Page 33 of Grounds for Love

Chapter 11

Rod

Thesmellofbacon wakes me the next morning and before I’m fully conscious, in a faraway corner of my mind I think of Grace waiting for me downstairs. I’m sad, but only for a moment, and then my head is filled with Jenni. I stretch and grin, my forty-six year-old body reminding me I spent a night doing wicked things to a woman I can’t leave alone. I can only imagine how sore she must be. No matter how many times she says she’s fine, my cock is not touching her pussy today.

As I’m pulling on my shorts, the tempting aroma of frying bacon quickly turns into burnt bacon. Then I hear a loud “Shit!” followed by a crash.

I take off at a run and skid to a sudden halt when the kitchen comes into view. I blink rapidly, taking in what once was my clean and organized chef’s kitchen. There are so many things that need attention and I try to decide what needs to be addressed first. That’s when the smoke alarm starts shrilling.

I quickly triage the room, move a cursing and crying Jenni to a safe distance, and switch off the mixer that’s slinging a white batter on every nearby surface as I grab a potholder in the drawer by the stove and turn the burner off while I reach for the smoking pan of bacon and dump it in the sink. I turn the faucet on, causing a hiss and a cloud of steam to billow up.

Then I notice smoke coming from inside the oven. Moving quickly, I turn it off as well and pull open the door to a wave of heat and smoke that hits me in the face. Coughing, my eyes burning, I grab a kitchen towel and pull out a pan with individual blackened… somethings. They join the still steaming pan of bacon in the sink.

By now the air in the room is barely breathable. I open the kitchen window and stub my toe on the corner of the island. “Fuck!”

I run to open the sliding French doors to the outside deck to get some cross ventilation going and I reset the smoke alarm. Finally, quiet reigns in my house. A house that has never seen this much excitement. Or abuse.

Breathing hard, I take another look around to make sure I haven’t missed another safety hazard. I want to laugh, but my gaze lands on a sniffling, red-eyed, beautiful woman with a look of failure on her face. I need to do damage control and laughing would be the wrong thing to do.

Her lower lip trembles as she looks at me from across the kitchen with such disappointment on her face. “I…I’m sorry.”

I go to her and pull her into my arms. “Baby, are you okay?”

She nods and sniffs. “I’m fine.”

She shifts her hand to behind her back and I know she isn’t fine.

I hold out my hand and raise a brow determinedly until she places her hand in mine. There’s a burn on the back of it that’s already bubbling. “That’s not fine.”

She winces and I hate seeing her in pain. What the hell was she doing?

She looks at me with the saddest eyes. “I just wanted to fix you breakfast. I thought I could do it if I kept it simple.”

I look over her head to the fiasco that once was my kitchen. “Simple?”

She glances toward the still smoking sink. “Bacon, eggs, pancakes, and biscuits.”

Oh, those black bricks were biscuits and the white goo in the mixer must have been pancake batter. I didn’t believe her when she said she couldn’t cook. I won’t make that mistake again.

Putting my hands on her waist, I start to lift her onto the counter so I can treat her hand, but there isn’t a space that’s not covered with something. Cracked eggs, bowls, pans, pots, flour, sugar, butter, an empty bacon package, and more utensils than I even knew I had. The floor is just as bad.

I carry her to the bathroom downstairs and plop her ass on the counter with the direction to, “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

I jog back to the kitchen and grab the first aid kit from an upper cabinet. When I return to the bathroom, I notice she’s wearing my favorite t-shirt. A dark gray Metallica shirt I got from a concert a long time ago. You just can’t tell that’s what it is because it’s covered with gobs of white goo and flour. On closer look, it’s also in her hair and on her face.

“That was a very nice gesture, but I would have liked you in my bed when I woke up. Next time, wake me up, I’ll give you a special surprise, and then we can make breakfast together.”

She sniffs and wipes away a tear, which only smears goo. “After this disaster, is there going to be a next time?”

I kiss the only clean square inch on her face. “There most definitely will be a next time.”

I kiss another spot I missed. “And a time after that…”

“I’m so sorry, Rod. Everything just got out of hand at the same time. Bryan wouldn’t let me near the kitchen. I, um…may have started a fire when I put a kitchen towel on the stove. I didn’t know the burner was on and it caught fire and spread to the curtains over the sink.”

I take her chin and tip her face. “Baby, you can mess my house up anytime you like, but next time, don’t hurt yourself and make sure I’m there.”

She nods sadly. “That may be best.”

---