Page 167 of Ruin Me Gently

It was weirdly easy. We’d spent days waking up tangled together, soft hands tracing over skin, and slow, sleepy murmurs before either of us was willing to move. Days of her stealing half my coffee supply, of me making sure she ate something first. It should’ve been too much. But Ilikedit.

I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. Her hair was still a mess from sleep, the ends curling slightly from where they’d been pressed into my chest all night. She was warm, still soft around the edges, the stubborn lines of her usual scowl not quite set yet.

And then there was the way she was looking at me. Like she was cataloguing details. Filing me away. Afraid of whatever this was too.

She had no idea, did she? No idea how far gone I was. How I kept catching myself watching her like this, like a man memorising something he wasn’t meant to keep.

She cleared her throat, picking at a piece of toast. “You know, I’m starting to think you have a thing for making sure I eat.”

I took a slow sip of my coffee, watching her over the rim of my mug. Did she really just now figure that out? After all this time? My lips curved slightly. “Problem?”

“No,” she shook her head, picking up her own mug like she could hide behind it. “Just something I’ve noticed.”

“Hmm, I’ve noticed things too,” I said.

She arched a brow. “Like what?”

“Like how you steal the blankets in your sleep.”

Her jaw dropped.Perfect.

“Excuse me?”

I nodded. “Woke up at least three times last night freezing my ass off.”

“Sounds like a you problem,” she said without a shred of sympathy.

I huffed, setting down my mug. “Not when you’re actively committing crimes against my warmth.”

She laughed, shaking her head as she took another sip of coffee. I loved that sound. Loved the way it softened something inside me that had been tarnished and blackened by metaphorical ash.

She glanced down at the spread in front of us—pastries, eggs, bacon, toast, the whole goddamn breakfast lineup.

“Where did you learn to make stuff like this?” She asked, her gaze flicking to mine.

I lifted a brow. “Where did I learn to make… basic breakfast food?”

She scoffed, grabbing a pastry. “No offence, but I haven’t met many of your species that cook, so please, excuse the question.”

I let out a quiet laugh. “Learning wasn’t really a choice. Not at first.”

Her head tilted slightly, eyes sharper now. Always looking for pieces of me I didn’t know how to give. “Oh?”

I toyed with the rim of my mug, gaze dropping for a second. “When I was a kid, Mamma worked two, sometimes three jobs just to keep us afloat. Most days, I barely saw her except for the few minutes before she left for a shift or after she got home, exhausted, barely standing. It was me and my sisters most of the time, so if I didn’t figure out how to cook,” I huffed a breath, “we wouldn’t eat.”

Flashes of the past flickered in my mind.

The kitchen in our cramped apartment—peeling linoleum floors, the fridge that rattled every time you shut it, the stovetop burners that only worked if you lit them manually with a match.

I was nine the first time I burned my hand trying to do it.

By ten, I was cooking full meals alone.

Spaghetti with canned tomatoes, day-old bread crisped in the oven to make it last longer, eggs and rice because it was cheap and filled us.

I stood ona rickety wooden chair, stirring whatever I could throw together, one eye on the pot, the other on my sisters.

The stove burner clicked, the blue flame flickering like it might give out at any second. I grabbed a dented tin of cheap tomato sauce, tipping the last bit of it in, stirring fast, hoping it would thicken a little.

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