Page 63 of Hate Me Like You Mean It

“I thought you said you wanted to talk.”

“It can wait.”

His head jerked to the side, almost like he wanted to clear it so he could think. Then he started to move, closing in on me, until I had to push to the tips of my toes and lean back to keep the lasagna hidden.

“Aren’t you going to check on your phone?” I tried, even though we both knew there was no point. Its screen was smashed to irreparable bits. The thing was toast.

“What’s that smell?” he asked again, and something heavy started knotting in the pit of my chest.

“Oregano. I was hungry.”

He held my gaze for a handful of breathless seconds, then yanked open the drawer to my left and took out a fork.

My heart jumped. “I wouldn’t risk it if I were you. I’m not a very good cook, as we both know. Pretty sure the meat is still raw.”

“I’ll live,” he insisted, and my back was starting to hurt enough from the awkward bend that I had ten, maybe fifteen seconds of arguing left in me.

“You honestly might not.”

It took no effort whatsoever on his part. He simply picked me up by the waist and moved me a foot to the left like I was an empty cardboard box. My cheeks flamed when the dish came into full view.

I had no idea what I’d been thinking.

I mean, I did, but that’d been before he’d made me unravel with a single touch of his finger. Now, it just made me feel even more vulnerable.

Clearing my throat, I folded my arms over my chest and squared my shoulders. “It’s not a big deal, so don’t make it one. Tit for tat; we’re even now.”

Dominic’s lips had parted, his eyes tracing the two words I’d written over the baked cheese with strips of beef:THANK YOU.

It was Rosie’s thing. On the third Wednesday of every month, she’d cook each of us our favorite meal for dinner and use the ingredients to label the dishes with our names. Or a little note.

Sometimes, I loved the words so much that I’d eat around them, preserving their message for as long as possible.

Sometimes, I wished I’d told her I loved her as many times as she’d written it out for me.

“Spiced donair lasagna. Light on peppers, heavy on the cheese,” I overexplained, desperate to fill the silence. I didn’t know if it was still his favorite, but the smell alone used to make him drool. It didn’t matter where he was on the property. He could’ve been swimming in the pool and would still somehow pick up on the scent and go barreling into the house before Rosie had even had a chance to close the oven. “Consider it a thank-you gift,” I said. “For letting me take the bed last night instead of dumping me into the tub or out on the curb or something.”

He also could’ve woken me up or left me on the couch. But he hadn’t, so…

Dom grazed one of the letters with the tip of his fork, then gently stabbed into it, releasing a puff of steam. It was way too hot to eat—needed at least a few minutes to cool before being served. Dominic, as a fully functioning human adult with twenty-six years of food-eating experience under his belt, must have known this. Yet he still went ahead and shoveled a forkful of dripping lava straight into his mouth anyway.

Without waiting.

Without blowing.

Without prepping with a glass of ice water first.

I physically recoiled, wincing as he chewed once, twice, before going eerily still. His face turned beet red.

I ran to the fridge and grabbed the milk, thrusting it toward him. “What’s wrong with you?” I asked, my own tongue itching with a phantom burn. “You couldn’t wait two minutes before?—”

“It’s the same.” He didn’t touch the milk. “It’s the exact same. How is it the exact same?”

“Because I’m notactuallyan incompetent, illiterate moron and can follow a fucking recipe. Is this your first time interacting with hot food? Why wouldn’t you wait?”

“Where did you get it?” His voice was hoarse, like he was on the other side of a major coughing fit. Probably because he’d burned his throat.

“Where did I get what?”