Page 16 of Safe in Clua

SIXTEEN

Laia

I lift the teaspoon of filling to my lips and close my eyes. Too sweet. Needs more balsamic vinegar. I stir the bubbling strawberry mixture, turn the heat down a notch then grab a different wooden spoon for the simmering pot of mango and cinnamon.

Both pie tins are primed with pastry crust. I swipe my hair from my forehead with the back of my hand and fight back my yawn.

I’ve been up since six. On my day off. I didn’t fall asleep until four. My brain has come up with a new and improved way to torment me. Felix and Flappy Eyes.

I just don’t get it. If that’s his type then what the hell is he doing letting me kiss him so much? Pity. That’s the only reason I can think of. And the thought is more than mortifying. It’s pathetic.

My teeth gnaw at the rough skin on the inside of my cheek. His hurt blue eyes when I told him to back off taint me with doubt. Maybe I should have let him talk, though. Maybe I should have asked him outright.

Maybe I should just stop goddamn obsessing over a man.

I twist both rings to turn off the stove. He certainly hadn’t been complaining when she practically climbed him.

I don’t even want to know what happened after I left.

Okay. I do. I’ve almost phoned Kenzi about ten times this morning to see if they left together.

But no. Nope. No way.

I should be glad for my lucky escape. I am glad for my lucky escape. I grab the ladle from my new utensil rack and set about filling the tins.

Pies. I should just focus on the pies.

What if I’m wrong about them too? I mean, Kenzi liked them. She liked them enough to tell Simon about them, and he seems to like them, but…

People lie all the time, Laia.

I shake my head, but Damon’s voice lingers along with a million reasons to believe him.

My fingers clutch the pendant around my neck, the coin-like disk cool against my clammy palm.

“She thought she could, and so she did.”

My eyes well as I look from the black velvet box and the engraved pendant nestled in it to my mom’s smiling face. “I love it.”

“It seemed apt.” She brushes her black bangs from eyes the exact same color as mine then pulls me in for one of those hugs only a mom can give. “That school is lucky to have you, Lai. I’ve never met anyone with your natural instinct for flavors. Not even your gran.”

I smile into her shoulder and squeeze tighter. “You have to say that. You’re my mom.”

The ladle slips from my grasp, clattering against the worktop, spraying the counter with sticky puréed fruit and knocking the pan over. I stare at the mess, torn between memories and fears and hope and dread. Mom hadn’t lived to see me turn down my place in culinary school. Even so, the ghost of her disappointment has weighed on me every day since. The woman had more faith in me than anything else in life. It’s about time I started living up to it again.

I am good enough. Being wrong about Felix doesn’t have to mean I’m wrong about this. I stare at the red, watching it spread in a sticky puddle over the wood.

I will do this. Make at least this part of my life work. I’ll make her proud of me again.

But first I need to clean up this mess.

I grab a cloth from the sink.

Footsteps behind me have every hair on my body lifting. I know Mrs. Devon’s steps. These are bigger. Heavier. My heart takes off in a gallop. I glance over to the knife stand. It’s too far away, so I wrap my fingers around the rolling pin in the sink instead then spin.

“Felix?”

He holds his hands up but stays where he is under the arch that leads through to the front door. “The door was open. I heard a clatter.”

“The front door was open?” My world spins slightly off its axle for a second. I haven’t been out front this morning. I lower my rolling pin, eyes still fixed on Felix, and try to come up with reasons other than the one that would mean … but that would be impossible.

Felix’s forehead creases, but he stays where he is. “Everything okay?”

I shake my head. “Yep. Fine … but kinda busy, what’s up?”

Ugh. My easy breezy voice sucks.

He looks past me to the red goo now dripping from the work top then back to the door. “Need a hand?”

“Are you sure the door was open?” My thumb lifts to my teeth before I can stop it. I locked it last night. Just like I lock it every night. I think.

“Definitely open.” His brow lowers and a tightness appears there I haven’t seen before. “What’s going on, Laia?”

I glance again at the mess on my worktop then through the French doors to the perfectly serene and completely empty beach beyond my little garden.

He’s not here. I’m letting him make me paranoid again. Letting him win again.

I shake my head and force my face out of whatever grimace has Felix so ruffled. “I’m making pies.” I glance over to the mess. “A pie.”

His rough laugh shoots a jolt up my spine, as he rubs his hands down the front of his denim board-shorts then steps from beneath the arch towards me. I glance down. Black yoga pants and a black tank today … and a bra too.

A big step up from the shorty pajamas I was wearing the last time he showed up unannounced.

I step aside, an apology teetering on the tip of my tongue over the mess. I click it off the roof of my mouth instead. It’s my mess.

As if it’s the most normal thing in the world, he steps past me, grabs a paper towel from the dispenser and starts to wipe down the counter.

“You don’t have to do that.”

He smirks over his shoulder. “I know I don’t.” The muscles in his back shift beneath his white T-shirt when he goes back to cleaning.

He’s got a type. I’m not it. “Felix, stop. What are you doing here?”

He pauses mid-wipe but doesn’t turn to me. “I came to apologize. I made you uncomfortable last night.”

I wrap the drawstring of my pants around my finger, but I can’t seem to force myself to speak. Don’t trust myself not to fall back into my perpetual need to placate. Make things easier for him.

He turns from the counter and leans back against it. “You told me to back off. I’m backing off.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. “This is you backing off?”

His face sobers as he watches me.

I stop laughing immediately. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—” I square my shoulders. “Wait, no. I’m not sorry. At all.” Well, that sounded way better in my head. I bring up the memory of Flappy Eyes and her tight, tight dress and bitchy, bitchy face and grab hold of the hurt that comes with it with both hands.

A dimple flashes in his cheek. “Good. Don’t be.”

“And while we’re at it, Jayne told me everything. Why do you keep on showing up here if she’s your type? I mean, I get it … she’s…” I roll my eyes. “Tight. I mean, petite … I mean. I don’t know what I mean.” I press my fingers against my lips. “I just don’t get what you want from me. Why you let me … why we keep…” My cheeks blaze and I shake my head. “I just don’t get it.”

He rocks back on his heels, and the way his T-shirt stretches over his big chest when he shoves his hands in his pockets almost pulls an apology for my apology-take-back from my lips. What is wrong with me?

He watches me like he’s trying to work something out. Like he’ll somehow find the answer in my sweaty face. He won’t. I’m all out. “She was my type.” His stare meets mine and there’s a sureness about him I haven’t seen before. “But last night I realized something.”

I fold my arms and clamp my teeth to stop the words I know are about to fall out. It’s no good. They fall out anyway. “Was that before or after you let her climb you?” I wince. “Not that it’s got anything to do with me.”

“I guess I deserve that.” He clicks his tongue against his front teeth and rubs his hand up the back of his neck. “Nothing happened.”

I arch my brow but refuse to give up my indignation. “Felix, I’m kind of busy, so…” I glance over his shoulder to the mess behind him.

“Types change, Laia.” His jaw ticks, his face serious and one hundred percent trained on me.

Types change? Just like that, my elastic band of verbal weirdness stretches so far it snaps and leaves me completely speechless. I’m not sure what’s worse. I look anywhere but into his face. It would be weird to ask for clarification, right?

“Felix, I’m not … I don’t think I’m—” When I look up, he’s staring at me, looking only slightly less mystified than I am.

“Where do you want me?” He turns back to the sink to wash his hands. “These pies won’t bake themselves.” He quirks a brow over his shoulder then grabs a towel to dry his hands.

Where do I want him? I swallow. Where do I want him?

His lips twitch. He can read my mind. I’m sure of it.

I press my hands to my hot cheeks but drop them when that damn dimple appears again and move to stand beside him, fighting my own smile. “I need more strawberries cut.”

“I can do that.” He leans around me and picks up a knife and the tub of strawberries left over from the first batch I made.

It takes me a couple of minutes to get used to his presence beside me. A couple more to calm my cheeks down. And about ten more to get everything into the pot and bubbling. The sweet, fruity smell calms me. And I can almost, almost forget who’s standing next to me. Who’s arm brushes mine every time he reaches for something. Who’s listened to every one of my directions without so much as a grumble.

I grab a teaspoon and fill it with balsamic vinegar. “Did you know that balsamic vinegar was originally used as a healing elixir?” My lips move with my silent measuring as I pour, one, two, three. “It’s so hard to find the real stuff that’s not just cheap wine vinegar with corn syrup and flavorings.” I pick up a different spoon and dip into the mixture, closing my eyes as I taste it. “Not sweet enough.”

My nose itches. I rub it with the back of my forearm. “Pass me the honey.” I hold my hand out. Then wince. “Please. Sorry.”

His brow lowers as he scans the basket of bottles and jars on the worktop. “Sorry for what?” He leans forward to take a closer look at a jar then picks it up and twists the top off before he hands it to me. “I like watching you bake.” The tips of his fingers brush my thumb when I take the jar. “It looks good on you.”

I almost lose my breath. Almost fall back into hide-away mode.

Maybe it’s the genuine tone to his words, or the slight upward tilt to his lips. Or maybe it’s the effects of my pie high. But, for the first time in a long time, I want to talk about this. “I hadn’t baked in a long time before I came here.” I spoon honey into the mix then go back to stirring the pot. “My ex…” I clear my throat, my wooden spoon pausing in the bubbling red mixture. “My ex wasn’t really a fan of me baking.”

I glance over at him, and something softens in his expression before he returns to clearing away the cut-offs from the strawberries and the gooey mess my spoons have left on the chopping board. “Well, I’m a fan.” The words are gruff, with way more weight to them than they should really hold.

“I…” I can barely speak from the size of my grin. “But you haven’t even tried them yet.”

The muscles in his forearms cord and flex as he wipes down the work top then throws the cloth in the sink. “Anything that makes your cheeks this pink and your eyes this bright, I’m a fan of.”

I think I just melted. I blink dumbly at him.

“Who taught you?”

I twist the knobs on the cooker until the flames extinguish. “My mom was a baker. So was my gran.”

He stops wiping to look at me. “Where are your parents now?”

“Em.” I glance down at my fingers when they wrap around my pendant, then meet his stare. “Dead.” I swallow carefully and press my lips together until I’m sure they won’t tremble. “Mom died of a heart attack, then my dad of a stroke six months later.”

Felix turns and leans a hip to the worktop, folding his arms over his chest, his gaze flicking over my face with something an awful lot like understanding.

I wait. Hold his stare. Forget to breathe. Somehow completely comfortable way outside my comfort zone.

“I’m sorry.” He scratches his forehead and releases a long breath. “I know how it feels to lose someone close to you.”

I swallow back the tightness in my throat at the sudden hollowness to his face and the tension that’s stolen away his dimples. I shouldn’t have said anything. “Felix. You … we don’t have to talk about this. I was stupid to bring it up. I didn’t think. I never think.

“Not stupid, Laia. It’s just not something I talk about. Not with anyone.”

I blow out a breath. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose people you’ve served with … and so young…” I crush my lips together to stop anything else from falling from them when his chest expands, and he lifts his gaze to the ceiling. Why am I still talking? It’s not something he talks about.

I blink away the burn of tears behind my eyes at the visible pain etched in every hard line of his face. There’s so much more he’s not telling me—just like there’s so much more I’m not telling him. “You can tell me anything. But you don’t have to.”

His smile is sad—almost bitter, that hollowness taking over all of his features when he looks at me again. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

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