Chapter 4 Dinner and a Mishap #2
I felt like I might actually vomit the longer I stood there, watching him move food around the pan in front of him, reaching his hand out to grab some seasoning every now and again. He looked totally at ease in the kitchen, all but confirming my theory that he was the chef of the household.
“I was wondering when you were going to come out,” he spoke suddenly, yet didn’t stop cooking to face me.
Swallowing down my nerves, I responded with the only reasonable excuse I had to give. “I think it’s safe to say that I didn’t think anybody else was home yet.”
“I got home when you were in the shower,” he tossed in nonchalantly.
I waited for him to say more, but more never came. He just kept cooking like nothing had happened, like he hadn’t totally walked in on me two articles of small clothing away from my birthday suit.
“I’m sorry. I—” I stammered, overwhelmed and wishing I could sink into the ground and disappear. “I don’t even know what else to say.”
“Don’t be. It’s your house too, now.”
Ethan shut off the stove and finally turned to face me with the pan he was cooking with clutched in his hand. He shuffled the chicken he’d been cooking onto two plates waiting on the counter.
“Just maybe next time wear pants.”
Just as blood rushed front and center in my cheeks, he spared me a brief but terribly flustering glance. “Or don’t. I’m not gonna tell you what to do.”
I caught his lips move themselves into a coy smile that did weird things to my stomach before he turned away and walked to the microwave. He yanked open the door and pulled out a bowl of green beans, and we were left to silence as he divvied out equal portions to each of our plates.
“Um, should I… leave?” Maybe things were too weird now between us. I mean, we barely knew each other and he’d already seen me in my skivvies and— Oh crap.
What if he thought I was trying to seduce him?
“Leave?” Ethan’s voice cut through my quickly spiraling thoughts, and not a moment too soon. “Why would you leave?”
“Just in case things were too… weird ?”
The side of his mouth rose slowly and was accompanied by an impish gleam reflecting in his eyes. “Alice, that wasn’t the first time I’d seen a girl in a thong. First time I’ve seen you in a thong, sure, but I don’t imagine it’ll happen again, and I think we’ll be just fine.”
I wasn’t sure if he was trying to make me feel better, but if he was, boy was it not working.
Ethan answered my silence with a brief sigh and gave me a pointed look. “Would you feel better if we never brought it up again and dropped it?”
“Yup,” I answered immediately, nodding. “Please and thank you.”
“Then consider it forgotten. Can we eat now?”
“Oh, uh, yeah! Of course.” And that was that. Relief swept through me to know that my uncomfortable moment would be swept under the rug from here on out, never to be brought up again—especially in front of Monica.
“It smells really good,” I commented.
Ethan cracked a wide grin and set a plate full of chicken and green beans down in front of me on the countertop. “Thanks. I’m always used to packing half of it away for Monica to eat when she gets home, so it’s nice to cook for someone who’s going to eat it while it’s fresh for once.”
“How late does she normally work?”
“Depends. It could be anywhere between 8pm or midnight. Sometimes later if she feels like it.” Ethan moved around the kitchen, tugging open a drawer and pulled two forks out. He held one out for me to take.
I smiled at him. “Thank you.”
His smile was in his eyes as he looked back at me. “My pleasure.”
Then he was gone, moving out of my sight and somewhere behind me. I stayed put where I was, focusing all of my attention on the chicken in front of me that smelled better than anything I’d eaten in weeks.
“You just gonna stand there?”
Ethan’s voice turned my attention over to him, and I spun around to find him on the couch, plate and fork in hand. He had one sock-covered foot propped up on the cherry-wood coffee table in front of him, his wide frame settled back against the couch to relax.
“Is there a problem with me standing here?”
“Not a problem necessarily. Just a weird choice when there’s a whole couch and loveseat available to sit in.”
I held my hands up in mock surrender, feeling the tension I’d put in the air begin to dissipate. “Listen, you can’t get on me about not knowing rules here. I’m just trying to be polite in someone else’s house by eating over the counter.”
“What, so you can walk around someone else’s house nearly naked, but you can’t eat dinner sitting on their couch?”
I felt my eyes try to leave their sockets they bulged out so wide. “You said you’d never bring that up again. It’s been less than five minutes!”
He let out a soft laugh which ended up pulling one out of me too, even though I didn’t want to. His laugh made me laugh, and the cycle was a runaway train from there.
“I’m sorry, but that’s really too good of a story to completely forget. I mean, what if I ever need to blackmail you for something?”
“Wow, I’m living here for all of two days, and I’m already being blackmailed?”
“I’m just trying my best to make you feel like part of the family,” he shot back with a wicked grin, all of his pearl-white teeth beaming.
Family . Something about that phrase coming from him sounded off, but I shrugged the feeling away as I conceded and brought my plate of food over to the loveseat.
Both the matching, off-white couch and chair I was now sitting in faced the T.V.
, which had a particular movie on pause that made yet another smile wiggle onto my lips.
“Were you watching 27 Dresses by yourself?”
“What? It was the only thing on that was good.” Ethan shoved a piece of chicken into his mouth, showing me his profile as he chewed rather aggressively.
“First, quoting Pretty Woman last night and now this? I’m thinking Monica’s got a not-so-closeted hopeless romantic here.” I shot him a teasing look in which he responded with a dramatic roll of his eyes.
“Watch it, Wonderland. This meal isn’t poisoned, but the next one could be.”
“Wonderland? Couldn’t you come up with anything more original than that?”
He met my raised eyebrow with one of his own. “Is that a challenge?”
“No.” I shrugged innocently, sliding a green bean between my teeth. “Just an observation.”
His eyes narrowed on mine, never wavering as he observed me with a growing curiosity. His jaw cocked to the side and slowly, he nodded while keeping our eyes connected. “I see. All right.”
I had to chuckle at his concentrated bit of trying to appear like he wasn’t currently running through every possible nickname he’d ever heard of in his mind. It was cute. Well, not cute. Amusing is what it was.
“Would you like to play the movie or continue to try and think up a unique nickname?”
“I’m not—” He stopped himself, locking his eyes to mine for all of five seconds before slumping back into the couch with defeat etched into his now sulking stare. “Let’s just watch the movie.”
And the teaser becomes the teased.
As the movie played on for a couple scenes, a comment from the past shook itself from the backs of my mind. “You know, people used to say all the time that my ex looked like a poor man’s James Marsden.” They never phrased it quite like that, but it was always implied.
I turned my focus to Ethan to watch him squint at the screen, getting a better look of the actor my ex apparently looked like. Aside from the hair and crooked smile, I personally never saw it.
“Well, good thing James Marsden is just all right looking, which means your ex probably has a shitface if he’s the poor man’s version of him.”
The bark of laughter that came out of me just then was possibly the least lady-like noise I’d ever made, but I didn’t care enough to hide it. Ethan turned his head to me, fastening his eyes with mine for just a second.
That second was all I needed though to see his delight as I continued to laugh before he turned his attention back to the T.V.