Chapter 7
SEVEN
Ben
The last person I expect to see lurking outside my building when I return home from work on Wednesday evening is Avril.
She looks even more gorgeous than when she left my apartment wearing my shirt and boxers. Her hair blows gently in the wind and she’s staring up at the sky like it’s going to give her answers to all the questions she has.
“Hey,” I say as I get closer.
She startles, almost jumping out of her shoes as she sees me. “Hey.”
“Were you not expecting to see me? I mean, you do know this is where I live, right, given you left here on Sunday morning?”
She goes to say something and stops herself. So she can edit what she’s thinking. Who knew?
“Hi,” she says again.
“Are you okay?” I ask her.
“I wanted to say thank you for the dress.”
I grin. “I owed you, given what happened to the last one.”
She blushes, and my dick stirs in my pants. Revealing her like that was such a turn-on.
“And the shoes,” she says. “My shoes escaped your knife skills, and I’m still up three pairs.”
“Given how good they look on you, I thought you needed them in every color.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “What, that’s it?”
“That’s what?”
“You just sent me shoes? You didn’t even put a card in with the dress and shoes. They could have been from anyone.”
Now it’s my turn to be confused. “Do you get Bergdorf’s delivering you clothes and shoes on the regular?”
“No, but how was—”
“You knew it was me. Otherwise, why would you be here?”
She sighs. “I…I just thought it would be polite to thank you.”
“Consider me thanked,” I say, a little irritated. I don’t know why she’s waited outside my building to give me a hard time about not leaving her a note with a gift. “You’re off the hook. Any obligation you thought you had because of the Bergdorf delivery is hereby extinguished.”
She grins at me, her smile the widest I’ve ever seen from her, and she’s so beautiful, so lit up, that it genuinely winds me. “You’re pissed off,” she says.
“And that makes you happy?”
She shrugs. “Kinda. I thought you were some kind of perpetually peppy person. It’s good to know you’re human.”
I roll my eyes.
“So, are you going to invite me up?” she asks.
My mouth opens, but words don’t come out. I’m not sure how to respond. “Invite you up?” My go-to response when faced with difficult questions—ask the exact same question back.
“Yeah,” she says. “So we can…chat?”
Normally in this situation, when I don’t have a fucking clue about what’s going on, I’d play along. I’d be friendly and charming and follow Avril’s lead so I could work out what was happening.
Because I don’t know.
But for some reason, with Avril, there’s something about her that refuses to let me use my usual techniques. “Chat about what?” I ask. “Or by chat, do you mean fuck?”
She puts a hand over my mouth. “Ben!”
Her shock cheers me up, and when I chuckle, she takes her hand from my mouth. She glances from side to side. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“I can’t believe you’re embarrassed I said that. You don’t strike me as a woman who embarrasses easily.” I nod toward the entrance to my building. “Come up. We can chat.”
From her response, I definitely know she didn’t call around for a replay of Saturday night. And I’m pretty confident she didn’t swing by just to thank me for the Bergdorf’s delivery, so now she has me intrigued. Why is she here?
When we get into my apartment, she follows me through to the kitchen.
“More snacks?” she asks, as I wash my hands. I wasn’t planning to cook, but now she’s here and asking for food, I’m not going to say no.
“What do you want?” I ask.
She hums to herself. “Have you got any asparagus? With Parmesan?”
“It’s February,” I say. “Asparagus is out of season. I like to keep my food air miles down.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “And I thought you were just a nice piece of ass. There’s a social conscience inside that pretty little head of yours.”
“Fuck you,” I say through a smile.
“What’s on the menu?” She slides up on the countertop where she sat Saturday night, watching me make her omelet. Where we first made out. Where we first fucked.
Today she’s wearing a blazer, white t-shirt, and a tight navy skirt that hits just below the knee, and her hair is tied back in a ponytail. All I can think about is how it felt to tug on her hair. She looks fucking phenomenal.
“You really are up for a replay, aren’t you?” I say.
“You’re not getting me naked today,” she says. “But I definitely want food. So what is it?”
I think for a moment. Now that I have her here, what can I imagine feeding her? Melted chocolate? No, I’m thinking about feeding off her. I need to get my head in the game.
The Parmesan gives me an idea. “Lemon linguine?” I suggest.
She shrugs. “Sounds good.”
I set to work, putting the pasta on to boil and pulling cream, eggs, lemons, and parm out of the fridge. This is a favorite.
“How did you learn to cook?” she asks.
I hand her the cheese grater and the block of parm. “Get to work. But wash your hands first.”
“I didn’t come here for this,” she says, but she slides off the counter and goes to wash her hands in any event.
“Right, but until you tell me why you’re actually here, you can get to work. Earn your supper.”
She doesn’t respond. She just does as she’s told, which I know is highly unusual. Whatever it is she’s here for, she must really want it.
When she’s finished with the cheese, I take the grater and start on the lemon zest.
“You really enjoy cooking, don’t you?” she asks, as she watches me, leaning on the counter.
“It’s like meditation to me.”
“That’s like Bravo to me.”
“Bravo?”
“You know, the TV channel. I can’t watch those shows and think about anything else. They empty my mind.”
I chuckle. “Only one option provides sustenance.”
“True. But one is highly entertaining. So your grandma teach you or something?” she asks.
“My dad,” I say. I never talk about my dad. He’s been dead such a long time and it’s not a light subject. When I interact with people, I don’t want it to be about me, so nothing I reveal is particularly memorable. I want my conversations to focus on them.
“He likes to cook?” she asks.
“He did. He was a chef.” My dad is wearing chef whites in all the memories I have of him. Not because he wore them all the time but because his work was so important to him.
“Wow,” she says. “Really? And he taught you how to cook?”
“Yeah. It was his passion. Loved it more than anything. He was never happier than when he was in the kitchen, and then when he was watching people eat his food. It was everything to him.”
“He’s not around anymore?” she asks.
I shake my head and focus on combining the cream, eggs, cheese, and lemon in a bowl.
“I’m sorry. Did he die recently?”
I pull in a breath. I don’t ever want to have this conversation. It’s probably one of the reasons I never talk about it. That time of my life was the most difficult, and I hate reliving it. “Back when I was a kid.”
“Yeah,” Avril says. “My dad died when I was four. Worth brought me and Poppy up.”
It’s not what I’m expecting her to say. I’m pretty good at reading people, and Avril…I don’t know what I assumed, but I didn’t expect to have this in common with her.
“What about your mum?” I ask.
She winces. “She never really got over it. Worth is ten years older than me, so I don’t remember life being any different to how it was, growing up.
He was in charge. He would make sure we had our lunches, our trip money.
He told us when to wash our hair and clean up our rooms. He was mom and dad rolled into one.
Sometimes I look back and wonder how the hell he did it and survived. ”
“It must have been a lot for all of you.”
“Yeah,” she says. “It’s a lot, but I got off lightly, you know? I was the baby. Everyone always made sure I was okay. But no one looked after Worth. He did it all.” She pauses, and tries to wipe away some mark on her skirt that isn’t there. “He’s a good guy.”
“Sounds like it,” I say. I don’t make a move to comfort her. I can tell by the way she’s trying to cover over her upset that she doesn’t want sympathy. She’s holding it together. Gotta respect that.
I drain the pasta, keeping a cupful of the water, then I mix everything together.
“You’re not cooking the egg?” she asks as she watches.
“It’ll get warmed by the pasta and the water.”
“Really?” she asks, peering into the saucepan.
“Trust me.” I add more salt and pepper and then divide the pasta between two bowls. “Shall we sit?” I nod toward the table under the window.
She slips off the counter and we head over, onto the benches.
“Am I going to like this?” she asks.
“It’s cream, cheese, and lemon. What’s there not to like?”
“You make an excellent point.” She winds the pasta around her fork and takes a mouthful.
She moans, and my cock lengthens against my zipper.
I watch as she chews and swallows, her eyes closed.
Her eyes flick open. “Holy shit that’s good,” she says.
I grin. “It’s a secret weapon. Simple, fresh ingredients and takes as long as the pasta takes to boil.”
“It’s wild. You’ve got the magic touch, Ben.” Her cheeks pink. “In the kitchen, I mean.”
“Oh, I’m pretty good in the bedroom too,” I reply.
She smiles, shaking her head, and takes another forkful of pasta.
“Was this your dad’s recipe?” she asks.
It’s so weird hearing her talk about my dad so casually. I deliberately avoid talking about him—even to my brother, Bray, or my mom. But Avril acts like mentioning him is no big deal.
“Yeah,” I say. “It was a family favorite.” It was a long time after his death before I could make this recipe.
I was at university in a shared house and it was my turn to cook.
I was so sick of soup and oven chips that I made this linguine, because I could get all the ingredients at the corner shop at the end of our street.
It was a smash hit, and it broke some kind of barrier between me and cooking. It stopped being something I avoided doing because it reminded me of my dad so much, and I started cooking again because it reminded me of my dad so much.