Crazy Love(60)

“Thanks,”

Krista could swear that she heard pride tinting his voice. She looked up at him, and sure enough, his honey-colored eyes were surveying the living room with a look of accomplishment and satisfaction. She wanted to laugh, but she didn’t. Chase was by far the most successful—at least in his career—person Krista knew, yet he was so obviously proud of himself for cleaning his mom’s house. Endearing didn’t even begin to describe it.

After he nodded his head in a job-well-done fashion, his hands reached out, taking the bags from her. She followed behind him but ran smack dab into his back when he stopped suddenly.

“Is this your mom’s meatloaf?” he said as if he were scared to ask, fearing that just uttering the sacred words “mom’s meatloaf” would jinx it and the loaf of meat would go up in a puff of smoke, vanishing into thin air.

“It’s my mom’s recipe, but I made it.”

Krista didn’t want to toot her own horn, but (toot, toot!) she had mastered her mom’s recipe. After returning home after college, it had been the first meal she’d asked her mom to teach her to cook. Krista could still remember the look of—oh boy, I know what this is about!—that had appeared in her mom’s blue eyes at her daughter’s request.

A deep groan sounded from deep in Chase’s chest. Krista smiled to herself. When she was growing up, none of her sisters or her cousins had liked her mom’s meatloaf, and that had not changed one iota now that they were all adults. For some inexplicable reason though, Chase had always loved it—like really loved it. So much so that the dinner had even caused a fight between them once.

One night when they were in high school, they had planned to go and meet up with some friends for pizza, but when Chase had found out that meatloaf was on the Sloan family menu, he’d said that he wanted to eat at Krista’s. He’d ended up doing both, but only after Krista had pitched a fit about it. Honestly, there were times she’d actually been jealous over the brown blob of meat because when Chase ate it, it looked as if he were having a religious experience. The only other time his face had ever looked to be in that state of bliss was when he’d been buried deep inside of her.

“Do you know how much I’ve missed this?” he asked as he pulled the dish out of the insulated packaging.

She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or the loaf, but she decided to participate in the conversation for the hell of it. “I can imagine.” Her voice had come out sounding snarkier than she’d meant it to.

Damn. Even now as an adult, she still felt the twinges of annoyance over his love for a meal. A meal, she reminded herself, she herself had prepared for him.

This was not good. Not good at all.

* * *

Chase savored every bite of the four slices of meatloaf he’d piled on his plate. A home-cooked meal was few and far between on the road. Not that he was complaining. He knew how lucky he was to have the success he did. That did not stop him from missing Mrs. Sloan’s meatloaf.

It was ridiculous, but over the years, he’d even dreamt about it. Several times, he’d been woken up before he’d gotten to taste it in his dream, and it had been almost as frustrating as being woken up while having a sex dream before the grand finale.

As his mouth covered the fork that held the last piece of loaf, he dragged his lips along the metal, pulling the deliciousness into his mouth. He groaned as he bit into the flavorful bite, reveling in every second it was in his mouth. As he swallowed, he looked up into Krista’s beautiful blue-green eyes and saw that look of irritation there.

“Sorry,” he apologized, knowing that he’d been bad company during their dinner.

“It’s fine,” she said as she pushed her salad around on her plate.

Chase might not have known everything there was to know, but he did know that ‘it’s fine’ meant that it definitely was not fine.

Covering his hand over hers, he rubbed his thumb along her knuckles as he said, “Thank you so much for making that and remembering it was my favorite.”

“No problem,” she snipped, pulling her hand away and taking a sip of her wine.

Chase was torn. He did feel bad that he’d basically had conversation blinders on while he’d eaten, but in fairness to him, he’d finished off his plate in under ten minutes. Then there was the fact that seeing Krista get jealous again, even if it was just over food, had seemed like a good sign to Chase.

He knew that asking her what was wrong was not the path to go down to change her mood. She’d never been the kind of girl to lay out an emotional roadmap for him to follow. He liked that though. The fact that getting to know her wasn’t easy.