Page 27 of Whirlwind (Seattle Blades #4)

“ C alled in a favor. Wanted it to be special,” I say, as if it’s no big deal to hire a Michelin-star chef for a date night on a random Thursday. It was simple enough to set up, since Luther is a friend of mine. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Her eyes are wide, tinged with a sparkle of wetness as the boat starts to troll away from the dock.

“I’m a little overwhelmed.”

“Why?” I ask, palming her cheek to keep her looking at me.

“It’s really nice.”

“Nobody has ever spoiled you,” I say. No point in asking, since it’s so obviously true.

“The Coles have taken me on a couple of vacations with them,” she says. “I think those count as spoiling.”

“Where to?” I ask, but Kit waits to answer until after Severan has come up with our first course and explained what it is. It’s tiny, bite-sized onion cakes that look like miniature works of art.

“Costa Rica and New Orleans,” she says, then takes her first bite. “Holy shit, Tyson!”

“Luther’s brilliant, right?” I ask, and she hums her agreement, taking another bite.

I keep her talking about the vacations with the Coles over the next course.

She loved both places for different reasons.

In Costa Rica, she was obsessed with the titi monkeys, while in New Orleans, she wanted to learn about the history and culture of the city.

“Did you go on many vacations as a kid?”

“Never,” she answers. “My first plane ride was when I flew here for college. I’d barely been out of my small town, other than an occasional field trip to Bangor. I’m not worldly or well-traveled,” she says with a grimace.

“If you could go anywhere and money wasn’t an issue, where would you go?”

“The Galapagos,” she says instantly. “Joshua Tree, and the Shiraito Falls in Japan.”

“You’ve put some thought into that,” I say with a laugh.

“My lack of travel isn’t because I haven’t always wanted to.

I spent a lot of time in the local library as a kid, thumbing through travel books and imagining myself in the different places.

” She takes a swallow of the small cup of broth placed in front of her.

“Why do I feel healthier after one sip?”

“Luther makes the best soups.”

“How do you know him?”

“He was my neighbor growing up.” His family lived a few doors down and he was the biggest punk on the street. I’d have never guessed he’d end up being one of the most acclaimed chefs in the Pacific Northwest.

“You could have taken me to a restaurant, you know? I’m easy to please. Though, I’m not complaining. This is the best meal I’ve ever had.”

There’s a lot I want to say to that, but I let it go, for now, focusing instead on the food, the wine, the view of the city skyline lit up in the distance. Kit keeps her enthusiasm through the remaining dishes, especially dessert.

“There’s probably not extra down there, is there?”

“I can check for you, Miss Ashcroft,” Severan answers her with an amused grin. When he disappears, I reach over to lift Kit from her seat to my lap.

“Thank you,” she says quietly, dropping her head on my shoulder.

“My pleasure,” I say. “I’m preoccupied, every day, trying to come up with the best ways to spoil you.”

“It’s bad for you to have preoccupations,” she says, bringing her hands over her face. “I don’t want to be that for you.”

“I compartmentalize just fine when I’m working,” I say, dipping my fingers under her coat to drag up her bare thigh. “Besides, you’re the best fucking distraction I could ever ask for.”

“Are you sure?” she asks, peeking through her fingers at me for a few seconds before she drops her hands. “I don’t want to be a Jessica Simpson or something.”

“I’m a much better man than Romo. I can play to my best ability while being utterly infatuated with a woman,” I assure her.

“You know that because of Isla,” Kit says—not in accusation, simply as fact.

“Do you still believe I’m in love with her?” Since my first conversation with Kit about Isla, I’ve thought about what she said—that if we think it’s love, it must be.

“In my whole short life,” she starts to answer, adjusting herself so she can snake a hand around my waist. The position gives me more access to her while keeping it hidden under her furry coat.

“I’ve never known anyone who fell out of love with someone.

My brain is preprogrammed to believe we only love once in a lifetime. ”

“I’m inclined to believe you,” I say, and watch the light in her dark eyes dim.

I’m saddened to hurt her, but it tells me that her heart is somewhere near where mine is.

“The flaw in your argument is that sometimes people think they’re feeling love, only because they’ve never truly been in love.

When you do finally fall, everything you thought you knew about it before pales in comparison. ”

“How do you know?”

“Because,” I say, pausing to press a chaste kiss to her lips, “what I feel for you already surpasses anything I’ve felt for another woman before.”

She doesn’t say anything as I watch emotion after emotion flash across her features. She’s confused. I get it—this is all new for me, too. Still, I have much more of a foundation under me than she has. There are things I can look back on for reference.

Kit has no baseline for love. She’s raised herself mostly with its absence.

All I want to do is shower her in it—to fill her up with it the way she fills me up with joy. I’m like those sappy videos all over social media, when the girlfriend films her boyfriend in a crowd and once he sees her, he grins sappily. That’s me when I even think about her.

Kit Ashcroft alters my perspective of all things.

“This is hard for me.” Her voice carries the slightest tremble, and I hold her closer to me, moving my hand higher up her leg.

“All of the things I naturally reject are the things you remind me of. I don’t believe in fate or kindred souls.

But I can’t deny how at ease I am with you.

Things I can’t explain or find answers for frighten me.

Then, I put this pressure on myself to not be so wrapped up in it, which only makes me more manic. ”

“Maybe you have a spiritual side that you’ve never explored.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re Indigenous,” I say. “In peewee, I played with a kid who was Squamish. I didn’t pay as much attention to what he talked about as I wish I had, now.

But I remember he was always so grounded in nature.

Tribes are all different, I know. Maybe your mind and something more inherent inside of you are battling each other instead of working together.

I’m just spitballing ideas, here. Have you ever thought about learning more about your heritage? ”

She doesn’t talk about her family much, at all, outside of an occasional reference to her grandmother. Other than the first conversation we had about her mother leaving when she was a child, she’s never mentioned her again—or that she’s half Native.

Severan comes back to deliver a plate of two more perfectly crafted small bites. “Chef had one more trick up his sleeve for you,” he says.

“Ooh, thank you,” Kit says, sitting up to grab them. She places the first one in my mouth, her fingers lingering long enough for me to nip at them. Shock briefly shows on her face and her head tilts. “I think I liked that.”

I laugh as she pops her own dessert into her mouth and moans in appreciation.

Then, she stands, taking my hand to pull me behind her as she moves to the railing.

I perch behind her, an arm on either side, my chin resting on her head as I wait to see if she’ll circle back to our conversation or veer into another topic, which is a habit of Kit’s.

The biggest lesson I have learned being Lottie’s brother, though, is that I can’t force someone else’s timeline—especially a neurodivergent. They’ll get there when they’re ready.

“Do you want to know why I chose Seattle for college? Other than it being so far away from Maine?”

“I want to know everything you want to tell me.”

“Careful what you wish for,” she teases, then points to a spot in the distance.

“Over there, you can’t really see it from here, but there’s a big black building.

People nicknamed it Darth Vader, though, really, it looks like the Sandcrawler that the Jawa move around in.

I loved that. It felt like a city where I could be my geeky self and fit right in. You do know Star Wars , right?”

“Of course,” I say, grinning. “I know I’m supposed to say that Empire Strikes Back is the best in the franchise, but I happen to think it’s Rogue One. And I’ll fight you on that.”

Her chin drops, and I wait for the same argument I hear every time I say this to a fellow fan. I’ve heard them all; the story is superior, it’s better than the first in series, which is nearly impossible for any sequel. You can’t compare a Disney movie to an original Lucasfilms.

“How do you keep getting more perfect?” she asks instead. “Nobody ever says that, and I’m left arguing about how even ESB’s amazing storytelling pales in comparison to the raw tragic drama of R1. Which also happens to keep the light comedy without the hyper-cheesiness. It’s so fucking good.”

That settles it. I’m in love with Kit.

“Glad we agree. I wasn’t prepared to argue with you where you could easily push me overboard,” I tease, wrapping my arms tighter around her. The night air is cooling quickly as the boat slowly makes its way back toward the marina.

“About what you said earlier,” she starts, then turns in my arms to face me. “I’ve never explored that part of me because I don’t want to face what I’ve lost. Or, that I’ve been too afraid to find what’s been lost.”

“I’ll help you. If you decide you want to learn or if you want to find her. You don’t have to face any of it alone.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to start,” she says. Resting her cheek on my chest, she nuzzles in.