Chapter 6 #2
“Baking’s an exact science,” I say. “You follow a recipe to a T and it comes out as it should. As long as your measurements are correct and the heat’s right and you cook it for the right amount of time, it always comes out.
I feel like with cooking there are way more variables, and you have to have this innate sense of when to turn the heat up or down, or when to add more seasonings or more liquid or whatever.
Every time I cook, it either comes out blah, or it’s totally unrecognizable from what I intended to make. ”
Beau laughs, and insists, “It can’t be that bad.”
“It is,” I assure him as I shove another bite of pasta into my mouth.
“So how have you survived adulthood as an anti-cook?” he asks.
“I’ve mostly been lucky that my roommates—Jill in Boston, then Jackson here—have been better cooks than me. But I can feed myself. It’s just more Kraft Mac & Cheese, and less”—I gesture to the remaining pasta in my bowl—“this.”
“And after you stopped living with Jackson?” he asks. “Who cooked then?”
I really do not want to talk about Peter, but there’s really not any choice.
“My ex-fiancé was actually a really good cook. But he made a terrible mess in the kitchen and it always pissed me off to have to clean up after him. Like really, I swear he used every single pan and cooking utensil, every single time he made a meal.”
“You gotta clean as you go,” Beau says. “It’s the only way to not leave a huge mess.”
“Someone should have taught Peter that hack.”
Beau gets up and takes his bowl into the kitchen for a refill.
He’s wearing low-slung gray sweats again, but at least he’s got a shirt on this time.
It’s tight enough that it highlights his strong shoulders and his outstanding biceps, a fact I can ignore a whole lot more easily when he has a shirt on.
“So what did this asshole do to break it off?” Beau asks as he reaches into the pot and pulls out a piece of bacon between his fingertips, popping it into his mouth.
I think of all the things that Peter did—the lying and cheating, the duplicitous behavior he must have engaged in for months, if not years, before I found out.
I think of all the moments where he said one thing, and I now wonder if he meant something else.
He left me wondering how I can truly know myself if I didn’t even know his love wasn’t real. “He cheated.”
Beau looks over at me from where he stands in front of the stove. “What a dick.”
I do that thing I sometimes do, where I raise my eyebrows and shrug, because what else is there to say. Internally, though, I have a whole lot to say and most of it is self-deprecating. How could it not be, when I was so wholly and truly blind to what was happening right in front of me?
“Hey,” Beau says as he takes in whatever look has crossed my face. “What he did was about him, not you. Okay? Don’t internalize it.”
“Sure.” I glance down at my plate. It’s a kind and well-intended comment, but honestly, how does he expect me to not internalize my fiancé deciding to stick his dick elsewhere?
“So, how come you got home so late today?” he asks as he walks back to his seat with his pasta replenished. “Or is this what time you normally get home?”
“No, I’m normally home between five and six, but tonight I went and saw two apartments.”
“By yourself?”
Is that worry I hear in his voice?
“I can handle myself,” I tell him, “but I brought Josh with me just in case.” I mean, I’m not stupid.
“Josh is . . .?”
“Lauren’s husband.”
His face is still blank, like he has no idea who she is.
“Lauren . . .” I prompt, but there is no recognition there, “the bridesmaid with red hair.”
“Ohh,” he says as he pops another bite of pasta into his mouth, chews a few times, and says through a mouthful of pasta, “the married one.”
I take a second to process what he’s saying. “Wait, did you not know her name because you just thought of her as ‘the married one’?”
He raises his shoulders, like it’s not an issue that he obviously viewed her as a commodity who, since she wasn’t available to him, wasn’t worth knowing.
“Oh my God, you really are an asshole.” I can’t help but laugh a bit as I draw my conclusion out loud.
Another shoulder shrug.
“Anyway, Josh was the skier Jackson trained before Nate—”
“Oh, that Josh. Yeah, I know who he is.”
“Well, his wife, Lauren, is one of our best friends.”
“Got it,” he says. “So you already went to see apartments, like two days after you moved in here?”
I feel silly mentioning that finding out about the bathroom reno this morning and feeling like he set me up with that was a big motivator for me to get out of here.
Instead, I confirm that yes, I am already looking at apartments.
He leans toward me, something that I’ve noticed he does a lot in conversation.
“You just left your cheating fiancé and moved out of his place. How can you already be ready to commit to a new place?” His eyes scrunch up and his cheeks pull back as he says the last few words, like he’s tasted something unexpectedly bitter.
I wonder what gave him that look, and figure it was probably having to use the word commit.
“I just like to be settled,” I say, meeting his eyes with my own defiant look. Who is he to judge? I don’t think he’s ever committed to a person or a place in his life.
“What’s so great about being settled?” He looks away as he asks the question.
Images of my mom, the dozens of apartments and mobile homes we lived in throughout my childhood, the men who came in and out of her bedroom, the impossibility of finding a quiet place to do my homework, having to raise my two siblings because my mom wasn’t capable of loving them—it all flashes through my mind.
“I just like things, and people, to be constant. Dependable. Steady.”
“Yeah,” he says, leaning in even further. “What’d that get you so far?”
Ooh, gloves off, I see. “Well, I’m the social media manager for one of the largest sports organizations in the country.”
“And?” he prompts.
And my best friend moved away and got married, I have no family and only a couple close friends in Park City, my fiancé left me, and I’m crashing at my best friend’s place because I’m essentially homeless.
But I refuse to sit around feeling sorry for myself. I have a good life—a life I created. It could be so much worse.
“Thanks for dinner,” I tell him, standing and taking my almost-empty bowl to the sink.
His voice is placating when he says, “Sierra—”
“I’ll take care of the dishes in a bit,” I cut him off. I don’t need his pity or his criticism. I’m giving him no power to make me feel bad about my life or my decisions.
I storm into my room in the dark, only to run into a wall of plastic with a big red zipper down the center.
This sends one of the poles holding the plastic sheeting crashing down onto my bed.
The plastic that was taped to the ceiling rips away, and the sheet sails to the ground.
And now there’s construction dust everywhere. This day just keeps getting better.
Two hours later, I’ve cleaned up as much of the bedroom mess as possible, then cuddled in the big chair in the corner of my room and, wrapped in a warm blanket, finished the latest romance novel I’m reading. It was exactly the escape I needed.
Now those dishes I said I’d do are calling my name, even though I really don’t want to go out there and face Beau.
Don’t be ridiculous, I tell myself. This is just what Beau does. He pushes people’s buttons. You know this about him. Jackson warned you.
Despite the years of listening to her complain about what an asshole her brother had become, I guess I could never quite rectify her version of Beau with the sweet kid I grew up thinking of as a younger brother.
According to Jackson, it was like something flipped when he was in high school and he became moody, sarcastic, self-righteous, and angry.
But by then, she and I were both away at college, so I had very little interaction with him until that time I stayed with their family overnight years ago.
And when you flirted with him at Jackson’s wedding.
I lean my head back on the top of the chair and groan, thinking about how close I came to making an absolute fool of myself.
I can only imagine he was flirting with me to prove a point—that I am attracted to him—so he could turn me down and cause me the same kind of embarrassment he probably felt last time I saw him.
It’s a good reminder that I should keep my physical distance, which is no easy feat now that we live together. At least it’s only for a few weeks.
I set my book on the blanket as I get up to go do the dishes I promised to do.
When I come out my door at the end of the hallway, Beau is doing pull-ups in the doorway of his bedroom.
I shift to the right to move around him, using the open doorframe of the bathroom across the hall to get by without getting too near him.
With his back to me as I pass, I take a split-second to admire the way every muscle in his shoulders and back ripple with the effort of something that appears effortless from afar.
There are peaks and valleys of muscle groups I didn’t even realize could be cut like this, and the muscles of his lower back end in a sexy V as they enter his pants.
In the books I read, the hero always has unbelievable abs that end in a V above his man parts, which, based on my own personal experience, always seemed like a fantasy.
Until now, I didn’t even realize that a back could be just as unbelievably sexy.
In fact, I think backs may be the unsung hero of the male anatomy.
Beau’s muscles glisten with a thin sheen of sweat, the only indication that this isn’t as easy as he makes it look.