Foreplay: The Ivy Chronicles by Sophie Jordan

point?
    “Sure.”
    The girls cheered, and I quickly moved toward the stove and the waiting bowls beside the pots of noodles and sauce. I grabbed a fourth bowl from inside the cabinet.
    Turning, I jumped with a small yelp to find Reece directly behind me. The girls giggled uproariously, Madison snorting through her nose.
    He held up his hands, palms face out. “Sorry. Just seeing if I could help.”
    I nodded, hating the way my face burned. “Yeah. Thanks. Um. Could you pour drinks? There’s milk in the fridge.”
    He opened a cabinet—the right one; clearly he had spent some time here—and selected four cups. I smiled, noticing that he picked two princess cups with sliding lids for the girls.
    He poured milk as I dished noodles into each bowl. From the corner of my eye, I watched as he set the glasses on the table. Without being told, he opened the oven and removed the heavenly smelling garlic bread from inside.
    With shaking hands, I tried to focus on spooning the thick red sauce over the noodles, but I was acutely conscious of Reece’s every move. The faint sawing sound of the knife as he cut the bread into slices. The girls’ silly chatter behind us. It was such a strange, domestic moment. I could almost fool myself that it was real . . . a peek into the life, the future, I wanted for myself.
    “I want three meatballs!” Sheridan announced.
    “Yeah?” Reece said as he carried the bread to the table. “I’m going to eat fourteen.”
    Sheridan giggled. “You can’t eat fourteen!”
    My lips curved as I poured only a small spoonful of sauce over Madison’s noodles. Just enough to coat. Setting the girls’ bowls before them, I went back for mine and Reece’s.
    “Sorry,” I said, meeting his eyes as I sat between the two girls. “I couldn’t fit fourteen in your bowl.”
    “There’s always seconds.”
    My pulse spiked as he said this because for the barest second he looked at my mouth, and it was like he wasn’t talking about food at all.
    Sheridan provided a welcome distraction, tossing her head back in a fit of giggles. “You’re so crazy, Reece!”
    He made a funny face at her as he shook Parmesan over his noodles and then did the same over the girls’ bowls. Something inside my stomach flipped over. It was an odd thing, reconciling this Reece with the guy from the bar.
    I realized I didn’t know him. Not really. But this. This him . It felt . . . wrong somehow. Like trying to force two mismatched puzzle pieces together. He even looked different. No longer cast in the hazy amber glow of the bar, but in the warm yellow of the kitchen. There was no way to hide the faintest flaw in this bright light, and yet, believe it or not, he looked hotter.
    Sheridan stared at him with wide eyes. “Momma says you get a tummy ache when you eat too much.”
    “What? This belly?” He sank back in his chair and patted his flat stomach. “No way. It’s made of steel. You should have seen what I ate for breakfast. My pancakes were stacked . . .” Squinting, he held his hand two feet above the table. “ . . . this high.”
    Madison smacked a hand over her mouth, stifling her gasp.
    “Sharks eat tires,” Sheridan volunteered loudly, and not entirely on topic.
    Madison nodded sagely in agreement. “Momma read that to us in my shark book. They found a tire in a great white’s belly.”
    “I could eat a tire,” Reece replied with utter seriousness, popping a whole meatball into his mouth and chewing.
    More giggles erupted at this claim.
    Smiling, I twirled spaghetti around my fork and tried not to compare this to the dinners of my childhood, when I usually ate in front of the television. If I was lucky enough to be in a motel room. Often it was the backseat of Mom’s car. Either way, there was rarely a microwave handy so I ate a lot of cold SpaghettiOs straight from the can. “Eat up, girls.”
    The girls obliged, slurping noodles into their mouths and making a general mess. Sheridan stabbed her