I handed him the salad and both bottles of salad dressing over the fridge door, which he took.
“There are utensils in that drawer next to the sink.” I pointed at it. “You can eat that while I heat up the lasagna.”
Which he did.
Right out of the massive bowl.
He didn’t try the ranch on one piece of lettuce, though. He just dumped it straight into the bowl and started mixing.
He took his first bite as I was placing a large square of lasagna onto a paper plate.
He made a groaning sound that had me turning to look at him with a grin.
“It’s good, huh?” I asked.
“I’m not much of a salad eater,” he admitted. “They’re not my favorite thing. Lettuce on a burger? Yes. Lettuce on tacos? Hell yes. Lettuce straight up? Hell no. But this? It makes me actually want to take another bite and not just choke it down.”
I snickered and added two minutes to the timer before turning my body and allowing my hips and ass to rest against the counter.
I watched him eat.
For two full minutes, I watched the muscles in his arms work. The muscles of his jaw. The way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed.
It wasn’t until the microwave beeped behind me that he finally looked up and caught me staring.
“What?” he asked around a mouthful of lettuce.
“Is your hand okay?” I asked. “Do you want some ice?”
He lifted his hand up, which had been resting in his lap, and stared at it.
“It hurts,” he admitted. “And it’s just the icing on the cake of my shitty day. But it doesn’t hurt bad enough that it’s going to stop me from doing anything.”
That didn’t answer my question.
So, after I placed his lasagna down next to him and grabbed the beers to move them to the table, I also grabbed a bag of ice and held it out to him until he took it.
He rolled his eyes as he did, but the smile was there, soft and warm, as he tucked it into his hand and went about eating his dinner.
“Glad that lady didn’t cause you to lose your appetite,” I teased.
He scraped the side of the bowl with his fork, then took one last bite of the salad before pushing it backward and reaching for the plate that was next to him.
“Homemade meals are few and far between,” he admitted. “My mom and stepfather live in Kentucky on a farm. They can’t just get up and leave to come visit, and there’s no way in hell I’ll ever go there to visit again. Meaning it’s me, myself, and I cooking meals. And I kind of suck at it.”
My brows rose, and he obviously knew what I wanted to ask, because he answered it without me having to say a word.
“My sister and brother refused to listen to my side of the story when it came to the baby,” he explained. “They didn’t believe me. Think I’m being stupid. Honestly, they made their position perfectly clear. And since they both live on the ranch and help manage it with my parents, I’m not going back home. I finally got myself to a place that I’m comfortable again. I have my job, and my only brother that was here that saw the shit go down with his own eyes and believed in me when nobody else did. It’s where I’m staying. And my mom and stepdad can just come when they can. Otherwise, we just don’t see each other that much anymore.”
“Did your mom remarry after your dad’s accident?” I wondered.
“Yes,” he shrugged his shoulders. “Mom and Dad never got along. Mom hated my dad’s hours. Hated his job. Hated how he always seemed to want to go to work, but never stay at home with her or the kids. Eventually that turned to resentment, and they amicably divorced.”
“So how many brothers and sisters do you have?” I continued my questioning.
“Three. Two brothers, one sister. One that lives down here. The rest live up there with my mom and stepdad,” he answered.
“Was that always the case?” I asked. “Did you go up there at all? Or did you stay with your dad?”
“By that point, I was in high school and unwilling to leave my friends. I was a starter for the football team. I owned the school. Needless to say, I wasn’t willing to leave.” He snorted. “My brother was the same way, only one year younger than me. My youngest brother and youngest sister, not so much. They went with my mom because they couldn’t look after themselves like we could. My mom remarried about a year later, but they never had any more kids.”
“You just have a long list of crazy going on in your life, don’t you?” I observed.
He took a final bite of his lasagna, then answered with, “You have no idea. I’ve only given you the tip of the iceberg. There’s a whole underground world that you’ve yet to see.”