Chapter 11 #2
“Might want to let that cool off,” I said with a chuckle.
Narrowed eyes locked with mine as she lowered her glass.
I picked up a napkin and leaned forward, wiping the soup from her chin.
“That’s a look.” I had meant it to be teasing, but the gesture was too tender, so the words came out more gentle, hesitant, even regretful.
I snatched my hand back, hating that these moments kept happening. Untethered and uninvited, they snuck past my defenses. I pushed my seat back, went to the freezer, and pulled out a few ice cubes. When I dropped them into her soup and then mine, she questioned me with enlarged eyes.
“It’ll cool it down,” I explained, wondering if she’d always been like this and I’d just taken it upon myself to be her teacher.
The memory of her wandering confused around campus the day I met her with a map her younger brother had drawn for her slinked into my mind.
Bewildered and unsure. Two things that had made the start of our relationship so exciting, and I saw now that I had indeed taken on the challenge of opening her eyes and let life breathe into her.
“Oh.” She stirred the soup, her eyes trailing the ice cubes as they melted.
“So, room service brings you food every day?” I asked, blowing on a spoonful.
“Well, not always.” Her focus remained on the soup.
“Sometimes I’ll have our secretary place an order for me from the Italian restaurant around the corner from the building.
They make this gnocchi dish that reminds me of my mother…
” Her words drifted, her eyes jumping to mine.
The mask had slipped, and I wanted to yank it from her and destroy it.
“I remember you telling me about your mother’s cooking,” I said, trying to keep her from closing down on me.
“Yeah. Do you always go to the diner to eat? It seems like a long trip to do often.”
Watching the mask fall back into place was fascinating.
So quick and almost unnoticeable. It kept others out, yet I wondered if anyone really knew her well enough to see that it did.
To anyone else, she was making conversation, not redirecting, not shutting down words that would reveal something about her.
“Do you always have your secretary do what ordinary people do for themselves?”
“That didn’t answer my question.”
“No, I don’t. I usually cook something here, but I wanted to see you squirm. Now, why do you make your secretary order your food, and isn’t that demeaning?”
She sucked her cheeks in, and fury sparked in her eyes. At least it was emotion and not that blank facade that kept an enforced distance.
“It’s not demeaning. We pay her a very good salary with a ton of perks. My brother gave her a raise when he took over and even added profit sharing to her retirement plan.”
“I didn’t say you don’t pay her well. I was pointing out that she’s not your servant. She has a job to do, and I doubt ordering food for you is in her job description. Besides, all you need to do is go online and place the order or pick up the damn phone.”
And now we were back to the heated angst that constantly simmered between us. Maybe I was a masochist because I kept working her up and, in turn, irritating myself.
She stood, the chair scooting behind her just as lightning split the sky. Jumping, she grabbed the back of the chair and stared out the window. Thunderstorms had always spooked her, and it looked like that hadn’t changed, no matter how she denied it.
“Sit, Olivia.”
“I’ll eat in the other room,” she said, reaching for her bowl.
I leaned over and grabbed her wrist, the contact sparking currents over my skin.
“Sit, and we’ll talk about something else.” Besides your inability to do anything for yourself.
Her brows scrunched as she thought it over. I released her wrist, returning to my soup and watching her.
“Promise?” she asked.
“Yes, although I can’t say it doesn’t annoy me that you seem incapable of doing anything for yourself anymore.”
Her lips thinned as rain slashed at the windows.
I continued to eat my soup while she debated what to do.
Finally, she sat, keeping her eyes on her soup and staying quiet.
I let the silence fester, embracing it because doing anything else would either leave me aggravated or with thoughts that shouldn’t be in my head.
On edge, her movements tense, she ate. The silence cast a net over us, insulating her from my prying questions and me from emotions that had been bucking for acknowledgment since the moment she walked back into my life.
When I finished my meal, I left the table, the sound of the chair legs scraping on the floor breaking the heavy quiet. I washed my bowl and spoon, hearing her rise. The soft padding of her footsteps had me glancing at her feet. A grin tugged at my lips when I saw the cats on her socks.
“That’s different,” I said, my voice almost loud with the lack of sound that had hung over us.
She looked down at them. “Yeah,” she replied, her voice soft enough to lift my eyes to see melancholy in the dim hues of her irises. It matched the one in her voice, and I squinted, trying to understand where it came from.
“And cats bring you down?” I asked, trying to remember if we’d ever talked about cats before. There had been plenty at the farm where I would take her riding, but she avoided them.
Focus remaining on her socks, she said, “I don’t like cats.”
A statement that didn’t match the forlorn look on her face.
She seemed lost in a memory, one I wasn’t privy to, and I wasn’t certain what to do.
In the past, when those moments struck, I would gather her into my arms and hold her, smooth my hand over her head and let my strength bring her back to me.
But I couldn’t do that now, no matter how I wanted to.
I turned back to the sink, taking her bowl and spoon from where she’d set them, and washed them. Giving her time to work out whatever it was that had taken her away. I should have insisted she wash her own dishes, but it was an argument I didn’t have the energy for.
The lights flickered just as I was drying my hands. Olivia’s eye leaped up, and on the last flicker, the electricity went out.
“Gonna be a long night,” I said, waiting for the generator to kick in.
“We don’t have power?” The transformation in her mood was instant. Back was the spoiled, expectant woman.
“The generator will kick in shortly.” I walked from the sink, unsure of how I was going to handle being stuck in the house with her for the rest of the day. Thunder rolled through the sky, shaking the house. I peeked back at her, seeing how her hand was now gripping the island.