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We head up to the top floor and I let her into my suite.
“Fancy,” Evangeline says as she looks around the place and I laugh.
“Yeah, the fanciest that Rosewood has to offer.”
I head past her, spreading my arm out wide.
“So, this is the living room and kitchen area.”
“Oh, I like the open concept layout,” she says with a laugh.
“Very modern. Over here is the bedroom and bathroom.”
She pokes her head into the bedroom, blushing, and I wonder what she was thinking about.
“And that’s it,” I say as I take two steps over to the kitchen area.
“Very nice.”
“Are you hungry?” I ask her and she nods, so I get to work.
Evangeline helps me as I fill a pot with water and preheat the oven for the garlic bread. I open the fridge to ask if she wants wine or something else to drink and that’s when I remember the flowers and chocolates that I bought for Evangeline.
“It seems a little silly to get you flowers but I wanted to do something to celebrate your big day,” I say as I hand her the flowers and box of chocolates.
“Thank you. I’ll never say no to flowers,” she says with a wide grin. “Or chocolates.”
The water starts to boil and I add the noodles, heating up the sauce and putting the garlic bread into the oven.
I pour us each a glass of wine and start to set the table as Evangeline stirs the spaghetti. We work together in harmony as we drain the spaghetti noodles and pull the garlic bread out of the oven.
I plate the food and Evangeline grabs our wine and leads the way over to the small table in the corner of the room.
“It smells delicious,” Evangeline says with a smile as she twirls some spaghetti around her fork.
“Thanks.”
We take a few bites and I’m pleased to see that I didn’t burn anything or overcook the noodles. We talk while we eat and Evangeline tells me more about the grand opening and her plans for The Garden Goddess’s future. She’s ambitious and smart, so I have no doubts that she’ll achieve all of her goals.
“Can I ask you something?” she asks tentatively and I know before she speaks that it’s going to be about how I got hurt.
“Sure.”
“What happened to your arm? You just said that you got hurt and they medically discharged you.”
I open my mouth but no words come out and I look away.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand. I don’t mean to pry.”
“No, no, it’s okay.”
I don’t want to keep anything from Evangeline, so no matter how much I don’t want to go back and revisit that memory, I will for her.
“We were in Afghanistan. Out on a mission. We were supposed to grab a target and bring him back to base to be interrogated.”
“I’m guessing it didn’t go well,” she says softly and I give her a bitter smile.
“No, it didn’t. We got there, but the intel was bad. It seemed like the intel was always at least partially wrong, if not total bullshit. We were headed back to the base when we were hit.”
