Chapter 40 #2
I was embarrassed by how long I stood in the grocery store after work last night staring at desserts and wine. It took me a solid thirty minutes to pick out the items after Googling which would’ve been the best pairing to bring.
The dessert and drink pairing?
Lemon bars with a French 75.
Have I ever made a homemade French 75 cocktail before? No. Did I test out making the drink last night a few times over? Absolutely.
Now that the weather in Chicago was getting to that sweet spot, the refreshing dessert and drink sounded like a good option. At least that was what SaraBakesALot said on her blog. “A refreshing pairing for every summer lover’s dream.”
I was overthinking the whole thing.
To be fair, I’ve been overthinking most things since I ran into Karla.
After a quick shower, I got dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, spritzed cologne, and headed over to her place.
I texted her that I was downstairs at the bookshop so she could come down to let me into her apartment. I held a bag with the drinks and dessert inside it while a coil of nerves wound up inside me. Why was I so nervous?
Pull yourself together, Ash. It’s just a friendly get-together. Stop making it a bigger deal than it is.
My mind kept saying that, but my heart kept whispering its own kind of bullshit.
I didn’t know how to shut off the noise, but I was trying my best to keep those thoughts at bay. I’d already messed up our connection in the past. I didn’t want to somehow butcher this one, too.
Public, not personal. Keep things on the surface level. No deep talks, just light laughs. Easy.
When Karla opened the door for me to come in, all the noise shut off on its own, and all that was left was an overwhelming sense of peace.
How did she do that?
Was it her eyes? Her smile? Her entire existence?
“Hey, Ash!” She waved. “Come on in.”
I walked into her apartment, and I was blown away by her decor. Her style showcased her current personality with a lot of earthy tones. Browns, tans, and forest greens were found in almost every piece of artwork and furniture she had. A collection of houseplants was scattered throughout the place.
Her sofa was a deep green velvet, her coffee table looked as if it was an old luxury travel trunk from the 1920s, and she had candles lit throughout the space. It smelled like oak, tobacco, and a faint honey scent.
Her walls were also packed with bookshelves.
About half of them held novels, and the other half were filled with records.
She seemed to live up to her love for secondhand items, too.
Everything looked as if it was vintage or thrifted.
There was a sloth lamp resting on her side table.
An elegant chandelier hung over her dining room table.
The piece looked as if it was pulled from the Louvre or something.
Every piece felt personal, and random, but in turn . . . not random at all.
Everything made sense.
I would’ve never thought that my friend who once had not a piece of decoration in her bedroom as a teenager would now be bursting with so much life and color.
Out of nowhere, a cat began to rub himself against my leg. The loudest of purrs fell from him as he circled me a few times before flopping in front of my feet.
“You have a cat?” I asked.
She sheepishly grinned. “Yeah. Ash, meet Royce. The flopping is his sign that he needs belly rubs,” Karla remarked.
“His name is Royce?”
“Yes . . . I know you might not remember, but when we were younger—”
“My cat’s name is Rolls,” I cut in.
I remembered.
I remembered everything that we’d shared with each other.
Karla’s eyes lit up. “You have a cat named Rolls?”
I nodded. “And you have one named Royce.”
The sparkle in her blue eyes made my own lips turn up into a smile. God, those were beautiful . . . She had the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. I found it harder and harder to take my eyes away from hers.
“So we have our Rolls-Royce,” she commented with a soft giggle.
“We have our Rolls-Royce,” I agreed, still a bit stunned by the discovery. Even after I left the way I had, Karla kept hold of her promise. I proudly kept my promise, too. On days when life felt heavy, Rolls was a reminder of something good, something that felt right.
I set my brown paper bag down and then lowered myself to begin rubbing Royce’s belly as his purrs grew louder and louder. I snickered to myself as I watched the big gray fluff ball fall into bliss from the belly pets. “I’ve never met a cat that loves belly rubs more than Rolls,” I said.
“Well, meet Royce. The most dramatic cat of all cats.” Karla laughed.
God, that sound.
I wanted to live in her laughter.
Pull yourself together, Ash.
It was just two old friends hanging out.
Nothing more, nothing less. Did I have a crush on Karla when I left all those years ago?
Yeah. How could I not? Even with her darkness, she still felt like the brightest light.
After my father passed away, I thought about her a lot.
I thought about us a lot, and what we could’ve been if I had made it back to Chicago for spring break.
I wondered if we would’ve fallen deeper in love.
I wondered how often I would’ve held her and kissed her.
Then I forced myself to stop wondering. The idea of us being an us was nothing more than a dream that wouldn’t become a reality. I put the thought of her aside.
I cleared my throat as I tried to shove my thoughts of what we could’ve been if I hadn’t run away all those years ago to the back of my mind. “I got drinks and dessert,” I said, picking up the paper bag. “Lemon bars and French 75s.”
“Oh, fancy, fancy.” Karla grinned. “Lemon bars are one of my favorite desserts. I’ve never had a French 75, though.”
Me either, other than the five I had yesterday when I was doing taste tests.
“I think you’ll like it,” I said as I took the bag to the dining room table and unloaded everything.
“I know I will. As far as dinner goes . . .” She walked over to her stove, grabbed her oven mitts, and pulled out a tray from the oven. Her smile was beaming as she held it up in the air.
“Chicken wings. That’s great!”
“Not just any chicken wings,” she said as she placed them in a serving bowl. She walked them over to the dining room table that was set with mismatched plate settings—which, again, cool as ever—and placed the bowl down.
She then went to her cupboard and pulled out an array of hot sauces that said “Hot Ones” on them.
I arched my eyebrow. “Hot Ones? Like from the show?”
She nodded. “I figured we could catch up with one another and play Hot Ones with all the different hot sauces they use on the show.” Her nose wrinkled up as the excitement in her tone began to grow uncertain.
“Unless this is a completely corny idea, and now that I think about it, it’s a completely corny and insane idea, and we can just eat the chicken wings plain and—”
I caught her forearm as she began to turn to put the hot sauces away. “Karla, we are going to play Hot Ones right now. All the way down to the last dab.”
She smiled again, and I loved it again.
We set up the table, laying out ten wings in front of each of us as we sat across from each other.
The whole concept of the show Hot Ones was brilliant to me.
Bring celebrities onto the show and pretty much have them yap on about their newest projects while they fight the urge to die while eating increasingly hot chicken wings.
It was ridiculous in the most satisfying way.
“I have a feeling we are both going to regret this,” I said as Karla poured two glasses of milk to go with the wings in case the intensity of the heat got too high.
“We’ll do great,” she replied, taking her seat across from me. For a second as I looked across at her, I felt a wave of peace. I didn’t know staring into a person’s eyes could do that—cause the whole universe to slow down.
“Cheers,” Karla stated as she held up her first wing.
I grabbed mine and tapped hers with it. “Cheers.”
I took a bite of the first wing with no sauce. So far, so good.
“You seasoned the hell out of that,” I told her, cleaning the bone.
“I know my way around the kitchen,” she replied. “My therapist suggested I pick up a hobby that would make me feel connected to my mom. She used to love to cook. I took a lot of cooking classes over the past few years, and I love it just as much as my mom did.”
I smiled. “I love that. My mom loves to cook, too. I miss her meals. What’s your favorite thing to cook?”
“Mom’s Sunday gravy, which we always ate on Mondays, because she said it was tastier after letting the pasta sauce rest for a day. I still have spaghetti every Monday at Dad and Ellie’s place.” Her lips turned up. “What about you? Do you cook?”
“I can make a mean Kraft mac and cheese. Don’t even get me started on ramen noodles,” I joked. The guys at work and I cooked for one another every now and again, but I was best on the grill. Anything that took more than a little salt and pepper was a lost cause to me.
“Well, if you ever need a comfort meal, you know where to find me.”
“Don’t twist my arm,” I joked. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“The last time I saw you, it seemed that you weren’t interested in reconnecting. What changed?”
“Let’s just say your partner Chase is very convincing.” She shifted in her seat and looked down at the paper towel she’d grabbed to clean her fingers. “And it’s not that I wasn’t interested in reconnecting with you.”
“Then what was it?”
She shrugged as she quietly confessed, “It was fear that you’d leave and not come back again.” I parted my mouth to try to explain, but she shook her head. “We don’t have to rehash that right now, Ash. We can save that for another day.”
A part of me was grateful she said that. I wasn’t sure if I was mentally ready to tell her why I’d left the way I had. I wasn’t sure I was ready to confess just how broken I’d been after my father passed away. Again, public, not private.
“Tell me some good things,” Karla requested. “Good things that have happened to you over the years.”