Page 58 of Not Home Alone

Merrily sprinkles cinnamon over the cut-up apples in a big bowl and then stirs it all with a wooden spoon. “Currently? She’s in Paris. With her husband and his kids. Her stepchildren. My stepbrother and sister. But she moved to Santa Fe after I graduated high school. She loves it there.”

I remember the way Merrily talked about her parents being divorced, that night we hung out, ten years ago. They’d been divorced for a while, but I’d never talked to anyone who seemed so genuinely sad about it. I remember talking about my mom with her, a little. I didn’t talk about her with anyone else. Still don’t. But it was easy to, with Merrily. I watch as she pours the buttery liquid from the saucepan over the diced apples, inhale the scent, and suddenly I’m hit with such a sweet memory. “That’s how my mom made apple pies.”

“She did?”

I didn’t even realize I’d said it out loud. “Yeah. I’d forgotten all about that. She loved to bake. I was always running around the house, making messes and breaking things when I was little, but whenever she was in the kitchen baking, I’d go in there and watch her and just… inhale everything and it was…”

“Calming?” she says, quietly. “What being at home with your family is supposed to feel like?”

“Yeah.” I watch her dip her finger into the saucepan, swipe it, and suck the melted butter off. I feel calm. I feel at home. But I’m feeling things I absolutely never felt when my mom was baking in the kitchen.

Merrily picks out a little square of apple from the mixing bowl and walks over to me, kind of shyly, holding it out to me. It’s covered in that buttery sauce. Without a word, I part my lips, and she places it inside my mouth. Her fingers graze my lips when I close my mouth around the piece of apple. She watches me chew and swallow as I watch her lick the sauce off her fingers.

“Fucking delicious,” I say, barely a whisper.

“You’ve got some sauce in the corner of your mouth,” she says.

I don’t try to wipe or lick it off myself. “Yeah?” I can’t stop staring at her mouth. That pouty, juicy, glossy mouth.

“Right…” She leans in and licks the corner of my mouth. “There.”

My hands immediately go to her hips, pulling her in, but she wriggles away from me. Checks the oven temperature. Pours the diced apples into the pie crust. I watch as she arranges strips of crust in a lattice pattern over the top. “It’s just the cinnamon,” she says, without looking up at me.

“What is?”

“Cinnamon is a mild aphrodisiac. Did you know that? That’s what’s making you horny.”

“If it’s a mild aphrodisiac, then why am I exceptionally horny right now?”

She smirks again, as she brushes a raw egg mixture over the pie crust and then puts the pie in the oven and sets a timer. “Probably because you know we aren’t going to have sex again.”

“No. That’s why I’m exceptionally unhappy.”

She tilts her head, studying me, as she wipes her hands on her apron. “Why are you unhappy?” she asks, stroking her boobs over her apron.

The boobs I might never get to stroke again.

Now I’m horny and depressed.

“You said it was a mistake,” she says. “You said it shouldn’t have happened.”

“Huh?”

“Before we went to Heartland.”

“I was talking about spilling the coffee grounds. That was not a metaphor.”

“Oh.”

Hallelujah. It was a misunderstanding. I get up and walk over to her. She reaches behind herself to untie her apron, lifts it over her head. Just when I reach for her, her phone rings. She holds her hand up, halting me, reaches into the pocket of her pajama pants and looks at her phone. Wrinkling her nose, she says, “Brock.”

“Don’t answer it.”

After a beat, she says, “I’ll call him back later.” She declines the call, puts the phone behind her on the counter, and places her hand flat against my chest when I put my hands on her waist. “So, what are you saying? You don’t want to never have sex with me again?”

She’s not even being coy or sarcastic; she’s genuinely trying to clarify this issue. “Yes. No. What? I do want to have sex with you again, Merrily. I very much do.”

“Just sex?”