Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 433(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Viggo’s lips quirked at one corner. “The coffee bar is behind that cabinet.”
We worked in companionable silence, Viggo mixing pancake batter while I made coffee.
“Did you do a lot of remodeling?” I asked, grabbing two mugs from the open shelves.
“Some. The dining room was where the TV is now. I have no need for a dining room, so I knocked the wall down and redid the kitchen cabinetry. The floors were covered in orange shag carpet. Terrible. I stripped them, hoping the subflooring wasn’t shot…only to find oak flooring. I couldn’t believe it. Do you like scrambled eggs?”
Huh. Viggo was downright chatty now, and I was charmed. “Love ’em. You like your coffee black, right?”
“Yes. Thanks.”
I poured coffee into the mugs and slid one toward him. “Did you make the furniture too?”
“Anything made from wood is my work. Cabinetry, bookshelves, coffee tables, chairs, tables. I made those Adirondack chairs on the deck as well.”
“That’s incredible,” I gushed. “What about the chess set in the living room?”
Viggo flipped a pancake and smiled. A real, honest-to-God smile. “Yes. Do you play?”
“A little bit.”
“I look forward to beating you,” he teased.
I scoffed. “It wouldn’t take much to beat me at chess. I was always better at low strategy, low stakes games like checkers and tic-tac-toe. Used to drive my mom nuts.”
Viggo stacked pancakes onto a plate. “These are ready if you want to dig in.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
He hummed, his head bent over the stove. God, he smelled amazing—fresh and woodsy. I wanted to lean in and sniff him, but I didn’t have a death wish.
Viggo plated the scrambled eggs and set them next to the pancakes on the island. “I’ll get the syrup. Anything else?”
“No, this looks fantastic. Thanks,” I gushed, sliding onto a barstool.
“You insisted.” His teasing twinkle was back and just like that, my pulse skipped and skittered.
“Yeah, yeah.”
Viggo speared a bite of pancakes. “What were you saying about your mother earlier? She’s competitive?”
“My whole family is. We tried to do game nights at the lake, and they never went well. We couldn’t play a simple game of Monopoly without fear of bloodshed. And I was like…nine years old. Way too young to be stressed out about not having a ‘Get out of jail free’ card,” I huffed derisively. “What’s your family like?”
Viggo frowned. “Why?”
“I’m curious about you. I’m guessing with a name like Viggo Gustafsson you’re Norwegian or Finnish or—”
“Swedish.”
I winked. “I knew that. Freya told me a bit about her family. They sound like something right out of an idyllic Swedish IKEA fairy tale.”
Viggo snort-laughed, setting the mug down with a clunk. “Swedish IKEA fairy tale. Is that like ordering furniture with instructions that contain actual words?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I’m spitballing. So…what are your people like? Mom, dad, brothers, sisters?”
He gave a put-upon sigh. “My father is a retired physician, and my mother is a nurse. My older brother is a high-finance magician who makes money in his sleep. He’s married to Ingrid, and they have two children. They all live outside of Stockholm.”
“So you were born in Sweden?”
“Ja. I moved here when I was eighteen.”
“For college?”
He hummed a yes. “I was…recruited for wrestling, but the football coach asked me to try out at the end of my freshman year.”
“University of Minnesota?” I gestured at his shirt.
“Ja.”
“And…” I motioned for him to keep talking.
“And nothing. I played for three years. End of story.”
I furrowed my brow. “We’re the same age, aren’t we?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“So we must have played each other. I went to Michigan State.”
He shrugged. “Possibly. It was a long time ago.”
“True. I got injured my sophomore year, so there’s a chance I just don’t remember. I lost a chunk of my memory and…” I took another bite and steered the conversation his way. “Did you play football in Sweden?”
He quirked a brow. “Our football is your soccer. I didn’t know much about the American version till I moved here, but I caught on quickly.”
“You’ve been in the States for a long time now. I hear a hint of an accent once in a while. Shouldn’t it be more pronounced?”
Viggo flashed a lopsided smile. “It’s been almost twenty years, but ja, we studied English in our school curriculum, so I had an advantage. Also, my parents traveled a lot when we were little. I was proud that I could speak your language, but I still got teased.”
“For what?”
“I mixed up my Vs and Ws and pronounced video like wideo. Js were Ys sometimes, so jam was yam. Kids are ruthless. It inspired me to work extra hard to lose my accent in college.”
“Ah.” I tried to think of other questions and ideally not get too hung up on a vision of a hunky Swedish-wrestler-slash-football-player-slash-lumberjack going to battle with smartass undergrads. “Was your degree in forestry?”
Viggo set his fork down and wiped the corner of his mouth with his napkin. “Yes. I worked for a mill near the Canadian border in the summers, and I liked it. My grandfather was an artist, a craftsman. He taught me how to make…everything. You?”