Page 96 of Cloudy With a Chance of Bad Decisions
And lord, right next to them was possibly the largest pile of potato salad I’d ever seen. There were so many pieces of hard-boiled egg I figured he’d hand-picked them. That was probably what had taken him so long. He’d been on an egg hunt.
OhmygodhewassocuteIwantedtobitehim.
“That was very sweet of you,” I said, instead. It was taking every ounce of my self-control not to squish his cheeks and smooch the hell out of his grumpy little face.
George slanted me an unimpressed look, though his skin was flushed, betraying how much he’d liked the compliment. “If you’re going to do something, do it right,” he said. I wasn’t sure who he was quoting. His mom,maybe? There wasn’t a shadow on his face like when he talked about his ex.
“God, you’re adorable.” The words slipped out before I could stop them. Immediately, I stiffened, worried I’d scare him off. The last time I’d called him adorable had not ended well. He was like…a stray cat. You had to feed it treats from a distance for a while before coaxing it forward. Especially…if you were an idiot like me and had thrown multiple stones its way the first few times you’d met.
George didn’t storm off, or get mad, or glare at me. He just…kind of froze? Like he hadn’t been expecting the compliment, especially while he was mid-rant. He blinked, his flush growing splotchier and redder as he ducked his head shyly.
June, to her credit, didn’t say a single word.
As much as she liked to tease me I knew she was far too loyal to mess this up for me. Even her chewing was less loud as she glanced away to give us the illusion of privacy.
“You don’t mean that,” George wavered, avoiding my gaze as he stared shyly down at the table.
“Oh, I definitely do.” I angled in close enough that my lips skimmed his ear, and he jumped. “Thank you for taking the time to prepare lunch for me, George.” He shivered. “And thank you for worrying about me.”
“You’re, um. You’re welcome.” George didn’t move, but he was back to being stiff as a board so I shifted out of the way to give him space to process. Our dynamic had evolved in the last few hours and it was jarring. He hadn’t expected sincerity. And given what I was beginning to suspect about his past relationship, I highly doubted George was used to it.
Hell, neither was I.
I didn’t normally interact with people without a mask in place.
“What did you get for you?” I asked him, leaning an elbow on the table so I could watch the production that was his face. So many emotions flitted across it.Gotta catch ’em all,the Pokemon theme played in the back of my mind.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Georgie.” My voice dropped in warning, and he sighed.
“I’m really not, I had a big breakfast. And my stomach is…” he trailed off, eyes darting to June who was still politely observing us from the other side of the table.
“Your stomach is?” I pushed.
George scooted in, closing the distance I’d just created between us, clearly embarrassed. “I’m still feeling anxious. My stomach’s in knots.”
“Oh.” My heart gave a squeeze for an entirely new reason. The fact that he’d admitted that to me at all showed how far we’d come in such a short amount of time. I really didn’t want to fuck this up. I had no idea what I was doing. “How about we save one of these for later?” I grabbed one of the three unnecessarily large sandwiches. “That way, when you’re feeling a bit more settled, you can eat it.”
George sagged, the strain in his shoulders bleeding away as he nodded. “That would be acceptable, yes.”
So fucking cute.
“Do you want a couple bites of my potato salad?” I offered after setting his sandwich to the side for safe-keeping. “Might help.”
“I…maybe.” George glanced at the plate, plucking anxiously at his hair before he caught himself and dropped his hand.
“Just try one. Like the stepping stones.” The potato salad was less intimidating than the sandwich and I hoped that once he got a bite down he’d realize he was hungry enough to manage another. George nodded, reaching for my fork—the only fork he’d grabbed—before hovering it above the food.
“I’ll need to get you another fork,” he informed me with a frown.
“We can share. I don’t mind Georgie-cooties.”
At that, June made a noise. I glared at her, and her eyes went wide and apologetic. She clearly hadn’t meant to react—it had simply slipped out. Luckily, George was too busy having a stare down with the salad to have noticed.
Don’t,I mouthed with a glare.
I’m not,June mouthed back.
