“Totally. After the week I’ve had, I could use one.” Sam reached for the beer and grabbed the opener from the drawer. She popped the top off her beer and handed the opener to Alex, who did the same. Sam tilted the bottle back and had a long drink, taking the opportunity to study Alex. Sam felt her heartbeat quicken as she did. Like Sam, she was dressed for comfort, wearing fitted black yoga capris and a worn-looking Boston University sweatshirt. Her blond curls were pulled back into a messy bun at the back of her head, andshe wore a pair of tortoiseshell glasses instead of contacts. She was stunning. Sam set her bottle down and decided then and there that she needed to implement a two-beer limit.
“That sweatshirt looks vaguely familiar,” she said, resolving to keep the conversation light.
Alex leaned against the counter, pulled down the front of the sweatshirt, and looked down at herself. “Yes,” she said, looking up at Sam, a challenge in her eyes. “And I’m still not giving it back.”
“I’m surprised you still have it.” Sam tilted her head questioningly.
Alex looked confused. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“No reason, I guess,” Sam said, shrugging.
Alex pushed away from the counter, turning her back on Sam. “Are you hungry?” Alex asked over her shoulder as she reached into a cabinet for plates.
“Starving,” Sam admitted. “I put the lasagna in the oven to warm up before I jumped in the shower. It should be about ready.”
Alex opened a drawer to grab an oven mitt.
Sam leaped to her side and stopped her with a hand on the forearm. Alex looked down at Sam’s hand for a moment and then slowly dragged her gaze back to meet Sam’s eyes. She quirked an eyebrow. Sam felt herself blush as she snatched her hand back. “I’ve got it,” she said quickly. “You’ve done more than enough already.” She grabbed a mitt from the drawer and moved toward the oven. She took her time checking the lasagna. When she finished, she turned to Alex, who was leaning against the counter and watching her, her expression unreadable.
“It needs a few more minutes.” Sam gestured toward the table. “Should we sit?”
Alex watched her for another long moment. “Sure,” she said and made her way to the table.
Sam watched Alex step around the place her mother had always sat in, running a hand across the back of her mom’s chair. Her eyes welled up at the thoughtfulness of the gesture. She felt a lump form in her throat as she thought about all Alex had done for her since she’d returned.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” she finally said, comingover and sitting at the table. She gestured around the room. “The paint. Feeding me on multiple occasions. Being here now. Just everything…” Her voice trailed off, and she lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug.
“You don’t have to thank me.” Alex’s face had softened from watchful and wary to something more tender. She looked down at her hands, folded in front of her on the table. “That’s not why I’m here.”
“Then why are you here?” Sam asked quietly. Her eyes were on Alex’s, and she held them. Sam watched the play of emotions across Alex’s face—sadness, hesitation, and something else—before she quickly regained her composure. Of course the oven timer interrupted the moment by choosing that very moment to go off. Sam held her gaze a beat or two longer before getting up and heading into the kitchen.
“Saved by the bell,” Alex murmured. Her voice was so faint that Sam wasn’t sure if she heard it correctly or not. After a moment, Sam heard Alex push back her chair and follow her into the kitchen.
The food was ready, and they moved around each other easily and quietly in the kitchen. Sam dished out the lasagna onto two plates while Alex sliced some Italian bread and spread it with butter. She added it to the plates with the lasagna and carried them to the table. “Will you grab the salad?” Alex called from the other room.
“Alex.” Sam’s tone was solemn. “When have you ever known me to eat salad willingly?”
“Never,” Alex conceded. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t start now.”
Sam opened the refrigerator door and reached past the salad to grab another Ommegang. “Need another beer?” She waved a bottle toward Alex.
“I’d love one, thanks.”
Sam popped the top on two more beers and made her way over to the table. As she passed the bottle to Alex, she felt their fingers brush together. A familiar tingle made its way up her arm, and she wondered if Alex felt it, too. She looked up to Alex’s eyes, but the other woman’s eyes were on her plate, and her expression was unreadable.
They ate, trading off periods of silence with periods of casual conversation. After all her ruminating back and forth, Sam was surprised to feel that things weren’t awkward between them. It felt like the opposite. It was easy, comfortable, almost like… coming home. The thought hit her like a punch to the gut, and she set her fork down beside her plate. She studied her plate, thoughts racing, before looking up. When she met Alex’s eyes across the table this time, she found herself smiling. Alex smiled back with that dimple in full effect. Sam saw warmth behind her eyes and something else that she didn’t quite want to acknowledge. Sam felt a tingling low in her stomach. She felt herself blushing and wondered if Alex could read her mind.
“I think I’m stuffed,” she said, breaking the silence that suddenly felt awkward to her.
“Are you sure?” Alex’s forehead wrinkled with concern. She gestured to Sam’s plate, which was still half-full. “Was everything okay?”
“More than okay,” Sam said and stood and grabbed her plate. “It was amazing. Some of the best lasagna I have ever had.”
“That’s high praise coming from someone who lives minutes from the North End.” Alex stood with her plate and carried it over to the kitchen. “Remember that place you took me to that one time? They had the most amazing gnocchi.”
“Ah, yes.” Sam smiled at the memory. Alex’s first trip to Boston was to see Sam during her first year of college. They shared five blissful days where they were free to be a couple out in the open. They didn’t have to worry about whether someone might see them out on a date. They held hands as they walked down the street. They sat close together in cafés and kissed in the park. They had a romantic, candlelit dinner at a restaurant in the North End to celebrate their first anniversary. It had been everything Sam thought love should be.
“Do you want another beer?” Sam forced her thoughts back to the present and held up her empty bottle. She was at her self-imposed two-beer limit but needed something to do with her hands. “I’m going to have another.”
