Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Vivian was not waiting for Bryn to return. She was absolutely not sitting at the kitchen counter—well after Iris had left for the weekend—watching for Bryn to traipse across the yard to the guesthouse like she owned the damn place.
Her only awareness of Bryn was purely professional.
She hadn’t been worried since Bryn texted at mid-morning saying she was taking her friend to the hospital.
Her only concern was with scheduling. They were so close to finishing Magpies, they could have probably recorded a few extra hours today and completed the whole damn thing.
What twenty-nine-year-old was friends with an octogenarian, anyway? It was probably a put-on persona. A Pollyanna ploy. Vivian’s empty stomach soured. The fear in Bryn’s watery eyes, the distress in her body—it had been suffocating.
Vivian got up and started for the Chardonnay in the fridge. She poured herself another glass to drown her discomfort.
The motion sensor light in the back yanked her attention from the news article she’d been staring at on her phone.
If she hadn’t accidentally consumed half a bottle of wine, she might have accepted Bryn’s return silently and gone to bed.
But when she stood, she went for the sliding glass door rather than the stairs.
“Hey,” Vivian called to the hunched figure trudging across the backyard.
Bryn startled. “Shit, sorry,” she called back before meeting Vivian on the back patio. “I hope I didn’t scare you.” She smiled, tired and dim. “Did you think I was the Hamburglar?”
Vivian rested her hands on her hips. “Have you been in the hospital this whole time?” She hadn’t intended the question to sound like an accusation.
Nodding, Bryn tucked her hair behind her ear.
“It didn’t take that long to get her blood pressure down and stable, but the ER was so slammed it took us hours to get discharged.
And then I stayed with her until she got settled at home.
She was so exhausted.” She said it as if she were simply recounting her day.
Not complaining. Not looking for a pat on the back.
Vivian wanted to ask where this Gloria person’s family was. Whether there wasn’t anyone else who could take over, but the answer was obvious.
“Have you eaten?” Vivian heard herself ask, a revoltingly pleasant ghost possessing her mouth.
Bryn’s eyes brightened a fraction. “No, but Iris has me hooked up with granola and—”
“I asked if you had eaten, not whether you found the guesthouse stocked to your satisfaction.”
Bryn chuckled despite Vivian’s arid delivery.
Inwardly scrambling but outwardly unmoving, Vivian reached for a good reason to care. “We can finish this book tomorrow, but not if your stomach sounds like a damn wheat combine.”
“A what?” Bryn laughed in earnest, shoulders easing. “Pretty sure your Wiki said you’d been born and raised in Miami. Did you have a secret life as an Iowa farmer?”
“Iowa grows corn.” Vivian rolled her eyes, but she turned toward the house to get her phone before her smirk got away from her. “Come on. I’ll order you something to eat so we don’t all have to suffer the consequences of your growling gut tomorrow.”
“On a delivery app? No way.” Bryn shook her head when Vivian turned back toward her. “It might be my side hustle but on principle I refuse to let anyone pay a 90% markup on a cheeseburger,” she said adamantly. “If you let me in the house, I’ll make myself something.”
“Absolutely not,” Vivian said, instinct protecting the sanctity of her space. “Wait here. We can use the grill.” She muttered the rest to herself. “If I can figure out how the hell to start the thing.”
Inside, Vivian finished the bottle of wine because it didn’t make sense to put out something already opened, and grabbed a new bottle of Merlot.
Bryn had mentioned burgers. Filet mignon was the only red meat in the fridge.
It would go nicely with a full-bodied red.
Zucchini and squash would be easy on the grill. She grabbed those.
It was only when she approached the sliding door with too much in her hands that she realized the flaw in her plan. Before she could get annoyed by having to take two trips, Bryn appeared on the other side of the glass.
With a grin, she slid open the door. “Am I allowed to touch the handle or is that against your rules?”
Vivian pointed her chin in the air. “I suppose I can tolerate the incursion for a moment.”
Laughing, Bryn closed the door behind her.
God, it was unnerving how endlessly amused she was. How hard to scare off.
“I got the grill going,” Bryn said when she took the bottle of wine and the wrapped steaks.
“Can you grab a cutting board?” She looked up at Vivian like she hadn’t had a hellish day.
Like she was genuinely happy to be in her company.
Like she knew Vivian was buzzing from wine. “And a bottle opener?”
“There’s one in the drawer by the wine fridge,” Vivian replied too quickly. She cleared her throat before she added, “Do you know how to use a Waiter’s Corkscrew?”
Bryn cocked her head to one side, the full moon amplifying the mischievous light in her blue eyes.
“I’ve been told I have excellent manual dexterity.
” She moistened her lips, her gaze dropping to Vivian’s hands for a split second before snapping back up.
“And even if I didn’t, I’m very good at figuring out how to make things work. ”
Vivian froze. The air between them, already thick with humidity, suddenly charged. Confining.
Is she flirting with me?
The question bloomed hot and sudden in Vivian’s chest, and then there was the traitorous spike in her pulse. The look in Bryn’s eyes was too direct, the cadence of her voice too low to be entirely innocent.
Don’t be absurd, Vivian’s mind snapped back, dousing the spark with a bucket of cold logic. She is talking about a bottle of wine. Maybe Iris was onto something with her constant nagging about Vivian spending too much time alone. She was hallucinating romantic interest from a woman half her age.
Well, not half, but Bryn was nineteen years her junior. If their age difference was old enough to vote, it was too wide for Bryn to actually be flirting with her. Self-imposed exile was messing with her perceptions.
Vivian didn’t acknowledge Bryn’s comment. What the hell was she supposed to say? Yes, your hands are objectively attractive and your fingers look nimble. Jesus.
By the time Vivian returned from inside the house with a cutting board, knife, and a bunch of seasonings, Bryn had opened the bottle. When Vivian approached, Bryn picked up the two generously poured glasses of Merlot.
“To… a day.” Bryn’s body sagged but the light in her eyes stubbornly persisted. “Thanks for being so understanding about everything today.”
Vivian took the wine even if she should have turned around. Should have gone to bed and let Bryn, a grown ass woman, figure out her own damn dinner. She didn’t need Vivian to hold her damn hand.
“I really appreciate—”
Vivian crashed her glass against Bryn’s to stop the unnecessary display of gratitude. “Cheers,” she said, slamming the door on the conversation.
Bryn absorbed the toast with a friendly, “Cheers.”
After a sip, Bryn reached for the salt and garlic powder.
Vivian’s wine-soaked brain reacted too slowly.
It was time to take her glass inside and leave Bryn alone, but her legs didn’t move and then Bryn was looking at her again.
Looking at her like she was both the most ordinary person and like she was something worth beholding.
“So, how do you like it?” Bryn looked at her, voice low and pretty face soft. “Pink and warm in the center?”
The Merlot solidified in her throat, making her cough. “What?”
Bryn furrowed her brow, eyes cutting to the two raw filets and back to Vivian. “Your steak?”
“I already ate,” she lied, thanks to the alcohol, unconvincingly.
“Oh, come on.” Bryn started for the outdoor sink to wash her hands. “After the day I’ve had you’re going to leave me to gnaw on steak all by myself.”
“What a mental picture,” she muttered into her glass, grateful that it had taken the place of the completely inappropriate image she’d conjured a moment earlier. Grateful that the wine was drowning out the memories of Bryn’s shockingly sultry voice in the booth yesterday.
“Do you want to help me prep those so I can season the steaks?” Bryn asked when she returned with clean hands and irrepressible energy. God, she was like one of those Weebles that refused to stay down when knocked over.
At Vivian’s hesitation, Bryn chuckled.
“Does Ms. del Castillo not sully her hands with culinary labor?” Bryn cracked salt over the meat.
Vivian narrowed her gaze.
“Oh, damn. I was just kidding, but do you really not know how to cook?”
“I know how,” Vivian snapped, leaving out that she hadn’t cooked in a while. Or a decade.
“Prove it,” Bryn teased, reaching for the pepper.
Vivian straightened, projecting every possible molecule of superiority. “You’re not going to goad me into being your sous chef.”
Bryn’s amusement would not go gently into the good night.
“That’s okay. If I were a famous Hollywood star, I probably wouldn’t know how to cook either,” she said with what Vivian could have sworn was a wink. A wink.
Vivian set her glass down too hard. “Gimme the gourds.”
There Bryn was, chuckling again, even though Vivian hadn’t infused an ounce of levity in her delivery. It was so… disorienting.
It only took a few awkward minutes for Vivian to remember how the hell to prep vegetables.
But once she got into a rhythm, she didn’t have to focus her woozy brain quite so much.
As they worked, Vivian couldn’t help being mildly impressed with how well Bryn knew her way around the outdoor kitchen.
How she’d figured out how to use the grill Vivian didn’t even know how to turn on.