“Right. It was—”Dangerous.“Nice. Yeah.”
We sip, and I cast around for something to say, to make thisnot weird, because it won’t be the last time we practice, and I sure as hell can’t have her knowing that my dick got hard for her.
“What’s that?” I spy a magazine on her counter. “Did you steal that from me?”
“Oh.” She bites her lip. “I’m sorry. I was going to bring it back.”
I wander over to the quarterly magazine my college puts out. On it, three students walk in front of the old history building. It’s a picture-perfect moment, the stuff of movies.
“Why’d you take it?” I pick it up and riffle through the pages.
“No reason.” She lifts one shoulder.
“No reason,” I repeat. My gaze flicks to hers. She’s giving nothing away. Then I see a picture on the fridge. It’s hidden behind a list of grocery items, written in her neat hand, even though Itoldher years ago to eat all her meals from catering. Under that list, the picture teases me. The edges are jagged, like it was clipped from something, and the colors are ones I recognize, the edge of the text in a font I know well. I have ball caps and sweatshirts and emails begging me for money with that font. The picture has been clipped and then hidden, and I bet I know exactly what’s on it.
I want to break something. I close the magazine carefully, then align it with the edge of the table. Katie’s eyes are wary and shadowed.
I think about the conviction in her voice when Katie talks about her dreams. I think about the TV shows she watches and the way she always hugs her knees to her chest during the family reunions and her most-watched episodes about girls going off to college and the way she leans forward like she wants to soak up every morsel of their experience. The questions she asks me about school and how every time I mention an interesting podcast or documentary, she goes home and listens to it, and how she always takes my book recommendations and carefully stacks those books on her table and makes little notes in the margins that she apologizes for. Her face gets all pink likeshe’s ashamed of how wrapped up she got while reading. Like she could ever have anything to be embarrassed about. Not with me. Never with me.
She looks like she’s about to kick me out.
“You want a grilled cheese?” I ask quickly.
“Chef Tristan.” She gives me a grateful smile. “Is it still the only thing you can cook?”
“You know it is.” I smile back at her. “And I was taught by the best.”
“A man should be able to make a grilled cheese,” she says sagely, then giggles.
“You want to put on a movie?”
“Absolutely.”
She settles on the couch in the small living space. “Sleepless in Seattle?”
“We watched that last month.”
“Princess Diaries?”
“Always good. But no.”
“I have a new one. French. Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet. Apparently it’s a classic.”
“Mais oui.” I turn the stove on.
“Show-off. I need subtitles for that, so don’t distract me.”
“Would I ever?” I press a hand over my heart.
“You better hope you find someone who only eats grilled cheeses and likes men who distract them.”
Her words are light, but a pit yawns in my stomach. I forgot about the marriage. For one night.
I nod and make the sandwiches while the movie starts. When I set them down on the coffee table and settle next to her, she sighs happily and drags the plate closer.
Her first bite makes her moan.
“That good?”
