She grinned. “But not now?”
I shook my head and went back to what I wanted to know. “So where are you from?”
Shortcake sighed. “I’m from Texas.”
“Texas?” I leaned onto the table. “Really? You don’t have an accent.”
“I wasn’t born in Texas. My family was originally from Ohio. We moved to Texas when I was eleven and I never picked up any accent.”
“Texas to West Virginia? That’s a hell of a difference.”
Her eyes met mine for a fraction of a second and then she stood, picking up her plate and the bowl. “Well, I lived in the strip-mall-hell part of Texas, but besides that, it’s kind of the same here.”
“I should clean up.” I started to stand. “I made the mess.”
“No.” She shot me a serious look. “You cooked. I clean.”
Watching her take care of the dishes, I couldn’t help but think how intimate this was—me cooking, her cleaning. While I may have cooked some breakfasts for girls before, it had been nothing like this.
And I really wasn’t sure how to process that.
Turning to the bread, I peeled the foil back. “What made you choose here?”
She finished washing the little frying pan I’d brought over before answering the question. “I just wanted to get away, like you.”
“Got to be hard though.”
“No. It was incredibly easy to make the decision.”
It was? I couldn’t imagine moving that far away from my family. I was pretty sure my mom would hunt me down if I did. I broke the bread in half. “You are an enigma, Avery Morgansten.”
She leaned against the counter. “Not really. More like you are.”
“How so?”
She gestured at me and my half-eaten loaf of bread. “You just ate four hard-boiled eggs, you’re eating half of a loaf, and you have abs that look like they belong on a Bowflex ad.”
My smile was the size of an earthquake crater. “You’ve been checking me out, haven’t you? In between your flaming insults? I feel like man candy.”
She laughed, and the sound was soft and sweet. “Shut up.”
“I’m a growing boy.”
Her brows rose at that, and I laughed. In the following silence, I found myself telling her more than I told most girls I’d known for years. “My dad is a lawyer, runs his own firm back home. So he probably wanted me to go to law school.”
She stayed by the counter. “Why didn’t you?”
“Law is not my thing. Mom’s a doctor—cardiologist—and before you ask, med school also wasn’t my thing.”
Her right hand went to that bracelet, a nervous habit I was beginning to realize. “And sports recreation is your thing?”
“Soccer is my thing. So if I can get on with a team, helping their players, then I’m happy.” I paused, shifting my weight. “Or I’d love to coach, maybe high school or whatever.”
Her gaze dipped to the floor as she crept forward. She reminded me of a scared animal that had been hurt before and was distrustful of those around her. The knot expanded in my chest and the horrible pricking sensation was back, telling me something I didn’t want to hear.