The staff is still gone. Sitting on the counter are four chaffing dishes, unattended. Unguarded.
Colt hurries across the room, grabbing a white plate from a stack before popping lids on the dishes. He debates for a second before digging in, scraping two crepes, a stack of scrambled eggs, and two slick slices of ham onto the plate. Footsteps are echoing down the hall when he replaces the lids and darts back to the pantry, snagging a fork on the way. He pulls the door closed behind himself just as the chatter of the wait staff starts to fill the kitchen.
“You know you’re a guest here, right?” I whisper theatrically. “You’re allowed to eat the food. You’re actually kind of supposed to.”
“Oh, in that case…” He reaches out with the fork, the shining, sharp tines headed straight for the cake.
I slap the back of his hand smartly. “No!”
He smiles and winces simultaneously. “That stings.”
“It was supposed to.”
“So you’re not allowed to have help from the guests but you’re allowed to physically abuse them?”
“It’s in the contract.”
“Here.” He offers me the fork. “Dig in.”
I shake my head. “I can’t eat any of that. I’m working.”
“No one can see you eat any of this. No one but me, and I won’t tell. I promise.”
“You’re really desperate to keep a secret for me. Almost like you want me to owe you one.”
“Not true.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes, really,” he answers seriously. “I just want to feed you, Hendricks. That’s it.”
I hesitate, thrown off by his sincerity. It’s different from the way we’ve talked to each other so far. This is a guy who I fully believe is flippant about almost everything, from his toenails to his taxes, but the weight of honesty rests heavy in his voice, dragging down my defenses.
I take the fork, scooping up a bite of steaming yellow eggs. They land savory and delicious on my tongue, instantly pacifying the rat-dog in my gut.
Colt gently takes the fork from me, scraping up a bite of eggs for himself. I watch with interest as he puts it in his mouth, his lips wiping it clean before he offers it back to me.
“Does it creep you out?” he asks when I hesitate.
I shake my head, taking the fork from him. “No, it’s fine. I was just spacing out.”
“Probably because you’re hungry.”
Probably because your mouth had me mesmerized.
“Maybe,” I agree around a bite of ham.
I hand back the fork. He goes for one of the crepes.
“So, what do I owe you?” I ask. “Some eggs and crepes aren’t worth the color of that cake, I’m warning you now.”
He chuckles. “We’re on this again, huh?”
“In my mind we never left it.”
“I wish you would so we could enjoy this delicious meal together.” He loads a big bite of crepe onto the fork, offering it to me. Offering to feed it to me. “This is our first date and you’re souring it with all this gambling and debt talk.”
I smirk at him as I pluck the fork from his hand and put it in my own mouth. “This is not a date.”
“It’s not not a date.”
“If your idea of a date is a closet and contraband food, then I pity the women you take out.”
“If I said I wanted to take you to dinner at Spartina tonight, what would you say?”
“No,” I answer immediately.
He smiles, unharmed by the hit. “Yeah, but a closet with a plate full of crepes you’ll do, so this is what we’re doing.”
“It’s still not a date.”
“It is what it is, Hendricks, and I’m enjoying it.” He grins at me. It feels like a challenge. “Aren’t you?”
If you lined up the last twenty minutes with him against every official ‘date’ I’ve been on over the last two years and asked me which I enjoyed more, I’d pick this closet. I’d pick this guy and his smile and his eggs; hands down, no question. I don’t know if it’s proof of how pathetic my dates have been or how amazing this guy is that I’m enjoying this more, but it’s like he said; it is what it is.
So why am I arguing? Why am I fighting it?
Because outside this moment he’s Colt Avery, running back, nearly nude spokesman, and last month’s Playgirl cover model. Outside these walls and away from this cake we live two cosmically different lives and I have no intention of becoming another star struck follower drooling a river in his wake.
I shrug in response to his question. “I guess.”
He laughs, not buying it.
I’m almost relieved that he doesn’t.
“Here, I’ll prove that I’m not sticking around for the baby shit anymore.” He pops his food in his mouth, handing back the fork before pulling his phone from his pocket. He winces when he sees the screen. Whatever it is that’s bothering him, he blows past it. “I’ll enter my bet right now and I won’t ask you to help me choose.”
“Good.”
“I don’t even need your help.”