Chapter 15 Viking-Style Funeral Send-Off #2
He handed her a glass of water and took a seat on the couch. Her stomach sank an inch when he placed his body an entire seat cushion away from her.
“A pot roast?” she prodded. “The Midwest must really be rubbing off on you.” She took a sip of her drink, scrunching her nose at the effervescence.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Beef bourguignon, actually. With all our talk of France…but come to think of it, I don’t even know if you like the food. I was at Goodwill, looking for lamps, and I saw Julia Child’s cookbook, and I took a leap from there, but I—”
She paused his nervous rambling by wrapping her hand around his wrist. “I love French food. Thank you.”
Lainey wasn’t sure anyone had ever thought about her like that before. Casually. Reverently.
Gran did, in her way. But she’d always been someone who needed occasional reminders that people outside herself existed.
Her mother was, honestly, beyond reminders.
Bree, of course, thought of Lainey constantly, but her concern was more rooted in deep generational anxiety than Lainey would’ve preferred.
But Elliot had confessed to simply thinking about her. Musing. Remembering. Wondering what she might like to eat. Going out of his way to source pearl onions for it.
“Now,” he said, as her eyes followed him to the kitchen counter, where he tapped the buttons on the Instant Pot. She winced at each of the high-toned beeps. “Despite talking a big game, I’m actually terrified of pressure cookers. Everything’s ready to go, but I haven’t started it yet.”
“Aw. You wanted to wait to explode together? That’s so cute.”
He made his way back to his spot on the couch, where there was noticeably less middle cushion than before. “Yep. Till death do us part and all that.”
“I don’t think family annihilation via pressure cooker was what Chef Nemoto had in mind for us, sweetheart.” She fluttered her eyelashes.
He slid a look her way and let his fingers lace between hers.
A spark of tension crackled up her forearm.
The memory of the two of them thundered through her like a storm crashing inside her head.
Though that could’ve been the headache that she was fairly certain was brewing behind her eyes and blurring her vision.
And now he was holding her hand as though she wasn’t supposed to remember in excruciating detail the way that hand ran up her naked body as he rasped, “You’re perfect” into her ear?
“What’s happening right now?” she blurted, as the last vestiges of her impulse control splintered off.
“Last night we…” She lifted her eyebrows in what she hoped would translate.
“And I know we agreed it would be a one-time thing, but I didn’t see you all day.
And now you’re making me dinner and you’re wearing, like, a ‘date shirt.’ I don’t know what the shirt is supposed to mean. ”
“My shirt?”
“That shirt has intentions, and I can’t handle whatever it is that it’s doing.” She rubbed her index fingers into the low rumble of growing tension at her temples. “I thought I could, but I can’t.”
“Are we still talking about my shirt?”
“Elliot.” The incandescent bulb in the center of the room was giving off just enough light to feel sultry. Each shadow created negative space she wanted to fill. All of her cells longed to be close to him. It made it very difficult to focus.
“Every day I like you more and more,” she confessed. “And it’s terrifying. It’s like there’s this balloon floating up into my chest, and every time you say anything nice, I’m just waiting for you to pop it.”
Lainey didn’t want people like this—not in a real way—and especially not someone like Elliot.
Because Elliot was good. He was steady and thoughtful.
He was the kind of person who remembered the tiniest details.
He was trustworthy and looked at her like she mattered to him.
Like she was significant and worthy of his notice.
She could feel herself settling into the safety being near someone like that.
Someone she might rely on. And that was the worst part, because she couldn’t.
Their relationship was created to dissolve.
It was temporary, but he was no longer temporary to her.
The very notion made her nauseous.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked intently.
She closed her eyes. She just needed to get this out and then…
“I can’t have no-strings sex and then play house like a normal husband and wife, when we are so far from that.” The air thinned and her head spun. “It’s too hard to wake up in your bed and hold your hand on the couch while you make me beef fucking bourguignon if this doesn’t mean anything.”
“Who said it doesn’t mean anything?”
She blinked. “You did. Yesterday. And the day we put the roof up. And when we got married—”
“What did I say when we got married?” He sounded confused.
“I think you made it pretty obvious that there were never to be romantic feelings, Mr. Kissing-Isn’t-Required-in-the-State-of-Wisconsin.”
“Well, it’s not.”
“We let children drink here. The letter of the law isn’t that intense,” she argued, swaying to the side. Her head was suddenly too heavy for her neck.
His hand tugged through his hair. “Lainey.” Her name sounded like a plea for mercy. Then he paused. “You need to lie down. You look—”
Parts of the evening came back to her in flashes. The shimmering lights that wouldn’t go away even when she closed her eyes. The blurred vision. The tingling hands. Maybe some of it had been giddy butterflies, but it had also been an aura she’d been trying to ignore.
“It’s nothing. I think I might be getting a migraine.” She knew she was getting a migraine, but something about the word think made it sound like there was a chance she had no idea what she was talking about, and they’d be able to finish their conversation without interruption from her body.
“Oh.” He blinked fast. “Let me take you home.”
Her fingers braced her temples. “No, we’re still talking, and you did a whole thing,” she protested. Fairly unconvincingly.
He looked at her under the flickering light bulb and kissed her on the nose so delicately she could hardly stand it. He was so close she could smell his honey soap, crowding out all the other scents of chopped mirepoix and cedar. In that cabin, there was only him.
“Instant Pots are incredibly portable. You focus on feeling better. I’ll get you into bed and set dinner up at our place.”
Our place.