Page 24 of The Mistletoe Bluff
I braced myself, preparing for something bad, maybe a messy apartment with clothes everywhere, dishes and trash all over the kitchen, or the pungent odor of a litter box if Maya turned out to be one of those crazy cat ladies.
But instead, it was…spotless.
Not a thing was out of place. There wasn’t a single dish in the kitchen sink, or undergarments lying in the middle of the floor, and definitely no odor. In fact, the gentle scent of citrus essential oil filled the air. I arched a brow as Maya turned to gauge my reaction.
“I’m disappointed, Maya. Not a single whiff of corpses to be found. You worried for nothing.” I nudged her shoulder, but she stood stiff as a board.
“I don’t like mess,” she admitted, her shoulders tensed as she shoved her hands into her pockets. “Clutter and dirt make me anxious.”
Understanding flooded through me. Maya struggled with anxiety too? An ache went through my heart at the thought.
“And why would I judge you for that?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Some people find it intimidating, and when you add in the word anxiety on top of it, it’s usuallyadios buddy.”
I glanced around again, trying to understand why anyone would have a problem with a clean house. It didn’t scare me, and neither did her admission to struggling with her mental health.
I smiled. “Well, lucky for you I don’t know Spanish. Looks like you’re stuck with me.”
Maya snorted before covering the sound with a shaking hand, her ears turning red. Unable to help myself, I took hold of her hand, pulling it away from her face, and settled it onto my chest, right over my racing heart. She took a step forward, looking up at me with confused eyes.
“You don’t need to worry about me judging you, Maya. I’m not easily scared.”
“You say that now, Oliver, but everyone leaves at some point.”
I squeezed her hand tighter against my chest, wishing I could force reassurance into her through the contact.
“Who taught you that?” I dared to ask.She was so close now I could smell the faint fruity scent of her perfume.
Her lips parted, an answer waiting on her tongue, but then her eyes shuttered, and she pulled out of my grasp.
Maya shook her head and asked, “Can we eat now?”
I wanted to keep talking, wanted to know whatever she was about to say, but I put my desire aside and headed into the kitchen. “Of course.”
The bottle of wine in the bag clinked as I set it on the counter before pulling out a box of pasta, an insulated bag of garlic bread sticks, and a third box of chocolate cake, which I slipped into the fridge when Maya wasn’t looking. Her fridge consisted of a half empty carton of milk and a package of cheese slices.
It wasn’t my job to protect her or take care of her. And yet…in that moment all I wanted to do was whisk her down the road to Wally’s and tell her to fill her cart with anything she wanted. Maya was strong, I didn’t doubt that for a second, but maybe she felt the need to portray that she was okay when she really wasn’t.
I swallowed down the lump in my throat and pushed away my desire to help for the moment, taking the plates that Maya offered me, and dished out dinner.
“I hope you like Italian,” I said, trying to fill the silence that settled between us. Maya was tense, fidgeting with her hands, her eyes darting back and forth between the food, me, and the rest of her apartment.
“Who doesn’t?” Maya responded a beat too late, her voice quiet.
Once again, my inner protector wanted to ask what was wrong, but I didn’t want to push her too much.
I hoped that at the end of this dating farce that Maya realized I wasn’t trying to upheave her life, and maybe she’d end up returning my feelings too. We just had to work through why she hated me so much first.
But I was standing in her apartment—feeding her food. That was a start.
Maya took her plate and led me around the corner to the barstools on the other side of the island. We settled into our seats, and I poured each of us a glass of wine, and she wasted no time digging into her pasta.
“So…did you enter that contest your dad wanted you to enter?” she asked as she twirled a fork through her noodles.
“Unfortunately.”
She glanced up at me through her lashes.
