Page 64 of Forgotten Prejudice

“Don’t you think we need to stir the sauce?” he asked, cutting in and bluntly changing the subject.

Assuming Ash wasn’t interested in bringing up the past, I respected his choice and went on cooking until I made us one hell of a lunch.

Sitting across the table from Ash while watching him devour his pasta like a starved man brought back so many fucking memories. He always had an appetite; whether it was meals we shared at Rob’s after our shift, his lame sandwich he brought to school, or all those dinners and breakfasts I cooked for him, he always ate with such enthusiasm that it inspired me to cook more for him.

“What’s funny?” he asked when I suddenly began laughing.

“Remember that time you almost choked on a fry at Rob’s?”

“Of course I do. I almost died, and instead of helping me, you laughed so hard that you started choking yourself.”

We’d both squealed and coughed for almost an hour because we couldn’t stop laughing. At some point, I’d even snorted milkshake from my nose, which eventually led to Rob kicking our asses for creating a mess.

Oh, the good old times.

Glancing back at Ash, I noticed he had sauce on the corner of his mouth. I was just about to reach over and clean it when he did it himself, not even noticing my intentions. My chest clenched with disappointment because I’d missed a Hollywood-like moment to be romantic.

Wait, should I be romantic?

“It was really good,” Ash said, cutting my line of silly thoughts and focusing me.

“Yeah? I’ll make it for you again.”

He stared at me, eyes warm, before his lips spread wide. “Yeah, why not?”

The smile he gave me was so big and cute that I knew this was the time to ask the question that had been bugging me since he showed up here last night.

“So why are you here?”

The good mood he had just a moment ago vanished as his face fell and his lips quivered. He then twisted his mouth before shrugging. “Well, the thing is…” He paused and looked around the table, doing everything he could to avoid my eyes. “Soren and I, we—”

His words were cut off by the sound of the house door opening; a second later, I heard Zoe.

“My God, Kai, why aren’t you picking up your fucking phone?”

“That’s a bad word, Mommy,” Paris mumbled after her.

“I know, sweetie. Mommy will put a dollar in the curse jar.”

I glanced back at Ash, who seemed either shocked or surprised, right before Zoe and Paris entered the kitchen.

Zoe was ready to say something else when she noticed who I was with and immediately went silent, with her eyes pinned on Ash, who was just as taken aback by this meeting.

“Daddy!” Paris yelled before charging at me, his cute voice breaking the deadly silence.

“Hey, monkey.” I picked him up into my arms.

Paris immediately started playing with my hair before he peeked over my shoulder at Ash. “Who is this?” he asked with curiosity suited to a five-year-old.

“This is Ash. He’s a good friend of Daddy’s.” I then got closer to Paris so I could whisper in his ear. “But he likes it when I call him Ashy.”

“Hey, Paris, I’ve heard so much about you,” Ash said in a soft voice I’d never heard coming from him before.

Paris studied Ash carefully, his eyes scanning him in detail before his lips quirked up into an ear-to-ear smile. But whatever it was that made him smile this way was no longer important as he got off my lap and went back to Zoe to grab his toy truck from her hand.

“Can I go play?” he asked, but he’d already run into the other room before receiving an answer.

That’s my kid for you.