Free Just Add Heat by Genevieve Jourdin

there for a few
more seconds and then she stood up and walked back out to the living room. The
guys were sitting on the couch playing with Lucy who was burning around the
living room in tight circles with her toy gripped in her teeth. Carter looked
up when we came in but didn’t say anything. Paulo stood up and handed Cheryl
her jacket.
    We hugged
goodbye and they were gone. It was just the two of us again. We hadn’t cleaned
the kitchen after lunch, just set the dishes on the counter, so I made my way
to put everything in the dishwasher. Carter followed me and pulled out a clean
dishrag as I started rinsing off the plates and utensils. I was nervous about
being alone in the kitchen with him after what happened earlier, but the dishes
had to get done and I couldn’t avoid him forever.
    He wet the
rag and squeezed a bit of dish soap on it, and I thought he would be all anal
and pre-wash the plates or something, but he walked over to the table and wiped
it down instead. I put everything in the dishwasher and Carter put the
leftovers into plastic containers. I noticed we were a good team as far as
working in the kitchen. For some reason that made me extremely happy. We were
done in only a few minutes and I was stressing about how to spend the rest of the
evening, but Carter was ahead of me on that one, too.
    “Want to
watch a movie?” he asked as I turned on the dishwasher.
    “Um,
sure.” I was actually relieved. That would take up a couple of hours that I
didn’t have to make conversation. It was starting to feel awkward again.
    “We can
see what’s on cable or we can go rent something if you’d rather.”
    I knew he
was being polite, letting me make the choice, but I was painfully aware that I
didn’t know any of the movies from the past years, so anything on cable was
likely to be new to me.
    “Whatever’s
on is fine. I’d like to just veg out.” That actually sounded like heaven right
at this moment. I was still dressed in the yoga pants and tee shirt, so I
didn’t even need to change into more comfortable clothes. I grabbed a fresh
glass since I had just put everything away and turned to Carter. “Would you
like a drink?”
    “Sure, I’ll take a Coke.”
That sounded good to me too so I grabbed two cans and filled both glasses with
ice. He took the cans from me and started for the living room. I trailed after
him with a tingle in my stomach. We were going to watch a movie. Alone. I felt
a little giddy. Foolish, I know, but I still have a pulse. Did I mention that
Carter is hot ?
    We settled
ourselves on opposite sides of the couch and Carter picked up the remote. He
held it out to me, but I waved it off. This wasn’t the twenty inch TV I was
used to, it was a big flat screen behemoth. Even the remote looked too
complicated. He turned it on and started flipping through the channels. I was
only vaguely aware of what he was doing; I was too busy watching Carter’s
beautiful fingers work the remote.
    “Is this
okay?” His voice broke me out of my reverie.
    “Huh?” I
jerked my eyes away from his hand and up to his face.
    “ Anchorman . It’s pretty good. You like it.”
    “Sure.
That sounds great.” I actually remembered that movie, since it was several
years old.
    “It
doesn’t start for ten more minutes; do you maybe want to talk?”
    He was
looking serious. I hoped this wasn’t going to be anything bad. “Okay. What do
you want to talk about?”
    “Do you
remember anything at all, about us, I mean?” He looked into my eyes, so
hopeful, but I couldn’t lie.
    “I’m sorry
Carter, I don’t. The last thing I remember is you being at Cheryl’s house
eating pizza and watching a movie. I was pissed off at John for canceling out
on me on my night off and Cheryl told me to come over.”
    At the
mention of John, Carter’s face tightened. I didn’t mean to upset him; I was
just telling him my last memory of the two of us even being in the same room.
Now he just looked dejected. I wanted to lean