Page 12 of Love at First Slice
Dishes of food were passed around, and when they reached Mark, he didn’t serve himself first. He simply looked at me, silently asking if I wanted mashed potatoes. Like we’d done this hundreds of times before. The familiarity and pull I felt couldn’t be one-sided; it was too strong for that. When I nodded, he scooped some onto my plate before serving himself some.
He did that over and over, with every dish that came his way. Even passing my plate towards Brew first for turkey and ham.I felt Rosie’s gaze from across the table, but I ignored her eyes because I didn’t have any answers to whatever questions she might have.
Once our plates were full, we all dug in.
I wasn’t sure how, but even with everything running through my head about the man next to me, I ate. I savored and enjoyed all the different sides along with the juicy turkey Brew had made and the sweet ham Rosie had brought. Weirdly enough, every morsel tasted better than anything I had ever eaten in my life.
“Damn, these are good,” he groaned. The sound shot through me, and when I looked at what he was enjoying, I smiled.
“I made those,” I shared. The look he gave me sent hot shivers up and down my body.
“Best mac and cheese I’ve ever had, babe.”Babe. He’d called me babe. Was that flirting? Mark’s eyes never wavered from mine. “Could eat this for the rest of my life.”
There was a promise in his tone I wanted him to follow through on.
And soon!
6.Abby
“Oh my god! There you are!” I turned to see Tab rush into the guest bathroom as I washed my hands.
“What are you—” She didn’t wait for me to finish talking.
“What is going on with you and Mark?” Tab asked in a hushed whisper. I didn’t have to look behind me where I stood at the sink to know Ember and Rosie were both creeping into the hall and hurrying straight to the bathroom. When the door shut behind them, I rolled my eyes.
“Group meeting in the bathroom? Really? You guys don’t think this is too much?”
“First off, it would be a family meeting,” Tab corrected. “And secondly, don’t try and change the subject! What is going on with you and Mark?”
“I don’t know what you’re—“ I started to deny as I turned the faucet off, but the moment my eyes met Tab’s, I couldn’t lie. Not outright like that. “He’s nice,” I said, knowing it was nowhere near enough.
“Nice?” Ember repeated, her eyes wide with glee.
“Oh. My. God,” Rosie whispered, and when I looked at her reflection in the mirror as she stood behind me, I could see shewas two point five seconds from jumping and clapping and being all girlie.
“Don’t.” I pointed at her. “Don’t get all girlie on me. I just said?—“
“You like him!” she whispered way too loudly. I worried someone outside could hear her. I couldn’t help the way my cheeks heated. By the way my three best friends were staring at me, I knew they hadn’t missed my blushing.
“That’s silly! We just met,” I tried to argue, but it didn’t sound convincing in my own ears.
“I knew when I saw Brewster,” Tabitha said softly, her kind eyes set on me as I turned to face her.
“Love at first sight isn’t a real thing,” I muttered, not exactly liking the way the words tasted on my tongue.
I’d grown up hearing all about love at first sight from my parents. It’s why I was twenty-eight and hadn’t really dated. I’d thought I was broken on the inside that no one I had ever looked at inspired anything inside of me. And the real clencher had been that I’d never inspired any kind of feeling out of anyone else.
“He likes you,” Tab said. I started to shake my head, but both her hands rose and held my face in place. “He. Likes. You,” she repeated. I felt like a goldfish out of its tank.
“There’s no way,” I scoffed. “He looks like he does, and I’m…” I glanced down and shook my hips slightly. “Me,” I reminded them. I wasn’t horrible to look at, but I hardly turned heads. As my eyes bounced from one friend to the next, it was clear that whatever they saw wasn’t the same thing I did.
“He said he felt like he was home while looking straight at you,” Rosie pointed out.
“That was something out of like… a Hallmark movie,” Ember added, and I hated that I couldn’t argue with her. His words had bounced around in my head since he’d said them.
“He held my hand under the table,” I blurted out. All their eyes grew wide, and because it seemed like it was sharing time, I added, “And I think he was about to kiss me when we met at the door.”
“Holy shit,” Tabby said
