“You do so set things on fire,” Mike objected, ready to tell Laura plenty of stories about his roommates kitchen screw-ups.
“Not since I became a firefighter.”
“Touché. You did nearly destroy a dorm kitchen single-handedly with a toaster and a frosted Pop-Tart, though.”
“Not my fault. Do you have any idea how many fire safety seminars there are about Pop-Tart glaze? It’s breathtaking.”
“Yeah. Makes me gasp.” Mike poured a few inches of wine in his and Laura’s glasses as she shot him a surprised look. Sarcasm didn’t suit him, he knew. It oozed out when he was anxious.
Anxious? Still? Things seemed settled. Ish.
Ding! The kitchen timer went off. Dylan leaped and ran, leaving a small cloud of white flour in his wake. “The meatballs!” he shouted. Mike and Laura followed, curious.
“Oh, what is that amazing scent?” Laura asked, pretending to swoon. Maybe she really was. Mike was half delirious himself from the smell of whatever Dylan was making. Taking a chance, Mike slid his arm around Laura’s shoulders. She relaxed into him, keeping her eyes on Dylan. The press of her body into his felt so comfortable he needed to pause and blink, arm resting against the nape of her neck, across her shoulders, the casual comfort of the gesture so...right.
This was what he missed most. The normalcy of a night of cooking, of hanging out, watching movies and just relaxing. Being. Living. As Dylan pulled a meatball out and put parts of it on forks for everyone to taste, something in Mike released. Exhaled.
It felt damn good. Better than sex right now.
Laura snuggled in closer, her arm reaching for the fork, taking it from Dylan, lips closing over the morsel, her ribs expanding against Mike as she sighed. Eyeing the contact between the two, Dylan just smiled. Cool. Everyone was finally starting to chill.
His grandma’s magic meatballs cured everything.
If not everything, at least they brought them all a little culinary bliss. He tasted a bite. Perfection. A blend of beef, a little veal, some pork, and oregano, basil, pepper, a touch of sugar and some grated parmesan with a tiny bit of mozzarella. Loads of garlic, of course! Juicy and coated in homemade tomato sauce (was there any other kind? If it came in a jar it wasn’t real food), each bite was like stepping into an Italian restaurant in the North End in Boston, red velvet booths and low light and white-shirted waiters shouting in Italian.
“All that’s left is the salad. Give me a few minutes and I’ll have everything out.” He surveyed the countertop. Destroyed. Red sauce everywhere (really? How’d it get on the kitchen ceiling fan blades?), the backsplash a buffet of splotches, every large pot dirty and stacked crooked in the sink, and zero counter space. None.
“I’ll help,” Laura offered, peeling off Mike, who looked disappointed. Good.
“Great!” He handed her a decanter of olive oil and a cheese grinder. “Can you put the parm on the pasta and if it needs more oil, add some?”
“What about me?” Mike asked. “Need anything?”
“Set the table?” Mike nodded and made quick work of it, grabbing plates and shuttling to and fro between dining room and kitchen. It all felt so...domestic.
Until Mike put a dent in it. “Hey, Dyl!” he hissed, nodding to the hallway. Laura was tossing pasta and rotating the cheese grinder handle, sprinkles of parmesan snowing on the bowl of noodles.
“What’s up?” he asked, drying his hands on a towel.
“That whole no lying thing. Should we tell her about the—you know...” Mike made a reluctant face.
“The you know what?”
“The billionaire thing. She doesn’t want lies, and she considers not telling her something major to be a lie.”
Fuck. He hadn’t thought of that. If they kept this from her, eventually it would come out. Would she be angry they didn’t confide in her? Or would she understand why they wanted a little more time? It wasn’t about worrying that she’d become greedy, or view them as sugar daddies, or any of the normal reasons guys with money would hesitate to let a woman know.
They had so much money there wasn’t anything a woman could do to drain it anyhow, short of buying an island or a private jet, and even then—he shuddered, overwhelmed by the realization—it would just put a temporary dent in their cash flow. Jesus Christ. They really were filthy, stinking rich.
Next time, he was buying filet for dinner. Why had he made boring old pasta with meatballs? Sheesh.
“No way, man. Not tonight. It’ll scare her off,” he told Mike. Hell, he hadn’t even wanted poor Laura to have to get into talking about what he and Mike had done before. Anything that reminded her of negative feelings about them was off limits tonight. This dinner was about moving forward, not lingering in the past.