Page 183 of Back in the Saddle

Thus, I did not hesitate to nab two dessert plates, grab my chef’s knife and cut two enormous wodges and put them on plates.

Eric had leaned a hip against the counter in the kitchen with me and had watched all of this, which was good. He was right there when I shoved a fork into his wodge and handed it to him.

I then shoved a fork into my wodge.

After that, I cleft a massive amount of the creamy cookie cake onto my fork and rammed it into my mouth.

Absolute heaven.

Eric didn’t partake.

“You okay?” he asked.

“No,” I said around mocha cream and softened-by-cream chocolate chip cookies.

“You gonna be able to calm down enough to take a nap with me?” he asked while I shoveled more cake into my mouth.

“Yes,” I answered, still with mouth full.

“You going into work later?”

I swallowed and said, “Tito gives what amounts to a week of personal or sick days every year. I usually use it as vacation because I don’t often get sick. So I won’t be out wages. But I need the tips, and it feels gross to ask my girls to cover for me.”

“Two of your brother’s friends were shot dead last night. It isn’t gross to let your friends cover for you when serious shit goes down that you should take the time to deal with, Jessie. And I could tell by the way Raye arranged that, they won’t mind.”

“We’ll see after our nap. Do you have to go in later?”

He nodded and finally forked into his cake.

I watched as he took a bite.

His eyes widened before going lazy, and after he swallowed, he murmured, “Fucking hell.”

“Don’t tell anybody,” I warned him.

His brows drew together. “About the cake?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because Raye made the mistake of bringing her insanely delicious pudding to an Oasis shindig, and now she can barely show her face in the courtyard without someone expecting her to magically produce it. I can’t say. I’m eating this now and don’t have any of her pudding on hand for an on-the-spot comparison. But since I’m eating this now, I’ll make the pronouncement it’s better than her pudding, with the stipulation that I might retract that when confronted with a bowl of her pudding. To wit, if anyone knew about this cake, everyone would force me to make it all the time.”

“It wasn’t hard,” Eric replied.

“How will I get practice making other shit if I’m always making this?” I asked, indicating with my fork the cake on my plate.

“Fair point,” he said, his black eyes twinkling with humor, which masked his relief I wasn’t losing my shit that my brother was facing the day after earning two very dead friends, how my brother’s friends got dead, and the fact he was mixed up in that world.

We lapsed into silence and ate our cake.

When we were done, even though I was down for seconds, Eric took my plate from me, ran both of them under water, stacked them in the sink, came back to me and grabbed my hand.

“Let’s go to bed,” he murmured.

I loved those words coming from his mouth, even if what we were going to do there wasn’t what I’d been hankering for from the minute I met him.

I selected an okay-ish, totally simple, black cotton nightie for this non-adventure.

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