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“A fireman?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“That’s very noble.” I mean that, obviously. I really do. I can’t imagine having to put my life on the line like that. Fire terrifies me.
“I like to think what I’m doing now is a close second. I’ve honestly learned that there is no greater gift than my granny and brothers.” He says it with such feeling and a strange vulnerability that it makes me wonder again what it would be like to be a part of that. But that’s utter craziness. I’m here, and it’s not such hot shit. “I’m glad you got adopted by a good family. It’s funny to think that if things had been different, we would have grown up knowing each other. We might even be married to each other by now.”
“Unwillingly.”
He shrugs maddeningly, lifting one of those huge shoulders of his. His lips twitch, drawing my attention straight to them. “Who knows? Stranger things have happened.”
Up close, I can see that his eyes aren’t black at all but a deep brown with dark spots and soft golden flecks. His hair is just as soft and wavy as when I first noticed it in the basement, and I know from experience how remarkably soft those lips are and how they tasted wine-drenched the night before, even though I’m sure he wasn’t drinking any when I made my mad dash for freedom.
“How’s the sandwich?”
I reach for my glass of wine instead and take a long drink. When Alden mirrors me, grasping his glass and drinking deeply, I almost shout at him to put it back down. However, I don’t. I don’t want this to be about me getting to know him, my walls crumbling, me realizing that he’s not such a jerk and that nerves and stress and being out of practice because your whole life is your work can sometimes appear like ego. I don’t want to notice the obvious love shining in his eyes when he talks about his family or remembers his feigned annoyance and his brothers’ endlessly terrible jokes earlier today.
“It’s fine.” I gulp down more wine.
“I’m a terrible cook. Granny engineered this whole thing as a beat down for me.”
“Sometimes we all need one of those. Uh, your brothers said that you almost burned down the house before.”
He sighs. “Cripes. Yes, well, it’s true. I was making shrimp alfredo, but that went by the wayside. I can do these.” He lifts up another sandwich and takes a huge bite.
“Oh, good. I actually hate shrimp.”
His sandwich pauses in mid-air. “Really?”
“No, I love them.”
“Okay, which is it?”
“I’m indifferent. I can take it or leave it.”
“For real? Shrimp is the spice of life.”
“I’ve heard that’s actually salt.”
“My brother, Ransom, would say it’s cursing.”
I pause for a heartbeat. Everything inside me tells me not to say anything, to just let it go, but I can’t. I guess I’m used to poking my nose into other people’s business. I kind of do it for a living, although generally, it’s only because someone can’t find a book or needs a reading suggestion, and I’m just trying to be helpful. “Your brothers also said that you…that you used to…that you ate trash.” I close my eyes. Why can’t I just keep my mouth shut? This is definitely not checking out books, and it’s not helpful. At all. Not one bit.
When I open them, because I feel like I dang well should look him in the face after saying something so awful, Alden is frozen. Tense. But then he shrugs, devours the rest of his sandwich, stuffs a huge pickle entirely into his mouth, chews, and washes everything down with the last bit of his wine. He gives me a lazy smile that makes my heart flutter madly. Suddenly, it’s too hot again. Either the weather is doing funky things, and the central air conditioning in here has short-circuited, or my internal temperature regulator has gone majorly amuck. Maybe my wine is spiked. How ironic that would be. Maybe I put the pills in mine by mistake. But no, I’m not tired. I’m electrified, if anything. And fully present and more alive than I’ve ever been.
“I did indeed,” Alden finally responds. “Anything I could find in dumpsters. The ones behind restaurants were the best. Sometimes there were whole meals in the trash bags. If it didn’t sit too long, it was still good. It only took me a few times to figure out what was off and what was edible.”
“Christ.” I pick up the other half of my sandwich and nibble it, ashamed to let food go to waste after hearing something like that. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugs again and starts working on the last sandwich on his plate. “It’s okay. I turned out alright. The streets were the least of my worries.” Now he looks like he’s said too much. I know I should leave it, but again, I can’t.
