Full Package

I shoot him a look as if he’s speaking Swahili. “What?”


“You don’t go back. Come stay with me. Take a break before being so close to her drives you crazy. You can move in with her again if you want, but stay with me for a few days, a few weeks, a few months—as long as you want. Whatever you need while you get this shit sorted out.”

At first, I want to blow him off. To say “nah, I hardly need that.” But something about his idea gives me a sense of calm I haven’t felt in a while. The longer I stay with Josie, the harder it’ll be when it ends. And it will end. The clock is winding down.

“Maybe I should,” I say.

He nods. “I don’t pretend to have any answers, but I love you, man. I don’t want to see you hurt, and right now, I can tell you are.”

I am, and I can’t stand feeling this way. I go for my best attempt at humor production. “So, you love me?”

He drops his knuckles to my head and grinds them against my skull. “I do.”

“Like a brother?”

He laughs. “Just like a brother.”

Right now, maybe that’s what I need most.





30





From the pages of Josie’s Recipe Book



* * *



Everything But Raisins Cookies





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Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar 1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 cup dried cherries

2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup flaked coconut

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips 1 cup chopped pecans





* * *



Directions



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1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease cookie sheet. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.



* * *



2. In a large bowl, mix together butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Add in the eggs one at a time, beating gently, because if you don’t you’ll ruin the eggs, and destroy the recipe, and you’ll be left with a gigantic bowl of everything cookie dough disappointment that you can’t bake and you can’t eat either.



* * *



3. Stir in vanilla. Mix in the sifted ingredients until well blended. Carefully. Do it carefully. If you screw this up and stir too long, I swear you’ll kill it. Do as I say.



* * *



4. Using a wooden spoon, mix in the cherries, oats, coconut, chocolate chips, and pecans. This won’t be easy, so put a little muscle into it. It’s hard, what you’re doing. But it’ll be even harder if you don’t do this properly.



* * *



5. Drop cookie batter onto sheets, placing them two inches apart. Now, don’t go crazy and get them too close. If you do, you’ll have to ditch the whole batch. You don’t want that, do you?



* * *



6. Bake for eight to ten minutes in preheated oven.



* * *



7. While you wait, wipe that stupid tear from your cheek. It’s better this way. You know that.





31





I have a mind vise, and I’m not afraid to use it.

Even though I’ve been bitten by the love bug, I can still depend on my special skill—separating emotions from actions as if they’re whites and darks in the laundry.

Back at the apartment, I zone in on Josie’s hair and only on her hair.

Admittedly, the sharp, chemical odor of hair dye helps matters. Hell, maybe I’ve found the one thing about her that doesn’t turn me on. This shit stinks.

Josie is parked on the closed toilet seat in the bathroom, decked out in leggings and a bra, with a towel draped over her shoulders. I stand behind her, painting pink onto the ends of her hair.

“Do you think this is your new calling?” she asks as I wrap a section of her newly pinked hair in tinfoil. “You seem to be a good hairdresser.”

I stop, bend my face near hers, and speak sharply. “If I were you, Miss Josie, I wouldn’t be mocking the guy holding a paintbrush full of hair dye.”

“I was just teasing,” she says softly, but with worry in her tone. “You know that, right?”

“Yes. I do. I’m just giving you a hard time,” I tell her, since that’s what I have to do to make it through this. Joke, tease, play. Bring us back to who we were before.

“I appreciate you doing this,” she says, tilting her face up at me.

Fuck. Those green eyes. Those pretty lips. She makes it too difficult to give her a hard time when all I want to do is kiss her.

But duty calls, and I paint another strand. “I’m not doing this because I have hairdresser aspirations. I’m doing this for you.”

She moves her arms behind her and wraps them around my thighs. “Thank you.”

Even though all my instincts tell me to drop a kiss on her lips, or whisper something sweet in her ear, I don’t listen to them. I ignore them completely and finish her hair.