Chapter 10: The First Aid Kit

I closed the door and led him to my kitchen, where he sat me down and went to collect the first aid kit to tend to my finger. The gentleness with which he cleaned my finger with the alcohol made me relax and almost forget about the sting.

"How'd you slice your finger like this?" He asked, looking at me through his eyelashes. This man had such beautiful eyes.

"I wasn't really paying attention. I tend to zone out during the entire cooking process," he gave me a weird look, which triggered a blush that immediately took over my neck, "it's relaxing, okay?"

"You need to be more careful, this could have been so much worse!" He finished up by placing a bandaid on my finger. "I can take it from here. What are you making?"

"Are you sure?" He nodded. "There's beef wellington in the oven and ingredients for a hollandaise beside the stove. Ingredients for a succotash are already in the pot over there."

"Beef Wellington? That's ambitious," he turned to the side slightly and gave me a sly smile. "Were you trying to impress me?"

"Well our first date is in my home, I'd be insane to not try," I chuckled, watching his back as he took over where I left off. Jack Holton was a beautiful man. Tall with broad shoulders, brown skin that looked almost golden... his face was a whole new matter, and his lips made me jealous. I'd kill for such a perfect pout. The man even had perfect teeth. "How come you're single?"

"Getting right to the important questions, huh?" Jack chuckled and handed me a glass of wine. I hadn't even noticed when he poured it, I was too busy admiring his elegance. "I'm a widower."

"Oh," the atmosphere had become uncomfortable pretty quickly. "I'm so sorry, I had no idea," I really felt bad for bringing up such an uncomfortable topic. Here he was, on a first date with me, and I'd already managed to royally bomb the first question I'd asked him.

"It's alright, it happened a long time ago. I'm ready to move on and live life, you know? Living in sadness is exhausting when there's so much to be thankful and happy for," I smiled at him and sipped my wine, watching as he worked. The smell that was beginning to take over my kitchen was ten times better than when I cooked. "How about you, how come you're single?"

That was a good question. It's not like I was shying away from relationships. Did I want to get married? No, but the option of sharing my life with someone wasn't out of the question. "I don't know, really. I've been single for a long time so work has becoming the Center of my daily life. My social life takes up some of my free time, but mostly I just sit around at home doing overtime."

"You're in marketing, right?" I hummed in response, prompting his next question. "What exactly goes into pushing a successful ad into the market? I've heard it's a lot of work, but it hasn't really been explained to me."

"Well typically the team runs through the goal of the advertisement and we come up with a pitch and theme. Depending on what resources we use to push our ads, we'll draft up a request and send it through to the financial department so they can approve our budget. Then, we link up with the design department and send it up to the branch superior, who sends it to the CEO so he can approve it. Once we've got free range, it's up to us to pull it together. If it's a stationary ad, it can take about a week. If it's a video, it can take up to months. It all depends what we're pushing and how we're pushing it."

Jack hummed and grabbed an oven mitt, pulling the beef Wellington out of the oven. "That seems like a lot, you must be really stressed."

"Not nearly as much as you," I stood up to help him plate the food. "You work with people's nerves, I can only imagine how much Central Memorial depends on you."

He gave me a charming smile that warmed me inside. What a handsome man!

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