Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 77287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Wes steps inside and I gently close the door behind him, staring at him a little longer.
“What the fuck is all of this?” pure confusion in my tone.
Wes looks down toward the Tupperware. “Oh. Well, I’m not really good at cooking things. Other than my own sugar-free granola recipe, and grilled chicken, I guess. But I wanted this stuff to be actually good. For a normal person’s palate. I made mac and cheese, because Niko told me you love that, and I used extra cheese. Oh, and for the chicken I used more salt than usual, and added lemon and real butter. There’s also brownies, but they’re from Betty Crocker, I’m not going to lie. Niko said the box mix is pretty good, and I don’t know shit about baking, so…”
“You made a bunch of home-cooked food and brought it here?”
He nods, as if it’s an obvious thing to do. “For you and your mom. Where should I set it down?”
I still feel like I’m in a dream as I lead him into the kitchen and he lays out each of the big containers. It all looks incredible. Gourmet, practically.
For the past few days I’ve been feeling awful and precarious, and I feel like someone’s shattered right through it. I’ve been here, worried about Mom, trying to keep her company and not seem overbearing.
But now the house feels alive.
They even brought cinnamon rolls, the kind that come in a can that I always used to love making with Mom when I was a kid. I can’t remember the last time anyone did something like this for me.
“So you weren’t digging, Miss Coco,” Mom says as Coco bounds inside through the doggy door like a chocolate-colored mop, and she seems particularly happy to meet Wes, jumping on his lower legs while he bends over to pet her.
“Your house is incredible,” Weston tells my mom, looking all around. “Do you make all of the crafts yourself?”cin
“It’s my main hobby,” Mom confirms. “Embroidery is my first love, but I sew dresses here and there. And I like stained glass, if you can’t tell.”
“That window is incredible.”
Wes is looking back at the little window on the back wall that mom replaced with full, homemade stained glass a few years ago. Her work is incredible, but she always downplays it.
“Everything’s better handmade,” Mom says with a smile.
“I wish my childhood home had anything close to custom,” Wes says. “It was kind of like a museum.”
Never in my fucking life did I think Weston Knox would be in my tiny childhood bungalow of a home, complimenting it.
Weston undoubtedly grew up in a mansion.
Certainly with hired help and pristine surfaces.
I look around the kitchen here and notice all the shit that I wouldn’t usually notice. A floorboard that’s a little loose. The scuffs along the doggy door that Coco gets dirty. I’d assume Weston’s tidy, proper, rich-boy attitude should be flipping the fuck out in here, but…
He seems to genuinely like it.
And I still can’t fucking believe he is in our house.
Niko’s already breaking off into a chat with Mom about the latest season of some show they both watch, and I take the moment to pull Wes aside.
“Hey,” I say, giving him a nod. “Come here for a sec.”
I push open the door to the back porch. The sun just went down and the sky is still purple on the horizon, and the low clicking of the sprinkler fills the back lawn.
He pulls in a long breath as he steps out.
His blue eyes look big and sweet as he looks at me, not quite bashful, but tender in a way I don’t know how to handle.
“What’s up?” he asks.
“Why are you here?”
“Niko mentioned that you were at home with your mom. Keeping an eye on her. I thought you could use some extra help.”
“I don’t need help.”
He blinks at me. “Okay.”
“I’ve never needed help. I’ve been taking care of things for myself, and for my mother, for my entire life.”
He furrows his brow. “So you’re pissed that Niko and I brought you food and some company?”
“I’m not pissed, but I don’t understand your motive. It’s completely unnecessary, and unplanned, and I’m used to doing things on my own, Weston. My mother doesn’t even know you.”
He puffs out a breath. “She seems a lot more thankful and welcoming than you are.”
I breathe deep, looking up at the darkening sky. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be a dick. I just don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to understand. All you have to do is realize that some people actually do want to help. There is no other motive. I heard that your mom struggled in the past with painkillers, and that’s brutal, Sevan.”
I frown. “Niko told you?”
He nods, looking out at the horizon, then back at me. “Yep. So maybe my dark, sinister motive is that I just have some goddamn empathy. Okay?”