Southern Secrets by Natasha Madison

Chapter 8

Amelia

The smellof bacon makes me open one eye, and I think I’m dreaming. I’m on my side in the middle of my bed with four pillows all around me and the cover up to my eyes. I turn and slip my hand out of the hot cocoon, grabbing my phone and seeing it’s only six o’clock.

I groan and put my hands back under the cover and close my eyes. Why does it smell like bacon? I look over at my closed door and smell coffee. What the hell is going on right now? Is my mother here? My head is asking me all these questions, and I know I’m not going to fall back asleep and get those extra forty-five minutes.

Throwing the cover off me, I get up and see the sun is starting to come up. I walk into the kitchen, and I have to close one eye when I see all the lights on. Asher’s naked back is to me as he stands in front of the stove. "What the hell are you doing?" I ask, standing in the hallway that leads to the kitchen from my bedroom. "It’s six o’clock."

He looks over his shoulder, and I wish he really wouldn’t. His face has that sleepiness still on it, and his hair is sticking up in certain places, and his smirk just makes my stomach sink. This is not good. I should never have told him to come home with me. I mean, I didn’t really tell him to come with me. I told him he could use my guest bedroom, so there is a difference there. "I’m making you breakfast," he says, grabbing a cup of coffee from beside him on the counter and bringing it to his mouth. "The coffee is ready."

"Why?" It’s the only thing that can come to my mind, and he turns around and leans against the counter. I see his six-pack is on point, and I wonder what it would be like to be held by him. I picture it so clearly in my head, his arms around mine as I look up at him. It’s a picture I quickly erase before I give it a second thought. "Why are you cooking me breakfast at the ass crack of dawn?"

He chuckles. "I’m going to say you aren’t a morning person." His smirk irritates me. Not because I don’t like it but because I like it too fucking much.

"I’m a morning person,” I lie to him. I have never been a morning person in my whole life. You can only talk to me after at least one cup of coffee, and one must ease into it. It’s why Quinn makes me start at eight instead of seven. I fold my arms over my chest. "I just don’t get the whole cooking at six o’clock thing." My feet move on their own as I walk into the kitchen and see the bacon cooking in the cast-iron pan. "Like the sun isn’t even up completely yet." I grab a coffee cup and walk over to the pot, pouring myself a cup. I bring it to my nose and smell it. "Nothing like the smell of coffee in the morning," I say, taking a sip of the hot coffee.

"You drink it black?" he asks, grabbing the fork and flipping the bacon over.

"Yeah, I ran out of milk one day, and well, it just stuck," I say. "Besides, that means I never have to be disappointed." I take another sip.

"How do you like your eggs?" he asks, and I look at him.

"Cooked." I laugh at my own joke, and he fake laughs, walking to my fridge and taking out the eggs. The way he does it makes it seem as if he’s been doing this for a long time. I don’t know why this bothers me so much. The last thing I want is to expect him to do it for me. Did that once and never going to do that again.

I learned a while ago that you can never count on anyone but yourself. I’ve also learned to never expect anyone to do anything for you. "You don’t have to do all of this." I point at the stove, and I suddenly get a whiff of something baking. "What’s in the oven?"

"You had some biscuits in the freezer," he says, opening the oven, and I can see they are golden and almost ready. "It’s the least I could do. Not only did you give me a place to sleep but you also bought me dinner."

"That’s where you are wrong." I point at him. "I picked up dinner for myself and bought you one because you busted your ass for me."

"You can spin it any way you want to," he says, grabbing the empty plate beside him with paper towels on it. He places the bacon in the middle of the plate and turns back to grab another pan to do the eggs in. "The fact is you did me a huge favor last night, actually all day, and this is the only way I know to repay you."

I can think of something else you can do, my head says, and I bring the cup to my mouth to make sure I don’t vocalize that thought. "Well, I guess I should say thank you." He just nods his head. "Where did you learn to cook?" I could go and sit down on one of the stools at the island. I could sit at the table, but instead, I choose to stand beside him as he leans against the counter, listening to him talk.

"When I turned sixteen, I was hired as a busboy for a small diner," he says, cracking the eggs in a bowl. "Busboy soon turned to cook when he showed up and was drunk." He shakes his head. He comes over, grabbing my hip as he reaches for a paper towel. My hip feels like it’s been scorched by his touch.

"Really?" I ask, and I find myself always entranced by his stories. I always want more. I could sit and listen to his stories for hours. Last night I was dead tired to the bone, but I sat down, and I wanted to hear more of the story. I wanted to ask him what he did after that. I wanted to ask him where he slept the next day. I wanted to know it all, and that fact in itself scared me straight to my core.

"Yeah, he stumbled in there," he says, adding milk to the eggs, "and then fell on his ass when he walked into the kitchen." He laughs. "I was shocked because he was a big man, but instead of getting up, he lay there in the middle of the kitchen snoring." He opens the drawers, looking for something; I watch the muscles in his arm flex every time he pulls a drawer out.

I’m like a fucking schoolgirl. I avoid looking at him and look out the window to see that the sun has officially risen. Two birds fly together into the trees. "No one knew what to do." I turn back to Asher and see him whisking the eggs. "Waitress asked me if I knew how to cook eggs. I lied and said yes." He pours the eggs into the pan and slowly whisks them. "I had no fucking idea how to cook shit. The most I knew how to do was pour water into a ramen cup." He takes his time whisking. "So I learned pretty fast, and apparently, the eggs were not horrible, so they hired me to be the morning cook."

"Why did you stop?" I ask, and he looks over at me.

"The diner wasn’t in the best part of the city, and the dealers would use it as their office at night. There was a drive-by shooting, and well, when I went back in the morning, nothing was left."

My mouth hangs in shock. "You could have died?" I say, and he just shrugs.

"If it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go regardless of where I am," he says as he turns to get the oven mitt. He opens the oven and takes out the pan of biscuits. He put the hot tray on top of the stove. "It could have happened at five a.m. instead of eleven p.m." He grabs two plates. "The good thing is that I was able to get a job not too long after in the kitchen." He smiles. "So everything worked out."

I watch him place two scoops of fluffy eggs onto a plate and then place two slices of bacon with two biscuits side by side. "Do you want more?" he asks, holding the plate in front of me.

"No.” I shake my head, grabbing the plate and bringing it to my nose. My fingers tingle from his hands brushing against mine.

"You smell everything." He laughs at me, and I look at him. "You don’t notice it."

"No." I shake my head, and I look at him, trying not to let it show that I’m shocked he noticed. No one in my whole life has ever noticed that I do that.

"You got up, and you smelled your coffee." He turns to plate his own eggs and bacon, leaving two more pieces on the plate. I put my plate down and grab the extra slices and place them on his plate.

"Who doesn’t smell coffee first thing in the morning?" I counter him. Turning to refill my coffee cup, I walk to his and top his off as well. I ignore the fact that his eyes are watching me. I look over at him when I grab two forks out of the drawer. "Everyone smells their coffee."

"Okay, but they don’t smell the flowers when they walk into work. Nor do they look up and smell the sky when they get out of their car." I stop moving, trying not to overthink that he watches me when I get to work.

"I have your fork," I say softly, turning to grab my cup and walking to the table. I sit in the chair I always sit in, and he sits down in front of me. "Thank you for making breakfast," I mumble, not making eye contact with him. "You didn’t have to."

"I know I didn’t have to," he says, and I can feel that his eyes are on me. "But I wanted to," he says, and I don’t bother looking at him.

I grab my fork and taste the eggs; the buttery fluffy eggs melt on my tongue. "These are good," I say, still not looking up at him. He doesn’t say anything to me as we eat, and when he gets up to put his plate in the dishwasher, I turn and look at him. "I’ll clean up." He looks over at me. "You cooked, I clean. It’s a universal law." I try to make a joke out of it and look over to see that it’s almost seven and I know he starts at seven. "You better get going; you start in ten minutes."

He turns the water off and dries his hands. "I guess I’ll see you later," he says, and I watch his back retreating and he stops and turns back to look at me. "I’m sorry if I said something that offended you in any way."

"You didn’t," I tell him. "This was lovely," I say, and he just nods and turns to walk back into the bedroom. I sit here at the table and I know that I should leave before he comes back out. I put the plate in the sink and walk back to my bedroom.

I close my door softly behind me and put my back on it, leaning my head back. The sounds of him walking around have me looking out the window to see him leaving with the black bag.

"It’s for the best," I say out loud. "You have one goal and one goal only,” I remind myself. "And being stupid and in love is not one of those goals."