21
" I nearly had a cakegasm at the table. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I moaned. " Sweet Christ." I opened my eyes to find Hunter watching me with the strangest expression on his face." What? It's really good; you should try some," I said, pushing the plate at him. It was a testament of how embarrassed I was about the cakegasm that I was even sharing at all." I swear, if there weren't a table between us, I would be kissing you right now. And none too gently." I put my form down and swallowed so I wouldn't choke. " You didn't seem to mind about the recliner," I said. " True. But there wan't an audience, and that's a very ugly recliner. This is a very nice table. Also there is glass and sharp things I wouldn't want hurting you." " Good point. Please, have some." " If you're going to make that noise and that face again, I don't know if I can let you have any more." " I'll be good. I swear." " You're not good. That's the problem." " You're right. I'm not," I said, giving him my own smirk. " I do try, though." " Cruel. That's the word to describe you right now." " Just have some cake. "
23
" I plucked one plump black olive from the plate and put it in my mouth immediately before saying, “Well, I feel bad for you, then.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I love antipasto.”
“I guess I don’t understand why that’s a problem.”
“Because,” I emphasized, cutting into a piece of salmon. “I don’t like to share.” I quickly slipped the smoked meat in my mouth before winking at him.
His smile finally met his eyes again. “Good to know, because I’m not the sharing kind of guy either.” He winked back at me, but it was so blatantly comical that I couldn’t help the laugh that flew out of my mouth.
“Something tells me you’re not talking about cured meats,” I said before slapping his hand away from my olives.
“I knew you were smart.”
I swallowed the olive I’d snatched from his hand and glared at him, while mouthing, “Mine.”
“Funny, that’s what I was thinking, too,” he said, looking directly at me. "
― Whitney Barbetti , He Found Me (He Found Me, #1)
24
" Mrs. Russell made us both sit down with a glass of milk. " And I have a special treat for you," she said. I'm not lying. She really said that. I held my breath because of the last special treat at the Daughertys', but it didn't help, because when Mrs. Russell came back, she came back with a loaf of banana bread. Banana bread! And James said, " How about we have some jam with that?" and Mrs. Russell said, " Jam? Then you wouldn't be able to taste the bananas," and James said, " Ma, I hate bananas," and she said, " But I'm sure that Doug enjoys them," and I said, " I think I'm still full from lunch, so the milk's fine," and then Mrs. Russell picked up the plate with the banana bread on it, and you might not believe this, but she started to laugh and laugh a d laugh, until Mr. Russell came out to the kitchen to see what was so funny and she showed him the banana bread and he said, " I hate bananas," and we all started to laugh until Mrs. Russell said, " I hate bananas too," and you can imagine us all laughing until we were crying and finally Mrs. Russell took the banana bread outside to break it up for the birds-" Let's hope they like bananas" -and then I showed Mr. Russell Aaron Copland's Autobiography: Manuscript Edition, and he stopped laughing. "
28
" We've done so much together, wherever I go and whatever I see, I think of you. Newborn babies; the pattern on the plate that you can see under a paper-thin slice of sashimi; fireworks in August. The moon hidden behind the clouds over the ocean at night. When I'm sitting down someplace, inadvertently stepping on someone's toes, and have to apologize. And when someone picks up something I've dropped, and I thank him. When I see an elderly man tottering along,and wonder how much longer he has to live. Dogs and cats peeking out from alleyways. A beautiful view from a tall building. The warm blast of air you feel when you go down into a subway station. The phone ringing in the middle of the night. Even when I have crushes on other men, I always see you in the curve of their eyebrows." " Yet I must remain calm, detached. It's a little like trying to ignore a plate of delicious food when you're really hungry. When it beckons you, there's no problem with enjoying the aroma and appreciating it with your eyes, but at some point you have to separate yourself and realize, like a professional waiter does, that it's not your own. It's my job to ignore those plates heaped with delicious morsels and just carry them where they need to go. "
