Page 20 of Risk It All
“See how when you hold it like this you have full control over the knife?”
“Yes.” The word came out more breathless than I anticipated, and I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply and thinking ofanythingelse to prevent my cock from twitching in my pants. Again.
Except when I inhaled, all I smelled was Eliza—jasmine and amber mixing with the citrus in front of us.
Fuck.
“Leo?”
I cleared my throat. “Yeah?”
“I asked what’s next.” I could hear the smile in her voice.
“Right. Okay, you’ll want to use what’s called a claw grip onwhatever you’re cutting. Tuck your fingers like a claw with your fingertips underneath. Your knuckles act like a guide for the knife blade.”
Eliza followed my instructions and nodded for me to continue.
“For the actual cutting or chopping, you want to use a rocking motion. Keep the tip of the knife on the cutting board and rock the base of the knife up and down.”
I kept my hands over Eliza’s for the first couple of slices, feeling her soft skin under mine. Unlike me, she didn’t have any scars or scraps on her knuckles.
“Look at you,” I said, bracing my hands on the side of the counter, staying close because I couldn’t bring myself to step away from her just yet. “You’re a natural.”
Eliza moved slowly but kept the proper technique. After a moment, she stopped slicing and turned her head to look up at me, exposing the side of her neck. My eyes instinctively drifted to her smooth skin, the perfect slope, and my heart pounded harder. Faster.
“I don’t think I’ll be going as fast as you anytime soon, but that was easier than I thought,” she admitted, a sparkle in her eye. “You’re a good teacher.”
My hands gripped the side of the counter tightly until my knuckles grew white. Finally, putting myself out of my misery, I stepped away, moving to stand next to her instead.
The corner of her mouth tipped down for a millisecond, and I’d almost missed it. Maybe we’d both liked that more than we wanted to admit.
So, I did the one thing I could. I stuck my goddamn foot in my mouth and brought up the one thing that would snap us both out of it.
“Did you end up calling Colin back?”
At first, I’d thought Colin would be on the list of things wedidn’t talk about, but I was wrong. We needed to talk about him.Ineeded the reminder of why we couldn’t do this. That and I didn’t do casual. And I needed to help my mom sell her house.AndI was here temporarily.
Whatever chance we had three years ago was gone.
Eliza blinked, clearly not expecting my question. “Uh, no, I didn’t. Did he call you?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t know why he would’ve called,” she said, resuming slicing the lemon. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m sure everything’s fine. It’s Colin. Nothing’s a big deal to him.” There was more bitterness in my tone than I’d expected and more than I’d wanted to let on. I picked up my own knife and grabbed another fruit, keeping my head down.
A beat of heavy silence passed before she spoke up again. “He saw you in Portland, didn’t he? Did…something happen?”
“No,” I sighed. “Not anything more than the usual. You know how he is. It was all pretty last-minute. He and a few buddies flew out and crashed with me. Since my work schedule was made before I knew he was going to come out, I wasn’t able to take time off. I tried to meet up with them for a drink after my shift, but it was tough getting ahold of him and by then…” I shrugged.
“That’s shitty,” she murmured.
My grip on the knife tightened as I focused, my knuckles going white. “I thought he’d grow up by now. Pull back on the partying.”
I knew where all this baggage with my brother was coming from, but I didn’t know why I was unloading it on Eliza of all people. She didn’t need to shoulder what I was carrying.
I knew, deep down, that I was partially to blame for how nonchalant my brother was. When we were kids, if somethingwent wrong, I fixed it. When something needed to be done, I did it.
