Page 64 of Ellie 1

I laughed. “Your nose is too good. Everything is sealed.” I rolled my eyes when he simply shrugged… And still had his eyes covered. “Uncover your eyes, goof.”

He did and wiped his mouth like there was drool when he saw it all set out. “Wow, there’s really a lot involved.” He frowned when he saw the jars of peanuts, but not packaged jars. Mason jars with my plastic, washable lids. “I need this explained.” Then he chuckled. “The jar broke?”

“No, apparently, getting unsalted peanuts isn’t as easy as other nuts. People like them salted and roasted different ways. So I could only find unsalted in their shells.” I cleared my throat and brought out the rest. “It became a thing. Some people crochet or play games on their phones to distract them or keep their hands busy.”

“And you deshell peanuts?” he hedged.

I snorted. “I got Alan and a few others on it too. When we have meetings, instead of being in their own offices like the other department heads so we can relax, they come to my office and we open peanuts. It helps with the frustration idiots cause too. I can’t crack skulls, so we do this.” I shrugged.

“That’s adorable, love. Seriously, too—you are adorable.”

I wasn’t embarrassed when he laughed, just surprised. Tommy thought it was silly and that I was being weirdly cheap.He never understood going through the headache when you could just buy them in smaller jars for more money.

I shook my head. No more even thinking about Tommy. That was over.

“So it’s two types of trail mix, the normal basic and a healthy one,” I told him as I showed him the massive mixing bowl we were going to use for it all. “Then unsalted peanuts that I do, the unsalted heart healthy mix, low salt pistachios, macadamia nuts—all low or unsalted if I can find them, but that’s normally rough.

“The recipe is flexible, and I buy them in bulk like a lunatic when I can find them.” I shrugged again when he chuckled. “Then it’s dark chocolate-covered almonds and cashews before the Peanut M&M’s. Lastly, Reece’s Pieces.”

“I knew it!” he exclaimed. “I thought I tasted them, but Tai told me I was just nut overloaded.” He frowned, probably hearing the innuendo there.

Still, I chuckled. “You were correct. Again, the measurements are adjustable and fluctuate.” I covered the huge bowl that now had dozens of cups of ingredients. “Shake it all up.”

He snickered. “Presents that come with manual labor. I get it.” He was actually adorable when he shook it. He did it like tossing salad but also side to side, front to back, and then swirled it.

Yeah, I died. If only everyone could be so considerate when helping and make sure to do a good job. The world would be much better if more people cared about the details like that.

I took off the lid and checked it out. Then I added more of the heart-healthy mixed nuts and macadamia nuts. The distribution looked better after another shake-up.

Now it was just bagging it all up and repeating the process until all of the ingredients were gone. Ha-joon was a total goofand used the chocolate containers to store the final trail mix saying it was better than just recycling them.

Fair enough, but most doctors wouldn’t just want that sitting in their offices like they bootlegged moonshine. He gave me a look like I might be a bit pretentious and set one of the bags off to the side to bring to his office once we dragged it all down to his condo.

“I don’t want to be pushy, but I think you should try and schedule something with the coven leader before Fitz thinks to get him on his side somehow,” Ha-joon said gently when we were done.

I sighed because he was right. So I made the call, and after being bounced around, I used my position at ASH to get through. I waspissedthat it came to that, but I also understood that because I had everyone off the street always wanting to come directly to me too.

And most times they didn’t need me. They just wanted the boss even if it was something I didn’t handle.

So I understood… But I didn’t like it.

“He said he can see me after dinner if it’s informal,” I told Ha-joon when I was done.

“Good, that gives us time to eat and shower.” He smirked at me.

And that was how I ended up having sex with him in his expansive shower.

“I need to change my shower,” I muttered when we were done, glancing at it. “That overhead water fixture is—how do you have more water pressure than I do?”

He frowned at me. “There’s a way to adjust that I think. When was the last time you updated your bathrooms?”

I blinked at him. “I never have. Everything is the original install from when I had the place built. I mean a few appliances that have broken but…” I shrugged.

He stared at me like I’d grown a third head. “Okay, so updating your condo is on the list. Isn’t this building older than I am?”

Yes. I didn’t want to admit that but… Yes. Fine, I was—whatever, I was never there. I went to my condo to sleep.

“Once there’s not such a mess at the hospital,” I muttered after a moment. Some upgrades would be nice at least. The shower he had was way more inviting than mine. The tub—yeah, it was definitely time.

---