Walking on Sunshine: A Sweet Love Story (Seasons of Love Book 1) (15 page)

“Now I guess you will have to partake in meaningful conversation.”

“Ugh.” He made a disgusted face. “You probably want to know about my hopes and dreams.”

“I'm not getting that crazy. Let’s start with something simple. Cats or dogs?” I tossed the bacon onto the skillet. It made a hissing sound as I prodded it with my fork.

“Dogs.” He leaned back in his chair. “You?”

“Both. I haven’t had one in years, though. Richard was allergic to animals. I've always wanted a little lab, or a mutt of some sort,” I explained. “Now, your turn to ask a question.”

“Favorite food?”

“Anything with bacon, or chocolate.”

“I like those. It may be strange, but I love chocolate, too. I love sweets, which is a problem if I want to keep my girlish figure,” Cee joked, grabbing his non-existent love handles. I rolled my eyes at him. I wished I had his young metabolism.

We bantered with each other, questioning each other back and forth, learning all we could. I learned that he loved the beach, but didn’t know or like to surf because the ocean actually scared him. It was hard for him to move so far away from his family when he started college, but enjoyed his college days a little too much.

I told him how I met Richard just out of high school, and how sunflowers were my favorite flower. He found out about my college, and that I graduated with a degree in Accounting. I told him how I had never really used my degree before now because I had gotten married and pregnant soon after.

“What made you guys separate?” Cee asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

I squirmed as I scrambled the eggs. That question always made me uncomfortable.

“He cheated on me.” I focused on the eggs to try and avoid his gaze. Cee sat there silent until I continued. “He was running around with his secretary for almost a year. I guess we had hit a dry spell after Ben was born. I never realized it, but he was sneaking around with texts and phone calls. Then I walked in on him.”

I looked up from the pan. Cee’s eyes were on me taking in every word that I said.

“I didn’t want to make a jump decision about the guy after our first meeting. He is a jackass though.” he said. I smiled at the comment, it was always nice to hear the same thoughts I had out loud. The eggs finally finished up and I placed them on a plate.

“This looks delicious,” Cee stated, finally breaking the silence. He looked admiringly at the plates of French toast and bacon that I placed on the table in front of him.

“Dig in. I want to see what you think. It has been a long time since I have made anything for someone other than Ben.”

We both filled up our plates with the assortment of eggs, bacon and French toast. Cee took the maple syrup and doused his French toast in it. That man really did like his sweets. He took his fork and dug in for his first bite. I watched, biting my lip in anticipation for his reaction. He closed his mouth around the bite, and suddenly let out a cough. His lips puckered as if he ate something sour. He quickly swallowed the bite and then took a big chug of coffee.

“What do you think? Did I put too much cinnamon?” I hoped that I had impressed him with my cooking skills.

“No it... it’s good. Just what spices you did you put in here? It is um, a taste that is unique.” He looked down at his plate and shoveled a few more bites into his mouth, swallowing them whole.

“MMMM,” he groaned, convincing absolutely no one.

“Nothing crazy, just cinnamon and some sugar.” I was confused I grabbed a bite of the toast and immediately spit it out. “This isn’t good at all, you liar. This is awful! Why didn’t you tell me? And why are you still eating it?”

I took a swig of my coffee trying to get the taste out of my mouth. It tasted burnt. Whatever spices I had used were not a great combination with milk and chocolate. There was something wrong and I needed to figure out what. I went to my cooking station to better examine it.

“I got eggs, butter, and milk,” I said lifting up each item as I listed them off, “sugar, cereal, vanilla and cinnamon.” Cee started to laugh, a big full laugh. I had never heard him make that sound before. His eyes started watering and he clenched his belly.

“What? What is so funny?” I became confused looking around, and tried to see what he was laughing at. He held out a finger and pointed at the bottle in my hand. He was still laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe. His face turned red as he tried to catch his breath. I looked at the bottle in my hand. It wasn’t cinnamon. It was identical to the shaker I kept my cinnamon in, but it was paprika marked with a “hot” label.

“What the heck? I have no idea how this got into my spice shelf. I've never used paprika before. What do you even use this for?” I opened it up and smelt it. It was a warm, smoky and had a kick of spice behind it.

Cee was still laughing as he wiped tears from his eyes. “I bought it for the deviled eggs I made the other week. I know you like things spicy, so I got the hot paprika.”

Wow, I felt dumb. I really hadn’t been in the kitchen for a long time. I glanced at Cee, who looked like he was going to fall over due to lack of oxygen. His laughter was contagious, and I felt a chuckle escape my lips. It grew louder as I giggled at myself, at Cee, and about the fact that he wanted to impress me so he continued to eat the awful tasting French toast so I wouldn’t feel bad. I grabbed at a stitch in my side that formed. I hadn’t laughed this hard in years. After a wonderful few more minutes of sniggering we both regained our composure.

I marched to the table, and grabbed all the French toast off our plates and hurled it right into the trash.

“Hey, I was going to eat that!” Cee protested.

“It looks like we'll just have eggs and bacon.”

“You didn’t put spices in anything else?” He looked at me, questioning as he poked his fork into his pile of eggs.

“No, it's good. I just put salt,” I stated. Cee raised an eyebrow. “I know what salt looks like!” He snickered and took a bite of eggs.

“Now this is good.” He grabbed a piece of bacon and scarfed it down.

“I told you I liked bacon. I know how to cook that at least.”

W
e sat in a comfortable silence as we polished off what was left of the breakfast.
Must’ve been all that laughing
, I thought.
Made us hungry.
It made me proud to know that I could satisfy him more than just in the bedroom. After a final sip of coffee, I stood up and started to pick up the dishes

“What do you think you are doing?” Cee questioned as he grabbed my waist holding me so I couldn’t move.

“Doing the dishes?” I responded confused. I liked the way his hands felt on my hips. Like they belonged there.

“No, you are going to sit down and I'm going to do the dishes.” He pressed me back into my chair and took the dishes out of my hands. “You cooked, I clean.”

I sat as he worked. After he cleared the table, he dumped all of the dishes into the sink. He smiled while he turned on the water full blast. I watched as the water hit the plates and sprayed back on him. I snorted with laughter as he stood in disbelief at the rookie mistake. He was sopping wet, dripping water from his shirt down to the floor. A split second later he recovered from the icy shock and turned off the water

“Oh, ha ha ha.” Cee grabbed the hand towel on the oven and dabbed at his chest. The only thing he accomplished was to spread the water around. His muscles stood out under the dripping shirt, showing just how ripped he was.

“Give me your shirt, I'll throw it in the dryer.” I held out my hand for it.

“You just want to see me naked. I see how it is.” He raised his eyebrows up and down.

“Just take it off!” I said exasperated, but grinning.

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” He peeled the shirt off his chest. I knew he purposely took his time, but I felt like it was Christmas morning and I was unwrapping my present.

No,
I shook my head.
We are taking things slow.

I still had this pit in my stomach every time I thought of being with him. There was so much potential for heartache, and I wasn't ready to put myself at risk again. He tossed the drenched shirt at me. Luckily, I caught it in my outstretched arms to avoid getting any of the icy water on me.

I walked to the laundry room, flung it into the dryer, and hit the start button. When I got back to the kitchen, I watched as he scrubbed the dishes. His chest was still wet, and exaggerated his muscles more. I stared as he flexed, his smooth arms scrubbing a particular difficult pot. I wished I had made more of a mess so he would have keep working

“Instead of just standing there staring, why don’t you come a little closer and supply me with some good conversation,” he said, waking me from my daydreams.

I ambled over to the sink, keeping a steady gaze on him. I wanted to memorize his muscles by the end of this. Hopefully, then I would be able to keep my urges contained.

“What do you want to talk about?” I asked.

“How it feels when you get all wet.” He grabbed the spray nozzle and squirted water on me, soaking my shirt through until it was transparent.

“You jerk!” My mouth hung open in shock as the prickle of goose bumps popped up along my skin. He was devious with his use of the ice-cold water.

“Just thought I shouldn’t be the only one shirtless. Probably should go toss that into the dryer.” He winked at me. I stomped off, melodrama taking over as I made sure he heard each and every one of my steps.

Cold water streamed down my back as I took off my shirt, leaving me shivering in its wake. I freed my head and saw Cee standing in the doorway of the laundry room, eating me up with his eyes. The dark violet of desire in them overwhelmed me, but I came to my senses quick enough. I covered up my chest with my hands, but my nipples were already hard underneath them. I couldn’t decide if it was due to cold, or arousal.

“Don’t cover yourself up. You are beautiful.” He walked closer to me. I could feel the heat radiating from his body.

I wanted that heat on my skin. He reached for my hands, his thumb grazed my nipple. My back instinctively leaned forward as to get more contact. My own hunger grew and I couldn’t keep it at bay much longer. Cee stepped closer, his chest millimeters away from mine as he took his strong arm and reached over my head. I took a sharp breath in, closed my eyes and waited for him to put his mouth on mine.

“Put this on.” He grinned. He grabbed a shirt that was folded up on one of the shelves and handed it to me. I looked at him with shock and disappointment. I wanted him to take me right here in the laundry room. “I know you want to take things slow, and I respect that. I just had to see your beautiful body one more time.”

I grudgingly put the shirt on, disappointed that he had more self-control then I did. Cee cupped my face, and angled it up to him. “I'm going to prove that I will never hurt you even it takes every day for the rest of my days to prove it .”

He leaned over and gently kissed my forehead. My whole body became Jell-O, and I just wanted to melt into his arms. His kiss made me feel safe, and believe that he would never hurt me. As I felt my mouths start to form the words to tell him how I feel, Cee’s phone started to buzz and jarred us out of our fantasy world. He released my head and grabbed it out of his pocket.

“I'll be right back, got to take this.”

He answered the phone. “Hello?” He strode out of the laundry room and on to the back porch, but he had left the door slightly ajar. I toddled after him, my legs still felt like they had no bones. He was on the deck with a smile on his face. I crept closer to the door to try to hear something.

“I had a great time last night. I hope we can do that again soon.” He turned around and spotted me as I peeked through the window.

His smile fell and he retreated further into the backyard. Curiosity had gotten the best of me and I got caught. I turned away and tried to busy myself with cleaning up the floors from all the water.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on you,” I said as the back door opened and Cee came in. “I hope I didn’t disturb you and your...”

“Nothing important, “ he said in a dark tone that did not make me want to pry further. “Let me help you with the mess.” He got down on the ground and wiped the water up with a paper towel. We finished in a tense silence, I was trying to figure out if Cee was mad at my actions and how to apologize correctly.”

“Ben should be here soon and I think I should go.” He said breaking the tense silence. He stood up to his full height and grabbed his shirt from the dryer. “I want you to be able to spend time with Ben.”

“I'll see you tomorrow.” He seemed to rush out the door before I even got to have a hug goodbye.

The sudden departure left me uneasy and warning alarms were going off in my head. I needed a distraction, and a long relaxing shower was just the thing. I spent time in front of the mirror, too, fixing my hair up, playing with it, seeing if I could make myself over into someone beautiful, put together. Was that what Cee wanted?

I ordered pizza and timed it to arrive just before Ben. The pizza was in hand when he rang the doorbell a second time. I set the pizza in the kitchen and rushed to the door, excited to have Ben back with me. I threw open the door and gave Ben a huge hug the moment I saw him. My little man was back.

I looked up and saw Richard sitting in the car with a woman next to him. His secretary. My heart went cold, and I gave a curt nod. He had the audacity to bring this home wrecker onto my property. Now I knew why he didn’t come to the door. Ben turned around and gave a big wave. Richard waved back and drove off. I felt my knuckles go white and I wanted to hurl a rock at the passenger side window. With a big inhale, I looked down to Ben.

“Did you have fun?”

“Yeah!” he exclaimed. I could tell he was bursting to tell me more.

“Let’s get inside. I ordered some pizza, and you can tell me all about your time with your dad,” I promised.

Ben barely made it through the door before starting a stream of words.

“It was awesome, Mom. Dad took me to see the Riptide. He got me a poster and even had me get on the field and have some players sign it!”