Page 61 of Don't Forget Me
The screeching finally ceased as Liz turned off the oven and waved a towel in front of her to clear the air as she coughed and choked. “What did you do?”
Nick climbed down off his chair, his shoulders dipping in defeat. “I wanted to make you breakfast.”
He looked so despondent Liz couldn’t help feeling for him. “A quiche?”
He nodded. “Stephen used to cook—like you—and quiche was his favorite. He was always telling me it was easier than people realized.”
“Oh, honey, it is.” She held in a laugh. “For people who know how to cook.”
He twisted a towel between his fingers before throwing it on the counter and stalking toward the open window, pulling it shut to protect them from the rain.
When he turned back around, there was an earnestness in his eyes, and Liz wanted to reach out to him, to return the words he’d said to her.
Yet, they stuck in her throat along with the knowledge that this couldn’t be love. No matter how she felt, she couldn’t fall in love with a man in a dream world.
“What did I do wrong?” His voice cracked on that word. Did most people in his life only praise him, never telling him about his mistakes?
Liz’s eyes caught on a worn and stained recipe card on the counter. “Stephen’s?”
He nodded. “He left a lot of recipes here.”
“Well, for starters, you had the oven set to four hundred and twenty-five degrees when I took it out.”
His brow furrowed. “But that’s what the recipe said.”
“And this is why recipes are dangerous, Nick.” Her eyes scanned Stephen’s handwriting. “He’d probably made this dish so many times he didn’t bother writing down all the steps. Quiche can’t be cooked at a single temperature. When I make it, I do four hundred and twenty-five degrees for fifteen minutes and then three hundred degrees for forty minutes.”
“Only forty…” His eyes widened.
“How long did you cook it for?”
“Well… the time is smudged, see?” He pointed to the recipe in her hands.
“How long, Nick?”
Red crept from beneath the collar of his shirt. “Two hours.”
Words failed her.
Two hours?
Who in their right mind chooses two hours as their guess time? This man really was hopeless. Rubbing her forehead, Liz released a long breath, reminding herself how good he looked without his shirt, how open and honest he’d become.
It was the only way to not let this idiot moment get to her. “He’s good looking,” she whispered to herself. “And he kisses like freaking Adonis.”
“What?” The doubt faded from his face as his lips turned up.
This man.
How she loved this man.
The admission sent a wave of energy through her. Liz loved Nick Jacobs. Not a man in her dreams, not the actor on the TV screen.
Whatever this was, in that moment, she knew with more certainty than she’d ever had that she would love him for the rest of her life.
Which is why she walked forward through the remaining bits of smoke, stopping when her chest bumped his. She took his hand and brought it between them.
“It’s a good thing you’re so pretty.” Her eyes met his, the heaviness of the last few days falling away, and they became as they were. Two souls searching for something, anything, that helped them make sense of any of this.
