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They were friends again.
“I love a good, toasty grilled cheese sandwich,” she said. “Do you have apples? I can cut some up.”
“Your mother always cut up apples for us after school,” Blake said, throwing her a smile. She didn’t catch it though, and instead he watched something negative flicker across her face. He paused with the coffee pot under the running water. “Gina? How’s your mom?”
“Oh, she’s…fine.” The last word came out as a whisper, and she busied herself with digging through his fruit bowl. “Blake, these aren’t good.”
“Throw ‘em away then,” he said. “I tell Todd I don’t eat fruit unless forced.”
“Of course,” she said with a giggle. “So grilled cheese sandwiches and…”
“Tomato soup?” he guessed. “That’s a fruit, right?”
“Are we ten?”
“I like grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup.”
“I suppose all you have is the canned kind.” Gina put her hands on her hips and studied him.
“Do you see any tomatoes on the counter?”
She couldn’t, because he didn’t have any.
“Oh, you know what?” He stepped past her, maybe a little closer than he needed to, and opened his fridge. “Todd brought me some of that fire-roasted organic stuff.” He spotted the box of tomato soup in the fridge and grabbed it. He’d had it a while, and he searched for an expiration date as he closed the fridge.
“This might work,” he said, giving up on finding the date. “It might be expired though.”
Gina took the carton from him and turned it around. “No, it’s good,” she said. “Especially if you haven’t opened it yet.”
“I haven’t opened it yet,” he said. He finished getting the coffee on while Gina pulled out a pan and emptied the tomato soup into it. The gas line clicked and flared to life, and Blake tried really hard not to think of this as his real life. Him and her, in a house, making lunch together in a perfect dance.
It wasn’t real.
They were just friends.
His imagination kept conjuring up ways he could press her against the countertop and kiss her, but he wouldn’t allow himself to do it.
“I looked up our first hike,” she said, pulling something from her pocket. She proceeded to unfold a printout and lay it flat on his counter.
“You did, huh?” He stepped next to her. “When are we doing this?”
She leaned on her elbows beside the paper and then looked up at him. “I was thinking Saturday morning.”
“Saturday morning,” he repeated. He’d like to say he didn’t work weekends, but that would be a lie. The weekends were some of the busiest times at the lodge, as they booked out weeks in advance.
“They serve breakfast an hour later,” she said. “I know the routine now. If we get up just a titch before the sun, we can get to the top of the rock and back before anyone needs us.”
“Define a ‘titch’ before the sun.” Blake gave her a dry look, his tone matching it. “I already get up before the sun.”
“Meet at the trailhead at six?”
He groaned and swung around to get a loaf of bread out of the drawer. “Thick slices or thin?” he asked, holding up the loaf.
“Did your mother make that?”
“Yes.”
Gina blinked and dropped her eyes to look through a drawer.
