Love, Exes, and Ohs (Cactus Creek #4)(38)

Now they were at a full-blown grin. “Really?” Blake beamed up at them. “So we can all hang out again?”

Xoey glanced up at Vivian again to be sure. Vivian nodded and mouthed, ‘thank you.’

“I’ll call your aunt to set it all up,” she promised.



*



TWO HOURS LATER, Xoey’s head was still tumbling and tormented over what Blake and Darcy were going through

It killed her to see her friend in so much pain. The possible paralysis, she couldn’t even fathom. Darcy was just so full of life.

And Blake—God, the kid was being such a trooper. She didn’t think she would’ve been half that brave at eight years old. Especially not if she’d been as close to her mom as he was to his.

Isaac reached over the car console and threaded his fingers through hers, lifting her hand to his lips. “Everything will work out, Xo.”

She knew that he knew probably better than most how car accidents sometimes did not work out for the victims. But she also knew that in Isaac’s calm, grounded mind, he was referring to the grander picture. And like it always did, his words gave her a measure of comfort.

She thought back to the moment she and Isaac had shared back at Darcy’s house.

What did it mean? Were they back together? She’d never actually gotten back together with someone before. Do you start at square one? Pick up where you left off?

So many questions.

“Isaac—”

He placed another gentle kiss on the back of her hand before using his free one to shift his truck into park.

Startled, she looked out the window and saw they were in the alleyway of Ocotillos.

Before she could even process what was happening, Isaac slid his driver’s window open to accept a basket from one of her waiters, who gave her a quick wave before heading back in.

They were back on the road moments later.

…With the basket of what smelled like an incredible assortment of food sitting on a folded blanket in his back seat, and the truck heading in the direction of their dog park.

“I figured we could try lunch at the park today. I’m sure it’ll taste just as good as breakfast.”

Though it addressed none of her questions, this right here was the only answer her heart needed at the moment.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


“WOW, YOU’RE a good cook.”

Xoey found herself pleasantly surprised as she sampled the tasty chicken stir fry Isaac was tossing around in the wok they’d found in her cupboard the other day. And the fried rice she saw sitting on the back burner—woefully not taste-tested yet—looked equally delicious.

One of the perils of living on the premises of a food establishment meant she never usually bothered to cook. Once upon a time, back when she’d first started college, she’d been gung-ho with the cookbooks so she wouldn’t starve or go broke living on her own. But then she started working at Ocotillos midway through college and in the nearly ten years since, she’d maybe cooked a few dozen from-scratch meals at the most. Though she could rock the mac & cheese and ramen noodles something fierce.

With Xoey and Isaac both having constantly shifting work hours that often went late into the night, they were each other’s worst enablers in that regard. They weren’t proud that they got special deals for being the king and queen of takeout in town but—

Okay, maybe they were a little proud.

But, that was all in the past. After having eaten Darcy’s incredible make-ahead home cooking the other week, they’d been inspired to actually turn on the stove in their respective apartments to cook something other than canned soup and spaghetti.

The first two nights of the week at his place, their grand plans for dinner had inevitably lead to frozen pizza one night and takeout the next thanks to Isaac’s seemingly brilliant idea to conserve water by showering together before dinner each evening. The result was them being too weak to cook when the time came.

As such, Wednesday found them back at her apartment with a shower that did not have the space requirements for paired showering. Well, the showering part yes, but nothing else. So they’d actually been able to make it to the dinner part.

Granted, she’d cheated a little bit by recreating some dishes off the Ocotillos menu, which she’d been watching get prepared down in the brewpub for enough years that she’d had every step memorized, but it still counted as a home-prepared meal.

They decided that finding the wok from the cookware collection either Dani or Lia had left behind had been a sign that they were on the right track with this cooking thing, and that a Chinese menu was their next challenge. So far, Isaac was knocking it out of the park.

“The power of YouTube,” he replied to her silent question modestly when she looked around and saw no cookbooks to speak of.

“Still, I’m impressed.”

As she set the small bar-height table that separated the kitchen from her living room, Xoey proposed the first change in their Saturday morning schedule since the plague-like flu she’d suffered four months ago, which had been the direct result of the only other schedule shift on record…the plague-like flu, he’d suffered the week prior. “Do you mind if we shift our usual breakfast at the dog park to Sunday instead? I wanted to go over to the hospital and check on Darcy. I’ve chatted with Viv on the phone and she said Darcy was really down yesterday. I figured if I go hang out with her in the morning tomorrow, Vivian and Blake could tag in later after his cousins’ softball games.”