He swallowed rather roughly, meeting my gaze. “The recipe. Where’d you get it?”
My stomach dropped. He looked… upset. Like maybe I’d crossed a line. “I still have her recipe book. Why?”
The fork slipped from his hand, a puff of disbelieving air spilling out of him. “What—still? You have her recipe book?Still?”
“It was an early graduation gift,” I explained, a little surprised she hadn’t at least mentioned it to him. “I’d told her how much I was going to miss her cooking when I moved away for college, so she gifted it to me. We were supposed to…” I trailed off, hesitating.
“You were supposed to what?” he pushed. Rather intensely, might I add.
A new wave of emotion started compounding with the embarrassment still burning in my chest. I shrugged. “Nothing. She just… we had an agreement. I was supposed to FaceTime her every Monday so we could cook together. One recipe a week. But, you know.”
Instead, she’d left and blocked my number, so I’d had no choice but to get really good at deciphering her rushed cursive.
I couldn’t look at him anymore.
Couldn’t look at anything, really. My surroundings were becoming a little too blurry for comfort, and a large frog was trying to take up residence in my throat.
“Anyways, I’m gonna… garden if you…” I couldn’t get through the full sentence before the frog wiggled, fracturing my voice. So I just turned around and left.
Fortunately, salt water was widely recognized to be great for gardening.
20
Rachel
Hey, reminder you’re coming to Underbite with us tonight.
Reservation’s at 7. Not to tell you what to do or how to live your life, but wear the red Givenchy mini.
Please.
For me.
I pluckedoff my gardening gloves and slumped into the soil, swiping sweat from my forehead before I typed out my response.
Me
I’ll be there but might be a bit later than 7. Lost track of time
Rachel
OKAY YAY! Np!! See you in a bit!!
I sucked in a deep breath and shut my eyes, needing just one minute of rest before I could force my legs to push me up. Forthe first time in my life, I had a distinct awareness of every single muscle in my body. Everything was sore. Everything hurt.
But I’d made enough progress for it to be worth it.
It’s amazing how much a person can achieve in just two days when they’re not constantly being interrupted by the moody, unpredictable whims of one Dominic Crawford.
I hadn’t seen him since Wednesday afternoon. He’d polished off the lasagna and disappeared without a word. No note. No text. No date of return. Nothing.
He could’ve been dead in some random ditch for all I knew.
He probably wasn’t. But he could’ve been.
Which was fine.
We didn’t owe each other anything outside the terms of our agreement. It wasn’t like I missed him. Or had lost sleep over it.
