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“Jane?” Carter stopped walking, his face unreadable.
“What is it?” She looked at Karina. “You’re not a vegetarian are you?”
“Oh, no,” Karina said sweetly, her eyes laughing at Carter’s expression. “This looks great, Jane. But it looks like you went to a lot of effort…”
Carter swallowed. She had made him a roast dinner. It was just sex. And yet her kind gesture filled him with a lurching sense of spinning out of control.
“Carter’s just not sure what to do with food that doesn’t come in a box,” Karina whispered as she walked past Jane. “But my mom’s a great cook, and I can tell you’re in the same class. Roasts were my favourite growing up, Jane.”
Jane looked at Carter again, confused and nervous. He still wasn’t speaking. His face was… she didn’t know. “Carter?”
He blinked, but when he smiled, it was strange. Hollow. “It looks good, Jane.”
She couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d done something wrong. She bit down on her lip and slid into one of the seats. “I just thought it was better for you than take out.”
A mistake she would definitely not be repeating. “Jane isn’t a fan of fast food,” he explained unnecessarily.
“It’s the crappy ingredients,” she said defensively.
Karina looked at her curiously.
“Never mind.” Jane shook her head. Her mood felt like it had been popped by a pin.
“Jane, don’t mind Carter. He’s not very good with social niceties. You must know that about him by now. Don’t let his lack of gratitude upset you.”
Carter cleared his throat. “I’m not ungrateful,” he demurred, sitting beside Jane without looking at her. “It’s just a waste of your talents.”
“I don’t see cooking as an activity that requires talent,” Jane combatted with quiet pride. “It’s just something people do out of necessity. Most people, anyway.”
Karina hid her smile behind her wine glass.
“You have no necessity while you’re here,” he responded, reaching for a piece of chicken and placing it on Jane’s plate.
“Excuse me,” Jane said. “I forgot the onions.” She stood abruptly and moved towards the kitchen.
“You’re being an asshole,” Karina whispered quietly. Her blue eyes were hard, in a way Carter hadn’t seen them before.
“Excuse me?”
“Just sex or not, you’re treating her like she’s some kind of whore. As though you expect her to sit quietly and wait in your bedroom or something.”
Carter was so surprised he almost dropped the tongs. His eyes flew to Jane, in the kitchen. The sight of her with her back to him sent a dagger of discomfort through his body. Yet again, he’d said the wrong thing. He looked away.
When she returned with the onions, and sat beside him, he put a hand over hers. “Thank you, Jane. This is delicious.”
She didn’t meet his eyes. It was safer for her to speak to Karina, and so Jane did. And Carter listened, and tried to get a grip on his own damned feelings.
Karina excused herself as soon as it was polite to do so, leaving Jane and Carter in a prickly silence.
“I have been informed that my behaviour to you was very rude,” he said with a grimace.
She pushed the plug into the sink and began to run warm water into it. “Do you have detergent?” She asked quietly.
He reached over and turned the tap off. “Jane. Listen to me.”
She forced herself to meet his gaze. “You are the first person to cook for me.”
“So? You don’t make a habit of dating women who cook. I could have guessed as much.”
