Page 48 of Mountain Bean Dream
“Or ten.” He shrugged and twisted his chair to angle outward from the table. “How’s the soup?”
“Soup-erior.” I couldn’t help myself and was greeted with a sweet Jeremy chuckle as a reward. “You made this from scratch?”
“I did.” He scratched the back of his neck, and in doing so, a teeny bit of his hoodie lifted and I got a little teaser of his abs. “How do you come up with the puns so quickly?”
I lifted a shoulder to my ear and pursed my lips. “No idea. They just hit me, sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m starting to become entranced by them.”
Chancing a look, I gazed over to him. All stretched out, as comfortable as can be, and he was looking at me.
“Are you prepping for tomorrow night?”
“I will. I work better under pressure.” I winked. “Sage is going to help me with my hair, and then I’ll be ready to go and have some out of this world fun.”
“Excellent. I’m glad you’ll be there. MacMillan needs to be schooled.”
“Oh, I’m all over schooling someone.”
It happened to me a few years back. Thought because I was playing a high sorceress who used a lot of Latin names in her potions and spells, I was skilled in the language. Turned out I wasn’t even in the same ballpark. Lesson learned, and I brushed up on my knowledge of the language so I’d be less embarrassing if we’d met again.
“Star Wars is a language I understand well. As long as it’s post-Clone Wars. If it heads further back, I may not be your best option.”
“You’ll be fine.” He rose and sauntered over to the cabinets, pausing with his hand on the knob. “Mind if I grab two plates?”
“Help yourself.”
He brought two plates over and proceeded to dish up the pineapple dessert.
I finished the last of my soup and set my spoon inside the container as a reminder that it was his, and not one from mine.
“Let me guess,” I said, pulling a plate closer. There was a surprising heft to it. This was a solid dessert, nothing light and airy about this. “Homemade?”
“Is there any other way?” He turned his chair so it was facing the table, and heartily dug a fork in.
I lifted my fork and blew to cool it off, only remembering mid-blow that it wasn’t hot.
“Never seen anyone do that before,” Jeremy said with a sparkle in his eyes.
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.” I slid the food off my fork and moaned. It was sweet, but not overpowering, and the pineapple and coconut flavour whisked me away to a tropical paradise where the warm breeze blew and the air was fresh and ocean-salty. It was heavenly.
“You okay there?”
“Oh. My. Goodness. This is…” I took another forkful and groaned in delight. “Seriously fantastic. I could eat this every day.”
“Your waistline wouldn’t appreciate that.”
Poof.
Instead of a warm island, now I was in the office surrounded by the director and producer and a handful of studio executives who were going over my recent weight gain and ways to mitigate it as the costume director was getting frustrated with having to let out a few seams here and there.
I pushed the plate away.
The whites of his eyes grew. “Oh, gosh. I didn’t mean that like how it came out. I think you’re beautiful and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with your waistline.” He buried his face in his hands. “I just meant in general, and not you specifically, and I’m so sorry that the words fell out rather than me taking a few seconds to think how they may sound to someone as I know—”
I touched his arm to stop his rambling, and gently pulled his hands off his face. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.”