She's probably actually a genius baby who can understand what we're saying and is just screwing with us, I think as I open the fridge to pull out her sippy cup of milk so I can distract her from French-kissing the floor in front of the way-too-hot, way-too-young obviously not-that-bright firefighter who's standing in my kitchen peeling my potatoes. That practically sounds like an innuendo.
"You're blushing," Luke says, gesturing toward me with the peeler in his hand, like it's a pointer or something. "Did she embarrass you?"
I hand Olivia the sippy cup and she rolls onto her back and thanks me. "Did you hear that? That was a thank you. She even has manners. Did she embarrass me by licking the floor? No, of course not."
Luke is looking at the chicken I've marinated, a look of disgust on his face. "Is this marinated in salad dressing?"
"Yeah. The recipe was on the back of the bottle."
He makes a strangled sound, and I start to walk toward the counter, but he shoos me away. "Back off, Red," he says. "You lost your kitchen privileges."
"This is my kitchen."
"Which is why you should lose your kitchen privileges," he says. "Since you should be ashamed of yourself and your poor culinary skills. Go over there. Play with your kid and her rice or whatever and I'll fix this mess."
"Do you usually just waltz into strangers' homes and start cooking them dinner?"
"Cooking them dinner?" he asks. "Us. I do the work of salvaging this mess of chicken you have here, that means I'm a freaking honorary guest at dinner."
"My poor culinary skills?" I ask, just catching what he said. "I'm not a traditional kind of girl."
He makes a sound under his breath, his back turned toward me, and I can't tell if he's laughing at me or scoffing. "No kidding, Red."
"Are you going to stop calling me that?"
He shrugs. "Probably not."
"Okay, then."
CHAPTER FIVE
Luke
The phone buzzes again and I glance down at the third message in a row from Bethany. Or was it Brandi? Or Bambi? I think it was Bambi. It was some kind of cartoon name. I listed her in my phone as "Bimbo," because she is. As evidenced by the series of text messages I've gotten from her in the past twenty minutes:
OMG WTF U STUPID AHOLE
RU STANDING ME UP AGAIN?
FU AND UR STUPID DICK. URNEVR GETTING SOME OF THIS AGAIN.
OH, AND UR ASS IS NOT THAT HOT.
PS UR CAMPER IS FUGLY AS FUCK
The third message was followed by a photo of her tits and another text:
REMEMBER THESE?
Autumn looks up from cutting the kid's chicken into bite-sized pieces. "You want to take that?" she asks.
I shut the phone off completely. "I'm about to go drop it in the sink."
She smirks. She's so smug, like she knows me. "Girl trouble?"
"Or maybe I'm a doctor on call. Did you ever think about that?"
Autumn snorts. "So, what's her name?" she asks.
I shrug. "Bambi?" I say, uncertainly. "I don't actually know."
She laughs and shakes her head, and it suddenly irritates me that she thinks I'm some kind of immature, womanizing asshole. It's accurate, but I'm still annoyed by her assumption.
But then she takes a bite of her chicken, and closes her eyes. "Where'd someone like you learn to cook like this?"
"Someone like me?" I ask. "Seriously, Red, you just trying to insult me, or does it come naturally to you?"
Her face colors. "Sorry," she says. "I meant – well, you're living in a trailer down by the river by yourself and…"
"So, what, you assume I'm so white trash I can't possibly know how to cook?"
"That's not what I meant,” she says.
I raise my eyebrows. "This is hardly my finest work. You need to stock your kitchen appropriately. I mean, your kid is going to grow up thinking that crap you're feeding her is how food should taste."
Autumn laughs, her eyes wide. "Has anyone ever told you you're completely obnoxious?" she asks, shaking her head. "Scratch that. I imagine you get that all the time."
I take a pull from my beer, looking her over. Shit, I can't stop looking this chick over, even with her kid sitting right there. "Ditto, sweetheart."
"Actually, people don't tell me I'm obnoxious," she says, her tone haughty. "And besides, it's not like I have lots of spare time to cook. In case you haven't noticed, I'm running a business here."
"And you have foreman problems," I note. I watch her as she takes another bite of food and coos at her kid, who's shoveling handfuls of mashed potatoes into her mouth.
"That was my third foreman."
"You need to get better at picking 'em." I say, swallowing another gulp of beer.
"I may not be the best judge of character," she says. The way she says it, heavy, makes me think there's a lot more to that statement than just this thing with the foreman.
I don't ask what she means, because hell if I need to get involved in some chick's drama, even though I have to admit, part of me is curious about her story, how someone like her ends up in West Bend with a baby. I don't know what kind of man lets a chick as hot as her go, but he has to be a moron.
We eat in silence for a minute, or relative silence, anyway – her kid is babbling away, talking in what sounds like total gibberish to me, but Autumn seems to understand what she's saying. Or at least she pretends to. Autumn talks to her, and the kid's face lights up as she responds.