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“What are you doing?”
I don’t answer her as I head for the stove. Piper takes a step to the right, moving out of my way while I grab a skillet and turn on the burner. She gnaws at her bottom lip as she watches me slather two slices of bread with mayonnaise, then fold two thick slices of cheese between them.
“Butter okay?”
Piper rolls her eyes, which I take as a yes. I plop a healthy chunk into the pan, wait for it to sizzle, and add the sandwich.
“Where’d your meat aversion come from?” I ask.
She’s silent for long enough that I decide she won’t answer. The butter hisses in the pan as the bread fries, the only sound in the quiet kitchen. I grab a spatula out of the drawer and flip the sandwich, filling the room with fresh sizzles.
“When I was seven, I spent a week at a summer camp upstate. They had a bunch of farm animals, including a litter of piglets that were just a few weeks old. I named the runt Wilbur, from a book my mom read to me. I cried when my parents picked me up because I didn’t want to leave him. They promised me I could come back next summer and see him.”
I already know where this story is going. I know what happens to most boars.
Piper exhales. “Every time I ate any meat, I imagined it was Wilbur. So, I started refusing to eat it. My parents thought I would grow out of it, but I can be kind of stubborn. Pretty soon, my whole family was vegetarians.” She smiles, and it’s fond. “For a little while anyway. After my parents got divorced, my brothers went over to my dad’s for dinner a lot.”
“Your parents are divorced?” The question comes out without me consciously deciding to ask it, some reflex of curiosity.
She glances down at her hands, twisting her fingers together. “Yeah.”
Her voice is low, a tone I haven’t heard from her before. A vulnerability and a softness that’s new to me.
And I wish I’d never glimpsed it because it’s making this whole thing even harder.
“You’re not going to make fun of me? Say that’s the circle of life?”
“Nope.” I hold a hand out for the plate.
Piper hands it over silently. I plop the crispy sandwich on it, then pass the plate back to her.
“Thanks.” Her tone is still soft. “Miles,” she adds, the edge that twists my birth name sounding a lot more like the way she normally talks to me.
“Mabel spilled more than the bunkhouse location, huh?”
It’s unlike her, and there’s a flip in my stomach as I consider the possible reasons for her uncharacteristic chattiness.
“You could learn some hospitality lessons from Mabel,” Piper tells me. “At leastsheoffered me a place to stay.”
She’s propped her elbows on the edge of the counter, inhaling her sandwich at an impressive rate. It would be an endearing childlike pose, if not for the way her shirt gapes forward. I quickly avert my eyes before she catches me staring.
I meant what I said to Hudson last night. Dating is low on my priority list, beneath figuring out what the hell to do with the rest of my life. The allure of women interested in me exclusively because of my voice or my money or the way I look wore off a long time ago. So, it’s been a while since I’ve had sex, and I’m reminded ofexactlyhow long it’s been as Piper’s tongue darts out to catch some stray crumbs clinging to her lower lip.
“I made you dinner,” I remind her, trying to keep our conversation going to distract myself from her proximity.
“So did Mabel,” Piper replies, taking another bite.
“I made you avegetariandinner.”
“Mabel didn’t know I was a vegetarian.”
I shake my head, but I sort of want to smile. This girl. Never gives me a single inch.
Like she’s thinking the same, she gifts me a centimeter. “It’s good,” she tells me. Reluctantly, but it’s still a compliment.
I nod. “Good.”
“Thank you,” she adds. Even more reluctantly.
