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Paige’s smile fades too, into an inquisitive expression. Each time I look at her eyes, I see something new. A new color, or tonight, the traces of all the laughing she does carved delicately into the skin at their corners.
I have the strangest impulse to touch them, to see if I can even feel lines so faint. Almost without thinking, my hand drifts up to follow through on the urge, and her skin is soft against my fingertips. Soft and warm. I trace it along her cheekbone, mesmerized, but Paige steps back and the spell breaks.
I slide my hand in my pocket instead. What was I thinking? My fingertips tingle. They’ve always been sensitive, but this is bizarre.
Experiments have shown that a couple can fall in love within four minutes by silently staring into each other’s eyes after answering a series of increasingly personal questions. We’re three minutes and fifty-five seconds and several questions short of the danger zone, and I scramble to think of something else to say to keep it that way. “Dessert?”
She looks startled—as well she might when I bark the single word at her.
“That sounds good. I think I can handle it now. The panna cotta,” she adds, like there might be some confusion.
Honestly, there is in the aftermath of the moment we just had. At least for me. What was that? I excuse myself to the kitchen, replaying those few seconds as I plate the cream-thickened custard. It was the strangest sense of connection, of everything standing still except for the sounds of our breath.
I just want to know so it doesn’t happen again. It didn’t mean anything, but it could seem important if it keeps happening. Neither of us has room for that kind of complication, I suspect. The last thing I want is to be the cliché of a professor dating someone practically young enough to be doing her undergrad, even if she’s already done with school. Those men are ridiculous, and I won’t be one.
Not that I want to date her, anyway. We’ve managed to get comfortable with each other quickly—far more quickly than I do with most people—and there’s no need to read more into it than two people making a point of being civil.
When I emerge from the kitchen, she’s settled into the easy chair in the front room. I hand her a plate and set mine on the coffee table. “Seems like a good night for a glass of wine.”
“That sounds good, neighbor. You should enjoy one, but I’m sober, so . . .”
Oh. “Sparkling water?”
She smiles. “Perfect.”
I retreat, wondering if she’s trying to diffuse the strangeness too, reminding us of our connection to each other with that “neighbor.”
I return with a glass of sweet white Bordeaux for me and a LaCroix for her, but I pause when she reaches for it, wrinkling my forehead. “Tell me the truth, are you drinking this because you aren’t legally old enough to drink wine?”
“Very funny,” she says, taking the can.
And it’s not, exactly, but it does ease the . . . tension isn’t the right word. It pairs too easily with “sexual,” and that’s not where my mind is at. It eases the oddness.
She tries a bite of the panna cotta, and her face lights up. “Where did you learn to cook like this?”
“That’s a no-bake dessert. And I didn’t make it.”
She gives me a look.
I smile. “I guess you mean the other dishes. I did a study abroad for a semester in Umbria, Italy, and I grew interested in it there. The signora who hosted me was happy to teach me. I’ve tried to keep up with it since. I watch cooking shows and tutorials and read cookbooks.”
She tilts her head, savoring another bite as she studies me. “Do you do anything casually?”
“Not if I’m interested in it.” Anything worth knowing is worth knowing deeply.
“What about dating?”
Now it’s my turn to shoot up an eyebrow. It appears we have not moved past our earlier moment.
“Oh, I didn’t mean it like that,” she says, seeing my expression. “I mean do you ever date casually? You’ve been in Creekville long enough to have been out on a few dates, right?”
I don’t get the sense that she’s trying to work this around to herself, but I’m not sure what she’s getting at. “I haven’t dated since I’ve moved here, no.”
“Tragic love story? Broken heart?” Her voice is too cheerful for two sad phrases. “Oooh, I know—pining for someone unattainable.”
That guess startles me so much that it makes her laugh.
“That’s it! You’re pining for someone. Unrequited love. I’m very good at other people’s love lives.” She leans forward, her eyes sparkling. “Tell me all about it, and I’ll help you solve it.”
