"Mostly?" he echoes, looking at me warily.
"Have you ever even met a child before? Scratch that part. I'm pretty concerned that you've not had very much human interaction, period."
"I've had a ton of human interaction, for your information," Luke returns, sauntering over to the kitchen counter where I'm peeling potatoes. "Mostly with females, obviously."
I cough. "Obviously?"
"I can be charming," he informs me.
"Color me shocked."
"Not with you," he says, wrinkling his nose as he looks at me. "Give me that peeler. I'm surprised you haven't ripped half the skin off your hand already, the way you're doing that."
I hand him the peeler and potato. "There you go, hotshot. You think you can do a better job? Go right ahead. What do you mean you can be charming but not with me?"
"You're not my type," he explains, taking the peels off the potato much more easily than the way I'd been mangling the poor vegetable. "So I don't have to turn up the charm."
I don't bother to hold back my snort. "You're telling me you've got game?"
"Red, I've got more game than you'd know what to do with."
I groan. "Don't do that."
"Don't do what?"
"Call me Red. Give me a nickname, some stupid jock thing. Or frat thing. You're in college or something, right?"
"You think I'm a jock or a frat guy?" he asks. "Wait, how old do you think I am?"
"I don’t know," I say. "Twenty. Twenty-one. How old are you? Oh, hell, don't tell me you're eighteen."
"Twenty-six," he answers, puffing out his chest. "I've been out of college for five years, thanks. I mean, I haven't been out of college for twenty years like you or whatever."
"I'm thirty-six, not fifty-five."
"Honestly, I'd have pegged you for late-twenties. You've really aged well."
"I've aged well? Like a cheese?"
"More like a wine," he says. "Wine sounds better than cheese."
"Is this the famous ‘game’ you were talking about earlier?"
"I'm doling it out in small increments," he assures me. He turns, chopping the potatoes into cubes and dropping them into the water. "I wouldn't want to overwhelm you with the ol' Luke charm. Hope you wanted these in the water; I just assumed."
"I don't think there's any danger of my being ‘overwhelmed’ with the Luke charm." I watch as he begins to wash and chop vegetables, rummaging around my kitchen cupboard drawers like he owns the place. "Is there something you're looking for?"
"A knife. Your knives are all wrong. Don't you have any basic cooking tools?"
"Yeah, I have a knife right there."
"This is a steak knife, and it's not even sharp. How do you make food?"
"I use the knives I have. What's the problem?"
He stops and stares behind me, and I follow his gaze to Olivia, who's bent over and licking the tile floor. "Is that normal? That doesn't seem normal."
"Oh my God," I sigh the words. "She's a toddler. They lick floors. Olivia, stop licking the floor." Olivia has her tongue pressed flat against the tile now. I'm almost positive she's doing it just for dramatic effect.
She's probably actually a genius baby who can understand what we're saying and is just screwing with us, I think as I open the fridge to pull out her sippy cup of milk so I can distract her from French-kissing the floor in front of the way-too-hot, way-too-young, obviously-not-that-bright firefighter who's standing in my kitchen peeling my potatoes.
Peeling my potatoes? That practically oozes with innuendo.
"You're blushing," Luke observes, gesturing toward me with the peeler in his hand like it's a pointer or something. "Did she embarrass you?"
I hand Olivia the sippy cup and she rolls onto her back and thanks me. "Did you hear that? That was a ‘thank you’. She even has manners. Did she embarrass me by licking the floor? No, of course not."
Luke is looking at the chicken I've marinated, a look of disgust on his face. "Is this marinated in salad dressing?"
"Yeah. The recipe was on the back of the bottle."
He makes a strangled sound, and I start to walk toward the counter, but he shoos me away. "Back off, Red," he says. "You lost your kitchen privileges."
"This is my kitchen."
"Which is why you should lose your kitchen privileges, since you ought to be ashamed of yourself and your poor culinary skills. Go over there. Play with your kid and her rice or whatever, and I'll fix this mess."
"Do you usually just waltz into strangers' homes and start cooking them dinner?"
"Cooking them dinner?" he asks. "Us. I do the work of salvaging this mess of chicken you have here, that means I'm a freaking honorary guest at dinner."
"My poor culinary skills?" I ask, just catching what he said. "I'm not a traditional kind of girl."
He makes a sound under his breath, his back turned toward me, and I can't tell if he's laughing at me or scoffing. "No kidding, Red."
"Are you going to stop calling me that?"
He shrugs. "Probably not."
"Okay, then."
5
Luke