Page 61 of Defying Ella
“That means good things did happen.” Both she and my mother narrowed their eyes at me. “Why can’t you fill us in now? Is he there, now?” she stage-whispered the last part.
“He’s not.” I opened the cutlery drawer to grab a spoon and paused. Jared’s phone sat tucked in the corner. “I just don’t want you two to ask him a thousand questions when he comes back upstairs and make my life unnecessarily awkward.” Stepping away from my phone, I shouted, “Found your phone,” towards the stairs, hoping my voice would carry downstairs. I freed it with an amused shake of my head. Good thing he couldn’t lose any of his vital organs.
“Okay, now you’ve got me thinking that it’s not all good.” She rubbed her forehead. “He stopped being an asshole to you, right?”
I mean we hadn’t exactly talked about what would happen once we left the lodge, but that didn’t mean anything surely.
“Hey, focus on your own love life. No need to overthink mine.” I would do enough of that for the both of us. I grinned at her, allowing myself to feel a zing of amusement. “What’s this about Dan wanting a wedding?”
Mel scowled. “Throwing your favourite sister under the bus to protect yourself from being grilled is not okay.”
“Why not? You did it to her all the time growing up.” My mother chuckled before handing the phone back to Mel. “We’ll work on her when you get home, Ella.” She winked at me and I almost groaned on Mel’s behalf.
The phone settled in Mel’s grip and my brows rose in question. She sighed, shaking her head.
“We’ll catch up when you’re back.”
Did she have to throw my words back at me?
The thump of footsteps sounded on the stairs. As much as my curiosity burned, I had a sexy drummer to distract me. Wesaid our goodbyes just as Jared joined me in the kitchen, tugging at his hair.
I smiled at him. “You okay there?”
“I still can’t find it.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” I picked up the phone and held it out to him. “Found it in the cutlery drawer.”
He stared at the drawer in question, his expression perplexed.
“You must have dropped it in there when it died or something.” I handed it over and filled him in on our probable rescue.
His shoulders sagged and a huge smile washed away the confusion creasing his brow. “Power on and a rescue plan. What were the chances?”
“I’d rather not think about it. Shall we see if anything oven bake-able survived in the freezer?” I gestured to the forgotten pot on the stove. “We could throw that out.”
Jared laughed as he brushed past me. “I knew you hated it.”
“Are you nose-blind or something?” I followed him into the pantry and watched as he lifted the lid on the chest freezer. “It smelled rank.”
We’d purposefully avoided opening the freezers, hoping that the safety locks would preserve the food until the power turned back on. While there was less icy residue, nothing seemed to have defrosted. Win.
“I might have been testing you.” He turned back to me with two boxes of perfectly frozen pizza in hand and an impish grin. “A week ago, you would have told me to bin it immediately. I didn’t think you’d make it five minutes.” He shook his head as he passed me.
My mouth dropped open. Of course, he was right, but what did that say about me?
That I’d let myself suffer to avoid hurting his feelings.
Things really had changed in a matter of days.
“What are your plans when we get back?” I asked while we polished off the pizza.
“Don’t really have any. Why?”
“I promised Phoebe a sleepover at some point.” I eyed him from beneath my lashes.
“You’re going to keep her for an entire night?” Jared blanched. “You’re braver than me. I love that kid but she’s a handful.”
I chuckled. “She’s not that bad as long as you keep the sugar away.”
