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"Oh my god, this is so good. What did you put in it?" I chewed and swallowed. “It doesn’t really taste like fish.”
He smiled, pride written all over his face. He did a little fist pump. "I'm glad that you like it. It's one of my favorite dishes. The secret is garlic butter."
"But there's already garlic in the pesto."
"Yeah. It's garlic overload. Very good for anybody who has a cold. Garlic is great for you if you're sick. I am still a little worried about the snow angels."
I rolled my eyes. "I'm fine. But it's nice to think that you want to take care of me."
"Anytime." He picked up my hand and kissed my palm. Our eyes met, and a pulse of heat sizzled between us in the second of silence. "I promise I'll take very good care of you later. Eat now, though. We both need our strength."
My stomach growled, and I pulled my hand back from him. I scarfed down the pesto-laden fish.
"You're cooking all the time. I am not a great cook, but I can make you crepes. They are easy. Do you have any red wine? Bordeaux would be best, but I'll take anything."
"I have a little Bordeaux, yeah. It might be out in the barn."
I stopped eating. "The barn? What, do you have a wine cellar out there?"
"Nah," he said, rubbing his head. "It's just cold out there, so it's okay. Alcohol doesn't freeze that easily. I'll go out after dinner and start defrosting it. I'll submerge a wine bottle the water in a little bit. That should be ready for dinner."
"Cool. I think you have everything else." I thought. I had seen milk, eggs, and flour in his refrigerator. "Do you have ham?"
He blinked. "Ham? In a crepe?"
"I don't think that I will make a crepe if it is for dinner. I would rather make galettes."
"Galettes?" He sounded like he had never heard that word before.
"They are made from a heartier flour...we will make do with whatever we have. They are heavier. Crepes are sweet and for breakfast. Galettes are full meals."
"Yeah, I have ham. Can you put some cheese in it, or do galettes not have cheese?"
"Ham and cheese galettes sound great. Now scoot back to the barn. Those cows aren't going to take care of themselves. I'll clear the table."
He tugged on my earlobe, and he put on his coat to go outside.
The door closed behind him.
I felt naked but happy inside of his shirt. It was crazy to think that I had resisted him for so long. My dad had flung me at a life-long virgin. I shook my head. What was he thinking?
I would come downstairs to fix dinner in a few hours, but I think that this called for a new painting.
I took off the Demeter painting. It would wait. Instead of planning this painting, I just went at it.
I
was done in just two hours. I stood back and looked at it. In this painting, the sun was shining benevolently on a cornfield in full bloom. The sky was the color of Jimmy's eyes, a little bit wrong for the kind of sky that you want to see overhead, but it was my painting. I got artistic license. The flowers underneath were flourishing under the light of the sun. They were huge, as tall as sunflowers, but they came in every color of the rainbow. They reached for the sun, and it loved them back.
I looked at it, and I knew that it was one of the best paintings I had ever done. Spontaneous, yes, but it was definitely one of the best things I'd let out. Instead of being a pretty painting, it had something more. A little more depth to it. It meant something to me, the beauty of flowers in springtime, though I was locked away in this little wooden house in the dead of winter.
I left it there to dry.
I looked at the clock. It was time for me to clean up, then I would get dinner started.
When I walked past the kitchen to go up the stairs, I saw the wine bottle resting in the sink. The water would ruin the label, but it was the fastest way to change the temperature of the wine. That was why champagne was served in buckets of ice. You didn't want water in the champagne, but being surround by ice was just as good. The converse was true.
I had gotten paint on this shirt, but I knew that I could buy him 10 more like this. I took it off, and I scrubbed off quickly in the shower in a much more utilitarian way than we had done during our shower sex, and I pulled my hair back. I fired up the stove, and I mixed together the galette batter. I found a pan that was good enough, and I used the garlic butter that he had been using earlier. I fried the ham in another pan, and I made the galettes in the first one. I put the fried ham into the galettes, and I put cheese in there to melt. It smelled really good. I saw that he had a jar of pesto in his fridge, and I brought it out as the garnish and sort of finishing touch. I put just a little bit on top. Pesto was Italian, and galettes were French, but I hoped whatever culinary gods there were would smile on this flavor combination. It might be good.
