6
Kyle was standing in my doorway with three overstuffed grocery bags–one from Market Basket, one from Whole Foods, and one from Trader Joe’s–and I could see the veins bulging in his tanned forearms. Part of me wished this was just a cute guy coming over to make dinner with me, but it wasn’t. This was Kyle; there was a lot of baggage, and we were going to be living and working in close proximity to each other for at least the next nine months. It was complicated.
“Three different stores, huh?” I asked, opening the door the rest of the way for him to enter the apartment.
“So, I was watching Food Network when we got back from the orchard,” he began, setting the bags down on the kitchen counter. “And they went to this food truck that specialized in croque monsieurs. They looked awesome, and you said anything, so I started looking up recipes; there were so many variations, so I bought it all. Yes, at three different stores. Plus, potato chips because they served those with the croque monsieurs from the food truck, but I didn’t know which kind you liked, so I bought four different ones.”
He really did talk a lot, as I remembered from years earlier, but he was also thorough. There were several kinds of bread, cheese, ham, mustard, milk, butter, and flour; indeed, all the things I needed. I plucked the prosciutto, gruyère, and parmesan from the spread. “This is great,” I acknowledged. “I actually prefer my croques with prosciutto, which isn’t traditional at all. But I think you’ll like it. And these,” I said, setting aside the crinkle-cut kettle chips. “Are perfect.”
“And there’s this,” he said, pulling out a six-pack of Coors Light from the bottom of a bag.
I shook my head. “Although I did enjoy the trip down memory lane when I cracked them open when I couldn’t sleep last night, I’ll admit that I hadn’t drunk one of these since 2007.”
He set them on the counter. “That night, then.”
“Yes, that night,” I replied. Flashes of laughing, sipping from the silver cans, lying next to each other on the twin bed in the sparsely furnished temporary dorm room, his hands on my hips, his mouth… I had to stop letting myself think these thoughts. “Anyway, I prefer whiskey sours. The only groceries I did bring from Boston were lemons and sugar to make them. You want one?”
“Oh yeah, I remember you telling me your dad drank them every evening.”
“And sometimes before the evening. Seriously, that one is obscure. I don’t even remember telling you that.”
He smiled. “Devon, I remember everything.” He raised an eyebrow. “ Everything. ”
Don’t think about it , I instructed myself, as I felt the blood rush through my body. I cleared my throat and started making simple syrup in the microwave. “Okay, we need to talk. We’re living and working in close quarters and obviously have a past.”
“We do,” he agreed. “And the more I’ve been thinking about it, the cooler I think it is.”
“Why is that?” I asked, reaming the citrus halves through my strainer to separate out the pulp and seeds. While my dad mixed his whiskey sours using a neon yellow mix that my mom picked up at the local package store, I saw mine as a subtle, nuanced work of art—not too sweet, with an amber hue from the high- quality bourbon I chose, plus lemon juice, simple syrup, and just one Luxardo cherry. Perfection .
“The way I look at it,” continued Kyle. “Considering us for a moment—”
“Wait, wait,” I insisted. “First of all, there is no ‘us.’ I haven’t seen you or talked to you in well over fifteen years. I tried to get in touch with you multiple times. I never heard from you. That was humiliating for me.” It was time to lay all my cards out on the table; I had nothing to lose. He needed to know where I was coming from. “The only reason we’re talking right now is because I took a job at the school you happen to be teaching at.”
“You didn’t realize I was here?” Kyle asked, clearly surprised and maybe a little amused.
“No!” I replied, horrified at what Kyle might be assuming. “Not until the very end of my tour with Andrea, after I had already agreed to the job when I saw you walking with the soccer team. What kind of person do you think I am? That I followed you here? After fifteen years? Like some kind of stalker?” Even though I hadn’t followed him to Rockwood, I felt so embarrassed. “Tamara is my best friend in Boston—Andrea’s college classmate! That’s how all this happened. This had nothing to do with you. Don’t flatter yourself,” I said, handing him a whiskey sour. I was incredulous but somehow continued to go through the motions of mixing drinks. Years of working under pressure in restaurants were excellent training for moments like this.
“You never even Googled me?” he asked, taking a sip. “This is really good, by the way.”
“Nope. Ask Tam. I told her that.” I immediately regretted this revelation.
He smiled. “So, you were talking about me.”
“Yes, because I almost withdrew from the job after I saw you,” I said, starting to heat the milk for the roux that would be the base for the cheese sauce. “But I need it for now, so I didn’t. But I never Googled you. When you ghosted me, I decided I didn’t want to know anything else about you.” Maybe it was harsh, but it was the truth, and he needed to hear it.
Unfazed, he continued, “Well, I Googled you. I Googled the hell out of you. For years.” Why does it sound sexy when he talks like this? “You had a feisty reputation as a chef. I never saw that in you.”
“Once again, you knew me for twelve hours.”
“Those were twelve good hours,” he said with a sigh. “Okay, I get it. You’re pissed. I should have gotten in touch with you to let you know what was going on. I was putting together something for you in London that I wanted to send you when things changed for me very quickly, and then I threw myself into a relationship that ended up being a complete and utter disaster. It just took almost two years for me to realize it.”
I poured the hot milk into the butter and flour mixture and whisked vigorously. The whisking was therapeutic. I had no idea if he was telling me the truth about his intention to mail something to me, but I decided to hear him out. “Okay, continue. Tell me what happened.”
He poured more straight bourbon into his glass. “This girl, Lila, knew my roommate Jack. She came bursting into our room to ask him if he had finished, in her words, ‘the blasted international politics assignment.’ British girl, obviously. Jack wasn’t there, but I was—sitting around by myself, feeling a bit lonely. Thinking of you.”
I rolled my eyes, trying to remember what I might have been doing at that same moment. Probably stuck in a seminar related to Washington, D.C. internships or scurrying around free receptions and happy hours throughout the city to find decent food to eat. “I’m guessing Lila is the almost-two-year relationship gone wrong,” I said while adding gruyère and parmesan to the sauce.
“Yes, she was. And everything was going well, or so I thought. There were weird signs along the way, which I didn’t initially see. I was all in, as I am with everything I do.” So I gathered . “I transferred to LSE. Stopped playing soccer on organized teams. Abandoned so much of who I was to spend my time with her. I told her I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. But then I started to realize that I had never met her family or any of her friends from home. There were tons of excuses. Then, finally, two weeks before graduation, I started asking a lot of questions. She broke down and told me that no one from her hometown, including her parents, knew about me. I gave her an ultimatum: that I needed to meet them, or we were over. She said she didn’t want that, so she brought me to her house way out in the countryside.” He took a long sip of his drink. “Once we were there, it was terrible. It was clear that her parents weren’t happy, and within hours of our arrival, her next-door neighbor showed up. His name was Nigel, and he was super nerdy. When he realized that I was Lila’s boyfriend, he started crying. And she’s comforting him and telling him that she loves him and that we’re not really serious, and I’m standing right there. I might as well have had a sign on me that said ‘idiot’ or something like that.”
“Or at least ‘pushover,’” I said, shaking my head while brushing toasted bread with mustard. It was a strange story, and even though I still wasn’t over what Kyle did to me, I did feel bad for him. I had certainly been in my own tough situations. “What on earth did you do then?”
“I got my bag and called for a cab. It cost me a fortune, but I took it all the way back to London. Lila barely apologized or got up from the bench she was sitting on with Nigel. I think her arms were still wrapped around him, and he was still crying, even though I was leaving. They got married the next summer.”
“That’s ridiculous. How did you find that out?”
“The alumni magazine. I think their marriage was almost arranged by their parents in some way. The magazine said they grew up together,” he answered. “You bake the sandwiches with that sauce on them? They didn’t show that part on the show I watched.”
“And then I broil them at the end. They probably showed you that part, but it was a food truck, so who knows.”
“Yeah, I don’t really remember. I was busy looking up recipes at that point,” he said. “Anyway, I packed up my stuff, booked a one-way plane ticket, and flew to JFK. I emailed LSE and told them to mail my diploma to my parents. And then I sat in their basement in Connecticut for a month, feeling like the biggest loser and looking at job ads. I had something lined up in London, but there was no way I was staying after that debacle.”
“Okay, let these cool for a second,” I said, pulling the sandwiches out of the oven. “Was Rockwood your first job after that?”
“Yeah, they needed a dorm proctor, and my parents were driving me crazy, so I jumped at it. I actually lived in this dorm on the first floor. I love this building. It was horrible pay, but I got free room and board, and they hired me to help with the soccer team, so it was a good diversion for me. Gradually, I started taking on more responsibilities and eventually became a teacher and the varsity boys’ team coach.”
“And you got married,” I said, cutting the sandwiches in half.
“Guessing Andrea told you. She talks almost as much as I do,” he said, taking a huge bite. “Delicious! This is so amazing, Devon! Thank you so much. Really.”
“It’s just a sandwich,” I said, secretly happy he liked it so much and that his first food-impression of me was a good one. “Yeah, she realized afterward that she probably shouldn’t have told me, but it was already out there.”
“Well, I am super into this sandwich. I could eat five of them,” he said. “Yeah, Andrea talks. So, anyway, Cora was an English teacher here. Once again, I was all in. We got married, had a baby girl, and lived a pretty good life here for a while. At least, I thought so. And then she became best friends with Ryland Dennis last school year, and everything fell apart.”
“The guy who I met at apple picking? Oh, that’s why you couldn’t sit on a bus with him. Did they have an affair? He’s kinda gross.”
“I have no actual proof,” he said, grabbing a second sandwich. “Yeah, nasty, right? They both denied it, just said they were emotional soulmates, whatever the fuck that means. But she became convinced through their friendship that she and I were no longer compatible and that I wasn’t supportive of Annie—that’s our daughter—and her dream of performing on stage, so she filed for divorce and moved to Boston. And Ryland is still here. The former Head of School—before she left in disgrace—drew up this ridiculous contract with HR. I swear it’s like something from The Office . Ryland and I aren’t allowed to be within a certain proximity of each other, so that makes faculty meetings interesting. I also have a letter in my file with a big warning about contact with him. But I know they don’t want to fire me unless I do something colossally stupid. Most of the kids and their parents love me, and we have a killer soccer team. So, I have that going for me.”
I pulled out the container of cookies that Andrea had discovered the day before. I felt like he needed one. “I’m surprised you didn’t kick his ass,” I said, offering him a cookie. “You have an intensity about you, as you may have realized.”
“I went about my revenge in other ways,” he said, chomping on a cookie. “So, so good, Devon. Love these. Yeah, I sent a stripper to an English Department meeting for him. She was dressed as a librarian. It took a while for anyone to realize what was going on in the meeting, and Cora hadn’t left for Boston yet and was there, and things got ugly fast. She threatened to take full custody of Annie after that, so I had to tone it down.”
I felt my eyes widen at Kyle’s story. “Wow, that’s extreme. Very creative, though, I must say. Glad you like the cookies. I’ll make them this week in the dining hall to try to win over some students.”
“And the staff. This will help most definitely. Anyway, I’ve learned a lot about myself throughout these fifteen years, Devon. I want you to know that about me. I realize that anything I do, I’m one hundred percent in. Maybe it’s more like one hundred ten percent. It was good for playing soccer when I was younger. Coaching now, too. Super focused, eyes on the prize, all in. Not sure how great it was not for driving a spouse crazy. Or parenting a kid who is into something I don’t totally understand. I’m working on that, too.”
I began mixing another batch of drinks. “At least you know this about yourself. That is, shall I say, more introspection than I’ve heard from most men.”
“I went through a bunch of therapy when Cora left. Used every single visit available to me through the Employee Assistance Program. I’ve got all kinds of insight now.”
“So, what’s the verdict? How do you not drive a future romantic partner away with this, um, intensity?”
“My therapist said to lay it all out there early on. This is me, working every day to channel all this energy for good.” He looked into my eyes for a solid five seconds. I felt all the feelings throughout my body. All of them. He pushed his disheveled hair off his forehead and smiled as if he knew the effect he was having on me. I was trying to keep it together the best I could, but I had no idea what my face looked like. “You know, just in case you’re still considering us,” he said with a wink.
I couldn’t. Not yet. It was too much, too soon, and there was too much damage and complexity between us. “Look, I sometimes make terrible decisions,” I explained, trying to snap back into a normal state of being. “You need to know that about me. You probably saw me on TV.”
“I don’t watch much TV, other than episodes of The Office and sports,” he said. “I do spend way too much time, however, online. Hence, all the Googling. I know what happened, Devon. It’s okay. Things happen.”
“They do,” I said. “And there is a lot going on right now for both of us, and I think we need some time. We obviously had a very strong connection years ago, and I’ve really enjoyed talking to you tonight. For now, I want to be friends with you. Get to know you for real this time. As an adult. I could use a friend here.”
Kyle nodded. “I can’t help but think the stars were aligned for us to reconnect here at this stage of life, and I’m not going to lie, I find you very attractive. You’re smart and sexy, just like you were fifteen years ago. Like I said before, I’m laying things out there. But I respect you and want to be your friend, too.” He took a sip of the fresh drink I put in front of him. “Is it because you find me annoying?” he asked somewhat sheepishly.
“No,” I answered, shaking my head. “I mean, you talk a lot, but it’s not annoying. Not yet, anyway. Maybe I’ll change my mind about that.” I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Okay, cool. I think I really annoyed Cora after a while. Thinking you actually might be dodging a bullet here,” he said with another wink. Then I saw a bright flash, and Kyle ran to the window by the fire escape. He flung open the window, and I rushed over to see what was going on. Kyle yelled, “I see you! You’re going to fail my class this year!” He shut the window, and I backed away quickly so no one else could see me, even though I lived there.
“Who was that?” I asked, not expecting people to be sneaking up the fire escape to take my picture.
“Probably some kid from The Underground Stallion looking for dirt.”
“Andrea showed me a copy of the scandal with the old head of school. Who are these kids?”
“They were all over my separation and divorce, too. No one knows for sure, but I have my suspicions.”
“Ashlyn?”
“Likely, or at least some of her minions. I’d get some curtains for that window, Dev,” he said. “I should probably leave before it gets too late and they pull the fire alarm to get us to walk out of the building together.” I shuddered, realizing the possibilities of total embarrassment. “Thanks for dinner. Best night I’ve had in a long time,” he said as he let himself out and headed down the Wentworth stairs.
I cleaned up our dishes and let everything from the evening sink in. Kyle was back. I felt a strong attraction to him in so many ways; he still looked great. I loved talking to him, and I knew that physically we had once clicked. It would be easy to jump into some kind of relationship with him, but it was also so complicated given the living and working situation we were in. And I haven’t even started working here yet, I thought as I started the dishwasher. Plus, he had so much baggage, both past and recent, to work through. I did not want to be his rebound or easy fix. Time would tell, but friendship—for the time being, anyway—seemed like the right answer.
It was dark outside, and I could hear the soft chimes that I read about in my staff handbook that sounded each night at ten o’clock, signaling quiet hours. There was something nice about a ritual and a cadence to my days. The past few years had been hectic and at the whims of others, and life at Rockwood might be more structured and predictable. I could handle that for a year or so.
I was about to shut off the kitchen light and retire to the bedroom when I heard a knock on the window by the fire escape. Kyle’s face was peering at me, lit by the flashlight on his phone. I opened the window. “I thought I said we were going to try to be friends. No late-night booty calls,” I teased.
“Shh,” he said. “I promise you I’m trusting the process here. But I remembered something else you told me from fifteen years ago.” He handed me a plastic bag and headed back down the fire escape. I looked inside the bag and saw it. It was a hand packed pint from Georgy Porgy’s Ice Cream, the stand right outside Rockwood’s gates. Vanilla Toffee, my absolute favorite.