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when she passed by him to get to the silverware drawer, running a hand through his hair when she stood next to him while he washed his hands, placing a hand on his chest when they nearly bumped into one another while he got the plates out.
     
    “You know,” Alex said as they were halfway through dinner, “you don’t have to keep feeding me.”
     
    “I know. But I always liked to cook — even something as plain and simple as spaghetti — and it’s nice to have someone to cook for again.”
     
    “Well, thank you. It’s delicious.”
     
    “It’s spaghetti,” she said. “A dunce could have made it.”
     
    “Quiet. This is a big deal to me. Other than my mother, I can’t remember the last woman that cooked for me.” The mention of his mother brought up memories of his father as well. With that, the weight of his big secret loomed in his mind: the thing he had done at thirteen that still scarred him to this day.
     
    How many secrets do you intend to keep from her? He asked himself.
     
    This question stayed on his mind as they finished dinner. It was still there when Amanda said something that caught him off guard and made him realize that he cared a great deal for her.
     
    “Tell me,” she said as they washed the dishes together. “Is it totally a teenage-type thing for me to want to ask where you went and what you did today? I don’t want to know in an obsessive way, but… well, can I be honest?”
     
    “Of course.”
     
    “You’ve told me the sort of work you did with your club. I don’t know that it would change anything about what we have right now, but if you were still doing that sort of stuff, would you tell me?”
     
    “I would,” he said. “I don’t mind. And to ease your mind, I haven’t actually run a job for almost four months. I only need to push about six jobs a year through to make good money.”
     
    “And now that you’re not in the club, what sort of work will you do?”
     
    He chuckled. “I honestly don’t know. I guess it’s something I need to start thinking about, huh? I’m automatically going to assume that a used car lot is out of the question.”
     
    She laughed, but it was a thin laughter. He had told her most of what his job entailed – buying stolen cars from gangs or other criminals and selling them whole or bit by bit to the highest bidder. She’d taken it well, and as he told her about it, he had even come to understand just how shady the whole thing was. How had that not bothered him before?
     
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t have a right to be asking you things like this. I hate that I feel the need to know what you did today, and it –”
     
    “I drove out to a small town named Dunning Creek to meet with an old friend,” he said, interrupting her. “His name is Chester. He used to be in the club but left to be a family man. I hadn’t spoken to him in a while, and I wanted to know how his life had been after leaving the club.”
     
    “Oh,” she said, unable to contain her smile.
     
    “I don’t mind telling you what I’m up to,” he said. On the heels of that was the guilt of not telling her the real reason he’d met with Chester.
     
    “Still,” she said, drying the last of the dishes. “It’s none of my business.”
     
    He took her softly by the arms and pulled her close to him. He brushed some stray hair away from her forehead and kissed her there. “It sort of is your business,” he said. “I don’t know what this thing between us is, but I’d like to keep building on it. So yes, it is your business as to what I do when I’m not with you.”
     
    She smiled and kissed him on the mouth, lingering for a moment and placing her hands on his lower back to pull him closer to her. “You have no idea how badly I needed to hear that.”
     
    They stared into each other’s eyes for a moment and leaned in slowly. When their mouths met, it was like electricity. Alex felt his heart beating throughout his entire body as