Chapter 27. Sage
While Fisher and I continue to wait for clearer days, we focus on studying for the trivia contest and begin on some basic cooking lessons. I can tell he finds my knife skills dismal, but he remains patient and… uplifting.
I’ve also discovered I can make him blush when I say Yes, Chef, just right, and I’m delighting in abusing this power.
“I have something I’ve been meaning to tell you,” I say to him one Friday night, when Indy is staying the night at Blake’s. She’s only been over once to see Gary since the day she met the donkeys, though she’s still helped me out every weekend at the market. And despite the lingering awkwardness I feel from her, I see Fisher most afternoons, and I’ve been over quite a few times for dinners with them both.
Tonight, we’ve dragged a folding camp chair down to the estuary and angled it to watch the wooly sunset, since the smoke is finally thin enough that we might be able to see it. We share a bottle of wine and a blanket between us. His lap is appallingly comfortable.
“Tell me,” he says into my ear, running his nose down the side of my neck.
“I know this year’s secret ingredient for the cooking competition.” I pass him the bottle and a sly smile. He moves a piece of hair behind my ear.
“What kind of espionage are you partaking in?” he asks in mock amazement. “And what is it?” he says more flatly.
I wag my brows. “I have a farmer friend in the other corner of town. You know how we like to stick together,” I say.
“Of course. Legen-dairy how tight those circles run,” he replies.
“Oh no, he’s been pun-etrated!” I muse.
“No, really. I get it. Easy to bond with others who are also outstanding in the field.”
“Oh my god, that was another one, wasn’t it?”
“I prefer my farm and garden puns subtle,” he states. “Make you seed between the lines.” His mouth clamps down on a laugh as a snort tears through me.
“That was atrocious, Fisher.”
“Herb your enthusiasm and tell me the secret ingredient, Sage.” He captures my mouth in a distracting kiss. His favorite thing to do, I think, those sudden kisses that throw me off course.
I smile against his mouth. “Imagining you looking these up is my new favorite thing,” I say. “And you’ll love this. It’s marionberries.” We’ve coincidentally made all sorts of different things with them the last few weeks, for every course.
A slow grin spreads across his face, hot caramel dripping over a dessert. “We’ve got this in the bag,” he states. An intoxicating thrill goes through me because I think he might be right.
But this thrill doesn’t last. I’m not sure if it’s from too much exposure to the smoke or what exactly triggers it, but I notice my vision start to go blurry when we trek our way back to my place. Dread grips me tight when I realize a migraine is impending, the first one I’ve had in eighteen months. In the short walk from the top of the trail to the sunroom entrance, I go from thinking I might be able to take something in time, to fully nauseated and in pain.
Fisher tries to convince me to go to the ER, but I go into full isolation mode. I don’t want sound or light, and most definitely do not want to ride in the car anywhere. I only want to shut my eyes and wake up when it’s over. I had these more often when I was younger, but it seems as I’ve gotten older, they’ve spread out and make up for it with their intensity.
I try to get Fisher to go home. I even tell him through slitted eyes and gritted teeth that I’ll feel better if he goes home, that I won’t be self-conscious on top of being in pain. But even though I sequester myself in my dark bedroom, I know he stays, because I don’t hear a peep from Sable or Legs all night. And when he hears me throwing up in the upstairs bathroom, he comes in to hold back my hair. He tucks me back in bed when I’m done, then frequently replaces a cool towel over my forehead throughout the night while I sleep in scattered, fitful increments.
Early the following morning, I open my eyes to find that the pain is still there, but it’s settled into a dull roar. I can tolerate some light and sound, and the nausea has dissipated. I start to get up and try to get ready. I’m supposed to meet Indy directly at the market and still need to load up all my goods.
When Fisher sees me in my kitchen, he jolts up from the seat he’s been in and the screech of the chair on the floor makes me flinch, my hands going up to my head.
“Shit, Sage,” he says angrily, but blessedly quiet. “Please go back to bed.”
“I’m okay. Market today. Need coffee and food.” My eyes squint more with each choppy sentence.
“I already told Indy I’d meet her,” he says.
I blink, confused. “No, I’m working at it today,” I explain.
He holds my face in both palms. “I know, and I saw all the stuff already in your garage fridge. I’ll get everything loaded up and will meet her,” he says rapidly, barely more than a whisper. “You need to go back to bed.”
Fuck, I’m going to cry again, which is only bound to make my head throb harder. “Animals,” I remember.
“Already all fed and let out.”
This forces my eyes open again. “What do you mean?”
“Everything’s watered, too. It’s covered. Please, will you go rest?”
“How’d you know where everything was? How much to give everybody? Bud was fine?”
He breathes a laugh through his nose but frowns sympathetically. “I’ve been paying attention,” he says, shrugging like it’s the easiest thing in the world to him and like he hasn’t just given me a glimpse of what it would be like to truly have a partner in life. I feel like I’m a fizzy drink of emotion about to uncork. “I’ll make you something to eat if you’ll go back to bed,” he urges.
I shake my head like a toddler. “Want to watch you make it.” The pain has me loose-lipped and stripped of self-preservation, I think.
He huffs a sigh, resigned. “Go sit over there. I’ll be right back.”
He steers me to the chair in the sunroom before he takes off into the still-fuggy meadow. I spot him jogging back, his strong arms loaded down with bags. He comes back to me first, pulling a pair of headphones from one of the bags before he delicately places them over my ears.
“Noise-canceling,” he explains, then pushes a button that mutes everything else around me.
I watch him assemble an omelet with so much dedicated care I feel like I’m watching something else. Maybe it’s the lack of sound that heightens every motion, but it feels as if it’s some other ritualistic thing entirely. I already knew he could do the one-handed egg-cracking thing, a skill that inspires major jealousy in me. But then he runs the eggs through a mesh sieve, scraping and whisking constantly as he strains them, and I know the metal on metal must be noisy outside of my silent cocoon. The bend of his elbow where his forearm and biceps meet becomes the most mesmerizing body part to me.
He proceeds to whisk the strained eggs even more in the bowl, swirling and checking until the consistency looks like water from over here. He’s pulled out a frying pan of his own and forks a chunk of butter into it. And when he finally pours the eggs into the pan (where he also seasons them), he simply watches, never looking away to do anything else. He takes a rubber spatula he’s also brought over and carefully rolls it in on itself, before he smoothly glides it onto a plate and glosses butter across it some more, a lock of his hair falling forward as he dips. He rapidly dices up some micro-chives that he sprinkles on top to finish.
When he brings it to me, I feel almost embarrassed to eat it, this thing that he put so much attention into. But once I’ve got it and a fork in hand, he immediately goes back to the kitchen and starts to clean. I take a shaky bite, and of course it’s the most delicious omelet I’ve ever had, no matter that it’s only eggs and butter.
He brings me a glass of juice next, and doesn’t leave me any room for arguing or pushing before he tells me he’s headed out to load up the stuff from the garden and go to the market.
When he’s gone and my belly is full, I drag ass back to my room on weak legs, admitting to myself that he was right in telling me I needed more rest. The migraine’s talons have let up a bit more, but I still feel like crying when I lay myself down. I’ve spent so much of my life observing others, trying to learn the things I was missing, trying to make myself significant to them, but this man who has known me a month has made himself feel crucial to me.
The last thought I have before I drift off to sleep is: I am fucked.