All That Really Matters by Nicole Deese (new books to read TXT) 📕

not-so-good mentor. Sasha will either let you in, or she won’t. The choice is hers to make.”

As she rolled the tamales into a tight funnel-like wrap, showing me how to tuck in the edges and stack them into a pot I’d steam them in at home, I thought about her words, about all the time she had invested here and elsewhere. “Okay.” I sighed. “I’ll keep showing up.” Eye rolls and all.

“Good. Because if you think dealing with some teenage angst is bad, then you obviously haven’t dealt with a disappointed Silas. And I can tell you with great certainty, your absence here would cause quite a stir.”

This time, my neck flushed for a completely different reason. A reason that had me counting down the minutes until he would arrive at my house in T minus two hours.

As he texted he was on his way, a part of me expected to see Silas a bit off his game tonight. It had been a long week, and dealing with the consequences of damaged property on a college campus on a Friday afternoon was hardly the best start to a weekend. But when Silas arrived, his disposition looked anything but stressed. He actually looked . . . invigorated.

“For you,” he said as he handed me a summer bouquet that could have graced the cover of a Martha Stewart Living magazine. “Thanks for inviting me to dinner.”

I lowered the billowy bunch of wildflowers and smiled over the top of them. “Thank you for being my guest. Come on in. Can I get you something to drink? Ice water? Tea? Sparkling water, soda?”

“I’m good at the moment.” Silas strode inside with a confidence I’d come to revere, unapologetic and unhurried. My home wasn’t overly spacious or breathtaking the way Fir Crest Manor was, but it also wasn’t a minimalist’s dream like Silas’s one-story rambler. My fully restored 1955 craftsman-style bungalow, nestled in a quiet neighborhood renowned for its large lot sizes and mature fir trees, was somewhere in between. The recent remodel had kept its vintage appeal, displaying splashes of femininity and texture, pillow-soft nooks and well-lit reading corners. Custom, sophisticated artwork hung purposefully throughout.

I loved it.

I’d poured paycheck after paycheck into fixing up each room, paying contractors and designers and even Miles at times—with fresh apple fritters from our favorite bakery, naturally—for every eye-catching improvement. But for as homey as I’d made it look in all the perfectly filtered photos I’d posted, I couldn’t manufacture good company to enjoy it with me.

And I certainly couldn’t manufacture whatever feeling I was experiencing now as Silas’s gaze shone with the kind of admiration I’d been searching for my whole life long.

“Somehow, your home is even more Molly-like than I realized possible. It’s beautiful.”

“Would you like a quick tour? We have approximately”—I glanced at the timer for steaming the tamales—“twenty-two minutes before dinner is ready, though I do still need to make the pico and guacamole.”

“I’m happy to help with either of those. Whatever you’re cooking in there smells delicious.”

Good! That meant he still hadn’t a clue what Glo and I had been up to in the kitchen this afternoon.

I filled a vase with water and set it on the farmhouse dining table, then added the flowers he’d brought, a centerpiece I’d likely move from room to room to get the most enjoyment from them. With an uncontainable giddiness I hadn’t felt since I was an adolescent, I reached out and slipped my hand into Silas’s. Quite the novelty, considering we’d stuck to the parameters of the no-touching agreement for the last week. But there was no such agreement here. “Can I tell you something a little bit outrageous?”

“A little bit outrageous,” he repeated cheekily. “From you? Always.”

“So this one time, I was asked to go on this super strict diet for a skincare campaign. It was only a seven-day plan, but the options of the things I couldn’t eat outnumbered the things I could eat nearly twenty to one.”

“That does sound outrageous.”

I shook my head. “No, that’s not the outrageous part yet. The thing is, I’d actually been fairly content with the food on my plan until I saw the giant list of the foods I couldn’t eat printed out in black and white. It about drove me crazy. I started having these forbidden food fantasies over things I’d never once cared for, like dried fruit and Wasa crackers. I mean, really, who has fantasies about Wasa crackers?”

Silas laughed. “I’m not even sure what a Wasa cracker is. Is that the outrageous part?”

I huffed an exasperated sigh as Silas’s grin stretched wider. “No, Silas, the outrageous part is still coming. Don’t rush it. Anyway, when I could finally eat those pre-diet foods again on day eight, it was so disappointing. They tasted nothing like the fantasy in my head.” I looked down at our joined hands. “All week long at the manor, whenever I saw you walk by my office or enter a room I was in, all I could think about was how much I wanted to reach out for your hand—and just so you know, I’ve never wanted to hold a hand more in my entire life than in these last several days. But there was also this tiny part of me that worried it might be like my Wasa cracker and dried fruit experiment. That touching you again wouldn’t possibly be able to measure up to the way I’d remembered it.” I blinked up at him. “But it’s even better. And that, Silas, is the little bit outrageous part.”

With a grin brimming with amusement and something I couldn’t quite interpret, Silas walked me toward him, tugging at our joined hands until our noses were only inches apart as he tilted his mouth to mine. “It’s good to know I’m not the only one who’s been counting down the hours to tonight.” His minty kiss was light against my lips, hinting at promises and secrets yet to discover. I logged the moment away