Page 65 of Falling for Her

“You don’t say?” she tilts her head to the side.

“You have to understand⁠—”

“I do,” she confirms. “I may not have a child, but Asa is pretty fucking cool and one of the best kids I know. I would never ever put him in harm’s way. I rode by him the whole time to make sure he was okay,” she tells me. “I’ve been around horses my whole life.” The statement surprises me. “I was ready to jump onto his horse if I felt he was going to be in danger.”

I stare into her eyes. “You just keep surprising me, Finley,” I admit. “More than anyone I’ve ever known.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

FINLEY

He gazes into my eyes, and I almost reach out to touch him, but everything in me stills when he says, “You just keep surprising me, Finley.” The soft voice directed at me is not one I’ve heard before. “More than anyone I’ve ever known.”

“I mean, I’m not going to say I like keeping you on your toes”—I smile big—“but I’m not not saying it.” I’m trying to make a joke out of it before falling forward and doing what we did last night in the yard. I know we shouldn’t cross that line again.

He laughs, and I look down at his clothes that I ruined on the chair. “I’m going to replace the clothes. I’m sure they sell these in town.” I pick up the pants. “But since you own about a hundred pairs, you may have already bought them all.”

“I get them for work,” he says, defending his closet choices. “I’m starving.”

“Same,” I admit. “I was so nervous about your clothes that the only thing I ate today was a bowl of cereal. I was going to have dinner ready and then break it to you, but then . . .” I shrug.

He walks past me and opens the fridge. “Okay, what do you know how to cook?”

“Nothing. I did learn how to make a grilled cheese this week. The first one ended up in the garbage, but that wasn’t my fault. The video didn’t say you had to do it on medium heat and not high, and that it takes literally two minutes before it’s done. I went to the bathroom, came back, and poof, a big ball of smoke was waiting for me.”

He shakes his head and pulls out a container of chicken breasts he picked up at the grocery store when we stopped on the way back from the beach.

“What are you doing with that?” I ask.

“Fifteen-minute honey garlic chicken bites.”

I tilt my head to the side. “No way can you cook that in fifteen minutes.”

He shrugs and smirks at me. “Want to bet?”

“Isn’t betting against the law?” I ask, even though I would love to bet on a make-out session with him, and I would do anything to make sure I won the bet.

“Okay, first thing we’re going to do is start the rice.” He disappears inside the pantry and comes back with a white thing under his arm.

“This is a rice cooker. All you do is put water and rice in, and it cooks by itself.”

I gawk at him. “Are you fucking with me?”

“Trust me, when I’m fucking with you, you’ll know.” He smirks again, and my pussy feels like it is going to burst open. I look down, afraid that my heated cheeks are going to give me away. “Okay, so the first step to rice is that you have to wash it.”

“What?” I ask him as he takes out a stainless steel measuring cup and a glass bowl. He pours the rice into the bowl and then adds water.

“You have to get all the starch out of it,” he explains, washing his hands before putting them in the bowl and moving them around in a circle. “See the color of the water? It’s becoming cloudy. Next, we drain it and then add it to the rice cooker. Always add double the water.” He closes the top and presses a button. “Okay, it’ll beep when it’s ready.”

“That’s it? I could definitely do that. Wash, drain, double water, press start.”

He chuckles. “Yeah.” He takes out a cutting board and a knife. “Now we do the chicken.” He starts cutting the chicken into bite-size cubes.

“Who taught you how to cook?” I ask him as I watch.

“Not sure, really. When Maggie and I got married, we would take turns cooking. I get most of my recipe ideas from social media.”

“Really?” I’m not sure I believe him. “Like scrolling, you see recipes?”