Page 34 of Cross Checked
“That too.” He leaned one hip against the counter, watching me pull a bag of baby potatoes from the lower cabinet. “Want me to wash those?”
I looked at the potatoes, then at him. “You know how?”
His eyebrows lifted. “You think I can’t wash potatoes?”
“I think rich people have complicated relationships with manual tasks.”
Something moved across his face too quickly for me to catch. Not offense exactly. Not even irritation. Just this subtle tightening around his eyes that made the joke land differently than I had meant it to.
“I always helped our chef, Miss Heeley, cook,” he said.
The words should have been ridiculous. Chef. Miss Heeley. Of course Cade Mercer had grown up in a house where people had names attached to food preparation, because apparently old money came with staff and childhood memories that sounded like they belonged inside a magazine spread. But there was something about the way he said her name that made it softer than that. Familiar. Almost fond.
“The fact that you had a chef to teach you tells me you might know more about potatoes than me.”
“Probably.”
I stared at him. “Do not expose yourself like this before meeting my family.”
He laughed and took the bag from me, his fingers brushing mine just long enough to light a fuse I had no business acknowledging. “I’ll recover.”
“From poor-people ignorance?”
His smile faded a little. Not gone. Not dramatic. Just enough that my stomach dipped before he even spoke.
“From whatever else you decide to judge me for today.”
The sentence landed quietly between us, heavier than it should have in my tiny kitchen with coffee cooling on the counter and barbecue potatoes waiting to be washed. I looked at him, really looked, and saw the tension he was trying not to make obvious. His jaw had gone tight, his shoulders still loose but not relaxed anymore, one hand curled lightly around the bag of potatoes like he needed somewhere to put the reaction.
“I’m not judging you,” I said, but even as the words left my mouth, they sounded thin.
His eyes stayed on mine. Serious now. Frustratingly calm. “It’s like every joke is intended to remind me of my place.”
My lips parted, but nothing clever came out. Because he was right. Holy shit, he was right. I realized I was being that girl. The one who tried so hard not to flirt that she overcorrected straight into cunty behavior.
My cheeks warmed, and this time it had nothing to do with the way his fingers had brushed mine.
“You’re right,” I said quietly.
Cade’s expression shifted, like he hadn’t expected me to give him that.
I exhaled and leaned back against the counter, suddenly too aware of the small space between us, the potatoes, the coffee, the stupid baking pans, and the fact that this man had shown up to help me with a project and Sunday dinner, and I had been pelting him with every stereotype I claimed to hate.
“I’m sorry. I’m asking you to do this huge favor for me. I’m asking you to be vulnerable, to let me into your life for an entire year, and I’m putting my hockey-player-athlete loathing on you like you personally earned all of it.”
His eyes softened, but his voice stayed careful. “Loathing?”
“I don’t hate athletes.”
“You’ve made a very passionate case against that.”
“I distrust them,” I corrected, then winced because that was not exactly better. “Which sounds awful when I say it out loud.”
“It sounds honest.”
That was worse somehow.
I looked down at the potatoes because eye contact had become a public safety hazard. “I want to work with athletes because I think maybe one day I can do both things. Protect them from becoming products and protect everyone else from forgetting they’re human. I know that sounds stupid.”
