Chapter 6 #3
Hazel lets me go, and I finish my drink in the egg chair, musing over our conversation.
I still feel all twisted up, confused about the things Miles has said, torn between being curious about him and wanting to stay away from him, and I still feel the tendrils of stress from this past year clinging to my organs, like a sticky tar that needs more than one wash to get off.
I can’t see what’s on the other side of all of this, and I’m starting to think the only way through is one hour at a time.
At least my next hour includes pasta.
I’m early to the pasta class hosted by the resort kitchen staff, so I get my choice of stations.
There’s an apron on one of the two stools at the station; clearly this is an activity targeted for couples, but I don one of the aprons anyway and survey the supplies in front of me.
The table is also set for two—two hot plates with a pan on each and a basket of ingredients in front of that containing flour, eggs, olive oil, and salt.
As more people trickle in, the instructor points them to a station, and by the time the class is almost full, I’m still standing alone.
Like getting an empty row on an airplane, I’m hoping I lucked out, but just as the instructor is closing the door, a tall, dark-haired figure appears in the doorway.
Of course Miles is here.
I can’t hear the instructor, but I see him point to my station.
Given how the day has gone, that just figures.
Miles takes the spot next to me at the cooking station, tying the apron around his waist. There’s a big smile on his face. A stupid, gorgeous smile that only serves to annoy me and make my palms a little sweaty. I wipe them on my apron and swallow against my thumping pulse.
“Hello, gorgeous,” he says, leaning in to quietly greet me.
“You have a lot of audacity to flirt with me right now.”
“I literally cannot help myself.”
That shouldn’t make my stomach flutter, but it does. My body is a traitor when it comes to Miles.
“How did you know I would be here?”
“I’m just doing resort activities; we happen to be choosing the same ones,” he says.
“There is only one list of activities,” I say.
“Lucky guess.”
The instructor claps loudly, so I don’t get to respond.
“Okay, people, we are going to get started! In front of you is a jar of flour. Go ahead and weigh out your flour—you’ll see the measurements on the recipe card in front of you,” he says, his Italian accent becoming more pronounced as he monologues.
We follow his instructions, and I end up covered in flour just from weighing it out.
By the time I’ve mixed my flour, eggs, oil, and salt into a dough ball, I’ve got flour and dough bits stuck all over my apron front, hands, and forearms. I feel like I’m in pottery class again, and, despite the presence of my ex-boyfriend, this is bringing me a lot of joy.
“You will knead the dough now. I am setting a timer for ten minutes. Please work the dough for the whole timer,” the instructor says, setting the dial of a small kitchen timer.
Kneading is meditative, if not a bit of a workout, but not so meditative that I forget Miles is still here next to me. He hasn’t said a word since we started making the dough, and I realize that he seems really focused on the task at hand. I steal a glance, but I regret it immediately.
His forearm muscles bulge and ripple as he kneads the dough. His whole body moves rhythmically with each movement, and I find myself so distracted by it all that I stop working my own dough.
“Making pasta is so much like making love,” the instructor says. “You must handle the dough with both tender, loving care and a firm hand.”
Miles looks over with a smirk as the instructor says this and catches me gawping at him. My cheeks heat, my neck heats, and I can’t look away fast enough. I knead my dough furiously, as if it’s a competition.
“You see something you like, Abby?”
“Yes. No! No. I just—noticed that you—you seem to know your way around a piece of dough. You know, for an athlete.”
“These hands have many talents,” he says, his voice low. “Or did you forget that, too?”
My knees buckle, and I lean into the table, trying to make it look like I’m putting extra effort into the knead. My god.
I’m saved from having to come up with something to say as the instructor approaches our station. He tells Miles his dough ball is perfect, but that mine could use some work.
“Sir, perhaps you can show the lady how it’s done?” The instructor points at Miles and then to me.
“No, no, it’s fine, I know how to knead dough,” I say as Miles says, “I’d be happy to help.”
“Yes, I insist, your dough is sad,” the instructor says.
“Yeah, Abby. Your dough is sad,” Miles says.
“Well, I don’t want sad dough,” I say through gritted teeth and a fake smile.
Miles reaches across me, and I step back. He starts to work my dough ball for me, but the instructor is waving his hands in protest.
“No, no, no. This is now how it’s done,” he says.
“You show her how.” And then the man does some odd gestures that I don’t understand but Miles seems to because he places his hand on my lower back and guides me back to the countertop.
He moves behind me, reaching his arms around to the front, placing my hands on the dough and then his hands on mine.
I’m enclosed in his arms, his chest against my back.
Oh my god.
Surely this is not what this man meant, but there’s a huge, satisfied grin plastered to the instructor’s face, and he gives me a thumbs-up.
My heart is racing, beating so hard and fast I could be running up a flight of stairs or being chased by a lion. But no, I’m just reenacting a scene from the movie Ghost, but with pasta dough and my ex-boyfriend.
Miles’s hands are moving my own on the dough, his hand pushing into mine as we stretch the dough away from us.
He curls his hand around mine, drawing the dough back toward us.
Our bodies rock back and forth in tandem with each push and pull.
My eyes keep drifting to the ripple of muscle in his hands, his forearms. His hands engulf my own; the skin of his palms is rough, calluses marking the landscape of his contracting career.
He smells so good…like the sun, like sweat and something richer—a smoky vanilla scent that’s all too familiar to me.
After a decade, being in his arms like this should feel unnatural or awkward, but it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
The temptation to lean into him with each back and forth, to press my body back against his, tilt my head to the side, invite him to dip his head to my neck, run his lips along the thin, sensitive skin…
Fuck, I am in so much trouble.
“I think I got it, thanks,” I say, shrugging my shoulders, breaking my way out of the enclosure of his arms with a gentle shove.
He backs off, returning to his own spot, but there’s a smirk on his face. Of course he liked that. Of course he found that amusing.
The question is, did he find that as hot as I did?
“He’s a regular matchmaker,” Miles says.
“Probably not the first time he’s stuck some poor single girl with some hot stranger and tried to hook them up,” I say.
“You think I’m hot?”
“Shut up.”
“Oh my god, Abby. Why didn’t you say so sooner? I think you’re hot too.”
I glare as I pass him my dough ball for him to finish kneading so I don’t get yelled at for having sad dough again. Without a word, he takes it and works my dough until it’s the right texture.
The instructor claps his hands and tells us that our dough needs a little nap, and while we wait, we’ll do wine tasting.
“You don’t drink wine, do you?” Miles asks.
“No, I—wait, how do you…?”
Miles taps his temple with one finger, leaving faint traces of flour on his face. “I remember things, Abby.”
I want to acknowledge this, his memory for this detail about me.
I want to pick it apart and analyze it. What does it mean that he remembered that I have migraines and wine is one of my triggers?
Maybe for some people it wouldn’t mean anything, but even my teacher friends invite me to a wine night once a month and “always forget” I can’t drink with them without getting a migraine.
“Come with me,” he says, and without argument, I do.
While the instructor pours wine for the people across the room, we slip out the classroom doors and into the main resort dining area. Miles leads me to the buffet area and grabs a plate, holding it out to me.
“You haven’t eaten today, have you?” he says rather than asks.
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Lucky guess,” he says with a grin. “We were in a pasta-making class; it’s not a far leap to assume you’d hold out on eating a big lunch so you could eat the pasta you made.”
He holds the plate out to me, and I take it.
“I won’t make you sit with me or talk to me, but I do think you should eat. I can sit at another table, and we’ll go back in once you’ve had your snack.”
His thoughtfulness softens all those sharp edges in me, the ones I’m using as spikes to keep him at a distance.
“Don’t be dumb—you can sit with me,” I say as a smile tugs at the corners of his lips.
The buffet is arranged the same as it is during meals, but with fewer options.
The middle island is stacked with charcuterie-style foods—cheeses, fruits, meats, and crackers all surrounded by island flora, greens and colorful flowers.
The outside counters around the island are usually stacked with food options too, but lie empty now, waiting for the next mealtime.
The seating area is massive, as this is the main dining spot for breakfast and lunch.
It’s enclosed in glass, so you still feel like you’re outside, but the blessed air conditioning keeps the humidity at bay so meals can be fully enjoyed.
The room is empty for the most part, just a few people at tables or milling about. Miles and I snag a two-seater table.
This seems like as good a time as any to talk to him. Get it over with and move on with my vacation.
“I think you wanted to have a conversation with me?” I start.
“I did. I do. I want to talk about last night.”
“It was a real choice to follow me around all day in hopes of having said conversation.”
“I didn’t know how else to find you besides waiting outside your door, and I didn’t want to be that guy.
There’s always the chance you could have had an excursion today or just gone to the beach or pool.
I did check both of those places, multiple times through the day, but I also thought I’d try a bunch of resort activities, just in case.
So I showed up to a bunch of them and hoped for the best.”
“I skipped the divine feminine workshop after the chair massage,” I say.
“I didn’t,” he says, and smiles spread across both of our faces.
“How was that?”
“Enlightening.”
I snort and focus on my food, because it’s a lot easier than thinking about how fun it is to banter with Miles.
“I do regret breaking up with you, Abby.”
I lift my eyes to his, and it nearly breaks my heart to see how earnest he is.
“It is my life’s regret. I try so hard not to think about the past because it haunts me. Between you and my injury, I am tormented by what could have been.”
Oh.
My breath catches in my throat.
It wasn’t just me.
“But you said…you said you were more successful without me. You—”
“I stand by what I said. I do think it was for the best we broke up and I wish I had never missed out on so many years with you. Both things can be true. And they are.”
Miles is right. Two things can be true at the same time; I’ve just never been good at holding two truths. They always feel too heavy, and I’m only ever strong enough to hold one at a time. That he can hold both is impressive and only shows how much he’s matured over time.
“I didn’t… I didn’t say this yesterday, but I went to a really dark place after my injury.
Even if we’d stayed together the first couple years, I was not myself for a long time.
I pushed everyone away. All my friends, my family.
I would have hurt you. Even more than I did when I ended things.
I was a wounded animal. I lashed out at everyone.
I had to make an apology tour when I was in a better headspace.
There are a lot of years that I wish you’d been by my side, but not those ones.
You were better off without me, I promise. ”
Whatever anger or resentment I had been holding onto is gone. Drained out of me by his words, his vulnerability, and the understanding of how a person might carry regret and the certainty of a decision.
There’s still a bit of flour on his face from where he tapped his head earlier.
I reach out, dusting it off of his temple with a brush of my finger.
His eyes close at my touch, his brows knitting together.
A sharp, relieved sigh escapes him, and it makes my insides sing.
When he opens his eyes again, they land on mine.
A few seconds of unspoken communication pass.
Our bodies were always better at communicating than we were.
“Say something, Abby.”
“I shouldn’t have stormed off last night.
That wasn’t very…mature of me. You’ve proven that you can be an adult, and I keep acting like a child.
Running away from you at any given chance.
I should have communicated what I was feeling last night and let you say all of this then.
Thank you for explaining and thank you for indulging my curiosity. ”
“Does that mean you’re going to stop running away from me?” he asks, a smile creeping in at the edges of his words.
“No promises,” I say, and goddamnit if I’m not smiling too.