16. Simon #2
We sat back and watched the production. Violet spread the red sauce in wide, concentric circles while Olivia stood with her arms folded, issuing detailed, bossy instructions about the optimal sauce-to-dough ratio she'd clearly researched online beforehand.
Violet kept a serious face and adjusted her spreading to meet Olivia's strict specifications.
Olivia then added the shredded cheese with both hands, ignoring Violet's slightly raised, questioning eyebrow.
The volume of cheese was too much. It was structurally too much.
Violet added it anyway when Olivia pushed the heavy bowl toward her.
"More," Olivia ordered.
"More," Violet echoed, and dumped more on.
The cured meat went on next, followed by an escalating argument about whether mushrooms improved or ruined a pizza's flavor. Violet kept a careful, diplomatic neutrality while Olivia argued fiercely from a principled, aggressively anti-mushroom position. In the end, the mushrooms didn't make it on.
"Are you seriously not going to weigh in on this?" I called out to Violet.
"I've learned not to," she answered, without looking at me.
Marta covered her mouth to hide a laugh.
The huge pizza finally went into the hot oven.
The kitchen looked like it had lost a bar fight.
I stepped in and helped clear the bigger mess from the island while the oven timer ran, listening as Olivia talked about a fight she was planning with her art teacher over vanishing-point perspective, an apparently ongoing feud she described in punishing detail.
When the savory smell finally started drifting through the kitchen, Olivia stopped talking mid-sentence and whipped around to face the oven.
Violet pulled it out.
The mountain of cheese was improbably golden. The thick crust had gone a crispy brown at the edges, and the whole chaotic thing looked far better than it had any right to, given the anarchy that had produced it.
"That smells incredible," Olivia breathed.
"I know," Violet agreed, not looking up from the masterpiece.
They cut it into slices. Olivia served herself the first piece and bit into it. The melted cheese pulled away in a long, dramatic strand, which she caught with her free hand and ate with smug satisfaction.
"Can I please have a slice?" I asked.
Olivia glared at me. "You were mocking us."
"I was merely skeptical. That's different."
"You said it wasn't going to be good."
"I said pizza wasn't a healthy choice. I didn't say anything about the quality." I looked desperately at Violet. "Can I have a slice?"
Violet held up her hands in surrender. "I can't legally involve myself in this. It's strictly between you two."
"It's probably not even good," I taunted Olivia. "You should let me confirm that for you."
"I don't need your opinion," she retorted. "And it's amazing." She took another huge bite to prove her point.
The cheese pull was undeniably excellent. I reached forward across the counter and snatched the hot slice right out of her hand.
Olivia's outraged shriek was immediate and full-volume, and she sprinted around the island in two seconds flat.
I was faster. I made it to the other side of the kitchen island, holding the stolen slice above my head, which was grossly unfair by any reasonable height standard.
"Give it back!" she demanded, jumping for it.
"It's not even good," I lied, taking a huge bite. It was, in fact, very good. "See? Totally not good."
"You're eating it!"
"Strictly for scientific purposes."
She lunged. I moved out of the way. She darted the wrong way around the island, and I went the right way, and for thirty chaotic seconds the kitchen devolved into something that would have alarmed any person who walked in without context.
"Violet!" Olivia yelled from across the island. "Do something!"
"I'm staying neutral," Violet declared from the stool where she'd sat down to watch the show with her own slice, her chin propped in her hand.
Olivia eventually got to me, mostly because she was faster than I'd accounted for, and caught my arm. She retrieved what was left of the mangled slice, only about a third of it, and held it to her chest in triumph.
"I can't believe you," she panted.
"It was exceptionally good," I admitted. "I concede."
"I know it was good."
We ate the rest of it together at the island, all four of us.
Olivia explained at length why her aggressive cheese-volume decision had been structurally correct, the delicious evidence backing her up.
She was right. I told her so. She sat back with her chin tilted up in victory and moved on to the next topic.
The afternoon wound down. Olivia retreated upstairs to her room. Marta packed up and went home for the day. Violet and I cleaned up the last of the kitchen disaster together, and then she said she was going to lie down. I followed her upstairs.
She pushed the door to my bedroom open and turned to face me. "I'm so tired."
"I know."
"I'm sore." She looked at me pointedly. "From last night."
"I know."
She stared at me a long moment, searching my face. "I really hope you're not in here thinking—"
"I'm not with you only for that."
She kept staring, unconvinced. "Simon. Is sex actually in the picture?"
I looked at her steady, refusing to lie. "Yes."
"Then why are you—"
"Because you told me that true love requires lust."
We both went still. Frozen still.
She stared at me in shock. "What did you just say?"
I'd said it. It was out there now, and there was no useful way to walk it back. "I think that's a serious conversation we need to have. Just… not tonight."
She kept staring, her mouth opening slightly in disbelief.
I leaned in and kissed her hard before she could answer.
She pulled back, breathless. "Is this a blatant attempt to change the subject?"
"Is it working?"
She looked at me, quiet a long, heavy moment. "Yes," she finally whispered.
I kissed her neck. She laughed, a beautiful, surrendered sound, threaded her hands into my hair, and leaned back, pulling us together as we fell onto the bed.