I've worked sixteen hours straight today and it's eleven at night. I skipped dinner again and I am hungry enough to consider chomping down on the blown glass fruit bowl in the main hall.
The coast should be clear now. In the past three days, Madison went to her rooms around ten and didn't get out until six the next morning. Not that I've taken notes. Only I did.
Casting glances around like a toddler about to commit some misdemeanor, I make my way down the long hallway and the grand staircase, then all the way to the Stronghold kitchen. It's enormous and built with state-of-the-art professionalequipment, all pale stone and hanging copper and a ceiling high enough to put the echo in every sound.
I frown when I see the light over the center island is on, but by then, my stomach has taken over my body and I couldn't stop if I tried. I turn the corner and step into the kitchen, then stop like I've been hit with a baseball bat right in my face.
Maddie is standing at the counter. Correction: Maddie is standing at the kitchen counter in her nightgown.
I thank whatever God is looking over minotaurs that she hasn't heard me enter. Her back is to the doorway, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, and she's spreading something on bread with a knife she holds like she's in a minor disagreement with it. The nightgown is pale yellow and hits her mid-thigh and her feet are bare on the stone floor.
My gaze goes up those shapely, bare legs and something hammers inside my chest like it wants to get out and run away, screaming. All that flesh, exposed, short-circuits something in my brain and I just stand there, like an idiot.
Or like a creep, which is how I just know she would see it.
For what feels like an eternity, I stand in the doorway, my mind a blank and my heart trying its best to learn to play drums against my ribcage. Then my brain remembers how to function.
I clear my throat.
She turns to me with a small, choked-up cry of surprise. As she recognizes me, her expression goes from shock to hostility. She raises her brows as she looks me up and down, then lets out a little snort.
Which immediately annoys the heck out of me.
"What are you even wearing?" She tilts her head to one side. "It's eleven o'clock at night. Were you wearing a suit?"
I glance down at my marine blue pants and white dress shirt. "I was working."
"You dress like that to work out of your own house? Figures." She shakes her head, then turns back to her bread and resumes spreading. Aggressively. "Do you ever wear something else? Do you even own pajamas? Or is that not a thing that happens in your income bracket?"
Right. I remember that sharp tongue. I used to find it funny. It's not so funny now.
"I see you still have a habit of running your mouth," I say, crossing to the refrigerator. "Does it still cause you problems?"
She doesn't look up. "Constantly." A pause, in which I hear the knife scrape across the bread. "It's my most consistent hobby. What fun would it be if it didn't cause me trouble?"
I choose not to answer that last bit and walk up to the refrigerator, then yank the doors open. It's impeccably stocked, because Mrs. Fairweather is a pearl. There are things in there that require a pan and some working knowledge of how food is assembled, which I have in principle and lack the motivation for at eleven at night. I stand in front of it for a moment, and then I close it.
"Want half?"
Maddie is looking at me over her shoulder. In front of her on the counter are two triangles of bread that she has just cut, and between them, visible in cross-section, is a generous layer of peanut butter and what appears to be strawberry jam.
She extends one hand towards me, holding the other half of her sandwich.
"I'm fine," I lie.
She keeps holding it out as my stomach lets out a grumble loud enough to rattle the foundation of the old house.
"Fine. Thanks."
I accept it, defeated, and take one small bite, because I still have the remnants of my dignity somewhere about my person. Those remnants last for about four seconds. Then I shove therest of it in my mouth in one go and groan as I chew the sweet and sticky mess.
Ugh. It's been so long since I've eaten anything near a PB&J. I forgot how good it is.
Maddie is staring at me. Her half of the sandwich hangs forgotten, halfway to her face. She points one finger at the empty space where the sandwich had been. Her face opens and she laughs. The sound fills the kitchen, echoing off the copper and the stone and it is so genuine, so warm and sudden that something happens to me.
I laugh, too.
This is something I observe from a slight distance, the way you hear an unexpected sound and pause, confused about its origin. We continue like this for a while and it feels so good, I don't want it to stop.
