, showered, and by the time I was dressed, I smelled bacon.

I love bacon but hate cooking it.

Lu was drinking coffee. When I came out, she went into the bathroom with a warning. “If you eat all the bacon, I will shoot you.”

“Oh, I’m so scared,” I said to the closing door.

“I made enough for both of you,” Cal called out from the kitchen.

“Don’t be so sure about that,” I said.

I kissed him, then poured coffee. I was beginning to expect him to be here, to be a sounding board, a friend, a lover. He had become so important to me so quickly I was having a hard time processing.

“You’re amazing,” I said.

“I know.”

“You don’t have to cook all the time.”

“Do you cook?”

“Yeah,” I said noncommittally.

He laughed.

“I can, I just don’t like to.”

“What’s the best thing you cook?”

“Hmm,” I thought. “Hamburgers.”

He laughed again.

“Hey, don’t knock them till you’ve had them. They’re the best hamburgers on the planet, even my brother says so.”

“What do you do to them?”

“Save some of that bacon grease and maybe you’ll find out.”

“Ooo, I love them already.”

“When my dad is out of prison, I’ll make them.”

“I’m holding you to it.”

I hoped I’d be cooking them next week as opposed to in eleven and a half years.