Page 111 of Melt for You (Slow Burn 2)
I’m floored. He seems so much older. More mature. Twenty-nine is practically a baby! Suddenly I feel like Methuselah, nearly a thousand years old and counting.
“Uh-oh,” he says drily, examining my pinched expression. “She’s thinkin’. No good can come of this.”
I blow out a breath too hard, which causes my lips to flap in a truly unattractive way. But I don’t care, because it’s Cam, and he’s seen me at my worst. “I remember twenty-nine. It was actually harder than thirty. Once I was over that hump, I accepted I’d never be young again.”
“Everything’s relative, lass. There’s a sixty-year-old grandma out there who’d give her eyeteeth to be thirty-six again.”
“Oh, thank you for that pearl of wisdom. How comforting to know the elderly are jealous of me.”
“Sixty isn’t elderly!”
“Dude. Seriously. If the average life expectancy is somewhere in the seventies, sixty is practically knocking on death’s door.”
“One of my grandmothers lived to be one hundred and fourteen.”
“What? That’s a lie!”
“Nope. And my other grandmother is one hundred and ten. She’s still alive.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Now you’re just trying to make me feel better.”
“I’m not pullin’ your leg! The McGregor clan has exceptional genes, lass. Nobody in my family even starts thinkin’ about retirin’ until well after ninety.”
“Really?”
“Really. If you ever visit Scotland, I’ll take you to meet Nanny O’Shea. That’s my mum’s mum. You two would get a kick out of each other—same sharp tongue and lack of respect for the McGregor men.”
He smiles, relishing some memory, and drinks more of his beer, while I sit and think how much fun it would be to meet his ancient, sassy Scottish grandmother.
“My dad’s mother is eighty. We call her Granny Gums because she loves to horrify people by popping out her dentures during conversations like it’s an accident. She has mild dementia, so she repeats herself a lot, but otherwise she’s in pretty good shape. My other grandmother is in perfect health, but you wouldn’t know it by the way she carries on. She had a Just Buried party when she turned fifty because she was convinced she was about to kick the bucket any minute. She was a model, like my mom.”
I take a long drink of my wine, thinking of all the times my mother and grandmother commiserated about getting old, even when I was a kid and they weren’t anywhere close to old. Every holiday and family get-together inevitably turned into a Mourning the Glory Days of Our Departed Beauty party.
“Those people do not age gracefully, and I’m not talking about wrinkles.”
Cam sits up and holds his beer out toward me, like he wants to toast.
“What?”
“Clink your glass with
me, lass. That’s the first time you’ve said somethin’ sensible about age, looks, or your family.”
“Maybe you’re rubbing off on me.” We toast and drink, then Cam smacks his lips, looking wistfully toward the kitchen.
The man is as subtle as a wrecking ball.
“I have a chicken breast and some veggies left over from dinner I could reheat if you’re hungry.”
Cam toys with the lace on the sleeve of his robe, his lashes swept demurely downward. “Only if it’s no bother, lass. I don’t wanna keep you up.”
I kick his feet and grin at him. “Oh, shut up, you big baby.”
When he smiles bashfully, his lips in a wry little twist because he’s too shy to admit he wants me to cook for him, I’m hit with a sudden, unidentifiable emotion. It’s weird and tender and powerful and alien and makes my heart skip several beats.
I stand so abruptly I spill wine on the carpet.
Cam looks up at me, but I spin away, unwilling to let his sharp eyes get a glimpse at my face. In a daze, I walk into the kitchen and start putting together a plate for Cam from the leftovers in the fridge.
