Page 45 of The Intimacy of Skin

Raising an eyebrow, I sliced into the salmon on my plate. “Escalators, huh?”

“Oh, shut up,” Crew grumbled. He was going to tear through the table with the way he angrily began cutting into his food.

An easy silence hung in the air as the first bites were taken. I hummed my approval as the fish fell apart easily, the flavors melting on my tongue. The recipe was one of the first I’d learned when I moved out of my parents’ house and needed something to take my mind off things.

Salmon could be as delicate or as easy as one wanted it to be. I could spend hours marinating it with the perfect sauce; even longer depending on how I cooked it.

From my right, Willow groaned and slumped against her chair. “Holy fucking shit.” Her words were muffled as she chewed. Apparently, table manners had gone out the door. “Price, you made this?”

“You know he did.” Crew piped up from my left, an almost proud-looking smile on his face. “I told you his cooking was orgasmic.”

Willow shook her head, the red streaks in her hair falling into her face as she righted herself in the seat. “No, this is more than orgasmic. This is like magic on my tongue and it’s just a fucking fish. What else do you cook?”

The attention was a bit much if I were honest. Willow was still new to me, and our first interaction painted her as quite an intimidating personality.

Fiddling with my glass of water, I focused on it rather than her scrutinizing gaze. “Um, I like to cook fancier stuff in my free time, as Crew puts it. Gourmet, fine cuisine, that type, if I have the time and resources. It’s been a passion of mine since I was young.”

“Is that so?” She looked to Crew, who nodded .

“Yeah, he’s made some shit you’d see on those fancy cooking shows we watched growing up. It’s literally to die for.”

Willow turned her attention back to me after shoveling another bite into her mouth. “Jesus, this is so good. If you got skills like this, why do you work at The Arch?”

I set my fork down mid-bite. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said. The Arch doesn’t cater to what you can do, and from what I’ve heard, you barely cook there anyway, which is a total waste. Have you done any culinary courses?”

I huffed a snort, shaking my head. “Nah, that’s more of a dream too far from reality. Right after high school, I moved here and started working at The Arch. I barely had money to live, nonetheless culinary school.”

Willow frowned. “But you do have a dream, right?”

“Um, yeah?” I questioned. I didn’t know where the conversation was going, or if I was going to like it.

She shrugged. “Just asking. So you’ve got a dream, passion, and talent, but its all misplaced and neglected. I’m guessing the fancy places around here won’t take you since you don’t have the education?”

“You’d be right. And I can’t exactly juggle my position at The Arch and school all at once.”

“Okay, then open your own restaurant.”

My first reaction was to laugh at the absurdity. As it turned out, that was the wrong thing to do because Willow was scowling at me now, and Crew had stopped eating to stare at me as well.

I looked between the two of them, chuckling nervously. “What?” They both spoke at the same time, their voices the same steel tone.

“I was being serious.”

“She was being for real.”

Blinking at them, it took a moment to gain my bearings. “I don’t think I’m qualified for that. Besides, if I ran a restaurant on my own, I’d be too busy with management to cook, and it’d just be The Arch all over again.”

Willow’s teeth scraped against her fork, the sound grating in my ears. Did I dare say something? No. I knew her Southern wrath all too well.

She gave me a pointed look anyway. “Respectfully, you don’t know shit about owning a restaurant.

Every establishment is different. You could have someone handle finances, hire staff for management and the back of the house, and be a chef slash owner.

You’d cook alongside your staff.” She tilted her head and looked away, staring at the wall while she thought.

“Though, you’d have to trust the people who did that stuff.

It’d be hard to cook if you were worrying all day about the other shit. ”

Sam told me years ago that I should open my own place. I’d laughed in her face, telling her it was a pipe dream a million years and dollars off. She was adamant, though, claiming it was a real possibility.

She was the last person who’d believed so wholeheartedly in me. Hearing Willow ponder a future I’d secretly wanted my whole life was jarring.

“Hey.” Willow propped one of her arms up on the table, pointing at Crew. “You’ve got Crew. He’s really good at all the math and financial shit. Dude was a whiz in high school. Did a lot of my homework for me.”

“Yeah, and I would’ve let you fail if I knew you’d be such a pain in my ass,” Crew clipped back.

Willow waved the air as if she were brushing away his comment. “Sure, sure. You love me. I only got good at math when I started this job, and that was because I had no choice.”

Math had always been my downfall. Money was easier to keep track of when it came to spending, but throw in interest rates, graphs, or anything else, and I was done for.

Speaking of, I had a good way to convince Willow this was a piss-poor idea. “That’s nice and all, but I’m too broke for any of this. My dream is just that—a dream.”

Someone had replaced Willow with a Cheshire Cat. Her grin was eerie, almost as much as the twinkle in her eye. “Do you know what I do for work, Price?”

I was almost too afraid to shake my head. “No, I don’t think so. I know you got a promotion recently.”

“You’d be right. I’m a proposal writer for a collaboration of investors.

My side of the department works specifically with small businesses.

I’ve floated around, so I’ve seen most of the different positions and inner workings of the company.

I know how investors think, what they want, how to win them over, and how to make a damn good proposal because it’s literally my job.

I know Matt because I worked with the investor who bought into his business.

We had monthly meetings for a while, and as Mr. Cordell, the investor, trusted me more, I became a direct point of contact for any business needs between them.

“Now, I primarily reach out to businesses in the area with proposals of our own and sometimes help go over proposals that come in from them. My work is very boring, Price. But I have a lot of tools in my arsenal because of it. Tools you could use, including connections to different investors who would love to pick up a locally owned fine-cuisine restaurant like yours. Those are rare, and rare is good.”

My jaw was officially on the floor. Willow had a cocky smirk plastered on her face—and for good reason. Not only had she proved that she was serious, but she was also offering to help me. When was the last time someone had honestly thought I could do more with my life like this?

I had no idea meeting Crew would open a possibility like this. Which was another thing. Once Crew and I were through, would he regret his friend helping me like this? Where would I even put the restaurant? Who would I hire? How possible was the previously impossible?

As my mind reeled with questions, Crew scooped up my empty plate alongside his.

“Just think about it, Prince Charming. Willow may go headfirst into things, but she doesn’t expect an answer right away.

I think it’d be a wonderful idea, and I know you could pull it off, but it’s a lot to think about all at once. ”

“Right.” I nodded. “Thank you, Willow. I’ll think about it and let you know.”

She flashed me a smile as she stood. “You do that. You’ve got my number if you need anything. As for now, I’ll go hide in my room and shove some earbuds in my ears so I can pretend y’all aren't about to fuck like rabbits.”

Crew choked on thin air, coughing through curses. “Get—your ass—outta here!”

Willow’s echoing laughs could be heard down the hallway, only muffling once she was behind her closed bedroom door.

I walked up behind Crew as he put our dishes in the sink, wrapping my arms around his waist. “Are we?” I asked against his ear, my chest pressed into his back.

“Are we what?” He leaned into my hold, placing his hands on my wrists.

Placing a path of kisses down his neck, I licked a particularly sensitive spot. “Gonna fuck like rabbits?”

He hummed beneath my ministrations, the sound satisfied and breathy. Lacing a hand around the back of my head, Crew nuzzled his nose against my cheek. “I like the sound of that. You might have to keep my mouth busy, though. Don’t want Willow getting an earful.”

“That can be arranged.”

“Come on.” Crew spun in my arms, pulling me towards him and down the hallway to his bedroom.

The moment the door snicked shut, he had his palm square on my chest, pushing me until the back of my knees hit his bed. I smirked up at him as I landed on my ass, enjoying the palpable hunger in his eyes.

It was glimmering in them. A gorgeous twinkle against an icy backdrop, darkening with each second that passed between us. Neither of us looked away as Crew graciously dropped to his knees in front of me. I parted my legs, leaving room for his body.

His hands were abnormally warm over my pants, his lust scorching through the fabric as he placed them on my thighs. I dropped my gaze to them, watching as he rubbed up and down, getting closer to the inner crest with each pass.

A tease of his fingertips close to the most sensitive part of me.

A ghost of the future. My heart was in my throat as I looked back up, only to see a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

Jesus, I wanted to kiss it off him. Render him as boneless as I was with searing, barely-there touches like he was doing to me.