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“Alright,” I say.
And we don’t say much else for the rest of the evening.
CHAPTER 23
Things get a bit better after that. Not right back how they were like, but better. Jonathan’s still working a lot but it feels more genuinely-busy-because-holidays working, than need-to-not-be-around-you working. And I’ve got a fair bit on myself with party planning. Of course I have to be a bit careful with that because Jonathan still can’t know I’m talking to the old team about it, but if I tell him I’m messaging “a woman about decorations”, it’s technically not a lie.
Though as time’s gone on, I’m not sure “technically not a lie” is where I want things to be between us. It’s turning into an elephant in the room. Worse, the whole house is filling up with elephants. There’s the do-I-still-have-amnesia elephant, which is standing next to the am-I-still-fired elephant in front of the do-I-need-to-be-here-at-all elephant. And those three are giving the side-eye to the mostly unrelated how’re-things-with-Jonathan-and-his-dad elephant, and that’s one hell of an elephant, being much older, with much nastier tusks, and I don’t really want to go near it again. And all those elephants are sort of sitting on top of this great big, massive elephant called also-there-was-that-one-time-I-kissed-you-and-I-liked-it. I always thought elephants were cute. But I’m going right off them.
I honestly can’t tell if I got through to Jonathan or not. Imean, I don’t think he’s a man who changes his mind overnight or, y’know, ever. But he must be feeling some kind of way because he comes home with a chicken and starts doing something aggressive to it in the kitchen.
“Am I going to have to call the RSPB?” I ask.
Jonathan has his sleeves rolled right up to his elbows. “Well, it’s already dead so they might think it’s a little late.”
“It’s probably better off dead, the way you’re treating it.”
“I’m stuffing it,” Jonathan informs me, in the flavour of irate that I’m beginning to think is the amused flavour.
I watch Jonathan with the chicken for a bit longer. “You’re not stuffing it. You’re fisting it with a lemon.”
And after two years of working for him and more than two weeks of living with him, his facade finally cracks, and he laughs properly. I’m not sure if I’m more shocked or he is.
“Seriously?” I say. “I’ve been treating you to my wit and northern charm since the third of December and fisting a chicken is what gets yez?”
Jonathan slants a look at me, and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes are smiley instead of scowly, and that makes his whole face look different, even though he’s still mostly eyebrows and jawline. “What can I say? I’m difficult to like, I use money as a substitute for affection, and I have a deeply unsophisticated sense of humour. And I’m not fisting the chicken. I’m cooking.”
“That’s not cooking, it’s desecrating a corpse.”
Jonathan reaches for something long, thin and green.
“What’re you doing now?”
“Adding rosemary.”
“Jonathan”—without thinking I cover his wrist with my hand, and we’re standing close now and he’s bending his arm to keep his raw-chicken-covered fingers off my shirt—“you cannot send thischicken to its grave with a lemon wedged halfway up it and a sprig of rosemary poking out its bumhole.”
He laughs again.
“Oh, come on. You’re not set off by the word bumhole?”
And again.
“You fucking are. You great bumhole.”
He’s laughing enough now that he’s crying a bit, but he can’t wipe his eyes without breaking about six different kitchen hygiene rules. So I wipe them for him, trying not to worry about how deep and dark the circles underneath them have got lately.
Jonathan clears his throat, pulling back very slightly. “Look”—his voice is still a bit soft from laughing—“this is what the recipe told me to do.”
“A recipe told you to do this?” I repeat. “Where’d you find it? Chicken Haters Monthly? Serial Killer Magazine? A banned porno from the 1970s?”
“It’s on my phone.” Jonathan gestures with his elbow because his hand’s all chickeny. “You can check if you don’t believe me.”
I lean over and squint at the screen. It says, “Very Easy Roast Chicken”. It also says, “instructions in bold are for children”. “Jonathan, is this recipe for kids?”
“I’m sure the child is optional. And besides,” he adds defensively, “I’m following the adult instructions as well.”
“Nowhere in this recipe does it sayviolate poultry.”
