Chapter Twelve
Twelve
Mom’s footfall hit the kitchen floor a split second before she came in.
“Hey, Mom!” I whirled away from Alex, my shaking hands grabbing for the garlic butter. Behind me, Alex started chopping again, a little too quickly and a little too loudly.
“You did all this?” Oblivious to the fast-dissipating tension, Mom wrapped an arm around my shoulders and stretched up to kiss me on the cheek.
She’d changed out of her work clothes and into yoga pants and a thin hoodie.
Her makeup was off and her hair—curly like mine—was up in a clip.
When she’d walked through the door, she’d looked like Business Casual Mom, but now she seemed relaxed. Happy. It looked good on her.
“You made it,” I pointed out. “I’m just reheating. And I had help with the rest.” I threw a nod in Alex’s direction, and he waved his knife before going back to slicing carrots.
“Thanks for having us over, Ms. Parker,” he chirped, like a kid I’d brought home from school. I cringed inwardly, and from the way his eyes tightened he was doing the same.
“April,” Mom corrected, reaching into the big salad bowl in front of Alex and snagging a piece of carrot.
I slid the tray of garlic bread into the oven. The lasagna was just starting to bubble around the edges; not long now. My stomach gave an involuntary gurgle.
“Are you sure you have to find a job?” Mom got a bottle of cider out of the fridge. “I can get used to having dinner ready when I come home.”
I washed my hands at the kitchen sink. “Careful what you wish for. The job market absolutely sucks right now.”
Alex blew out a long breath. “That’s what I hear.”
He spoke with the long-suffering, pessimistic air of someone who knew, someone who’d been part of the real-world job market.
I paused halfway through drying my hands on the dish towel.
“You’ve got a job,” I said, as though he needed reminding.
I raised my eyebrows as I threw a glance over my shoulder at him.
“Don’t you? I mean, sure, I know your whole”—I waved a hand in his direction—“thing doesn’t exactly come with a 401(k) and PTO, but it’s what you do. Right?”
He looked startled, as though he hadn’t meant to bring any of this up. “Oh,” he said. “Yeah. I’m just saying…that’s what I’ve heard.”
There was something there, something I was missing, but dinner was about ready and everyone had started to gather in the dining room, and it was easy to brush it off. I had more important things to do tonight, anyway—like secure the Faire’s new Queen.
The table in the dining room was a massive oak thing that seated eight—twelve when the center leaf that we never used was put in.
It had always been the hub of the home, even when it was just Mom and me.
We’d eat dinner at one end, Mom at the head and me right beside her.
The other side was a catch-all space; a place for me to do homework or for Mom to set up her sewing machine when she had a project going.
When Emily had moved to town, and later when Mitch came into our lives, more and more people began to gather around this table.
It had been command central more than once as Simon worked to plan the renaissance faire every year, with Mom good-naturedly grumbling that she hadn’t signed on for that shit.
Speaking of which…“So about this whole Queen thing…” I stabbed at my salad as casually as I could, getting the attention of the table.
A couple seats down, Simon had his head bent toward Emily, talking to her about something, but now he looked up with a relieved expression. “I appreciate you spearheading this, Caitlin,” he said. His praise flowed through me like a long drink of wine, making me feel pleased and flushed.
Emily nodded vigorously around a bite of lasagna. “She knows her stuff,” she said to the room at large. “You sure you don’t want to…”
“Nope.” I cut off that thought immediately. What would be the point of me being Queen for two more weekends? It would just be another temporary stopgap. No, this should be a plan for the future. Someone who’d be around every season. The leather vendor had convinced me of that.
Speaking of which…I turned an easy smile Lulu’s way, trying to erase my abrupt tone. “I think Lulu will do great,” I said.
“Well, sure,” Lulu said cheerfully. “Queens are bossy, and who better to portray that than a lawyer?” She raised her eyebrows in Mom’s direction. “Unless you’d rather…”
Mom almost choked on her bite of garlic bread, letting the rest of it clatter to her plate as she reached for her cider. “Oh, hell no. Are you kidding me?”
“You’d be good,” Emily chimed in, and there were vigorous nods all around.
“The costume would look great on you,” I said, because there was nothing more fun than piling on my mother.
I hadn’t even considered Mom. She’d never been a joiner; the few times that she’d volunteered for the Faire it had been in the ticket booth, wearing a red volunteer’s T-shirt.
I’d only seen her in garb once, which was too bad; she’d looked great, and had a lot of fun wearing it, from what I could tell.
“Oh, please do it,” Mitch said. “That would make me like a king or something.”
“Queen Elizabeth didn’t have a king,” Simon was quick to point out. “Virgin Queen, remember?”
Mitch looked disappointed, and Mom shook her head firmly.
“Absolutely not. I don’t know the first thing about portraying Queen Elizabeth.
Spend all day speaking with an accent? No way.
” Emily protested, but Mom talked over her like a true big sister.
“Besides,” she said. “Wasn’t she a redhead?
” She pointed with her fork down the table at Lulu, and her strawberry-blond hair, up in its clip.
“That’s your Queen Elizabeth right there. ”
“You’ve got me there.” Lulu shrugged and went back to her salad. “Fine,” she said. “Queen me.”
—
The party broke up after dinner, Simon and Emily heading home to their dog. Lulu and Dex left not long after, and while they said their extended goodbyes to Mitch in the living room, Alex drifted in my direction while I cleared the table.
“Do you think we could…?” He didn’t finish the sentence, but my brain had no trouble coming up with suggestions. Talk? Kiss? Peel off our clothes and bang in the kitchen? Okay, probably not that last one.
“You wanna help clear?” I said maybe a little too loudly, banishing the mental image of him pressing me against the kitchen island.
I nodded at the detritus of dinner that remained on the table.
He got the message quick, stacking the remaining plates and following me into the kitchen.
I ignored the kitchen island as best I could and dumped my stack of plates into the sink.
I took Alex’s next, my fingers brushing against his under the plates.
My heart leapt, and I reminded myself that doing dishes shouldn’t be sexy.
And yet. I turned on the hot water and started rinsing the dishes while Alex leaned a hip against the kitchen counter. He reached past me and turned off the faucet.
“Caitlin.” His voice was low and urgent. “Can we talk about this? Please?”
“Sure.” But could we? All my confidence, my “hit it and quit it” attitude that Nina and Toby had encouraged earlier, seemed to drain down the sink with the water.
I stared hard at the dishes in the sink.
Some cheese had dried on the edge of one of the plates; I was going to have to scrub that off before it went in the dishwasher.
“Can you look at me?” The lilt of humor in his voice made me let out a shaky laugh. He was right. This was silly.
“Probably.” His dark brown eyes were warm, with amusement and something that burned a little hotter, as they met mine. I reminded myself to be casual as I mirrored his pose, leaning a hip against the sink. He handed me a towel and I dried my hands. I raised my eyebrows and waited for him to speak.
“So…” Now that he had my attention he didn’t seem to know what to do with it. “Sunday,” he finally said. “After pub sing. When…”
“I was there,” I said. “I remember.” Did I ever. A replay of that kiss washed through me, heating my blood, and I gripped harder on the towel so I wouldn’t reach for him. Not now. Not with my mom right in the next room.
As if reading my mind, Alex glanced toward the front of the house, where raised voices seemed to be saying final goodbyes. He was running out of time, and we both knew it. “It wasn’t just nostalgia for me, you know.” The words tumbled out as his eyes held mine.
“A little bit of nostalgia, though,” I said, and his smile kicked up.
“Maybe a little,” he conceded. “I remember the girl you were. But…” He took a long breath that shook a little. “I’d like to know the woman you are now. If you’d let me.”
Oh. I took in a sip of air through slightly parted lips. “I’d like that,” I said. His eyes lit up, and I must have forgotten what a real, genuine smile felt like, because this one made my whole life feel new.
He reached for my hands, still tangled in the kitchen towel, and I let him.
There was something in me that responded to the man he was now.
This wasn’t the idealistic fantasy of my crush from years ago.
It was deeper, more solid. There was nothing wrong with letting myself explore what was happening between us now.
Nina’s advice flashed through my brain: DON’T GET ATTACHED.
Yeah. No problem.
The front door closed with a bang, and a few seconds later Mom came into the kitchen. When she did, I was running water over the plates again and Alex was a few feet away, elbows leaning on the kitchen island.
“Practice tomorrow?” I asked, as casually as possible, like I hadn’t seen my mother come in.
“Yep,” he said just as casually. “See you tomorrow.” He knocked his knuckles on the island and nodded toward my mom. “Good night, Ms…. uh, April.”
“Good night.” Mom sounded amused as Alex left. Then she turned to me.
“What the hell are you doing?”