Page 71 of Fighting Chance

“You always do.”

He moves through the kitchen with such grace it has me pausing. I’ve heard the stories of him and his cereal and how he steals food from Grayson and his other teammates. Even Bella would call me complaining about how Grayson never gets first choice of his own food because Kieran beats him to it every time.

“You can cook,” I state, my voice conveying my shock.

Kieran snorts. “I don’t know if you can call boiling water and creating a sauce cooking.”

“No, no.” I shake my head. “Kieran, you cancook. Why the hell do you steal other people’s food?”

I expect him to be cheesy with his answer, flirtatious even, but instead his features grow somber. “Growing up, I never had someone cook for me, not until I met Grayson and Allie made me dinners.” His voice grows so quiet I doubt he wanted me to hear him whisper, “It tastes different when they love you.”

The admission stuns me.

And once again, I want to cry for the little boy Kieran was, the one who desperately wanted and deserved to be loved.

“I had to learn early on how to take care of myself. At the foster home, once you were of ‘age,’” he says with air quotes, “we were expected to cook for ourselves.”

As he passes me in the kitchen, he checks me with his hip. “Come on, don’t lose that spark because of me.” He holds up some parsley with a wide grin. “I’m perfectly fine and healthy. See?”

“Just because you’re fine now doesn’t make what happened to you okay.”

He pauses, slowly lowering the parsley as he stares at me, Emmy’sPaw Patrolplaying quietly in the background. “You could cook for me.”

“I’d love to, but I never learned how to cook.” I chew on my bottom lip, a little embarrassed. “I was always too sick to stand in a kitchen for hours and learn.” Even twenty minutes had my legs swelling and my head growing dizzy.

Kieran stuns me from my thoughts as he wraps an arm around my shoulders, his heat sending a tingle of energy down my spine. He pulls me toward the cooking area he’s set up on the bench. “You have me now, and I’m more than happy to share my secrets of the kitchen with you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

I must pull a face because he chuckles, his warmth still making my head spin, and the dizziness for once is not due to lupus.

“Cooking isn’t scary, sunshine.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

With my head tilted back to look up at him, he offers me such a warm and inviting smile, his eyes all but sparkling as his thick black lashes frame them and…I can’t stop my heart from melting just a little.

“Why do you want to teach me?”

“Because I’d do anything to spend more time with you.”

I suck in a sharp hiss of air. “Emmy’s in the house. You’re not allowed to flirt with me.”

“You told me noflirting. You never said anything about honesty.”

His gaze deepens before he seems to rip himself away from me. “Come on, sunshine, let me show you something I love.”

My eyes squeeze shut right as the pasta hits my cheek, slowly dipping down my skin. “Oh my god. Did you just—I can’t believe you just did that!”

Kieran bursts out laughing and when I finally manage to openmy eyes around the tomatoes, I find him doubled over in laughter. “You dared me to do it!”

“I didn’t think you’d actually do it!”

“Never challenge an athlete. Did Bella not teach you anything? We’re cocky, competitive bastards.”