Page 73 of Honeymoon Phase
“Oh... that’s my bread that I brought to go with the meal. Thanks for bringing it over.”
Ethan’s nose wrinkles.
“Do you have a problem with bread?” I ask, arching a brow at him as I shift Stevie in my arms.
He shrugs. “It’s boring.”
“Not my bread.”
He eyes me skeptically. “What’s so cool about your bread?”
“Why don’t you get it out and see?” I smile as I watch him fumble with the bag and reach in to pull out my masterpiece that I hid from Luke this morning for this exact moment.
“It’s a turkey!” Ethan squeals and everyone stops what they’re doing to come over and see what all the fuss is about.
“Did you make that, Addison?” Jo gasps as she looks at the loaf that I made to resemble the shape of a cooked turkey. It has a rounded body, two wings and the appearance of two legs tucked underneath. I scored the loaf to give it a seasonal look along with a string wrapped around the two legs holding a sprig of rosemary as garnish.
“That is incredible,” Max says, resting his hand on Ethan’s shoulders. “Edible art, Ethan.”
“Can we really eat it?” Ethan asks.
“Definitely! I have homemade tomato basil butter to go with it in the fridge.”
“Yuck,” Ethan exclaims and everyone laughs.
Trista sets the bread on a platter and places it in the center of the table with pride and I can’t help but notice Ethan hurrying over to a seat right next to my loaf. A flash of my little brother causes my eyes to sting all over again and when I look away, I find Luke watching me thoughtfully.
“You good?” he asks, his eyes soft and tender, making that knot in my throat even bigger.
I nod and dip my head down to inhale the scent of the baby in my arms and the food around the table. “Yeah, Luke. I’m good.” Maybe better than I have been in a long time.
Chapter 24
Fact or Fiction?
Moist isn’t always a gross word.
Luke
Cake tasting with your wife and mother sounds like a fairly innocent experience on the surface. Sitting in a cute little bakery in downtown Boulder. Light snow falling outside the picture window. Your mom prattling on and on about each cake’s consistency, frosting texture, and the “moistness.”
I always thought the wordmoistwas disgusting, but hell if it isn’t eliciting some indecent thoughts in me today. Was my wife moist the night we kissed? Is there a chance she could be moist now? How many times has she been moist since we locked lips? Am I a fucked-up deviant for contemplating these thoughts with my mother seated right beside me?
The answer is yes.
But fucking hell, I can’t help it. Every time I watch Roe’s lips wrap around the metal tongs of the fork, her tongue darting out to lick a dollop of frosting off the edge of her mouth and the way her cheeks flush when we make eye contact...I realize that moist cake tasting might be the most erotic thing I’ve ever done.
The past two weeks have been a mind fuck. Kissing my wife was quite possibly the worst and best thing I could have ever done. Best because it was life-changing. It confirmed everything I thought to be true about my best friend. We fucking work. The chemistry is there. The physical oneness is next level. The desire is goddamn mind-blowing.
However, it’s the worst because we went from comfortable,fun-loving friends who have dinner together every night to two ships passing in the night.
Roe is avoiding me and I’m in hell.
And the most frustrating part is she’s not obviously avoiding me. She’s doing that annoying customer service thing she does where she speaks to me like I’m a client instead of her best friend.
Her husband.
She still shoots me a text before she goes for a run in the trails behind our cabins. She still makes dinner and does all the normal things she did our first week together, but now she chooses to eat in her room without giving me any reason why. Just mentions it like it’s totally normal for her to not eat with me, which fucking kills me. It feels like a form of rejection, like the kiss was bad or what I said to her afterward was too far.
