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I bark out a laugh.
“Brandon.” Her voice is softer now. “Look at me.”
I can’t. Each broken shard on the floor reflects a different failure—the restaurant I never opened, the son I couldn’t be, the chef I’m pretending to be.
Her lips find my neck, soft and unexpected, the touch sending electricity through every muscle, momentarily short-circuiting my spiral of self-loathing. She always knows exactly how to pull me back from the edge.
Her breath tickles my skin. “You’re thinking too hard.”
“I need to clean?—”
She cuts me off with another kiss, catching the corner of my mouth. Her fingers thread through my hair, tugging until I have no choice but to look into her eyes telling me everything I need. It’s okay.
“Naomi—”
She kisses me properly this time, rising on her tiptoes and looping her arms around my neck to reach. Her body is warm and insistent, and the broken plate, the ruined steak, even Sunday’s looming disaster—it all fades into background noise.
My hands find her waist automatically, pulling her closer. She tastes like mint gum. Mint—I withdraw, searching her eyes. Did she?
Her eyes avert mine.
Shit. “You okay, cupcake? What happened?”
“We were talking about you. Not me.”
“And now we’re talking about you. You relapsed. Didn’t you?”
Her fingers twist in my shirt. “Someone brought cinnamon buns to the office. Again. Would it be weird for me to ban them?”
Cinnamon. Clara.
“The smell—” Her voice cracks. “It was everywhere. And—I couldn’t control it.”
I draw her in, pressing my lips to her hair as she hides against me. Her shoulders shake, but she’s not crying. Just trembling.
“Hey.” I stroke her hair, feeling helpless. Useless. Here I am having a meltdown over dropped plates while she’s fighting real demons. “You called Blake?”
She shakes her head against my chest. “I wanted to be here. With you.”
“Cupcake—”
“Just hold me.” Her fingers dig into my sides. “Please.”
We stand there in my disaster of a kitchen, holding each other like we’re both afraid the other might disappear. The irony of us both failing today, both trying to hide it, isn’t lost on me.
“We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?” I murmur into her hair.
“Disaster twins.”
“Hey. I’m a disaster king, and you’re my queen.”
That gets a real laugh, small but genuine. She pulls back enough to look at me, her eyes red but dry. “You’re going to nail Sunday’s dinner.”
“And you’re going to call me next time. Deal?”
She nods, then glances around us. “Let me help.”
“With what?”