Chapter Eight
Not for the first time, I found myself wondering what, exactly, had motivated my ex to stay with me as long as he had. Certainly it couldn’t have been my culinary talents.
Kai pulled back from the fridge to glance over at me. “How have you not starved to death?” he asked, his expression bemused.
I grimaced. “There’s this thing called takeout. They basically give you a meal and you get to eat it at home. Some places, they’ll even bring it right to your door.”
He rolled his eyes, just like I’d known he would.
“When you asked me if I wanted dinner, I gotta say, I was imagining something more than...” He examined the fridge again.
“Well, something more than a salad that has absolutely seen better days, a jar of what looks like some very sad pickles, and... is that pesto?”
I frowned. “I think that’s mayonnaise. I should probably throw that away.”
Kai closed the door almost gingerly, as though he’d opened a cabinet of medical waste, not a refrigerator. “I don’t need to be a doctor to tell you that eating anything in there is a bad idea and likely highly detrimental to your health.”
Some battles you know are not worth fighting. Rallying, I tried to shift the topic.
“Well, we could get something delivered?” I suggested.
Kai wrinkled his nose. “You’re going to suggest pizza, aren’t you.”
Trying to make it look like he hadn’t just guessed correctly, I shrugged. “I mean, pizza is delicious.”
He shook his head again. “Let’s go out. I know a place I think you’ll like. My parents used to take me there.”
I could feel the bubbles of discomfort fluttering in my stomach.
It wasn’t like I never went out. I mean, I went into work five days out of seven, and some nights I even spent an awkward hour with friends if I couldn’t think of a quick enough excuse.
Going out to eat with Kai, though, felt different, somehow.
It felt a little bit like a date.
“I’m not really dressed for it,” I told him. I’d pulled shorts and a t-shirt on after we’d moved out of the bathroom; Kai had retrieved his dropped clothes from the deck.
He looked at me, bemused. “Tate, this is your house. It’s not like getting changed would be out of the question.”
Part of me wanted to shout at him, to tell him that yes, yes it would be out of the question. That it would feel like another step in a direction I was nowhere near convinced I was ready for. I didn’t, of course.
“I mean, how smart do I need to be?”
Kai grinned, clearly sensing victory. “Well I’m wearing shorts, so it’s really not a big deal. But you could put some jeans on, if you were feeling really, really fancy.”
What would I be doing, in that moment, if he wasn’t there?
Hitting “repeat order” in the pizza company’s app, probably.
Having the same old pie I’d eaten at least once or twice a week for the past, well, more weeks than I really wanted to add up at this point.
I grit my teeth, suddenly deeply frustrated at myself.
“Okay, give me two minutes to get changed,” I told him.
Kai’s face lit up with an emotion that, were I not a hugely cynical man, I’d be tempted to think was legitimate delight.
“Excellent,” he fired back, “I’ll get us a ride.”