11. Sicilian Sake Roll #2
She rolls her eyes, like I’m being naive. “My first boyfriend liked my pool, my second boyfriend liked my mom. My best friends liked my boyfriends, money, or my pool boy.” She leans against the back of the couch, her voice almost bored. “Everybody wants something from me—always.”
I maintain her gaze. “Not me.”
I just want her .
She bites the inside of her cheek, looking fascinated rather than annoyed. Eventually, she straightens and shrugs. “All right, Chef.”
She turns and slips out of her top, and at the sight of her blue bra, my brain fries out. The fabric of her skirt slides down her body next, pooling at her feet like it was always meant to be there, discarded and forgotten.
I immediately spin around, locking my gaze on the nearest wall and away from her matching blue panties. “Oh—I’ll give you a minute.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she says easily. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen on TOP anyway.”
I press my lips together, inhaling through my nose.
Sure, I’ve seen her naked on TOP, but that doesn’t mean she’s just an image on a screen. Something for anyone to access at any given moment, as if her body belongs to the world instead of to her.
She’s still her .
Needing a distraction, I stride to the fridge and pull it open. My gaze sweeps across the contents—or lack thereof—and a hard knot of frustration forms in my gut.
A pear. Two eggs. A single Tupperware filled with plain boiled rice.
That’s it.
I shut the fridge with a little too much force.
“Beatrice makes sure I’m not tempted while she’s away,” she says behind me.
Tempted. Like food is something to resist. Like hunger is a flaw. Like the simple act of eating—of enjoying something indulgent—is a crime.
“Well, what would you like to eat?”
She looses a cackle. “Let’s see. A bacon cheeseburger.
No, wait, fries. No, mozzarella sticks. Actually.
..scratch that. I’d like a corn dog with a ton of ketchup.
No, wait...” Her eyes light up like she can already taste whatever she’s thinking about.
“I want a sundae. A big one. With warm, gooey chocolate sauce dripping down the sides, rainbow sprinkles—like, a ton of them—so every bite is crunchy and sweet. And nuts. Oh, and whipped cream piled so high it almost topples over.” She presses her hands together, practically bouncing on her toes.
“And you know what goes on top, obviously.” Her playful gaze flicks up to mine. “How does that sound?”
Like the stuff you eat when you’re drunk or aren’t familiar with mid-thirties heartburn.
Before I can say anything, her expression shifts.
“But ice cream is a curse word in this house,” she says.
“I can’t eat fried food. Or mozzarella. Or bacon.
Or salt.” She shrugs, forcing another smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“I definitely can’t have sugar. Or chocolate. Or whipped cream.”
It’s a joke—she makes it sound like a joke. But there’s an ache beneath the words, something resigned and weary, as if she’s spent years making herself smaller and learning to quiet her wants until they become nothing more than idle fantasies.
“So how about you make that, um”—she waves a hand vaguely in the air—“whatever fancy thing you were about to suggest, and I’ll moderately enjoy it because you are, despite this ridiculous diet, a great cook?”
She waits for my nod, then disappears down the hall.
And I stand there, wondering how to give her everything she’s not allowed to want.
I abandon my tuna roll to cut up the salmon sashimi. I had to drive across town—past three other supermarkets—just to find sashimi-grade fish, wasting nearly an hour in the process.
She looks up from her phone, the glow throwing soft shadows across her cheekbones. After a long look at me, she focuses on the screen again.
I’d pay money I don’t have to know what she’s thinking.
I press my lips together and refocus on my rolls. The scent of fresh seaweed and sticky rice fills the kitchen, but my mind drifts anyway—back to the first time Amelie and I made sushi together. I couldn’t believe she’d never done it. Josie is a big fan, so it was one of my staples at home.
When Amelie found out I was an expert, she made me drop everything and teach her on the spot. After she’d spent months nitpicking every single dish I made, watching her become annoyed over not getting it right the first time was quite the show.
“What is it?” Charlotte asks from the couch.
“Hm?” I blink, realizing I’m smiling. “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about...I taught my mentor how to make sushi.”
Her eyes narrow. “Your mentor ? Like in a cult?”
“No, like in cooking. My boss’s other half is a chef.
When I tried out for the job, words like ‘incredible raw talent’ were thrown around.
Apparently, it’s ‘unfair’ and ‘basically cheating.’” I swallow against the dryness in my throat, still not sure if Amelie’s a visionary or a lunatic. “And a lot of nonsense like that.”
“And you taught your mentor how to make sushi?”
“Yeah.” I flip the knife in my palm. “French-training—not a lot of raw fish in those kitchens.”
Charlotte makes a thoughtful noise. “How did you learn?”
“I...” I wipe my hands on a towel before picking up the bamboo mat again. “I spent a year in Italy in my twenties.”
“Ah, yes. The famous Sicilian salmon roll.”
I snort, and her smirk widens.
“If you’d let me finish,” I tease. “I had a Japanese roommate. His mom used to work in a...” I pause, searching for the name of the place, something he used to rave about. “A konbini in Tokyo, where apparently you can get the most amazing sushi for next to nothing. He taught me.”
Charlotte hums, considering. “The best sushi I ever had was in this tiny, hole-in-the-wall place in Shinsekai.”
I look up. “You’ve been to Japan?”
“I’ve been everywhere.”
Of course she has. Modeling must take her all over the world.
A small pang of something twists in my chest—envy, maybe. Longing. I haven’t traveled much since Sadie. And she must sense it because she says, “I haven’t seen much of anywhere though. It wasn’t fun -traveling.”
“Sorry.”
She shrugs. “But I’ve eaten enough Michelin-star meals to tell you that your mentor is right. You’re talented. Talented like people who’ve been doing it for decades.”
I grin, cheeks heating. “Thank you.”
“Where would you go if you could choose?” she asks. “If you could travel anywhere in the world?”
The question makes me pause. The last few years haven’t been much about my wants, but more about my responsibilities. I glance up, meeting her gaze. “Shinsekai, maybe,” I say. “Try this sushi you love.”
Her head sinks into the back of the couch, her loose waves fanning out against the cushions. That same knowing smile lingers on her lips. Lazy. Amused. Dangerous.
“Am I invited?”
I scoff, wiping my hands on a kitchen towel. “How else am I gonna find it?”
She giggles, light and airy. “When I was younger, I used to play a game I called ‘Where would I be?’ I would imagine a scenario where everything was different and picture where I’d be. Like, if my father hadn’t left, or if I’d never gone to that first audition, or...you get it.”
The thought of a younger Charlotte sitting in a Paris hotel room dreaming of being anywhere else makes my heart clench. “Really?”
“Yeah. Sometimes, I’d picture a small town somewhere by the beach.
You know, one of those places where people don’t bother putting actual clothes on.
Just shorts and their bikini tops. And Small Town Charlotte would do something.
..I don’t know, low-key. Like work at the local market, or sell flowers. ”
The thought is utterly ridiculous. She would die of boredom on her second day.
“I’d crochet, maybe. Have a Pinterest board for healthy recipes and cute home DIYs.”
My lips bend in a sad smile. I don’t like this version of herself she’s describing, because it doesn’t sound anything like her, but I get it. This isn’t just a whimsical fantasy, but a very real urge to escape. A wish for a life where she isn’t picked apart, where she belongs to herself.
Why doesn’t she do it? Why does she let Beatrice run the show like this?
I dry my hands on a towel, then toss it onto the counter. “You wouldn’t last a week.”
Her eyes gleam with challenge. “Oh?”
I grab a plate from the cabinet. “You’d get restless.” I set it on the counter. “You’d start charming tourists for sport.” Setting the sushi on the plate, I insist, “You’d get banned from the market for making inappropriate comments to half the town just to see them blush.”
She stays quiet, watching me, waiting.
“How about this game instead?” I ask. “Where would you be if you were a strong, beautiful young woman with the potential to achieve anything you wanted?” I walk to the table and set the sushi down, then spin to face her. “Because that’s exactly what you are, and that’s exactly where you should be.”
She stands and approaches me. Once there’s only her chair between us, she looks up at me. “Kinda like how if nothing held you back, you’d be inside me right now?”
She’s deflecting, again . She keeps doing it, keeps hiding behind her sexuality like she doesn’t want anyone to see there’s more to her than that. Maybe she doesn’t want to see it herself.
“You know, for most of my life, I worked in accounting. I put on a suit every day, and more than that, a mask . When my marriage crumbled, I realized I was pretending to be happy in more ways than one, and I knew I had to stop and face my feelings, no matter how inconvenient.”
Her smile turns into a thoughtful frown.
“I just wish I didn’t wait until I was thirty-six to do it.”
“Why did you?”
I shrug. I could tell her that I’d fallen short of too many expectations to launch myself into another potential failure, or that I was too busy trying to keep my marriage together to try to fix myself.
All of it is true, but you know what else is?
“I needed someone to believe there was something more to me, and Amelie did.”
Her lips part for a moment before they bend down at the corners. “ Amelie ?”
“My mentor,” I explain, confused when her cheeks darken and she looks away. She looks almost...jealous. Did she think it was a man?
It hits me in a strange, warm wave. Because if that’s what this is, it means she cares. It means I’m not the only one feeling this thing crackling between us.
And it’s reckless, but I don’t hate it. I don’t want to push it away. I’m not used to being wanted for no reason, just like her. Not without guilt or compromise. So instead of backpedaling, I continue, “Just a friend.”
It’s a promise I want her to hear.
But I know I lost her when she sits and grabs the chopsticks. “Whatever. I’m happy for you, but my life is fine as it is.”