Chapter 29
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I rush around Logan’s kitchen, darting between the oven and the stove and the microwave and the fridge, hoping like hell I can actually pull off my supposedly simple dinner of home-style baked pork chops, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, and cherry cobbler.
Women who do this every day should be rewarded with a boatload of medals, because it is not easy. The shopping, the prep, the planning, and sweet Jesus, the timing.
If Logan comes home late and all this turns to crap or ends up cold, I might sit down at the bar and cry into my wine.
Wine. Maybe that’s the answer. I pour another glass of the red I picked up at the store, and take a sip. Okay, I can do this. I feel good.
At least until the kitchen timer goes off, and I have to scramble to remember which thing I was actually timing. The broccoli is last, so it has to be the potatoes.
A giant pot is boiling on the stove, and I pull up the recipe on my phone again and reread how to test to see if they’re done.
Stabbing them with a fork doesn’t seem all that hard. I attempt to stab into a potato on the top of the pile, but it evades me.
Shit.
Reaching for a big spoon, I fish a potato out and stab it. The fork slides in and out easily.
That means it’s done, right?
I bet this is where people with normal families would be able to pick up the phone and call Mom for further instructions. But I don’t have a normal family, and the only person I could call to ask would have been Mrs. Frances. A pang of sadness brings the burn of tears behind my eyes along with a reminder that I need to call Sofia and check in on both her and Jordana.
After I left New York, I decided there was no point in the apartment staying empty, so I asked if Sofia would live there with Ms. Jordy to house-sit for me. From her response, you would have thought she inherited the thirty million. All in all, the perfect solution.
Which reminds me: I need to talk to my financial adviser guy to make sure he took care of setting up payments to her as well.
Sofia refused to let me pay her for house-sitting and insisted that she didn’t want to stop working with elderly people in the city who needed full-time in-home care, and I had to respect that decision. But that doesn’t mean I can’t put money in her bank account and tell her it’s from Jordy’s pet trust and she’s entitled to it. I think Frau Frances would approve, so I’m doing it anyway.
I look back down at the potatoes and hope they’re done. I’m in the process of straining them in the sink and trying to avoid third-degree burns when another timer goes off.
Shit. Which one is that?
I dump a few potatoes into the sink by accident, but toss them back in the pot anyway before setting it down on a cold burner. Whatever. I rinsed Logan’s sink. It’s fine. Five-second rule, right?
I check my phone to see which timer is wailing now. The cobbler. It said something about needing to cool for an hour before eating. I return to the oven and open it. The red cherry glaze stuff that I bought, because there was no way I could make that filling from scratch, oozes down the side of the white dish and lands with a sizzle on the bottom of the oven.
Shit. That’s going to be a mess.
I grab two pot holders and slide the dish out of the oven, then carefully set it on the counter with one of the pot holders shoved underneath.
Sweat beads on my forehead and neck as I stick my face in the oven again to assess the pork chops. Stuff is bubbling around them. That’s quite literally all I can tell. A chef, I am not. The timer is still set for another fifteen minutes, so I hope, for the millionth time, that Logan gets here around when I calculated. A few minutes either way isn’t going to ruin things, right?
I close the oven and grab my wineglass while I dig through the drawers for a meat thermometer. I’ve never used one in my life, but I don’t want to take the chance of poisoning either of us with rare pork chops.
After draining the wineglass, I find the thermometer and locate a hand mixer to mash the potatoes. I don’t know how other people do it, but I looked up making mashed potatoes for idiots, and it pulled up a super helpful site. I then had to google potato ricer and food mill, and came to the conclusion that Logan didn’t have either. But he did have a good old-fashioned hand mixer, and after digging through more drawers, I found the little attachments.
I set out the milk and butter and pull my hair up into a bun. All I need is some gangster rap to fit my favorite meme. I can handle this.
I measure the milk and butter and wait until the pork chops only have seven minutes left before I get the broccoli steaming. Then I start mashing.
The mixer might be from 1972, given the avocado-green color and the racket it makes, but it mashes just fine. At least it does until someone taps me on the shoulder, and I scream and spin around, mixer still in hand.
Oh. Fuck.
Mashed potatoes fly everywhere, landing in globs, including right on Logan’s face.
My heart pounding, I panic and push all the buttons on the top, which only turns up the speed, making an even bigger mess.
Logan reaches around me and yanks the cord out of the wall.
His long-sleeved black thermal shirt is covered in potato splatter, as are his face and hair. The dark look on his face doesn’t signal good things for me.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“Lie to me about how much the upholstery work was gonna cost, and let me walk into it thinking I got a great deal?”
Shit. I shove the mixer back in the pot with the potatoes, and grab a towel.
“I just wanted to help. It was my fault that you couldn’t use your regular lady anymore. You shouldn’t have to pay that price. That was on me, so I fixed it.”
Logan takes a deep breath and closes his eyes for a beat before he meets my gaze. “Was that upholstery for my business?”
“Yes, but—”
“Do I step in the middle of your business and do shit without asking you?”
“No, but—”
“I’m done with the buts, Banner. You’ve got more money than I’ll ever make in a lifetime. I didn’t ask you to throw it at my problems to make them go away. That’s not how this thing between us works.”
He takes the towel I’m holding and wipes the mashed potatoes off his face while I process his words. I understand where he’s coming from, but he’s missing the point.
“So you’re saying if you pissed off the factory to the point they wouldn’t make my product anymore unless you apologized, but I wouldn’t let you apologize, you wouldn’t pull out all the stops to figure out how to fix the problem? Or would you just let me deal with it myself and somehow be able to sleep at night?”
His hard expression softens. “I’d move mountains for you, Banner. I’d do anything in my power to make your life easier.”
I was all fired up to throw down my next argument, but it fades away. Logan isn’t just a good man, he’s the best.
“Then how can you expect me to do any less for you? I love you, Logan. I wouldn’t just move mountains; I’d build ships to cross oceans if that’s what it takes. That money is a tool, and if there’s a time when I need to use it to make either or both of our lives easier, I’m going to do it.”
Logan pulls me against his potato-spattered chest. “Jesus, woman. You make it fucking impossible to be mad at you when you say things like that.”
The tension in my shoulders drains away and I pull my head back. “Even though I covered you in mashed potatoes?”
“Is that what you were making? I couldn’t tell while it was flying at my face.” He reaches out a hand, and before I can ask why, he brings it back to his mouth and sucks the mashed potatoes off his finger.
“They’re not totally done.”
His lips curl up into a smile. “But they’re really fucking good.”
I open my mouth to say something else, but my final timer goes off. “That’s the pork chops and the broccoli.”
Logan’s eyes widen. “Damn, babe. You cooked a feast.” He pauses and tilts his head to the side. “What’s the occasion?”
I grin. “My favorite one—because I can.”
Logan laughs and releases me to pull the pork chops from the oven.