Chapter 14 #2
She hops down, comes up behind me, and wraps her arms around my waist.
“Always,” she says.
And for the first time in hours, I believe it.
There’s a trick to cooking with someone, especially in a kitchen as compact as mine: you have to move in tandem or you’ll bruise each other up like ripe fruit.
Simone has no problem with this—she’s a natural, weaving around me as she rifles through the fridge, her presence a constant pulse at my side.
Every time our hips brush, I feel her body heat through my jeans.
It’s not even sexual; it’s a warning shot, a promise that there’s more where that came from.
She reads my notes on the counter and laughs. “You wrote this out like a science lab,” she says, tapping the legal pad. “Chop onion. Sauté spinach. Pre-heat oven. It’s kind of cute. Are you this methodical in bed, too?”
I glance over, pretend to be scandalized. “Only on the first try. Then I improvise.”
She snorts, grabs a chef’s knife, and starts hacking at a red bell pepper with impressive violence. “Watch the fingers,” I say.
“I’ve been feeding myself since I was, like, ten,” she says. “I’m a pro.”
The conversation is background noise for a while—her cursing at the stubborn pepper, me shuffling pans and setting timers, both of us narrating our movements in that half-ironic, half-serious way that couples do when they’re still working out the script.
But then we hit a lull, the music from my phone drifting up between us—something slow and old, Etta James or maybe Nina Simone. Simone (the blonde one) sets the knife down, eyes soft under the kitchen lights.
“Your kitchen is so clean it’s weird,” she says. “Are you secretly a serial killer?”
“Only if you count the plants,” I say, gesturing at the window-box of shriveled basil. “I can’t keep anything alive.”
She grins. “I don’t believe that for a second. You’re a caretaker. It’s written all over you.”
I want to say something back, but I don’t. Instead I reach for the olive oil, pour a splash into the skillet, and watch it shimmer as the pan heats up.
She sidles closer, bumping my hip with hers. “So, Liam Thomas,” she says, “what were you like as a kid?”
I think about it, how the answer would play with someone else. But with her, I can’t lie. “Serious,” I say. “Obsessive. My parents worked all the time, so I basically raised myself. The only real rule was don’t get in trouble.”
She grabs a handful of spinach and drops it into the hot oil. The sizzle fills the air.
“They kept a roof over my head,” I say, “but were never really there. Every time I brought home a report card, they’d say, ‘Nice job,’ and then go back to their laptops. I think I learned how to talk to strangers before I learned how to talk to my own parents.”
She stirs the spinach with a wooden spoon, her eyes on me. “So you were lonely.”
It’s not a question, but I answer anyway. “Yeah,” I say. “I guess I always thought it would be different, once I had a family of my own.”
She goes quiet, and the silence is as heavy as the scent of garlic starting to brown.
I take the opportunity to put a hand on her lower back, just a touch, nothing pushy. “You okay?” I ask.
She stares at the steam rising from the pan. “Yeah. Just—” She shrugs, then offers a shaky smile. “I never really thought about having a family. Not in a real way.”
“Because of the fibroids?” The words are out before I can check them, and for a second I hate myself. But she doesn’t recoil.
She shrugs, a sharp, brittle movement. “It’s not a big deal. There are worse things.”
I turn down the heat and slide the pan off the burner, then take her hand in mine. Her palm is cold, her fingers stained green from the spinach. “I want you to know something,” I say. “I don’t care about any of that. I just care about you.”
She squeezes my hand, then lets go. There’s a look in her eyes, something hard and scared and beautiful all at once.
“You want to know why I never went to the doctor?” she asks.
I nod, and she leans back against the counter, crossing her arms.
“My dad died of cancer when I was eleven. Stomach. He was sick for maybe three months, and the whole time, it was just hospital after hospital. They did tests, surgeries, gave him a million drugs, and none of it worked. He lost, like, a hundred pounds in two months. By the end, he wasn’t even a person anymore. Just a skeleton in a gown.”
She picks at a thread on her sleeve. “I was the only one who visited him every day. The nurses knew me by name. I still remember the sound of the machines at night, the way the hallways smelled like bleach and sadness. After that, I couldn’t go near a hospital without getting panic attacks.”
She swallows hard, looks up at the ceiling. “So when I started having the cramps, the doctors, the ultrasounds—it was all too much. I just stopped going. Figured I’d deal with it when I had to.”
I step closer, run my hand down her hair, then cup her cheek. “You don’t have to deal with it alone.”
She closes her eyes, leans into the touch. “I know,” she whispers. “But it feels like I do.”
I kiss her forehead, just once, and she melts against my chest. We stay like that for a minute, the kitchen warm and safe, the night cold and sharp outside the window.
She straightens, wipes her eyes, and laughs. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to trauma-dump on you.”
“Don’t apologize.”
She grins, grabs the spinach spoon, and pokes me in the ribs. “Now tell me something embarrassing about you.”
I pretend to consider it. “I was in a boy band, once.”
She shrieks, loud enough to rattle the pans. “No fucking way!”
“Senior year of high school. We had matching shirts and did synchronized dances. There’s video.”
“Oh my god, please show me.”
“Maybe. If you’re good.”
She leans in, smirking. “Define good.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Whatever you want it to mean.”
We finish cooking together, falling into a rhythm that feels natural.
She sets the table, I pour the wine. The meal is nothing fancy—roast chicken, sautéed spinach, some wild rice with cranberries—but it feels like a feast. We eat side by side at the kitchen island, sharing bites off each other’s plates, feet touching under the stools.
When we’re done, she loads the dishwasher and washes the big pan by hand, humming tunelessly under her breath.
I lean against the doorway, just watching her, memorizing the way her hair falls over one eye, the way she scrunches her nose at stubborn bits of food, the way she turns and smiles when she catches me staring.
“What?” she asks, flicking a drop of water at me.
“Nothing,” I say, grinning. “Just looking, that’s all.”
She rolls her eyes, but her cheeks are pink.
After the dishes, I suggest dessert. She says, “Only if it’s you.”
I raise an eyebrow, and she laughs, shoving me toward the stairs.
We leave the kitchen a mess, plates still drying on the rack, crumbs on the counter. Upstairs, we make new messes, ones that can’t be tidied away with a sponge and a little effort.
But for now, I just want to remember this: the smell of food, the sound of her laughter, the heat of her hand in mine. I want to believe it can last.
I want to believe I deserve it.
Upstairs, in the blue-dark hush of my bedroom, everything feels different.
The house is still, but there’s a charge under my skin, an old, animal tension that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the possibility of fucking it all up.
Simone stands just inside the door, eyes on the bed like it’s a new country she isn’t sure she’s ready to visit.
“You good?” I ask, my voice low.
She gives me a look, bright and a little wild. “Are you going to tell me I have to finish my vegetables first?”
I shake my head, smiling as I approach. “No more rules.”
The light in the room is low, just the splintered slats of moon and the city’s sodium haze. I reach for her, pulling her in by the hips. She’s warm and soft, and her mouth is already parted when I kiss her, greedy, searching.
She tastes like chicken and wine, like relief, like every good thing I’ve ever denied myself.
She kisses back, hungry, fingers sliding under my t-shirt, nails grazing my ribs.
I lift her onto the bed with both hands, pressing her down into the memory foam, feeling the mattress give under her weight.
The sheets are cold, but her skin is hot enough to melt them.
She lets me pull her jeans off, not even a hint of protest, her thighs flashing pale in the low lights as I peel them down.
Her panties are plain, cotton, damp at the crotch.
I leave them on, just for a second, watching the way she squirms under my gaze.
“You ever done this before?” I ask, dragging a hand along her calf.
She grins, impish. “What, missionary?”
I grab her by the ankle and pull her closer, so her ass is right at the edge of the bed. “You know what I mean,” I say, squeezing a handful of her firm ass before drifting my fingers down to rub at her back buttonhole.
She bites her lip, then shakes her head, face suddenly serious. “Not really. I mean—once, but it was… it didn’t work. I think I laughed and made the guy stop.”
I slide my hands up her legs, spreading her, exposing the tight seam of her pussy through the cotton. “Do you want to try again?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she props herself up on her hands and knees and fixes me with a look that’s both apprehensive and eager at once.
“With you?” she says. “Obviously.”
I want to ask if she’s sure, but I already know she is. She wants this—wants me. Maybe because I’m the only one who ever bothered to ask, or maybe because she knows I won’t use it against her later.
I reach for the bedside drawer, pop it open. The sound of the lube cap clicking free is louder than I expect.
She laughs. “Did you plan this?”
I smirk. “I always plan.”