"A rice cooker? We're shopping for a rice cooker?"

"Yeah. Yours and mine. I mean, one for you and one for me so whoever's turn it is to make stir-fry for dinner can cook the rice properly."

I stared at Luke, completely bewildered.

We were standing in the middle of a high-end home furnishing store later that day, after work, surrounded by a wide array of pricey kitchen appliances and nearly half a dozen sales staff waiting to cater to our every need—well, Luke's every need considering they probably saw him as a dollar sign the moment he walked through the door. “

We have a handy catalogue detailing all the specs of the different brands and models we carry in the store, Mr. Hedenby," one of the sales people said, stepping up and smiling at him.

Her name tag said Sheila. Kudos to her for knowing the names and faces of their wealthiest customers.

"In fact, we also have a top-ten list we recommend based on popularity and customer reviews and ratings," she added. "Most couples refer to it when building their wedding registry."

My mouth dropped open in complete astonishment and Luke, seeing my reaction, just threw his head back laughing.

He looped an arm around my neck and pulled me close, pressing a kiss on the top of my head. "You know what, Sheila, that's a good idea. Bring out the books. That might help narrowing it down for us until Max and I can agree on something. Right, baby?"

I gave him a murderous look before turning back to the staff who scurried into different directions to bring the catalogues right away.

"Luke Hedenby, you are an absolute scoundrel!" I muttered at him, pushing him away from me. "Why did you let those people think we're a couple? We’re looking at wedding registry options! Are you insane?"

"It's just a little prank," he said as he released me to go and pick up a pepper grinder with an intricately carved wooden body. "Besides, the catalogues would be handy. We have another errand to run after this."

"Where to next? The chapel to book our wedding?" I snapped in exasperation as I plopped down on one of the leather-covered armchairs set against one wall. "It's not funny, you know?"

"I'm never getting married. That's why it's funny," he said as he turned back and dropped down into a crouch in front of me, his arms spread out above my lap, his hands resting on each side of the chair. "Besides, it's easier to let them think we're a couple than try to explain why two friends are going shopping for kitchen appliances."

I glared at him. "I'm glad you see why it's hard to explain that part because it's not typical."

He just gave me an irresistible grin. "I don't believe anything about us has been typical since the day we met, Max."

I dropped my head back down and let it rest against the soft cushion of the chair's back rest. "Fine. Buy whatever you want. I don't need a rice cooker. But I'll sit here and wait because these shoes are new and I just broke them in today and they hurt like hell."

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes but they instantly snapped open when I felt hands pulling my tan leather pumps off my feet.

"Uh, Luke, what are—"

"Ssh, just let me," he said softly as he propped one stockinged foot over his knee and started kneading it with firm but slow-building pressure. "You should've told me your feet hurt. We would've stopped by somewhere and gotten you new comfortable shoes first."

I opened my mouth, ready with another protest, but his ministrations on my feet felt so good I couldn't mutter a single word.

"Better?" he asked and I saw him looking up at me with a smile on his mesmerizing blue eyes. He didn't really have to look up much. He was quite tall that we were only a few inches off from being completely eye level.

I nodded as he lowered my foot to prop up my other one in its place. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," he murmured as he lowered his gaze back to my foot to tend to it like it was the most important thing in the world.

Unable to help myself, my hand drifted forward and touched his messy hair with my fingers.

He looked up again but made no move to inch his head away from my touch. He just smiled, his eyes mischievous that I couldn't help but smile back and move my fingers to tap him gently on the tip of his nose.

"Here you are, Mr. Hedenby," Sheila announced as she arrived, arms laden with catalogues. Two  other people were right behind her carrying more.

To my endless regret, Luke lowered my foot to the ground and got up to face the sales staff.

Sheila took the first folder on top of her pile and handed it to Luke. "I brought two copies of each so you can browse through it individually. One for you, Mr. Hedenby, and one for—"

"One copy will be fine, thank you. We'll share," Luke interjected gently as he grabbed his copy and perched on the right arm rest of my chair, leaning toward me, his left arm stretching across the back rest above my head and his right hand propping up the catalogue open on my lap.

I glanced at the anxious faces of the waiting staff and looked up to Luke.

"I hope these people aren't fussing on us so much because they think we're buying more than just a rice cooker," I murmured to him in a hushed tone. "That's all that we're buying, right?"

Luke glanced at me as he flipped another page and grinned. "Who knows? We might find something else."

An hour later, we emerged from the store after purchasing six different items—two top-of-the-line rice cookers, a new induction stove that promised to cook in perfectly even temperatures, a food processor, a fancy popcorn maker that Luke insisted we needed for when we wanted to hang out at home and watch old movies, and a counter-top dishwasher he believed would give me more time to relax in the evening instead of tending to dirty dishes. Everything except the second rice cooker were arranged to be delivered to my apartment in the weekend, the dishwasher to be installed by one of their technicians.

I'd given him a mutinous look when he handed his card over to pay for our purchases but he silenced me before I could utter another protest by pressing his fingertips to my lips, startling me with the intimacy that I forgot what I was about to say.

After our shopping trip, Luke drove us to a jewelry store.

When I saw where he pulled up, I swallowed hard and glanced suspiciously at him. "You know I was kidding about going to the chapel and getting hitched and all that, right?"

He laughed and slipped out of the car to walk around to my side and help me out. "No, we're not buying matching wedding rings or anything like that. Peggy's birthday is next week and I want to get her something special. She always buys gifts for me to give to other people so I don't have a lot of experience in shopping for presents. I'm hoping you could help me."

I grinned, excited at the prospect. "I'd love to help. I don't know Peggy that well though but I can help you look."

He took my hand and led us inside the store where we were greeted by the manager, most likely, and he seemed to be expecting us.

"I've reserved the viewing room for you, Mr. Hedenby," the man said. "You can make yourselves comfortable while the staff brings in all the display pieces."

I clutched Luke's elbow as I turned to him and practically murmured against his shirt. "Couldn't we just walk around the store and look that way?"

He squeezed my hand which he was still holding and nodded at the manager's direction. "Davies, I believe we'll take our time just browsing around the store, if you don't mind. If we like something, we'll let you know."

Davies looked surprised before glancing between me and Luke. He recovered quickly, flashed us an awkward but understanding smile and nodded. "As you wish. Let me know if you need anything."

"Thanks, man," Luke told him with a quick pat to the man's shoulder before he pulled me to one corner of the store to start our browse. 

"Well, what exactly do you want to get her?" I asked as we peered at the glittering display of necklace chains. "A bracelet, pair of earrings, a necklace... We probably should pick out a category and narrow down our search that way."

Luke tapped his chin. "Well, the last piece of jewelry I got her was a tennis bracelet, two years ago."

"What did you get her for her last birthday?" 

Luke smiled. "Two tickets, front row to a Bon Jovi concert plus a backstage pass."

I laughed. "Lucky Peggy. I didn't know she was a Bon Jovi fan."

"Oh, she loves rockstars, alright," he said with a chuckle. "Peggy always told me that women can't resist bad boys but that doesn't mean they'll marry them."

"Absolutely," I agreed as I admired a sapphire pendant. "While I've always stayed away from them, I wasn't oblivious to their charm. Heartbreakers do exactly as their name suggests—break hearts. And you know what comes with a broken heart?"

"What?"

"Distraction, low self-esteem, loss of motivation, self-destructive tendencies."

"How about pain, misery, hopelessness?"

I looked up to him in surprise and smiled at his serious expression. "Well, aren't you a romantic, Mr. H. The ones I enumerated are the result of the things you mentioned—the real, damaging manifestations of the effects of a broken heart. I think about them and it's like getting doused with ice cold water."

His eyes narrowed. "Have you ever fallen for a heartbreaker?"

I smirked. "I couldn't have if I never got close enough to one. I told you I stayed away from the type."

"Maybe you'll be different. How will you know if you don't ever give it a chance?" he asked.

I shook my head. "Because I know I won't be. I'm not a starry-eyed teenage girl, Luke. I don't recklessly put everything I have to lose at stake for an impossible romance. The risk of falling is too great and if I'm ever taking it, I'm taking it with someone who doesn't have a long history of letting women crash and burn. If I ever let myself fall, it'll be for a man who will love me faithfully and take the risk himself. Heartbreakers never take risks with their heart. If they did, they wouldn't be so cavalier about breaking others' because you can only break your heart if you've somehow linked your own happiness to someone else's."

I knew I got a little carried away with that speech—that I revealed too much about my own heart—and I waited as Luke remained silent, only studying me with pensive blue eyes.

"I'm not sure if you're a cynic," he started in a soft voice. "Or a reluctant romantic."

I grinned. "I'm not sure. Anyway, it doesn't matter."

"Of course, it does," he said and to my surprise, he closed the distance between us and wrapped me in his arms, his lips pressing against my hairline. "Don't worry, Max. No one's going to break your heart. I won't let them."

I giggled against his chest and gently pushed away to look at his face. "And how exactly do you intend to stop them?"

He broke into a smile. "With every means possible. Trust me, I can be resourceful."

I laughed and rolled my eyes. "Thanks but I don't need a bodyguard for my heart. I'm perfectly capable of sending men running. I've had years of practice."

It wasn't an exaggeration. I got so good at fending off men that I never managed to go on a single date. At all.

Luke just made a noncommittal sound of affirmation before taking my hand and pulling me along the rest of the glass displays to look at more jewelry.

"Oh, that one's beautiful," I said as I pointed to a small pendant shaped like a dragonfly, its wings encrusted with small diamonds. It hung on a simple, delicate white gold chain. "I love dragonflies."

"Why dragonflies?" Luke asked as he stood beside me and looked at the necklace. "Most girls would prefer butterflies, I think.”

I looked up at him and smiled. "Precisely for that reason. A dragonfly is rarely the first, obvious choice. You choose it because you want to and not just because like everyone else, you were drawn to its beauty as you would with a butterfly."

"Or maybe you just see the beauty in the dragonfly right away and get drawn to it far more than to that of the butterfly's," he said softly.

Ah, see. Luke understands what I'm talking about—even my romantic ramblings, whatever of it I'm capable of having.

Without looking, I reached for his hand beside me and squeezed it. "Come on, let's look at the earrings maybe."

Half an hour later, Luke was at the manager's table signing off on the purchase of a pair of square-cut amethyst earrings framed with a delicate border of smaller diamonds. Luke said Peggy loved purple and the earrings were both elegant but fun.

"Can we eat now?" I asked as we stepped out of the jewelry store.

It was already six-thirty and my stomach was rumbling.

"I was just going to suggest that," he said as we slipped inside his car. "Since I kept you from dinner, I'm feeding you. We can sit down for steak somewhere or we can get something quick."

"Quick, please," I said as we pulled out into traffic. "I'm starving. What about you?"

"Just as hungry as you are, I'm guessing," he said with a chuckle. "What do you feel like having?"

"A cheeseburger," I blurted out and he just cracked up. Well, I couldn't hold back now. "With crispy fries and a hot fudge sundae."

Ten minutes later, we were sitting on high stools by the bar of a popular fastfood, eating our burgers as we watched through the glass wall we faced the people who strolled along the sidewalk outside.

"If I ever get stranded in an island, a cheeseburger would be my food of choice to be stuck with," I said as I popped another fry into my mouth from the heap of them on the paper-lined tray where we combined our order of fries together. 

"Mine would be pizza," he said before taking a sip of his large pop. "It would give me all the necessary nutrition I need—carbohydrates from the crust, some protein from the cheese and meat and other vitamins and minerals from the veggies on it."

"If you get stranded in an island, is the goal to survive or indulge because your life is ascertained to be short?" I asked. 

His brows furrowed in thought. "Indulge. If I'm going to die, I might as well die happy. You?"

I bit my lip as I considered my answer. "Survive. Because that's all that I'm really good at."

"Ah, Max," he said with a smile, nudging my shoulder with his. "I shall simply have to show you how to live."

***

Hi everyone! So everything you've read up to this point was an edited version of the original chapters. I should have another chapter posted this weekend. This is going to be an on-going serial so chapters aren't going to come flooding every day. What you can do though is let me know how you think of the story and where you'd like to see it go as the plot is still very much open to ideas. 

And if anyone has suggestions for songs for some of the chapters, let me know. A lot of people enjoy the chapter soundtracks and you guys always have great recommendations.

Don't forget to vote and comment!!!

Thanks!

Cheers,

Ninya