Chapter Nine
“Do you need a hand with that?” I ask Evan as I welcome him into my apartment.
“That’s very funny. You’re so funny, do you know that?” He laughs at my poor attempt at humor as he enters my kitchen carrying several bags of groceries.
“Well, what can I say? They wanted me on SNL, but I decided to work at a beauty shop for very little money instead,” I reply sarcastically.
“I have to say, I’m very happy you did,” Evan replies. “I’m sure you would’ve forgotten all about me if you had become a huge comedic star.”
“Me? Forget about you? No … I mean, it would have taken … months to forget you,” I continue the banter as we start to unpack the grocery bags.
“Months!?” Evan laughs. “Is that what seventeen years of friendship means to you, Dolly?”
“Well, you have to understand … between the Met Gala and the Oscars, who has the time?” I say in a pretend diva tone and roll my eyes a little, just to make him laugh.
To my delight, he does.
“Can you imagine, though? What would our lives have been like if we hadn’t been friends?” he asks me.
“Hmm … I think they would’ve been pretty much the same. Only much sadder. So much sadder.” I smile and look into his green eyes. “Did you do something to your hair? It looks different today.”
“No. I just came from the gym and showered half an hour ago. I didn’t have time to put on any mousse or cream.”
I reach out and touch the small curls on top of his head. “You look exactly the same as you did in high school, do you know that? The same sweet, curly-haired boy, the same green eyes…”
“Dolly…”
For a moment, we remain there, against the kitchen counter, staring into each other’s eyes.
“Let’s start dinner, shall we?” he asks me.
“Yeah, sure! So, what are you making us, Chef Davis?”
“I thought I’d make your favorite tonight. Pasta Puttanesca!” he announces.
“Oh, yay! Your grandmother’s recipe?”
“Absolutely. She’s the one who taught me how to make it, after all.” He winks.
“I’m so glad she did! It’s been my favorite ever since she made it for us in middle school.” I grin.
“I know it, that’s why I’m cooking it for you.”
“Goodness, you spoil me,” I reply, wrapping my arms around his waist. He allows me to nestle my head against his chest and I breathe in the aroma of his skin. So familiar, so comforting, so warm—like home. His arms close in around me, and I can feel him kissing the top of my head.
“You deserve to be spoiled.”
“Then can I get some wine as well?” I lift my head to look into the jade green of his eyes.
“I’m way ahead of you. I brought some Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi Classico Riserva,” he says in a broken but adorable Italian pronunciation.
“Wow, what does that mean?”
“No idea!” Evan replies, and we both burst into laughter.
“Great! Let’s pretend that we’re fancy, anyway. May I have some wine, sir?” I say emphatically.
“Why, of course, my lady!”
He pours some of the gorgeous white wine into two glasses and hands me one.
“So, what are we supposed to be tasting here?” I ask him.
“Hmm … let me see.” He grabs the bottle. “Notes of chamomile, yellow fruit jam, and nepitella, which will slowly give the tongue a flavor of salt. Do you feel it, Emmy?”
I peek at him out of the corner of my eye. “Mhm, sure,” I reply. “But I can’t taste any Nutella.”
He bursts out laughing and almost spits out his wine.
“Whaaat? Why are you laughing at me? What did I say??”
“Not Nutella! The wine doesn’t have notes of Nutella! Ne-pi-te-lla!” he spells out for me, still laughing.
“Yeah, that’s what I said!” I reply. “Nepi … yeah.”
He caresses my face gently with the tips of his fingers. “Nepitella is a very rare spice, something a bit like mint. In Rome, they call it Mentuccia.”
I stare at him in awe. “Do you know everything?”
“Not as much as I’d like to know…” he replies.
The tension between us seems to grow with each passing moment, and it’s not because of the tasty Italian wine.
My heart is beating fast, but my mind is indecisive.
I don’t know which direction to take this.
The conversation with Jo and Larisa is still reeling in the back of my mind. And there’s a small part of me that thinks they might have been right. Maybe I am jealous of other women being interested in Evan. And, I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a small part of me that wants to explore things with him to see if there’s a … spark.
“How about dinner, then?” he says.
“Great!”
I watch as he starts to boil the pasta and get the sauce ready.
“Hm, I once had a boyfriend who tried to cook for me,” I tell him.
“Is that so? Who was that?” Evan asks.
“You remember him. That Andy guy … the one who always wore shorts, even in winter.”
“Ah, yeah! His knees must be trashed by now. Why did you break up with him again?”
I try to remember my relationship with Andy while delicious aromas spread through my kitchen. Evan throws generous handfuls of sweet black olives, garlic, and salty capers into a pool of golden-green olive oil. Immediately, my mouth starts to water as the sweet, briny smell takes over me.
“Well, he just wasn’t … what I was looking for,” I answer.
“And what are you looking for, Emmy?”
I look at him from behind—his tall and athletic figure, so reminiscent of the boy he used to be. The same person and yet, somehow, so different. His strong hands, with the long and deft fingers of a doctor, wrap around the handle of the saucepan. It’s almost erotic. I swallow heavily and try to focus.
“Umm … I’m looking for … I don’t really know, to be honest. I suppose I’ll know it when I see it, right?” I tell him. “What about you, then? You’ve had some relationships as well. How come nothing ever, you know, stuck?”
“Stuck?” He laughs. “What does that mean?”
“Come on … everyone is thinking the same thing, Evan. A man like you, not married? How is that possible?”
He turns around and stares at me, while still moving the saucepan back and forth on the stove. “A man like me? Am I … different?”
“You are.”
“In what way?”
“You’re … better than everyone else. Better than every other man,” I tell him.
He looks into my eyes, and his face is now serious and grave. “Evidently, you don’t mean that. If you truly thought I was better than every other man, then you and I would—”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I interject. “I meant that…”
But he turns around and focuses on the pasta again—adding a large quantity of sweet tomatoes to the mix. I hear them sizzle in the hot olive oil. As he keeps stirring, they create a luscious and silky tomato sauce that makes my mouth water.
“Anyway, to answer your question, Emmy, I guess I’m just like you. I never found someone that I thought was good enough. To spend my life with, I mean. Someone that … made my heart skip a beat, as they say. Someone that I could truly see myself spending every day, every night, with. Where would I even find a person like that?”
“Yeah … you know what’s funny, though? I’ve had so many boyfriends who were jealous of you,” I tell him.
He turns around to face me.
Leaning against the kitchen counter, he grabs his glass of fancy Tuscan wine and sips it casually. I can see his toned abs bulging through the white cotton T-shirt, but I try not to pay attention to just how good he looks. To how good he looks doing practically nothing—just standing there, drinking wine.
“Really? Your boyfriends have been jealous of me?”
“Oh, absolutely! With some of them, I noticed it from their behavior. Others told me to my face,” I reply.
He starts to laugh again. “You’re joking! Men have told you to your face that they’re jealous of me?”
“Mhm. I had one guy who flat out said that he thinks you and I are in a secret relationship and that I was cheating on him with you.”
“What did you say?”
“That he’s crazy! I mean, why would I do that? That’s a conspiracy theory. But others have told me that our friendship is far too close. Or that we spend too much time together. Stuff like that.”
“Yeah, I suppose they might be right there,” Evan says. “Some women have told me that as well.”
“About the friendship thing?” I ask him.
“Yes. That, according to them, we’re in some kind of faux relationship or platonic relationship. That we are each other’s surrogate for a boyfriend or girlfriend.”
“Is that so? And what do you think?”
“I think they were just jealous, honestly. In my opinion, a friendship like ours doesn’t happen that often. It’s that whole, ‘men and women can’t be friends’ thing, you know? The old stereotype. So, when people see a man and a woman who truly are best friends, they automatically think that they must be having some kind of secret affair, or that they’re trying to compensate for something. But we’ve been best friends since we were children. We love each other,” he says.
“You got that right! But…”
“What?” he asks me.
He’s stirring the saucepan once more. Now that the sauce is ready, he adds the spaghetti.
“I was just thinking … do you think we’ll be friends forever?”
“That’s such a weird question, Emmy. Why not? What could happen?”
I get up from the kitchen table and join him by the stove. I have an answer in mind as to what could happen, but I don’t want to say it. This evening is far too beautiful to spoil it with such serious talk.
“Nothing. Of course. As always, you’re right, Evan. Nothing will happen, and nothing will come between us. Can I taste the pasta now?”
He gives me a look. “Let me mix the tuna in. That’s what gives the dish its Mediterranean flavor,” he says.
As he mixes the pasta with a wooden spoon, a few drops of the tomato sauce land on his white T-shirt.
“Oh, no! My shirt! This is tomato sauce … I’m never gonna get this out now.” He shakes his head. “And it smells like tuna. Great job, Evan!” he says sarcastically to himself.
“Don’t worry, I’ll put it in the wash right away and it’ll be done by the time you have to go home. Take it off!”
Without hesitation, he takes off the T-shirt and is left in nothing but a pair of low-rise jeans. Very low-rise jeans that cling to his hips like a second skin. My eyes are drawn to the defined lines of his abs, the perfect trail of hair, and the v-shaped dip that disappears into the waistband of his jeans. I am completely captivated by the sight before me…
He hands me the cotton T-shirt. “Why are you looking at me like that? What’s wrong?”
His toned body is beyond beautiful. I can feel a rush running through me as my heart starts beating faster and faster.
My chest is heaving, and I start to breathe heavily as my pulse accelerates.
The ideas going through my mind are wild and, for a second, I forget that Evan is my best friend.
“No, I … I just … you have some tomato sauce on your … yeah … here, let me get it for you…” I reply weakly as I approach him.
“Ah, okay. Shall I get a towel, then, to wipe it off?” he asks.
But before he can get a towel, I run my fingers along his torso. I can feel the muscles underneath my fingertips, hard as a rock. I run my hand up to his heart, which is beating madly now, in tune with mine.
Is he feeling what I’m feeling?
Somehow, the idea of feeling Evan’s heartbeat through his very skin and the intimacy of the touch means the world to me.
It makes me weak and dizzy with desire.
I want him so much more than this.
“Umm … you have some … right here. Let me get it for you…” I mumble, still trying to find an excuse to touch him.
I wipe the sauce off his chest.
He watches closely as I lift my fingers to my lips and lick it off. He doesn’t blink. I wait as well, wanting him to make the next move.
It doesn’t come.
“Why don’t I … take my T-shirt to the bathroom, then? I’ll put it in the washing machine,” he says.
A moment later, he disappears from the kitchen, and I’m left standing here, alone, not understanding what just happened.
Why didn’t he make a move? Was my message not clear enough?
Feeling disconcerted and most of all, frustrated, I sit back down at the kitchen table.
After a few more minutes, Evan comes back. “Hey, I borrowed one of your gym T-shirts. It’s the biggest thing I could find that would fit me. Is that alright?”
“Yeah, sure. Of course. What’s mine is yours, you know that.” I smile, but it doesn’t reach my eyes.
“Great! Let’s eat. All this pasta is going to get cold!” Evan arranges heaps of Pasta Puttanesca onto two plates and pours more wine into our glasses. “Let’s go into the living room. It smells like tuna in here.”
I’m surprised at how casual he is about all this, as if a minute ago, he wasn’t half naked in my kitchen—the tension between us so thick you could cut it with a knife.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks me.
“Hmm? What?”
“You look so … pensive. What’s on your mind then?”
“The one hundred Burt’s Bees lip balms. Why did you send them to me, Evan?”
“I … already told you. Didn’t I?”
“Yes. But that’s not a present a friend gives,” I reply, feeling more and more frustrated by the minute.
“I’m confused. Are there rules to this? What kind of presents do friends give?”
“Not this…”
“Lip balms?” he asks.
“Never mind.”