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Dirty dishes overflow in the sink and a few sad furnishings that came with the place are covered with my laundry because I didn’t want to have to pay for the dryer at the laundromat.
I stifle the urge to lean against him.
He lifts a brow and I realize I’m staring.
I burst into conversation. “I’m not big on chores. I spend most of my free time baking and decorating my cakes over the weekends. Reading. Writing.” His lips curve in a smile and my frenzy to fill the silence increases tenfold. “I can’t cook to save my life. But, baking is so precise, it’s a science really.” I let out a nervous giggle, the sound coming out a choked sob as I avert my gaze.
“Tell me more about your cakes. Do you sell them? Eat all of them?”
I force myself to look at his face, grateful that he’s humoring my blabbering rant. “I usually…give them away.”
“To?”
“Neighbors. Friends. Coworkers. But I always save some for me.”
He chuckles. “Can’t wait to take that first bite.”
My throat tightens, hoping maybe his comment isn’t just about the cake.
I set my purse on the little table inside the door and Jack closes it behind us. As he takes a few steps forward, I wonder if my apartment was always this small or if it just looks that way because he’s so big.
He stuffs his hands into his pockets. His black suit has to be custom made. He’s no off the rack sort of guy and even if he was, I don’t think they make suits his size for the general public.
His brows furrow as he scans the space. The small kitchen is to the left of the door and an open living room doubles as a dining room with two chairs next to the window. It’s the only window with a view—a view of the apartment building next door complete with its peeling terracotta paint and broken gutters.
I try to always be happy with what I have, but that doesn’t stop me wishing for something more. Or just different.
“I know, it’s really small. But it’s home. It’s the first time I’ve lived on my own, so I’m still sort of getting the hang of it.”
“It’s cute.” His eyes fall to the white fuzzy oversized bean bag chair next to the window. My one indulgence since moving here. “That looks comfortable.”
I grin and take the glass top off of the cake plate. “It is. I’m in lurve with it.”
“What else do you love in this place?”
I pick out two forks, getting used to his imposing energy and feeling like a little bunny hopping all around the wolf. “Why do you ask?”
He steps closer. “Just wondering, if you were to move somewhere else, what would you like to take along?”
“All my stuff. Most of the furniture came with the place, but the pictures, the bean bag chair and the pillows.” I scan the room. “And my books…all my clothes, the plants, my scrap books…” I shrug, looking around the small place, more full of my belongings than I ever realized before.
“Then, maybe it would be easier for you to tell me what you wouldn’t take.” His voice is serious, even though the question seems odd.
I answer, pointing out what came with the apartment, and he is right, it’s a much shorter list that way. “It’s silly, but I get way emotionally attached to things. My father hates it. Tells me I’m a hoarder in training.”
I cut a generous slice of cake for him, center it on the chipped bone-china plate, the memory of my mother buying the entire set at a garage sale for a few dollars when I was a seven. I was happier being in the lower-middle class with her than living what looks to others like a privileged life with my father. She was a nurse, we did okay but she only worked part time to make sure she would always be there for me when it counted.
“He shouldn’t say that to you.” Jack clears his throat then finishes, “And people? Do you get attached to them?”
“Yes, people, too.” I start then correct myself. “Sometimes, maybe? No, I guess. Not so much.” I poke the cake slice as if it’s responsible for my past. “I find comfort in my things.”
Because they don’t leave you. They don’t get sick and die. They don’t treat me like an inconvenience.
He pushes his fork through the cake and surveys the bite-sized piece like a connoisseur then nods across the room. “Those folks over there for sure would come.”
I follow his eyes to where there are twenty or so stuffed animals of all sizes squeezed onto the windowsill. “Yes, of course. I know, It’s a little pathetic.”
He smiles one of those smiles that makes you feel better about yourself. Not a smile that makes you feel silly or degraded. Smiles pack a lot of info if you’re just willing to pay attention.
