9. Ratatouille
RATATOUILLE
*salt the zucchini or get a bowl of mush.
L oss hit me hard and fast as I opened the creaking metal gate in front of Lea’s little blue house a few blocks from Arthur Avenue.
My arms were full of groceries for Lea and the meal I’d promised to prepare after finishing the week’s prep work at Prideview.
It was Sunday, so all the staff had the evening off while the Lyoneses ate at their club.
For the Zolas, that meant Sunday dinner in Belmont—this time at my sister’s house instead of our grandmother’s, like we’d done for years.
Lea and the kids were still at afternoon Mass, and I’d wanted to get a head start on cooking before chaos descended.
Her home was a little shabby, like most of the houses and apartments in Belmont, though well-loved and cared for.
But in the past two months, since Mike’s death, things in my sister’s ordered life had clearly been neglected.
The hydrangeas in the front pots had been left to shrivel in the summer sun, a litter of children’s toys lay abandoned and dirty behind the gates, and a single shutter swung loose from the top floor window.
Even the house was grieving.
A distinct moan, high and clear, broke through the silence as I climbed the porch steps.
I frowned at the open window. Was someone here?
“ Fuck .”
A man’s voice.
That mouth . The memory drifted forward, but it wasn’t Lucas I heard now.
Nathan, full of more emotion than I’d thought he was capable of.
“Perfect.” His voice drifted out the window, ragged and hoarse. “Fucking perfect.”
What, exactly, deserved that kind of praise, I could only imagine. But it undoubtedly had something to do with my sister.
My cheeks burned. I should announce myself, make some noise, anything to disrupt their activities. But instead, I stood rooted on the front porch, unable to stop listening to the rhythm of a heavy piece of furniture rocking against a wall.
“Nathan— oh my God —the kids will be back soon.” Joni’s voice echoed through the curtains waving in the summer breeze, breathy and light, so different than her normal take-no-prisoners attitude. “Babe— oh !”
“Just a little longer.” Nathan’s murmur was followed by a sound that was not suitable for public consumption.
I backed away from the door. Should I leave?
Come back? My indecision left me standing awkwardly by a dead hydrangea when the curtain flew aside, and I was confronted with the sight of my sister perched atop the coffee table in the center of Lea’s living room, short skirt hiked around her hips while her boyfriend’s broad, thick body worked between her thighs.
Her eyes were closed, her mouth open in a silent “O” of nameless pleasure.
Until it wasn’t silent.
“Oh my God.” She sucked in a labored breath. “You’re—baby—it’s too much, Nathan .”
To my shock, Nathan didn’t stop. Instead, his big hand wrapped around her neck as he seemed to work even harder while he spoke, steady and low, in a way that somehow made his voice more intense.
“You can handle it. You’ve taken it before.” There was a pause while he pounded harder. “So tight. So perfect.” Another several thrusts. “You like this, don’t you?”
Joni made a sound—high and shaky, something between a sob and a gasp—and gripped Nathan’s massive shoulders like she needed an anchor.
Her cry broke me out of this horrible, awkward trance.
I spun around and dropped to the floor of the porch, unable to move for fear they would hear me, though I was desperate to stop listening.
My eyes squeezed shut while my hands clapped over my ears, blocking out the majority of the noise—though not all of it—as my sister and her boyfriend found their mutual climax.
It wasn’t sweet or slow or soft. It was physical. Overwhelming. Joni sounded like she was in pain, and Nathan—he wasn’t cruel, but he wasn’t stopping—just seemed focused and intense.
Was I doomed to eavesdrop on sex rather than ever having it myself?
Behind my closed eyes, Lucas Lyons’s stormy blue-gray eyes appeared over a broad, naked chest while he grazed the mouth that I now knew was sinfully soft over the shell of my ear and murmured in his deep voice:
Is that good, sweet Marie? Do you want it rough too?
I gasped, opening my eyes and forcing myself to look across the street and count the colors of T-shirts hung to dry from fire escapes.
Why was I thinking of Lucas now, of all times?
I kept my hands firmly over my ears for several more minutes, even after the noise had ceased. My eyes remained open. Lucas’s imaginary words repeated in my head whether I wanted them to or not.
“Mimi?”
I dropped my hands and turned to find Joni standing in the open doorway of the house, fully dressed but tugging her skirt back into place. “Hi.”
She looked at the groceries dropped on the porch, then back to where I was sitting. “Are you okay?”
I swallowed, then looked toward the open window. Joni followed my gaze, then slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh—shit. Um…” And then, like she couldn’t help herself, she laughed and turned back to the house. “Babe?”
“Yeah?” Nathan’s voice was as steady and calm as ever.
“Marie’s here. And we, um, left the window open.”
There was a pause.
Then: “Fuck.”
There was that word again. Deep, brutal, but without remorse.
Color rose in Joni’s cheeks, but she didn’t apologize. Or seem ashamed. She did have the decency to wince as she sat down beside me. “We’ll just give him a minute. Did we scar you?”
I rolled my eyes but couldn’t quite meet her gaze. “I’m an adult.”
“Yeah, but you’ve never?—”
“It’s fine. Let’s not talk about it anymore. Although, honestly. On Lea’s couch?”
“It was her coffee table. Nathan’s disinfecting it now.”
I made a face. “I’ll be sure not to touch it anyway.”
Joni giggled, almost like she wanted to be asked more. Interrogated. Shamed even, the way I once might have.
But Nathan wasn’t just some rando she was screwing. He wasn’t just a boyfriend of the hour, as Lea would have called them.
He was the love of her life. Anyone could see it.
Jealousy tore through my confusion like a knife.
“So, how was the rest of the party?” Joni nudged my shoulder. “What happened with Daniel? I saw him drooling, and then you disappeared.”
After leaving the conservatory, I’d found Joni and Nathan just long enough to tell them I was going to bed but hadn’t filled her in on anything that happened. I was too mortified about all of it at the time.
“We danced.” That much was true. “He was happy to see me, I think. But then he had to deal with some family thing and never came back.” I shrugged. “I think it’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” Joni assured me. “I styled you myself last night. You looked like sex on a stick, and the man couldn’t stop staring at you. If he got waylaid, it had nothing to do with you.” She turned her face up to the sun, reveling in the rays. “He’ll find you. No doubt.”
I watched her for a moment. Joni had always been sure of herself with men, and with good reason. They had clung to her like flies since her boobs appeared and she learned to wink.
I thought about the conservatory, about Lucas appearing instead of Daniel. About that kiss. My first kiss.
“You okay?” Joni studied my face. “You’re quiet, even for you. Did something else happen?”
I hesitated. “Have you ever felt nothing? When you should feel something?”
“What do you mean?”
I had been so excited when Daniel held me on that dance floor. Like I was levitating when he asked me to meet him in the conservatory.
But now, thinking about it alongside the dance I had shared with Lucas (and everything that had followed), the moment with Daniel seemed to pale. Like footage in black and white after I’d just seen color.
“With Nathan.” I already regretted bringing this up. “When you’re together. Do you always feel something? Like you want to, you know.”
Joni’s eyes popped open with understanding. “Is this about sex? Oh my God, Mimi, did you?—”
“ No ,” I said quickly, feeling my cheeks burn all over again. “No. Not…not yet.”
“ Yet ?” she squealed.
“Or planning to,” I corrected quickly. “But I was just wondering…if with Nathan, it’s always…like that. In the house.”
I was hoping I didn’t have to explain anymore.
I’d spent enough time around the two of them to know there was a magnetic pull that neither of them seemed able to ignore.
Nathan was probably the most measured person in the world, but a single shared look turned into a passionate kiss on a countertop, whether I was there or not.
Something similar had probably led to whatever I’d accidentally witnessed on Lea’s coffee table.
But this faded memory was confusing.
I liked Daniel Lyons.
Wait, loved . Right?
I’d fantasized about him for years.
And yet, another truth was nipping at the back of my mind. When we’d danced, there had been excitement, yes, but also a strange disconnect. It was as if I were watching myself experience something I’d dreamed about rather than actually feeling it.
And then there was Lucas. The way my body responded to his proximity alone, every nerve ending alert and aware.
His kiss made me forget my own name.
And that low, controlled growl was still echoing through my thoughts.
Sweet Marie.
Even now, my thighs squeezed together.
“Is this about Daniel?” Joni pressed. “Did he kiss you after all that?”
Before I could answer, the squeaky chain-link gate and Lea entered the front yard, followed by her kids like the mother duck in Make Way for Ducklings . “Hey. You two are early.”
“Marie!” Petey, my nine-year-old nephew, shot forward and up the steps to tackle me with a hug around the waist. “You’re back!”
“Hey, kiddo,” I said as I ruffled his hair and pressed a kiss to his temple. “Sure am.”
Tommy lingered behind Lea with a shadowed look older than his eleven years as he held four-year-old MJ’s hand. I knew that look. It was the one my own brother had worn for most of my young life after our parents died and he’d had to step up.