Page 95 of Delicious (Delicious #1)

Chapter Six

Jace

“D o you want to go out for lunch on Sunday?” Riley asked, one Wednesday morning when we were stood in my kitchen making bacon sandwiches and hash browns, because potato in any form was always worth including no matter what traditionalists said. “There’s a nice pub down near the river—The Unicorn—and they do a good roast.”

“That sounds perfect,” I said as the air fryer beeped and I opened the basket to examine the hash browns. I was still getting used to cooking with it, having been resistant to getting one, but twelve-minute hash browns without needing to pre-heat the oven had been a good selling point. “Do you have any other plans for your days off?”

“Not really,” he said, smiling at me fondly. “I should probably do some washing.”

“Want to come here then? On Sunday. And you could stay.”

“Sounds good.” He leant over to kiss me quickly and then went back to the bacon sizzling on the hob, and I smiled giddily because I couldn’t remember the last time anything in my life had felt this good . Over the past few weeks, we seemed to have wordlessly slipped into a relationship, and it almost felt like putting on the world’s cosiest pair of slippers. We fitted into each other’s lives in a way I’d never experienced before, and a couple of times I found myself doing a double-take because surely none of this was actually real?

Surely I hadn’t actually fallen for a baker with broad hands and a soft smile, who got up at two to make bread and didn’t care when I came to bed because it turned out he could sleep through anything? A man who brought me pastries and fresh bread when he turned up at my door after his shift, and who’d listen to me talk about the books I was translating while I made us lunch. Who fucked me so perfectly that I almost cried and looked so goddamn sexy on my cock that the first time I’d topped him, I’d nearly come in thirty-seconds flat from how amazing he looked.

A man who didn’t care about my fucked-up sleep schedule, who put blankets across me when I fell asleep on the sofa, or let me lie next to him, tucked in his arms while he slept. He never complained about my insomnia, never insisted I sleep when he did, and never tried to insinuate that being in a relationship would magically fix it.

A man who saw me for who I was and chose me for it.

But I had fallen for him. And it was so close to perfect that I had no other words to describe it.

I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but so far nothing had.

“How’re they looking?” Riley asked as he picked up a knife to start slicing the gorgeous loaf of soft, white toastie bread he’d brought with him. “’Cos these are nearly ready.”

“About done I think,” I said, shaking off my thoughts and giving one of the hash browns a prod. “Maybe another minute or two.” I pushed the basket back in and reset the timer. “Do you want ketchup? Or brown sauce?”

“Both please.”

I grabbed the two bottles out of the fridge and put them on the counter next to him as he handed me half of the end slice, which he’d already buttered. It was thick and soft and so delicious that I’d happily eat a whole loaf in one sitting if nobody stopped me—which is what I’d done the first time I’d had one of their toastie loaves. “Mmm, it’s so good. Please never stop bringing me bread.”

“What if you get sick of it?”

“I don’t think that’ll ever happen.”

“It might,” he said as he began to add crispy slices of thick-cut smoked bacon to the bread. “You wake up one day and decide you hate bread.”

“Not possible.”

“What if you get sick of me?” He was grinning and playing it off, but there had to be a real fear underneath it. Otherwise, why would he have said it?

“I don’t think that’ll happen either,” I said, nudging him gently and leaning against his side. “I know we haven’t been doing this for long but… I really like you, Riley. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way about anyone before.”

“Me neither. There’s something special about you, Jace. About this. The way I feel about you, fuck, it’s different from anything I’ve experienced before.”

“Clearly there was a lack of bread-obsessed insomniacs in your life,” I said teasingly. “That was your problem.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, obviously I was just waiting for someone to just turn up and stare at me through the kitchen window at four in the morning.”

“See, you were in luck then, because that’s my speciality.”

Riley tilted his head and kissed me softly. “Good to know.”

I sighed happily. “I’m glad I didn’t scare you.”

“Takes a lot more than that to frighten me. Plus, you nearly fell over when you spotted me.”

“My clumsiness is charming, thank you.”

I kissed him, savouring the taste of bread and butter on his mouth. I had work I needed to do today, but it could wait for a while. First, there were bacon sandwiches and hash browns to eat, and Riley to kiss.

And they were far more important.

I fell in love with Riley slowly and then all at once.

It was like the feeling snuck up on me, but when I finally realised it, it felt like it had been there for a while and I’d just never noticed it. I’d fallen for him so deeply, so completely, that it was impossible to unpick where or when it had begun.

Not that I wanted to, because it wasn’t like I needed to put a pin in that moment. All that mattered was moving forward.

It was nearly Easter before I plucked up the courage to tell him. April had brought endless showers and if it hadn’t been for the blooming flowers and the ducklings on the river and the lure of fresh croissants, I’d never have left my flat. Especially as Riley preferred my place to his, since my bed was apparently comfier and he wanted to make sure I had space to roam when he was sleeping and I was awake, like I was a free-range chicken or something.

The first time he said that I’d laughed, because I all I could think about was getting some sort of ridiculous chicken costume. Then he called me chook, and somehow that’d stuck, and I’d never gotten the costume but he had brought a large pack of those tiny, fluffy, bright-yellow Easter chicks and hidden them all around my flat when I was sleeping one Saturday afternoon.

I was still finding them two weeks later.

“How many of the tiny pricks are there?” I asked as I lined another, that I’d found in a mug at the back of the cupboard, up on the kitchen windowsill with the others I’d found.

“I don’t know,” Riley said, sipping his coffee with a smug smile. “About twenty-four.”

“Fucks sake.” I laughed as I counted. “There’s eighteen here. Where the hell have you hidden the rest of them?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“I’m still going to be finding them at Christmas,” I grumbled as I took a sip of my tea.

“Nah, you’ll find them before then.”

I rolled my eyes fondly, looking at the ridiculous man lounging against my kitchen counter with his badly tattooed knuckles, sparkling eyes, and a penchant for doing little things to make me smile, like covering my flat with Easter chicks or putting an item on the menu for me at Toasty—a three-cheese, garlic, and rosemary roll—or bringing me a cup of tea in the early evening before he went to bed.

“Good thing I love you, you daft bastard,” I said.

Riley snorted, then jumped as coffee came out of his nose. “Ah shit! Bloody hell that stings!”

“Shit, are you okay?” I asked, grabbing some kitchen roll and pulling his mug out of his hands before he dropped it on the floor. “Here.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Some prick just said he loved me while I was drinking coffee and it caught me by surprise.”

It was only then that the realisation of what I’d said actually hit me and I swallowed, my heart pounding so hard it felt like it was going to break my ribs. “Did he?”

“Yeah, he did.” He wiped his nose and shoved the ball of kitchen roll into his hoodie pocket before taking both mugs from my hand and putting them on the kitchen side. “Luckily, he’s really damn cute.”

“I-Is he?”

“Yeah,” Riley said, putting his hand on my waist. “And luckily, I love him too.”

“You do?”

He chuckled softly. “You sound surprised. Don’t you want me to say it?”

“I do,” I said as I leant in and nudged his nose with mine, resting our foreheads together. “More than anything. I just… never expected to be loved like this, that’s all.”

“Neither did I.”

“Good thing we have each other then.”

“Yeah.” He kissed me slowly and deeply, and I felt my heartbeat start to steady, my nerves bleeding away under his touch. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

More kisses and then his hand sliding into mine to drag me towards my room, which was more ours these days, the door closing behind us as he pulled me onto the bed.

We made love slowly, pressing heated words of adoration into each other’s skin until we fell apart.

And afterwards we lay in bed, talking about the little things that made up our lives—books and bread and cups of tea. Croissants and coffee and early mornings when it felt like we were the only two people in the world. Danishes and date nights and feeding the ducks frozen peas.

Maybe one day there would holidays and a house, Christmases filled with sparkle and cheesy gifts, and rainy afternoons on the sofa watching films and K-dramas until one of us feel asleep.

But whatever happened, there would be me and Riley.

And that was all I needed.