Free Breaking Perfect by Lydia Michaels Page A

incredibly uncomfortable. Nice move, bonehead .
    “I wasn’t looking where we were
going. I hope I didn’t step on your feet.”
    She looked down at her feet and
back at him. Her hand held a cordless phone he hadn’t noticed earlier and she
tapped it against her thigh nervously.
    “Maybe I should just go,” he
suggested. “Thank you for the hospitality, but maybe it would be best if you just
tell Mase I stopped by—”
    “No!” she said sharply, as if the
idea of him leaving was more frightening than the idea of him staying. She
softened. “I mean, no, please stay. My husband would want you to stay. Let me
make you something to eat. Why don’t you have a seat at the counter?”
    She seemed a bit jumpy, so he
nodded and began to pull out one of the three stools tucked under the marble
countertop. This kitchen was like something out of the rich and famous.
    “Not that one!”
    Sean froze. What just happened? He
didn’t move, but looked at her from the corner of his eye for clarification.
She took a deep breath and, in a more controlled voice, said, “Not that stool.
That one is Mason’s. I think you would be happier on the third stool.”
    She smiled as if the third stool
was the best stool in the whole world and surely sitting there would bring him
great rewards. Okaaaay. He didn’t give a shit if he sat on the fucking
floor at this point.   He was so tired he
could weep.
    He sat and she began to pull items
down from cabinets she could barely reach. More than once he caught himself
admiring the creamy slice of her ass that peeked out past the hem of her shorts
when she went up on her tiptoes. A gentleman would offer to help, but something
had him hesitating. Plus, he liked watching her. Sean was a people person. He
liked sitting back and learning people not by what they claimed they were
about, but by how they actually acted.
    She made fast work of making two
turkey sandwiches for him. He found it curious the way she made them, each of
them one step at a time, almost mechanically. Her lips silently counted: one,
two, three, slices of turkey then did the same for the next.
    She placed one piece of Swiss on
top of the meat and used a knife to carefully cut off the two inches that hung
over the edge. Doing the same to the other, she then lined the discarded pieces
beside the bread and lined up two more slices of cheese. Her fingers squared
them up and sliced the two pieces of cheese so that when placed with the
overhanging pieces they would be exactly the same size as the slice below. He
wondered why she didn’t just cut one identical piece to the lower one, or
better yet, just throw it all on there.
    As soon as the cheese spectacle was
done she grabbed the remaining scraps of cheese that apparently didn’t fit and
moved to the sink. She dropped them down the drain and turned the water on so
hot steam began to rise from the stainless basin. What a waste. He would’ve
eaten those pieces. He was about to tell her so, but was cut off from speaking
when the roar of the garbage disposal clicked on. He was going to say something
when it clicked off, but then she clicked it on again. And off. And on twice
more. It was beginning to sound like Morse code and he forgot what he wanted to
say.  
    She moved back to the sandwiches
and made an X with mustard then placed a dot inside two of the triangular
mustarded off sections and a line in the other two. She did the exact same
thing to the other slice of bread.
    He frowned at her. His mouth was hanging
open in confusion by the time she held slices of lettuce at eye level and
carefully tore away edges until they were as identical as they could get.
Mason’s wife was definitely a weird bird.
    She smiled when she finally seemed
satisfied with the green leaves. The manicured roughage was strategically
centered on the sandwich. The scraps went into the disposal. The same Morse
code was applied for what seemed to be proper grinding.
    She didn’t talk while she worked.
She was