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I shrug. “No one has ever brought me flowers before.”
“Oh, that’s so sad,” she says with a frown. “I’ll just use a glass.”
She opens a couple of empty cupboards until she finds a beer glass. My eyes never leave her as she fills it with water and arranges the beautiful yellow flowers inside it.
“I’m growing these on my balcony,” she says as she places the glass on the middle of my counter. “I thought your house could use a dab of color. It’s so gray in here.”
“I like gray.”
She laughs as she walks past me, dragging her hand on my arm. “Oh, I know that. It’s very obvious.”
“I was just about to make breakfast,” I tell her. “Are you hungry?”
“What are you eating?” she asks, looking at me skeptically. “A dozen raw eggs and a protein shake?”
“How about an omelet?”
“Sold!” She has a big smile on her face as she opens the blinds and looks outside at the sunny day. It’s hard to focus on getting the ingredients out with her smiling like that. I just want to look at her. I’m so distracted that I accidentally take a chicken breast out instead of the eggs.
She sits on the opposite side of the island and watches me as I start chopping up a pepper.
“Where are you from, Tucker?”
“Vermont.”
“I love Vermont!” she says with a giddy grin. “Well, I’ve never actually been there but I’ve loved every picture I’ve ever seen. Do you miss it?”
“No. There’s nothing to miss.”
“There’s got to be something to miss!”
“I miss the snow sometimes.”
“Yeah, it must be nice to have a change from this intense heat. What about your family? You must miss them.”
“I don’t have any family.”
“What do you mean?” she asks, looking concerned. “What about your mom?”
“She died.”
Her hands fly to her mouth. “Oh no! I’m so sorry. That’s horrible.”
“It was a long time ago.”
I drop the chopped peppers into the bowl and start on the mushrooms.
“How long ago?”
I stop for a second to think about it. “Twenty-six years.”
“Twenty-six years? How old are you?”
“Thirty-two.”
She gasps. “That means you were… six? Oh no. Tucker…”
My heart stops when I see her blue eyes flooding with tears.
