20. Serena
Serena
“Hungry?” I asked Doughboy, who I’d reluctantly let sit next to me. He’d been creepily staring at me for four hours while I researched Jenese.
Of course it wasn’t easy.
She’d covered her tracks pretty well. Jenese knew how to stay in the spotlight just enough. A party photo here. A foundation gala there. Always with someone who had money. Jenese gave Zsa Zsa Gabor and Liz Taylor a run for their money when it came to marriages.
I didn’t know her. Not really. Not the way I thought I had.
She told me she grew up with a single mom who often couldn’t afford both food and electricity. But had that really happened? Apparently, she went to an all-girls college that was now closed. Highly doubt it.
“Meow.”
I frowned at Doughboy. “Are you super hungry or just a bit hungry?”
Why the hell was I talking to a cat? I didn’t even like Walter, Gigi’s decrepit dog.
I dragged myself off the couch; I knew I could find something to blackmail Jenese with if I just kept looking. I walked to the kitchen, and heard Doughboy jump off the couch and follow me.
I sucked my teeth and looked at the clock.
It was close to one in the morning.
Where on earth was Miles?
“You know where your owner is?” I asked Doughboy as he came strutting in, his tail high before he launched himself up onto the counter.
“No way, get off the counter! It’s not sanitary!” I swatted him away with a dish towel. He had the audacity to hiss at me. “Oh, don’t you dare . I will call animal control.”
Doughboy blinked slowly. After that, he licked his paw, flashed his butt at me, and leaped back to the kitchen floor, going to the edge of the kitchen.
“That’s right, you ain’t crazy,” I muttered.
Eyeing the menace just a bit longer, I opened the fridge and was quickly disappointed.
I had forgotten to order more of my premade meals, and there was nothing left. The quinoa bowls, the grilled salmon, even the sad-ass kale wraps—all gone.
I had to do the unthinkable. Cook.
I glanced at the stack of cookbooks on the counter, perfectly color-coded and absolutely untouched.
“Okay…” I picked up one with the title Simple, Sexy, Soulful Suppers in gold lettering. The edges of the page were still crisp.
I didn’t want a recipe with a million steps. I definitely wasn’t using a bunch of pots and pans and bowls. I didn’t want to experiment either.
What was easy?
Pasta.
It couldn’t be that hard, right? Boil water. Stir. Maybe throw something green on top. I could do this. The staff at my parents’ mansion made it for me all the time.
I found a spaghetti recipe, but we were missing half the ingredients. I grabbed the only pasta I could find—some expensive linguine Miles got at that farmers’ market.
“First step, boil water,” I muttered.
I set a pot on the stove like I was preparing for battle.
“Done. Easy.” I turned to my little enemy, who was staring at me with those big green eyes. “Watch, you can’t have none when I’m done.”
Again, why are you talking to a cat? You can’t be this damn lonely.
Well. I guess I was. I couldn’t go to my sisters or Noelle about Jenese. I couldn’t confess to Mama or Daddy—that would be pointless. I definitely wasn’t confessing to Erik.
“What’s the best way to chop garlic?” I muttered. “Up and down? Or sideways?”
The recipe needed tomato sauce and garlic. We didn’t have sauce but I had tomato juice, ketchup, and a real tomato.
I picked up the heavy knife. My grip was all wrong, I could tell. But I was tired and hungry and wired on too much caffeine and not enough sleep, and Jenese’s name was echoing in the back of my skull like a song I couldn’t turn off.
The blade hit the cutting board with a loud thunk .
I forced myself to keep cutting, each slice a small victory against the overwhelming task. I aggressively chopped the garlic.
When I was done, I looked down at the massacre. The garlic was mangled—some pieces slivered too thin, others still nearly whole.
“Goddamn it.”
Doughboy meowed once, like he was trying to tell me to just give up.
Nope. Time to move on to the sauce.
When was the last time I’d cooked? Probably with Miles. Why had I had so many of my firsts with him? Miles always loved being in the kitchen, even if he couldn’t cook well back then. Now I knew he was a pro. I’d always been perfectly content to just watch and taste his questionable creations after.
Don’t go there.
A violent sizzling sound, like bacon in a pan, and the gurgling of boiling water drew my attention to the stove where the pot had bubbled over.
I grabbed the linguine and snapped it in half—poorly. Some slid into the pot. Some scattered across the counter. One piece hit me in the neck.
“Not ideal,” I mumbled. “But we move on.”
I reached for the saucepan, dumped in my tomato-ketchup-garlic improvisation, and stirred it with a wooden spoon, the scent of garlic filling the kitchen as I pretended to know what I was doing.
After a few minutes, it smelled…weird.
I turned up the heat to hurry it along.
Big mistake.
I really didn’t know what happened next. The concoction began popping. A rogue droplet landed on my wrist. I yelped and jumped back, knocking into the pasta pot. With a loud splash, water sloshed onto the stove, sending a plume of steam into the air. The handle tipped. I grabbed it—too late.
With a curious sniff, Doughboy padded back into the kitchen, one paw rising to investigate the heat emanating from the oven. Miles would fucking kill me if something happened to his cat.
“Move, Doughboy!”
A guttural meow escaped the cat’s throat before he silently slipped away. I turned, searching for a sponge or cloth to wipe away the mess.
The sauce boiled over, splattering thick, sticky droplets onto the burner with a loud hiss. The smell changed instantly—a sharp, acrid scent filled the air. I reached for a paper towel?—
“Shit—shitshitshit—” The paper towel slipped from my grasp as I reached over the furiously boiling pot of water, the heat radiating up toward my face. A small flame licked the edge of a paper towel.
From the hallway, a long, slow, rumbling mrowl, like a self-satisfied sigh, echoed from Doughboy—a clear told you so.
“Oh my God,” I cried, a searing pain shooting through my fingers as I frantically grabbed the scalding paper towel and tossed it into the sink.
I turned on the faucet. Nothing. I jiggled the handle.
A sputtering, metallic shriek and then a geyser of frigid water erupted from the faucet, soaking my shirt and the counter.
The smoke detector started screeching.
I was going to burn down my condo.
Then the front door opened.
“What the hell?”
Miles stood there, his dark eyes assessing the wreckage—scattered ingredients, sticky countertops, and the bitter tang of failure hanging heavy in the air. His mouth parted, but no words came out.
The smoke detector finally gave one last pity beep and went silent.
“Why are you about to burn down the damn house?” He looked up at Doughboy. “You cool, D?”
“You’re asking the cat if he’s alright?” I frowned at him. “Where were you?”
Why do you want to know, Serena? You don’t care what he does, right?
His eyes, dark and intense, slid to mine, and his smirk curled with that lazy, infuriating charm, the corners of his mouth twitching with a cruel amusement. “Why? You worried about me?”
I placed my hands on my hips.
“Did I ask you that when you came home late the other night?” Miles said. “I’m a grown-ass man.”
“It’s not the same,” I said stubbornly.
“Oh?” His voice dipped lower, silkier. “Because when you disappear, it’s no questions asked.”
“We’re starting renovations on Mrs. Fontaine’s property tomorrow. I thought we could have gone over the site plan together.”
“Now you want to collaborate?”
I ignored the bite in his voice. “I waited for you for hours.”
“You could have texted.”
“You could have told me you weren’t coming home.”
He took a step closer, looking over the mess once again, and sighed before shaking his head.
“Go change,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“You heard me.” His gaze dropped, lingering at the curve of my waist. “You’re a mess and the kitchen is a mess, and the scent of garlic is about to make me fucking throw up. I’ll clean while you change.”
When I came back, barefoot, hair loose and twisted into a messy knot, the kitchen was spotless.
Miles was at the stove, one hand on a pan, the other braced on the counter. Sleeves pushed up. Veins visible in his forearms.
“You actually cleaned,” I said, my voice softer than I expected. “And you’re cooking now?”
“Don’t pass out. It’s grilled cheese and soup,” he said, finally glancing over his shoulder.
His eyes dropped to my bare legs and lingered, just long enough for me to feel it.
“I don’t feel like having to evacuate a burning place.
My back is fucking killing me as it is, we started moving some stuff out Mrs. Fontaine left behind. ”
Before I even thought it through, my hand slid to the small of his back, right where I remembered the pain always settled. I pressed gently. “Still the same place?”
His body went still.
“Yeah,” he said after a second, voice rougher now. “How’d you?—”
“I remember,” I said. “That game sophomore year. You got hit so hard I thought you were dead.”
He let out a dry laugh, but it was low, almost breathless. “You and half the school.”
“You didn’t move for a minute,” I murmured. “You always played like you were invincible. That was the first time I realized you weren’t. I still don’t like thinking about it.”
Miles and Erik played football together from middle school through college. I never liked the sport; it was too aggressive, but Miles wanted to be like his dad, who also played.
His shoulders relaxed under my touch—just a little—but the tension still simmered beneath the surface, coiled and ready to spring. “Serena King, nervous over me ?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.